Alice Macdonald MP: speeches

Speeches

• 10 Jun 2025 · USAID Funding Pause · Hansard source

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  The hon. Member is right; this is an internationally agreed percentage of gross national income, but too many countries have not met that target. As has been mentioned, some countries are stepping back, so it is important to be clear that we will keep our commitment to getting back to 0.7% as soon as the fiscal circumstances allow. However, in this new reality, we must ensure that our aid delivers maximum impact where it is spent, that we take actions to mitigate the effect of these cuts and that we keep the commitment to return to 0.7% in the long term. In that spirit, I will focus on five key areas where the Government should act. First, they must cut in-donor refugee costs. As many Members know, we spend a significant portion of our current aid budget in the UK on those costs, which were approximately £4 billion in 2023. That trend started under the previous Conservative Government—who also left us with huge backlogs in the asylum system—and I know that this Government are determined to tackle it. We have seen some progress in bringing down those costs, and provisional estimates suggest that they were £2.8 billion in 2024, but we need to continue that trajectory with a clear timeline and a commitment across Departments to get them down. Secondly, we must maximise the impact of our aid. It is important that we align with the “leave no one behind” principle in the 2015 sustainable development goals. I would not want to be in the shoes of the Minister for International Development in the other place, because there are difficult decisions to be made, as members of the International Development Committee recently heard. It is important that Members of Parliament, including Back Benchers, clearly see the criteria and the vision against which those decisions are being made. The “leave no one behind” principle must, as I alluded to earlier, include a focus on women and girls. It is clear that the USAID cuts will have a big impact in that area. In 2023, the US was the largest single donor in areas including population, reproductive health and family planning. Under the Conservative Government’s last round of cuts to the aid budget, we saw that women and girls were disproportionately affected, so it is important that does not happen again. I recently asked the Minister for Europe in the main Chamber whether women and girls would remain “at the heart” of our policy, and he assured me that they would. At the International Development Committee, the Minister for International Development in the other place assured us that although there would be less money for women and girls in education, it would be mainstreamed across all the priorities. Can the Minister elaborate on how we will ensure that they are prioritised and, importantly, how we will continue to support women’s rights organisations? As UN Women has shown recently, there has been a detrimental impact, with many such organisations at risk of having to close their doors altogether. When we invest in women and girls, we get better outcomes, not only for those countries but for ourselves.

• 5 Mar 2025 · Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office · Hansard source

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  I thank the Chair of my Select Committee for securing the debate. Twenty years ago, the words of Nelson Mandela rang out just down the road in Trafalgar Square. He called on the world to “make poverty history”, stating that “as long as poverty, injustice and gross inequality persist…none of us can truly rest.” I hope we remember those words as we continue this conversation. I do of course welcome the uplift in defence spending, but to someone like me who has campaigned and worked in international development for years, the decision to cut aid is, as the Prime Minister himself acknowledged, very painful. When I think of why our aid matters, I think of the women I met in Dadaab refugee camp, who had finally secured some safety after years of uncertainty. I think of the children being vaccinated against life-threatening diseases. I think of the response to the Ebola crisis, which not only saved lives in the countries affected but protected us all. I think of our development work as not only lifesaving, but a form of international insurance for us all. UK aid constitutes about 1p in every pound of public spending, and, as we have heard before, it brings a huge return on investment. It is a down payment to prevent the spread of disease and conflict, to tackle the upstream drivers of migration, and to increase prosperity. I say that because many of my constituents wrote to me urging me to speak today, but I think we receive far fewer emails about aid than about other matters. As we continue this conversation about the very difficult choices that have to be made and other forms of financing, we must continue to make the case for aid, both in its own right and in our own interests. I do not want to repeat all the points that have been made, but I think we need to focus on a few key issues. As the Chair of the Select Committee emphasised, the timeline is key, and I hope that the Minister will respond on that. Can we expect aid expenditure to remain at 0.5% next year and the year after, before we get to 0.7%? That could save billions of pounds and millions of lives. I would not like to be in the Minister’s shoes, because these are difficult if not impossible decisions, but will the House be updated on the spending criteria that will be used? Will it be a decision between bilateral and multilateral, between one country and another, and between this or that programme? As my hon. Friend the Member for Hemel Hempstead (David Taylor) pointed out, there is expertise, and we hope to work with the Government constructively on this. UK legislation already sets out what we need to consider. Ministers must be satisfied that our aid “is likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty”, and is provided in a way that contributes to reducing gender inequality, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield Central (Abtisam Mohamed). That focus on women and girls is vital. I back the call from many non-governmental organisations, including CARE and UNICEF, for a new commitment to target at least 20% of bilateral official development assistance on gender equality, and I hope that the Minister will respond directly to that call. I echo what has been said about the need to reduce the amount of money spent in this country on refugee costs. According to the most recent figures, it was 28% of the aid budget. I know that our Government are committed to bringing down that spending and tackling the backlog, but the sooner we can do that, with a clear commitment that the money will go back to the aid budget, the better. I hope that the Minister can update us on the conversations with the Home Office about that. There should be a whole-Government approach taken, involving the Treasury, the Home Office and development. We must leverage other forms of financing. I am short of time, so I will just mention debt. We have done a great deal on that before as a Labour Government, and I hope we will do so again, because 32 African countries are spending more on their external debts than they can spend on healthcare and education, which is a scandal. I hope we can also do more on remittances. We know how much is sent overseas from diaspora communities here; the cost of doing so is still far too high, and reducing it would not be a cost for this Government. These are indeed challenging times, and I appreciate that these are tough choices, but we must retain a clear commitment to returning to 0.7% as soon as circumstances allow. We are an internationalist party that believes in the power of aid, and we will fight to ensure that remains the case.

• 2 Dec 2024 · Migration and Border Security · Hansard source

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  I welcome the frankness that the Government have brought to their assessment of the situation and the setting out of clear measures. As we have heard, criminal gangs are causing untold misery to people all around the world. Will the Home Secretary expand on the measures that we are taking with European neighbours in particular to crack down on these criminal gangs once and for all?