Speeches by Cooper.

“We have been given a three-year allocation. In terms of the FCDO’s ODA funding, that allocation is provided for us. That is why we have done the three-year allocations. I think there have been times in the past where effectively the FCDO’s funding fluctuated depending on what was going on in other Government Department…”

“The UK’s soft power has been a consideration throughout all of this. Development is a crucial part of our foreign policy as well as being a purpose in itself. As you will know, the whole purpose behind the overseas development is around the moral purpose, around UK values, but it is also in the UK national interest. It…”

“There is a mix of issues here. Some of it is that we are still prioritising the fragile and conflict-affected states for funding and continuing to fund support for refugees in country or in the region as well, which is hugely important. I suppose this goes back to the point I was making about us better linking issues a…”

“No. It was just about the withdrawing from the traditional bilateral funding, the donations funding, because there are areas for BII funding and that also includes some of the climate investment, particularly some of the climate finance as well, which will also continue.”

“Thank you very much, Chair, for having us, and thank you to the Committee as well. We have here Baroness Chapman, our Development Minister, from whom I know you will have heard before, Nick Dyer, who is our Second Permanent Under-Secretary and Melinda Bohannon, who is the Director-General who covers development as well…”

“Part of what we have been doing with BII has been building up its capital so that it can then sustainably invest and continue to do so. Nick or Melinda can confirm the figures, but I think we are talking about it continuing to invest very much at current levels going forward, although it will need less new FCDO capital…”

“We have done a partial review in the process of making these decisions. We have had to do an assessment of which organisations have the biggest impact and also which we can influence by contributing where we have the greatest influence. I think that probably some of these further questions we will also be assessing as …”

“May I add one thing about the way the shifts apply to some things? If you take the fragile and conflict-affected states, somewhere like Sudan, for example, when you cannot work with a Government in the same way because of the scale and nature of the conflict, in a country like that you might be working directly with lo…”

“Yes.”

“We had to make that difficult decision initially and it is affecting the funding for the next three years, but we have deliberately set out three years of funding and three-year agreements that allow people to plan, and that is now clear and announced. Don’t get me wrong. I still think we need to go further on defence …”

“It would be very easy, faced with the kinds of reductions we have had to make, and the difficult decision to increase defence spending—would be simply to step back. That decision on defence was taken over a year ago, and we then had to implement it and still put together the best possible programme going forward. It wo…”

“I wrote an article and we have had the announcements and the information that we published last week as part of this. This Committee, in its scrutiny, also does part of the communication about our approach. I think you are asking about our explanation to the public about why this is so important and why we continue to …”

“We cannot lose capacity and voice for women and girls. We have been part of the UN80 discussions, which are about ensuring that the UN as a whole can have maximum impact. That includes looking at different agencies and structures. We are very clear that women and girls need to be a central part of what the UN does and …”

“Do you mean through the central programmes?”

“Yes. LGBT issues are another area that was picked up as part of the equalities impact assessment. Once we got the impact assessment in, we shifted some of our decisions to make sure that some of that funding could be restored.”

“Prioritising women and girls across the FCDO allows us to respond if there is a sense of there being challenges in particular countries. Prioritising allows us to be champions worldwide, to continue to be a voice and to not get drawn into being part of a sense that all countries are somehow pulling back or going backwa…”

“Thank you very much.”

“We strongly disagree with that approach. It runs completely counter to our approach. Matters such as sexual health services, direct support for women and girls, or for LGBT rights are hugely important parts of our development work rooted in core values and core UK values as well. There are many Governments and services…”

“Most of the issues raised in that report are already Government policy—both in terms of our approach to illegal settlements and the serious humanitarian concerns we have. I would also say that I am particularly concerned right now about what is happening in the West Bank. I am also deeply concerned about keeping the Ga…”

“Yes, in the appropriate way. Yes.”