14:31 David Mundell (Conservative)

The other three commitments have already been touched on. There is the commitment to accountability, transparency and scrutiny, which means keeping a Committee that scrutinises not only ODA spending, but the Department’s responsibility to ICAI. It is essential that that continues, and if that matter comes before this House, I will be voting to support the retention of such a Committee. Scotland’s International Development Alliance is also concerned to see the retention of the commitment to the strategic development goals and the Paris agreement on climate change. Again, I think the more affirmation of that is possible, the more it will be welcome.

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14:43 Liz Twist (Labour)

In addition, aid is paramount in tackling climate change in some of the world’s poorest countries, from small-scale renewable energy projects in Uganda to conservation in Latin America. Climate justice comes as a priority and must certainly be recognised. I worry that this merger will water down some of those rights and will detract from the use of our aid budget.

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14:58 Bob Seely (Isle of Wight) (Con)

I would ask the Minister three things. First, can we look at strategy as part of global Britain? We have the National Security Council. However, I feel that since the end of the cold war we have been a little complacent in preparing for future problems. We need a national strategy council to permanently look five and 10 years ahead, whether into pandemics, the behaviour of nation states such as China and Russia, or climate change. We are not forward-thinking enough, and that is one of the contributions I would like us to make to understand how we can bring strategy more into our forward-looking policy.

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15:05 Fleur Anderson (Labour)

The Government are engaging in organisational navel-gazing instead of taking and shaping our place in the world at this important time. We have COP 26 and the G7 presidency coming up. We should be concerned about these huge issues, not about transforming and merging Departments, which will take two to three years to bed in. We should learn from Norway; at the same time as doing its merger, it increased its aid budget. That contributed to the merger’s success, but also it was not a full merger; it was a light-touch merger. Given the timing of these changes, I think that is what we need.

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15:09 Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)

Aid and development leadership is needed now more than ever, so the Government have to show us how they will continue to demonstrate that when key opportunities are presented to us. We have 10 years to meet the sustainable development goals, which, of course, were a legacy of the Conservative Government—David Cameron’s Government helped to shape the SDGs, and they have been promptly forgotten about. That kind of iconoclasm seems to suit No. 10. I think they are quite pleased that three former Prime Ministers have opposed this move, because it suits their anti-establishment rhetoric, but it is simply not good enough. Next year Glasgow will host the international climate summit, and we cannot tackle the climate emergency without tackling global poverty at the same time.

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15:15 Preet Gill (Labour)

The Secretary of State herself acknowledged how difficult the process would be, and that her Government would not be ready for a fully functioning Department to exist by September. With no organisational plan yet in place, the Institute for Government estimates that it will take at least two years for the new Department to be properly bedded in. Does the Minister agree that it would have made more sense to focus on the issues at hand: the global pandemic, the upcoming G7 chair, hosting COP26 as part of tackling the climate disaster, global poverty, inequality and conflict?

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