Parliament Press Gallery Piece

‘Write a balanced discussion paper assessing how, or whether, Britain’s aid policy objectives – universal free education, universal access to drugs to tackle malaria and HIV – can be achieved. Set out how these objectives have been affected by the UK’s wider foreign policy and military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.’

To be sure, the introduction of a universal policy with the objective of providing free, comprehensive care or education globally would require vast mobilisation of resources and expertise. Gordon Brown wrote in the Times (April, 2007) that educating the 80 million children who do not currently go to school would cost $10 billion per year. A significant sum this may be, but not an impossible target to meet.
Even the UK could fund a universal education programme with minimal damage to public services. Furthermore, we have the expertise in this country, as a leading nation in providing quality university courses and teaching, to train educators, doctors, nurses and carers with the necessary skills to implement such a broad policy.
Again, funding is a significant issue that will need detailed scrutiny in order to find the necessary finances, but not an impossible aim. Assuming half of the world’s richest economies take part in funding the universal education/healthcare programme, the UK’s share of the cost would clock in at around £28,000,000 per year. This figure pales into insignificance when compared with the amount that is proposed to be saved under the Conservative policy of scrapping the existing inheritance tax system. George Osborne, whether correctly or not, certainly believes it credible that he can save £1 billion in taxes. If, rather than not collect this money and benefit the tax-payer, they were to spend it upon implementing a world policy of free education, which would benefit far more people, the UK could soar past the target figure needed.
Of course, however, it would be political disaster for the Conservatives, or any political party to even conceive the notion that taxes should be spent on something other than UK public services. And this is the most important attitude that must change in the UK. We have the expertise and the finances to implement such a policy, but we lack the collective self-sacrificing and charitable nature needed. As a country we are quite happy to put our 2 penny pieces into the Breast Cancer Awareness box at the corner shop counter, but giving away millions of pounds of tax-payers money appear quite a different matter.
Of course, we have a point. Why should OUR taxes should be spent on anything but OUR services? Look after Number 1 is the perennial dictum of any capitalist society, right? Yet this selfish attitude towards money is hindering the progress of many schemes such as these, providing universal access to drugs and education. If only we as nations in the West could view our ‘global responsibility’ and recognise the need to be more generous and self-sacrificing with regards to our giving, much more could be achieved.
Furthermore, withholding on issues such as these further perpetuates the stereotype of the Westerner as an arrogant money-maker, rather than as an altruistic humanist. We are acutely aware of the need to break down stereotypes in the UK, but fail to identify where we are merely disseminating the typecast we strive to avoid. In addition, we can hardly preach to the world about the need to reduce carbon emissions, reduce wastage of resources and cut population growth, whilst we consistently foster growth in our own economies without assisting those that have hardly begun to develop.
Moreover, investment in education and healthcare will not cost the western world in the long-run, despite the commitment required right now (although it appear that the obligation may be less onerous than first appears) in order to provide in such a way. Investment in education will mean more and better minds focusing on the needs of the world, such as tackling climate change, resource depletion etc. and health care provision will benefit everyone by eradicating dangerous diseases that spread quickly and threaten life. Eliminating these disease will also lead to healthier populations, putting less pressure on resources in the future, such as preventative medicine and the provision of constant health care.
Consequently, it appears that, if the UK and the Western world were to shake themselves out of their shells of complacency, and in the worst cases arrogance, the implementation of universal education and universal provision of drugs to combat HIV and malaria could easily be met. As we have seen, the cost to the UK would not be great when compared with the amount we spend on ourselves, and the expertise could easily be sourced using the educational institutions already established in Europe and North America. All that is required is a collective sense of altruism and unselfishness that could easily be raised if only we had a broader view of the world than the insular, sheltered stance we currently have.