Debt Relief Roundtable with the Zambian High Commission

Today, I visited the Zambian High Commission, to speak to members of the African Union Heads of Mission about my Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Private Member’s Bill. The discussion provided a good opportunity to get together with civil society groups and High Commissioners, and work together on bringing the Bill to the forefront of debate on international development in the new parliamentary session.

Many low and middle-income countries are spending more on servicing their debt than on healthcare or education, at a time when the withdrawal of US development funding is leaving the poorest nations more exposed to crises than at any point in recent memory. My Bill seeks to regulate the recovery of sovereign debts owed by developing countries, preventing private creditors from using UK courts to extract full repayment from nations that have defaulted on unsustainable debt and agreed new repayment terms with bilateral or multilateral creditors,  building on the principles established by the original Debt Relief (Developing Countries) Act 2010 that was implemented by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

With the King’s Speech this week confirming that the Government will use next year’s G20 Presidency to drive global growth and reinforce global stability, I will be pressing for debt relief to be a central part of that agenda, and I look forward to reintroducing the Bill in this new parliamentary session.