Why does international development matter? This is a question I’ve thought about before in my life, so when Ed Miliband kindly asked me to join Jim Murphy, Gavin Shuker and Ray Collins in the shadow international development team last week, it was an exciting chance to give political expression to some issues that I have cared about for a very long time. The starting point for me is that international development isn’t a discrete little niche of a policy area, separate from the day-to-day concerns of my constituents. And today’s International Day for the Eradication of Poverty is the perfect occasion on which to talk about this.

My constituency, spanning across the Wirral, with coastlines on the River Mersey and Dee, stretching into the Irish Sea, is one that is inextricably linked in its industry and history to global trade. Lever Brothers made their name making Sunlight Soap and other cheap consumer goods. These were made in the Port Sunlight factory (which still exists today) and soap was shipped to poorer parts of the world to provide cheap hygiene: a trade that employed thousands in the UK, and promoted health around the world.

In the 1980s, when I was growing up in Wirral, my mum and her friends were part of the boycott of South African goods that sent a message from the ordinary British public about fairness and equality: no matter how far away, those were people just like us, who deserved equality and justice, just like us, and we would stand with them until they got it.

So the next time someone describes international development to you as an issue on the fringes of British politics, think about the history of our country, and ask yourself this: what is the face of Britain you want the rest of the world to see? Is it an open, progressive, UK, prepared to cooperate with others to level the playing field for fair trade, not just free trade? Is it a Britain that sets standards, or a Britain that encourages a race to the bottom that hurts UK employees badly and those on the lowest wages worst?

And what about the politics? The Tories say that they have reformed themselves from the 1990s when international development spending rarely topped 0.3 per cent of gross national income and the brief was a tucked away, forgotten subset of the Foreign Office. Yet David Cameron doesn’t turn up for work: he failed to attend the UN general assembly summit on replacing the millennium development goals, and it seems increasingly likely that the pledge to legislate for the 0.7 per cent target will be missed.

This government is failing a test of leadership on the global economy at the worst possible time. Just when we need a cooperative approach on youth unemployment (with rates as high as 50 per cent in parts of north Africa and the Middle East), and on health and safety standards, given the terrible events in the Bangladeshi textile industry, the government has cut funds to the International Labour Organisation – the very people who work to make sure these problems have solutions.

There is plenty for those of us in the Labour movement to get on and campaign for around the world. If you share my belief that everyone around the world, at home and elsewhere, deserves a good education, proper healthcare, a decent job, and care in later life, then the only party that has seriously acted in government is Labour. Let’s get on and make that case.

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Alison McGovern MP is a shadow international development minister, honorary vice-president of the Labour Campaign for International Development, a vice-chair of Progress and member of parliament for Wirral South. She tweets @Alison_McGovern

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Photo: Amer Khalid