Chamber and committees

On the strategy, I do not want to repeat my answer to Ms Young’s question, but I assure you that you have not only my and Mr Gethins’s commitment but also that of the First Minister, who has given his personal commitment to it. He visited Malawi previously, and I know from speaking to him in meetings that the visit changed him. He saw the impact of our investment in Malawi, Rwanda and other places, and the value of this work, so I reassure you that you have the Scottish Government’s commitment to the strategy. As I said, I am newly in the post, but it will be a collaborative approach between me, Mr Gethins and the cabinet secretary, as well as other colleagues.

On the £16 million commitment, I have a whole page of details of how we have distributed the money, but it might be better for me to provide them to you in writing instead of going through all the spending now.

The second part of the question was on whether we will be able to front load that 25 per cent increase. One of the things that we have committed to is a gradual increase. I would not want to come to the committee and say to all of you, “By the way, we’ve increased the budget without due diligence, collaboration, engagement or conversation.” I think that all of you would turn around and say, “Why did you do that? Did you absolutely have value for money?” I want to be able to increase that budget through an informed, stepped approach.

I was really pleased to find out that you have worked for Christian Aid, because humanitarian partners are the partners that I will want to engage with. In fact, I am having a meeting this Thursday, and those discussions will be the start of the many that we will have to understand the priorities and where our funding is best placed to be the most efficient and effective and the best value for money.

I absolutely understand where you are coming from; equally, I think that that stepped approach is useful. However, you have our commitment to the increased package of funding.

As I have said, we have a manifesto commitment to increase the funding for our international development by 25 per cent. It will be a stepped process to have those collaborative discussions, but I will ensure that it is a smooth transition.

As you have correctly pointed out, a lot of the discussion is about the budget process—and I will leave it at that. However, my ambition and aim is to ensure that it is not a matter of everything coming at the end of the parliamentary session. We will do our absolute best to ensure that the transition is as smooth and stepped as possible, with as collaborative an approach as we can possibly make it.

Kat White would also like to come in on that question.

You have asked quite a few questions, which I will try to pick up while being concise.

We work collaboratively with the Disasters Emergency Committee. We do a lot of work to pool our funds so that we maximise the amount that goes out to affected countries. When I came into post, I was able to sign off on funding to help with the situation in Venezuela following the earthquake there. That is one of the things that we are doing.

You mentioned UK aid work. As Mr Gethins said, that is a space in which we will be collaborating and working with our UK Government colleagues. There are challenges when it comes to that relationship, but we are setting our values to ensure that we respond, for example, to the increase in natural disasters. Such disasters will continue to occur, because they are a direct impact of climate change. We will continue to work with the UK Government on that.

Your final question was about the US pulling funding from a lot of its aid programmes. I think that that is deeply unfortunate, but, if we take a broader perspective, we can see that it is reflective of what other countries are doing. For example, the UK is pulling funding from its international development budget.

Again, this is where Scotland is doing things differently. We are absolutely mindful of our duties as global citizens. Our role and our values mean that we support and have solidarity with people who are in some of the poorest countries and experiencing the worst natural disasters.

I will pause there, convener, because I am aware that I was perhaps not concise earlier on.

10:15

I am really sorry that I did not mention fair trade in my opening statement, so I will reflect on that and ensure that we are giving it equal credence as well. However, you are absolutely right; one of my absolute ambitions is to understand all of our Scottish fair trade principles, and to ensure that, when it comes to anything to do with our procurement, we align with those principles, not just in that respect but in terms of supply chains for other organisations. Of course, there will be certain places where we will not be able to mandate that other organisations take that sort of thing forward, but we can certainly set out our principles.

I will pause and bring in Kat White to respond to the question on changes in funding.

I note the committee’s view on the strategy, which is shared by many members. I will take that away.

I will take your questions in the order in which they were asked. You mentioned the UK Government’s cut to some of the international development spending. In percentage terms, there has been a 90 per cent cut in bilateral funding to countries such as Malawi, and an 80 per cent cut to countries such as Rwanda and Zambia. Rightly, the convener pressed me on our budget commitment of 25 per cent, which comes against a backdrop of a 90 per cent UK Government cut.

Again, although I appreciate the calls for a refreshed strategy, that is the setting in which we currently exist, but there is also an opportunity for us to cement Scotland’s commitment as a good global citizen. I want to reflect on and draw out the two sides of that coin and how different we are in our priorities, values and commitments.

