Speeches by Dodds.

“Yes, most definitely. As I mentioned at the beginning, in order to have a modern development policy that is effective, women and girls must be at the heart of that development policy. Otherwise, if we do not include women and girls, there is no way to create economic growth, no way to have an effective healthcare syste…”

“Yes, I have had a number of discussions with counterparts at USAID on a number of issues and I am very grateful to them for their time. Of course, the UK has worked with a whole variety of US Administrations of every political stripe. We have always done that to work together, and that will continue, but at the same ti…”

“I certainly agree that there has to be clarity. That is very important.”

“The reason why I am smiling is that I have had so many amazing experiences since I came into my role. One of the most moving was when I was in Indonesia with a gathering of female politicians from all over Indonesia of all kinds of backgrounds. One of them said, “I am really pleased that the UK has a Minister for Devel…”

“Yes, I agree with that. It is critically important in those circumstances to speak very openly and honestly. As I said, that means acknowledging where we need to make changes in our own country. That has also been the case with racial equality and, indeed, LGBT+ equality, where we are seeking to make changes as well. W…”

“I have been having discussions with Baroness Shafik throughout the whole process, so obviously I have seen a considerable amount of material from her already. I hope that we would be able to both have that private discussion that was mentioned before and share how we are going to take this forward with the Committee as…”

“Thank you so much for that question. Minouche Shafik has been focused on issues that I know have been of considerable concern to the Committee around capability and capacity, really making sure that we are doing all that we can to restore our development reputation, as I mentioned. She has been working at pace on that.…”

“I am not going to spike anything. I certainly understand her thinking. I understand what she is focused on. I know who she has been speaking with. I am very grateful indeed to those Committee members who have given up their time, and to the many experts who have spoken with her. It really has been a valuable exercise, …”

“As you probably heard in the previous session that you had with officials, because of the decisions that have been taken by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury in discussion with us, at year-end Darren was able to say—subject to the agreement of Parliament, as with any such financial measure—that the FCDO will receive …”

“No, we are seeking to ensure that, where possible, we see continuity within the bilateral programme. The reason for that is because of what I talked about before. There was a lot of damage created to relationships. In some cases, we saw staff having contracts terminated and that kind of thing, but also a direct impact …”

“I would love to attend the conference in person. I do not think we have sorted out our exact arrangements around it, but we are certainly preparing for that Paris conference right now. I have had preliminary discussions around it and the work that we will need to undertake with partners. You and other committee members…”

“That is such a good question. It is something that I am really passionate about as well. When people realise that back in 1980, about 50% of the world lived in extreme poverty, and now about one in 10 people in the world live in extreme poverty, they can see that we can make progress together. When the UK works in part…”

“We have more than just me, of course. We also have Bridget Phillipson. We have Seema Malhotra working on racial equality and Nia Griffith working on LGBT+ people. We have a number of Ministers who are focused on these issues, and rightly so, on equalities matters. They are embedded within our missions for Government. T…”

“On the latter, that would be a really good idea. I do not have any problem with that at all—I am just looking at officials—but that would be sensible. At the time when we commissioned the review, some of those principles were set out, but it would be good to talk about that together, given the Committee’s expertise in …”

“Yes, six months.”

“I will be delighted to set them out in just one moment. If you will permit me, Chair, I just want to say, first of all, what a huge privilege it is for me to be in front of you. I really mean that. Doing this job is a dream come true for me. It really has been such a privilege, so I am very excited to be having this se…”

“Yes, which were their tests.”

“As I said, the most important thing is to show that we can make that change, that we have made it before and that we are making it right now. If we just set out figures of money, as I said, I really do not think that helps, but as a corollary to this we have to be absolutely focused on ensuring that taxpayers’ money is…”

“That is such an important question and one that I have been thinking about really deeply. We need to take the right decisions for the medium term, but for the long term as well. That does mean making sure that we get that balance right. For example, it is very important that when it comes to multilateral funding, we en…”

“It is certainly not the latter; that is for sure. I would genuinely say to members of this Committee, “Judge us on what we deliver”. You will see that we have been delivering on all those areas.”