Bishop of Leicester asks about overseas debt management

The Bishop of Leicester asked a question on support for a joined up approach across government, civil society, charities & faith institutions to support lower and middle income countries in management of debt on 12th March 2024:

The Lord Bishop of Leicester: My Lords, as a country we carry a weighty moral debt to many low and middle-income countries, given our history. This moral debt is borne by business as well as government, and indeed by charities and faith institutions. Will the Government revisit the International Development Committee’s report on debt relief and the evidence supplied by the Jubilee Debt Campaign and Make Poverty History, to consider again how all sectors may work together to ensure a joined-up approach to supporting these countries?

Lord Cameron of Chipping Norton (Con, Foreign Office): The right reverend Prelate is absolutely right that we need to have good arrangements for this. That is why the common framework was put in place. The old arrangements under the Paris Club were fine when most of the debt was being written by France, Germany, Britain and America. The common framework tries to reflect that a lot of the money is now coming from Middle Eastern countries and from China and to make sure that all these countries can be involved in the resolution of these situations. It has been moving too slowly, but I still think it is the right approach to include this wider group of lenders in these resolutions.

Hansard