In the UK, people are asking what the Labour Party would do about development as the tide turns against a Conservative government that is 20 points down in the polls. But it appears that we won’t learn anything for some time.
Keir Starmer, the upbeat leader of Labour, is in conflict with his own party after breaking his vow to reinstate a separate department for international development as well as over whether the government’s significant budget cutbacks should be restored when the economy is in recession.
Interesting, to say the least, is that the present Conservatives economic minister, Andrew Mitchell, seems to be laying the groundwork for a Labour takeover. The time leading up to the presidential election next year promises to be really interesting.
The backlash to Devex’s communication that he is reviewing his promise of bringing right back a Department for International Assistance — whose establishment was Labour’s most proud accomplishment on growth during the party’s previous term as a government between 1997 and 2010 — has exposed the scope of the humanitarian challenge facing Starmer.
The plan was swiftly rejected by Mark Lowcock, a prominent former top official at DFID, and Sara Champion, the Labour Party’s chair of the House of Commons International Development Committee.
Since the report Starmer requested should only arrive on his work surface at the conclusion of this year, multiple sources tell me Starmer hasn’t decided on his thoughts yet and isn’t expected to do that until early 2024.
Labour’s stance for the time being is that it would “put forth an entirely novel framework for global development, with the level of autonomy required to meet the difficulties of the 21st century” – however nebulous that may be.
Regarding money, a similar tussle is forthcoming. The Conservative administration reduced official development assistance spending to 0.5% of GDP in 2020. Any aspirations that aid organizations may have for quick fulfillment to the UN’s spending objective of 0.7% will be dashed by Labour.
Instead, the debate will center around whether there will be an early increase, even if it is modest, or whether or not Labour can increase spending abroad by exercising adequate oversight across the aid budgetary constraints, which is currently dispersed among several departments and spends billions of pounds on asylum seekers in the UK. A representative for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development stated that this will now be limited.
One notion is that in order to try to use the money more effectively, a future Labour administration should establish a single controller of finances for all ODA. It wouldn’t garner as much attention as putting back DFID or aiming to return quickly to 0.7%, but some analysts believe it might have a bigger immediate impact.
Which Labour official is in charge of development policy is also unclear. Is it Preet Singh Kaur Gill, the deputy international development secretary, or Danny Lammy, british shadow foreign secretary, who is currently lacking a department of his own to shadow after DFID was eliminated?
Labour activists are concerned that their party’s priorities are shifting away from foreign development and may oppose Starmer in a conference in October, yet Starmer will probably to either defeat them or disregard their position.