Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[David Morris (Morecambe and Lunesdale) (Con)]

11. What recent assessment he has made of the humanitarian situation on Libya’s borders with Tunisia and Egypt.

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

13. What recent assessment he has made of the humanitarian situation on Libya’s borders with Tunisia and Egypt.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

More than 350,000 people have crossed the Libyan borders since the crisis began. Early action by Britain and others has ensured that a logistical crisis has not, so far at least, developed into a humanitarian emergency.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is entirely correct. Britain was one of the first countries to provide blankets and tents for those who were caught out in the open on the borders. Following that, as I said in answer to the previous question, we were at the forefront of the international community in providing flights to repatriate migrant workers from both borders.

[Joseph Johnson]

One of the biggest challenges facing Egypt’s transition to democracy is the fragile state of its economy, with capital rapidly leaving the country. Can the Secretary of State please say what he will do to stop the additional pressure on the Egyptian economy from the influx of refugees from Libya, which is draining it of remittances and pushing up already high unemployment?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right to identify a most important issue. I have made clear Britain’s significant contribution to ensuring that migrants are flown home. On the other points that he mentioned, some of that is a matter for the Paris Club of creditors, the other international financial institutions and the significant funding available from the European Union through the neighbourhood funds.

Aid Reviews

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I think that I was respectful rather than charming about Mrs Bachelet, but as soon as we have a plan that we can fund, we will fund it. We have already provided some transitional funds. As the hon. Lady will know, there is specific funding to tackle violence against women, and she can rest assured that the Government strongly support this agency, as we always have. When we see the plan, we will fund it.

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

I welcome the tighter focus of the aid programme, but the India programme continues to present a juicy target for aid sceptics who criticise it for being directed at a nuclear power and a space power. Does the Secretary of State agree that it would be fairer for them to acknowledge that the civil nuclear programme is playing an essential part in meeting India’s energy deficit, and that since its inception the space programme has focused largely on development, using satellite technology to give Indians in rural areas access to long-distance learning opportunities, remote health care and crop-related weather analysis?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. India presents a paradox, because although it has the programmes to which he refers, there are also more poor people in India than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. Our programme is in transition: we are shifting its focus on to only three of the poorest states in India, and over the next four years up to half the programme will be spent on pro-poor private sector investment for development. We will not be there for ever, but now is not the time to end this programme.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend raised the matter not only in private but specifically at the table. He pointed out that it was hard to expect leaders in the developing world to stand by their commitments to their people if leaders in the G8 and others did not stand by the commitments that they had solemnly made at Gleneagles and beyond on the importance of increasing our support for the poorest in the world.

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

12. What recent assessment he has made of the value for money of his Department’s aid delivered through the UN Relief and Works Agency.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

UNRWA is performing well against agreed performance indicators and delivering value for money with United Kingdom funding. For instance, it is delivering teaching to nearly half a million children, and social services to more than a quarter of a million. During my recent visit to the Palestinian territories, I announced an extra £8 million to reward UNRWA’s good performance and ease its budget shortfall.

[Joseph Johnson]

During a recent visit to Gaza, it was obvious that UNRWA was struggling to obtain the construction materials that it needs to rebuild schools and find housing for refugees. Does the Minister agree that DFID would derive greater value for money if the partial blockade were completely lifted?

[Mr Duncan]

I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. I am glad that he was able to see the situation in Gaza for himself.

Although some progress has been made since Israel eased access restrictions, UNRWA is still unable to import the volume of reconstruction materials that it needs. Any restricted access enhances the tunnel economy and risks putting revenue straight into the hands of Hamas, which in itself is entirely counter-productive.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

2. What mechanisms are in place to monitor value for money derived from overseas aid; and if he will make a statement.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

10. What mechanisms are in place to monitor the value for money derived from overseas aid; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

We are moving from a focus on inputs to a focus on outputs and outcomes—the results our money actually achieves. We will gain maximum value for money for every pound we spend through greater transparency, rigorous independent evaluation and an unremitting focus on results.

[Joseph Johnson]

Will the Secretary of State say what assessment he has made of value for money from the more than £2 billion that the Department has given to the International Development Association over the three years ending June 2011, indicating whether he intends to match past commitments in the next funding period—that is, the 16th replenishment of the IDA?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about the next replenishment of the World Bank IDA funds. As I mentioned in answer to the last question, the multilateral aid review will be the body that looks at value for money. At the last replenishment—IDA15—as anyone who follows these things closely knows, Britain was the biggest contributor and that contribution was £2 billion. What I what from the next replenishment is for people to know to what extent we are getting clean water, sanitation, basic education and health care to the people at the end of the track, who do not have them in our world today.

Global Poverty

Lord Johnson of Marylebone Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[Joseph Johnson (Orpington) (Con)]

I congratulate all those who made their maiden speeches today. They have made the afternoon fly by, such has been their quality.

I wish to express my wholehearted support for the vision for UK aid outlined by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State, especially in so far as it is driven by a desire to focus the UK programme on outcomes and value for money rather than on inputs and on what quantities of money are shovelled overseas. I particularly welcome his comment that he intends to review the UK’s aid relationship with India. As he said, there is now a double duty to demonstrate not only that aid money is well spent but that it is spent where most needed so that the Government can carry the country with them at a time of intense budgetary squeeze and retrenchment.

Under the coalition Government, the Department for International Development is already curtailing aid to China and Russia and promising much greater value for money. I believe that it is time to scale back DFID’s substantial India programme. I say that in response to the question asked of the Opposition by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), who asked them to show where money could be saved in the DFID budget.

When we look at DFID’s expenditure, we see that the India programme is the single largest country programme by quite some distance—it is worth £825 million over the three years to 2011. By my calculations, that means that the flow of grant aid from the UK to India is greater now than at any point for at least the past 20 years and, although I cannot trace the figures, perhaps more than at any time since independence in 1947.

Defenders of the aid programme to India can legitimately argue that progress towards meeting the millennium development goals by 2015 hinges on India—that is quite right. However, nuclear-powered India can now fund its own development needs, considerable though they are in a country that is home to 450 million poor people and a third of the world’s malnourished children.

Those who follow Indian affairs will know that it has a defence budget of $31.5 billion and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) mentioned, it has a very ambitious space programme, including plans for an unmanned moon shot. It also has a substantial aid programme of its own. It is obviously not yet at China’s stage of development—India is not China—but it is a claimant to a permanent Security Council seat and to a place at the top table of world affairs. As such, it is hardly a natural aid recipient.

Of course, the moral arguments are very finely balanced—a poor person is a poor person wherever he or she is in the world—but to my mind, common sense suggests that it is a better idea for the UK to prioritise aid to countries that cannot afford to fund their development over those that take the money just because it is going free. Many other donor countries in recent years have been kicked out of India for being too small—managing their donations was simply too bureaucratic and cumbersome a process to be worth the Indian Government’s while. The aid flows of others such as the US peaked 50 years ago in 1960. The US has stated that it is “walking the last mile” in India. The result is that the UK, perhaps inappropriately, now accounts for as much as 30% of all foreign aid to India. That is arguably money that New Delhi could allocate to its own development if it chose to do so. My view is that we must, as the coalition programme states, work towards a new partnership with India for the 21st century —a “new special relationship”, as the Conservative manifesto originally put it. It must be based on strong bonds of trade, not anachronistic ones of aid that hark back to a previous relationship between our two countries.