Westminster Hall
7 July 2026
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Westminster Hall House of Commons
00:07 - 00:15
Speaker 1
You can remove jackets if you want to. Order, order. David Mundell to move the motion.
00:15 - 02:52
Speaker 3
Thank you, Mr. Efford, and it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and can I begin by reference to my register of members' interest declarations. I'd also like to thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this vital and I believe timely debate. We are about to effectively have a change of government, and that will mean an opportunity for reset in my opinion. And whilst usually we come to these debates avid to hear what the minister has to say, today we might not be so much in the case in terms of a reflection on the past, but we are going to hopefully look to the future. Of course, I commend the minister for his efforts, but I won't commend him too much because that might not help him in the weeks ahead as the government is reformed, but I do acknowledge his personal commitment to these issues.
As the Prime Minister moves on, the cuts in overseas official development assistance and the way in which they've been carried out with nothing seemingly learned from the lessons of the merger of DFID and FCO surely cannot be part of his legacy which he will wish to promote. Notably, that this government is presiding over cuts to our overseas aid budget that are deeper and faster than those being implemented in the United States under the Trump administration. The FCDO's resource DEL budget reduced by nearly 20%, over 1.5 billion pounds, with bilateral programs accounting for almost half of this and no detail yet available. Indeed, stakeholders are still waiting for the FCDO to publish its bilateral allocations for ODA, reportedly being held back until just before the summer recess. Now, I don't demur from the arguments about hard choices and when there are limited resources, or specifically the need to increase defense spending.
But part of that is also acknowledging that these decisions do have consequences, often for the poorest and most vulnerable communities on the planet. Yes, I will.
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