Speeches by Harding.

“The right hon. Member makes an excellent point, which I will come to later. USAID modelling suggests that the actions of Trump and Musk could result in 28,000 new cases of infectious diseases, such as Ebola, each year. When Ebola ripped through west Africa a decade ago, it had a case fatality of around 40%. It was kept…”

“Does the Minister agree, though, that after receiving a note from the Labour Government saying there was no more money left, the coalition Government increased the aid budget to 0.7%? In fact, 0.7% of gross national income has been in the Lib Dem manifesto since 1970. When we were in government, we delivered it; when w…”

“In my constituency, over 15,500 pensioners lost the winter fuel allowance, of whom 5,000 were over 80. Would the Minister like to apologise to the gentleman who wrote to me who had cancer and could not keep his heating on for the winter of worry he was put through?”

“As the Minister has acknowledged, Israel’s alternative aid scheme is dangerous, unworkable and profoundly insufficient. There is aid waiting on the border—UK aid that my constituents have paid for. You know the Palestinian people’s desperation. You have heard the desperation—”

“The Minister has heard the Palestinian people’s desperation. He has heard the desperation in this Chamber. What new pressure will he bring to bear on Israel to open the aid routes? What is the alternative plan? The Minister has asked for an independent inquiry into what went on in Rafah. Will he insist that the Israeli…”

“That is useful, but what about the people that interact with your programmes at the other end? How do you collect that data? As far as I understand it, you are looking down and seeing, “They need some help. We’ll design a programme around them,” but what about collecting data about the people you have helped? What data…”

“How would you personally define the term value for money?”

“I will come back to that definition in a minute, but sustainability is not included within the FCDO’s value for money principles. Why is it not? You just referred to it.”

“Our evidence from Action for Global Health and Oxford Policy Management seems to suggest that sustainability should be included within your framework, and that it should go beyond the five Es to include sustainability.”

“The programme operating framework defines value for money as value to the taxpayer, not maximising the impact of those living in poverty. What is your reflection on that?”

“Do you think that reducing poverty should be explicitly mentioned as a central tenet of the approach, as it was in DFID value for money?”

“Thank you, Minister, for sharing your distress. I think we all share the same distress, and it is day after day, as you and the Chair said. When we are talking about days, what timeframe are the Government waiting for in order to make their next move?”

“Minister, do you feel that you are pulling every lever?”

“You have talked about the fact that we can see what is going on. It would be very helpful to have independent journalists inside Gaza at the moment. Are the Government calling for the BBC to be allowed into Gaza?”

“At first glance, the estimates seem to show a rebalancing away from multilateral aid to bilateral aid. Is that replicated in the priorities?”

“Yes.”

“So we should not view this as a harbinger of what is to come, or where the priority is.”

“What forms of data does the FCDO collect on the displaced people who interact with your programmes?”

“Did you say that it does cover gender?”

“And down to adolescent girls?”