HC Deb 12 November 2003 vol 413 cc275-7
5. Mr. James Plaskitt (Warwick and Leamington)

If he will make a statement on the timetable for achieving the millennium development goals. [137787]

The Secretary of State for International Development (Hilary Benn)

The millennium development goals include specific targets significantly to reduce poverty by, in most cases, 2015. The exceptions are the 2005 target for gender equality in schools and the 2020 target for improving the lives of slum dwellers. The headline target for halving absolute poverty between 1990 and 2015 looks likely to be met globally, but for most of the other targets a significant increase in effort will be needed to meet the millennium development goal deadlines.

Mr. Plaskitt

It is a matter of concern that the timetable on many important objectives is slipping. Does my right hon. Friend agree that funding is a key to getting back on target? To that effect, does he agree that all creditors need to deliver debt relief under the heavily indebted poor countries initiative? How quickly can we get the international finance facility under way?

Hilary Benn

My hon. Friend is right about the importance of making further progress on debt relief, although we must recognise the $70 billion-worth of debt relief that HIPC has already delivered. The international finance facility proposed by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor is the best option on the table for increasing the resources that we need to help meet the millennium development goals between now and 2015. We are working hard to persuade our international partners to adopt the idea because it would allow us to make genuine progress.

Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham)

I look forward to the truly formidable task of seeking to shadow such an eloquent Secretary of State. Given that all parties in the House back the millennium development goals of tackling extreme poverty and hunger, delivering universal primary education, promoting sexual equality, reducing child death rates, improving mothers' health, combating AIDS, malaria and other diseases, protecting the environment and developing a global partnership for development mainly by 2015, but also given the fact that the World Bank's recent report shows that in sub-Saharan Africa in particular progress is woefully slow, will the right hon. Gentleman tell the House whether he agrees that on current trends the extreme poverty reduction target will not be met for 147 years, the target on child poverty will not be met for 162 years, and others may not be reached for 186 years, as the Chancellor told the Select Committee on International Development only last Thursday?

Hilary Benn

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new post. It will be a pleasure to work with him and occasionally disagree with him at the Dispatch Box. I am glad that in his very first question he demonstrated his eneyclopaedic memory and knowledge of the subject. He is right to identify the fact that, on current trends, we are not making sufficient progress to meet the millennium development goals, which is why our contributions are, first, the rising UK aid budget—I hope that that is something that he will support—and secondly, the international finance facility, which I referred to a moment ago and is the best option on the table for getting additional finance to meet the objectives that he has just identified.

Mr. Bercow

I accept some of what the right hon. Gentleman said, but I am afraid that in total it was not good enough. Given that middle-income countries are still home to at least 140 million people living in poverty, that the Prime Minister promised on 25 April that help for such people would continue as planned, and that the statement to the House on 14 October made no mention of impending cuts, how does the Secretary of State justify the savage £100 million cut in funding involving the complete withdrawal of programmes from Anguilla, Croatia, Egypt, Honduras, Macedonia, Peru, Romania, and the Turks and Caicos islands, and cuts affecting at least a dozen other countries? Is it not a standing disgrace—

Mr. Speaker

Order. The hon. Gentleman must trim his questions in future.

Hilary Benn

I shall try to trim my answer, Mr. Speaker.

Our decisions have not affected funding for humanitarian work and we were already planning to withdraw from a number of the programmes to which we referred long before Iraq because, as I explained to the Chairman of the International Development Committee, we made a commitment to increase the support that we give to the poorest countries in the world. It would be interesting to hear from him in his new capacity in due course whether or not he supports the Government's commitment that by 2005ߝ06, 90 per cent. of our growing aid budget will be spent on the poorest countries. I think that that is the right policy—does he?