The other aspect that you mentioned was about women and girls. In my opening remarks, I mentioned Police Scotland and how we work with our partner countries. You will no doubt know that I am passionate about the rights of women and girls. We can have a huge impact when we reflect how that plays out for sub-Saharan countries.

I will focus on the UN resolution 1325 that you mentioned. During the summer recess, I met 15 women from many different countries, including Yemen, Ukraine, parts of the Caribbean—you name it.

They were fellows who come to Scotland for a week three times a year. They discussed not only some of the challenges they face in their countries, where there is conflict, but what each and every one of them is doing to change that narrative and be a global peace citizen.

Meeting those women was one of the most inspiring things that I have done in a long time, and the two—or, rather, three—words that I came away with were “solidarity of sisterhood”. That is what it felt like in the room, because they were all learning from one another.

I believe that those women will make a further visit to Scotland later this year. I do not know whether this would be possible, but if we could facilitate a visit by members of the committee to meet them, I think that all members would benefit from that. Perhaps I am biased—I do not know—but I found it incredibly inspirational to hear what they are doing.

We can sometimes wonder what the impact of our work is. I ask members to speak to those incredible fellows, who are doing a vast amount of work in their own countries, especially in relation to women and girls. It was incredibly inspiring to understand the impact that each and every one of those women is having.

I hope that I have answered your question, but I would be happy to come back to you if there were any aspects of it that I missed out.

I have just been collaborating with Kat White, as I am new in post. I do not believe that there has been underspend in international development. I see that Kat agrees with me, so that is correct—there has been no underspend.

On whether international development spend is separate from international offices spend, I believe that they are separate, as well as in terms of where we work.

Your third point is on corruption and the risks that are involved in some of our partner countries. That is a real risk, so whatever we do to ensure that we have proper policies and procedures in place is important. As part of that, we regularly monitor our safeguarding procedures, the outcomes of our programmes and their value.

The other important point to make is that we do not directly fund governments; we fund our partner organisations. Earlier, we talked about Christian Aid. The context to look at is the one around our partner organisations rather than governments—perhaps that point is sometimes lost in some of the conversations about this funding. I can assure you that the Scottish Government looks at safeguarding and any risks there are on a regular basis.

I will pause there to see whether my colleague wants to add anything.

Absolutely—thank you very much for your question. My answer is similar to what Mr Gethins said because, if we are to look at international development strategy, we will be doing so with a holistic lens.

As you are aware, I am newly in post. I have been getting up to speed on what we are doing and what our priorities should be. Our programme for government will be announced this afternoon, but part of my role is to go back and review whether our frameworks are still fit for purpose, what we are doing and what we are planning for the future. One of the things that I will want to establish, with officials and through collaboration with the committee, is whether we need to create a new strategy and what that would look like. That is very much part of my planning process, and I hope to come back to the committee if that is the route that we take.

As I said, that will be a collective piece of work done alongside the Cabinet Secretary for Climate Action and Rural Affairs, so there will be a holistic understanding. I appreciate that our strategy perhaps needs a refresh, and it does need a rethink and a relook. I am keen to understand it and to see what the committee wants to get out of the strategy.

09:45

I have not had a meeting with SCIAF yet, but I know that officials have, and there is a meeting in the diary. Do not quote me on the date, but I think that it is in a few weeks’ time.

The aid match proposal was in the SNP manifesto. However, although we will be working with SCIAF in trying to understand it, I should point out that it is also about other faith-based communities and organisations. As we know, a lot of our faith-based organisations do an incredible amount of work in other countries, so part of my discussions with SCIAF and other organisations will be about trying to understand how we can take this issue forward. Again, I give you a commitment that, as soon as I have my discussions with SCIAF, I can submit some written evidence, if that will be helpful to you—and, indeed, to other committee members. I can tell you that it is something that I am keen to develop more, and I want to have those initial discussions with SCIAF.

Thank you very much for your question, which is crucial. I am aware that this is a new committee, but I will reiterate the point that Scotland was the first country in the global north to commit to the climate justice fund and to ensure that we provided loss and damage funding, because we recognised the impact of climate change. The impact of climate change is severely felt by people and countries in the global south, but most of the time it is not of their making—it is of our making. We are incredibly mindful of that.

10:00

You have asked about how much we have spent already. I will bring in Kat White in a second. I am not absolutely clued up about our COP30 commitments—I am very new in the post—but I hope that you will still be able to hold me to account.

I will pause there and bring in Kat White to elaborate further on loss and damage.

It will be a real-terms commitment, convener—