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Vol. 811 Thursday No. 220 22 April 2021 PARLIAMENTARYDEBATES (HANSARD) HOUSE OF LORDS OFFICIAL REPORT ORDEROFBUSINESS Questions Overseas Development Assistance: Budgets and Awards .........................................................................1949 E-Scooters.................................................................................................................................................1953 Covid-19: Pupil Referral Units .................................................................................................................1956 Transparency of Lobbying, Non-Party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Act 2014 ..........................................................................................................................1959 Russia: Alexei Navalny Private Notice Question.............................................................................................................................1963 Highgate Cemetery Bill [HL] Third Reading............................................................................................................................................1967 Prisons (Substance Testing) Bill Order of Commitment Discharged .............................................................................................................1967 Botulinum Toxin and Cosmetic Fillers (Children) Bill Order of Commitment Discharged .............................................................................................................1967 Animal Welfare (Sentencing) Bill Order of Commitment Discharged .............................................................................................................1967 Education (Guidance about Costs of School Uniforms) Bill Report .......................................................................................................................................................1967 Forensic Science Regulator Bill Third Reading............................................................................................................................................1968 National Security and Investment Bill Third Reading............................................................................................................................................1968 Terrorism Act 2000 (Proscribed Organisations) (Amendment) Order 2021 Motion to Approve ....................................................................................................................................1973 Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy Motion to Take Note.................................................................................................................................1978 Diocesan Boards of Education Measure Motion to Direct .......................................................................................................................................2044 Cathedrals Measure Motion to Direct .......................................................................................................................................2047 Grand Committee Body Mass Index Question for Short Debate....................................................................................................................GC 361 Alcohol Harm Commission: Report 2020 Question for Short Debate....................................................................................................................GC 375 Covid-19: Poverty and Mass Evictions Question for Short Debate....................................................................................................................GC 388 Biodiversity Emergency Question for Short Debate ...................................................................................................................GC 403 Lords wishing to be supplied with these Daily Reports should give notice to this effect to the Printed Paper Office. No proofs of Daily Reports are provided. Corrections for the bound volume which Lords wish to suggest to the report of their speeches should be clearly indicated in a copy of the Daily Report, which, with the column numbers concerned shown on the front cover, should be sent to the Editor of Debates, House of Lords, within 14 days of the date of the Daily Report. This issue of the Official Report is also available on the Internet at https://hansard.parliament.uk/lords/2021-04-22 In Hybrid sittings, [V] after a Member’s name indicates that they contributed by video call. The following abbreviations are used to show a Member’s party affiliation: Abbreviation Party/Group CB Cross Bench Con Conservative DUP Democratic Unionist Party GP Green Party Ind Lab Independent Labour Ind LD Independent Liberal Democrat Ind SD Independent Social Democrat Ind UU Independent Ulster Unionist Lab Labour Lab Co-op Labour and Co-operative Party LD Liberal Democrat LD Ind Liberal Democrat Independent Non-afl Non-affiliated PC Plaid Cymru UKIP UK Independence Party UUP Ulster Unionist Party No party affiliation is given for Members serving the House in a formal capacity, the Lords spiritual, Members on leave of absence or Members who are otherwise disqualified from sitting in the House. © Parliamentary Copyright House of Lords 2021, this publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Open Parliament licence, which is published at www.parliament.uk/site-information/copyright/. 1949 Arrangement of Business [22 APRIL 2021] ODA: Budgets and Awards 1950 House of Lords will cut its support for conflict prevention by more than half. This cruel and callous plan shames our Thursday 22 April 2021 country. Will the Government do the right thing and put it to a vote? Noon Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con): My Lords, I first Prayers—read by the Lord Bishop of London. put on record that I note the sentiments of the noble Lord and the excellent work that he does in this area. Arrangement of Business However, I am sure that he, equally, will recognise that the UK economy is today 11.3% smaller than it was Announcement last year and undergoing its worst contraction for 300 years. The deficit this year is projected to be 12.07 pm double its peak during the financial crisis. This does The Lord Speaker (Lord Fowler): My Lords,the Hybrid require difficult decisions, they have been taken and Sitting of the House will now begin. Some Members the Government have committed to restore the 0.7% as are here in the Chamber, others are participating soon as the fiscal situation allows. remotely, but all Members will be treated equally. Oral Questions will now commence. Please can those asking Lord McCrea of Magherafelt and Cookstown (DUP) supplementary questions keep them brief and confined [V]: My Lords, many see the announcement of quite to two points? I ask that Ministers’ answers are also in major cuts to the overseas development assistance the same spirit. budget as a tragic blow to the poorest and most marginalised people in the world. It seems that the Government have not even spared countries that have Overseas Development Assistance: Budgets been ravaged by disease, war and poverty. How does and Awards the Minister answer these charges, at such a critical time Question of pandemic? Is not this investment in such countries money well spent? 12.08 pm Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con): My Lords, I Asked by Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale agree with the noble Lord’s final point. Any money spent in respect of alleviating the suffering of humanity, To ask Her Majesty’s Government when they wherever that may be, is money well spent. On his will publish a list of the reductions in Overseas challenge to me to justify this, I can point no further Development Assistance budgets and awards for than to the support we have given throughout the (1) 2019/20, and (2) 2020/21. Covid-19 pandemic to helping countries directly. We are also the people who put the architecture in place Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab): My Lords, for the COVAX facility, which is now helping people I draw attention to my entry in the register of interests with vaccinations globally, through a contribution of and beg leave to ask the Question standing in my £548 million made by the UK. name on the Order Paper. Lord Herbert of South Downs (Con): My Lords, is it The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and not an irony that the ODA budget was one of the most Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con): scrutinised in government, where outcomes are actually MyLords,UKofficialdevelopmentassistance—ODA—in tracked by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact? 2019 and 2020 was: £15.2 billion, of which £11.8 billion Would that other government programmes had such wasspentbytheFCDO;and£14.5billion,with£10.7billion scrutiny. Is it not a further irony that this budget has spent by the FCDO respectively. The full detailed been subject to cuts, with the harsh effects that we breakdown of ODA spend for 2019 was published on have now seen, when it would already have fallen 24SeptemberintheStatisticsonInternationalDevelopment. because of the contraction in the size of the economy? The final 2020 spend will be published in the same Will my noble friend confirm that that is the case, and final UK aid spend statistics in the autumn of this year by how much the budget would have fallen anyway and will contain detailed breakdowns of the UK’s ODA before this action was taken? spend for 2020, including an activity-level dataset. Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con): My Lords, I agree with my noble friend’s final point. As I said in Lord
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