International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Ind LD)]

My Lords, I note with amusement that I am the first of a very long list of a positive feast of noble Baronesses who are going to speak to your Lordships next in this debate; I feel very proud of that, and I hope that you enjoy us.

I warmly welcome the Bill. The Pearson commission set this target in 1968 and it has taken us a long time to get there. I am pleased to say that it was official Liberal Democrat policy and in our manifesto from 1992, five years before I became international development spokesperson for my party in the other place. For me, as for my noble friend Lord Steel, it is the right and moral thing to do. It will increase the GNP of poorer counties, if we want to be hard-headed about it, and provide more markets for our trade. Eventually it will mean that we need to give less aid and, dare I say it, reduce the need for migration by people fleeing war and poverty in their own country for a better life here. That is what I would do if that were my family—UKIP, please note.

There are three main reasons for giving aid. We can all tell stories about the need for it. We know, too, of the success of our Government’s initiative, which I must highlight, on sexual and reproductive health and rights, beginning with the family planning summit in 2012. The very welcome extra pledges there have already seen 8.4 million more women and their spouses able to plan their families and have fewer and healthier children—the first step towards a country’s rise in prosperity, as more women and girls receive education and enter the workforce. There are endless examples of good outcomes.

Despite my enthusiasm, though, I worry about the delivery of aid and the accountability of those responsible for spending our money, and I hope that the Minister will give us some reassurances today. To illustrate this, I must say, as other noble Lords have said, that I am very concerned about the failure of Sierra Leone to cope with the Ebola epidemic. We intervened and stopped that war in 2001-02. Aid projects there have expanded and I know that, in the initial years after that war, DfID was not responsible for many health projects there, as it was mainly about security and nation-building. But according to DfID’s Operational Plan 2011-2015, we are going to be doing a lot of health projects. Those finish this year, so I want to know: have they been blown off course by Ebola, and what happened before that? What sort of things were we working on? Why were no health systems set up which would have given Sierra Leone a way of coping with the epidemic, as happened in other affected west African countries? Will the Minister please tell us whether we can learn from Sierra Leone?

I have also been concerned about the short-termism of various projects which then fail when our commitment ends and we pull out. I have heard this from Governments and NGOs all over the world. We must somehow address this problem.

I am sorry to tell the Minister that it is all questions from now on. Can she tell us about the forthcoming third international conference on financing for development, to be held in Addis Ababa in July? I had a Written Answer to my recent question but I am not going to read it out because I do not want to embarrass the civil servants, as it was complete gobbledegook. I would like the Minister to tell us about what will happen at that conference.

Can we guarantee that our aid money will go where it is needed and not be diverted to middle-income countries, as happens with a lot of EU aid? I know that Clause 5 is there to give us accountability and audit. But how are we to deal with corruption in the future? This delivery of aid and the proper expenditure of money are so important if we are to keep people on side. Having mentioned the EU, we have a lot of money going into multilateral aid with the European Union. That always seems to be very slow and cumbersome, and not to be as accountable as our own aid. Perhaps the Minister could address this now or in a letter.

Despite all these questions, I am delighted that this Bill has been introduced—let me crow—thanks to the influence of Liberal Democrats in this Government. That is a rare compliment from me.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Northover]

Having been a Minister in the Department for International Development, I know that there is obviously flexibility in the department, because humanitarian conflicts will arise, which you have to put money into, while you also sustain support for various other projects. The noble Lord might read the NAO report; one of the things that struck me when I read it was that every department in government has to budget, and they know more or less what their budgets will be. There may be contingencies, and they may have a contingency fund, but they have to plan. It is not just left to what they may decide to do after six months or so.

The situation is no different in DfID. I assure the noble Lord that if he reads the NAO report very carefully he will see that it concludes that business was properly stress-tested and assessed. I think I should proceed, because I am now on 14 minutes, and I will come on to some of these other points. I will also be happy to meet the noble Lord after this debate, if that would help, so that we can explore some of those issues.

Noble Lords will be fully aware of the kind of projects that DfID is involved in; during this debate noble Lords have very helpfully outlined a number of these areas. A number of noble Lords emphasised in particular our support for women and girls and how right this is, including my noble friends Lady Hodgson, Lady Jenkin, Lady Manzoor, and the noble Baronesses, Lady Kinnock and Lady Flather. We fully recognise the importance of supporting women and girls and thank noble Lords for supporting us in doing that. In addition, as part of that, the emphasis on maternal health and family planning was mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Watson, as well as by the noble Baronesses, Lady Tonge and Lady Flather.

Mention was made of women giving birth on a concrete slab. Today is my eldest son’s birthday. This morning I found myself thinking that, had I given birth in a developing country, he would have died and so would I. Noble Lords who think about it will probably recognise that either they or their close family might very well have been in that situation. As has been said, poverty is not an accident. It is not something that certain groups need to suffer from or should suffer from.

Noble Lords have made mention of our commitment of 0.7%, and some have suggested that the increase has not improved the quality of that spend. I assure them that the Development Assistance Committee of the OECD concluded recently in its formal peer review of DfID on the effectiveness of the way in which we have scaled up our spending in recent years, planning carefully to meet the target—and I have seen that this is very much the case—while at the same time increasing the quality of our spend. As noble Lords were speaking, I found myself thinking about the commitment that we have been able to make, for example, on so-called neglected tropical diseases. We hope that they are no longer neglected, so we can combat blindness, which is totally avoidable—something that we were able to do because of the increase in the budget.

In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, of course there are many lessons to learn from Sierra Leone. This was an unprecedented crisis. We have done a huge amount, as was noted during the debate, to ensure that it did not become a pandemic. She will know the details of our support there.

[Baroness Tonge]

Could the Minister perhaps expand a little bit on that matter? We would learn a lot if there was a proper inquiry into what happened in Sierra Leone in the years running up to the epidemic.

[Baroness Northover]

I am really running out of time, and I think that we have another Question down on that matter. We can certainly discuss it, and we will learn a lot of lessons from what has happened.

Noble Lords are very concerned that what we do is carefully audited. That is where Clause 5 is very important, and the independent evaluation that we put in place in 2010 from ICAI is extremely helpful. Of course, we will keep that under close watch to make sure that aid is effectively spent.

The noble Lords, Lord Lipsey and Lord Tugendhat, mentioned the House of Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs report of 2012, which the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, urged noble Lords to read. I also urge them to read the debate in your Lordships’ House on 22 October 2012 on that report and, in particular, the outstanding contribution by another economist, the noble Lord, Lord Stern, professor of economics and government at the LSE. He made an extremely cogent case.

My noble friend Lord Astor asked about the calendar year versus the financial year. We are monitored internationally on the calendar year, not the financial year, and we wish to be consistent with international best practice, which is why we will continue to report in that way.

The noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, rightly encouraged us to place more investment in developing countries. We recognise the important role that the private sector plays in development, but he will recognise that it is not necessarily targeted at countries that most need it. It is true that that and remittances are playing a very important part, and that kind of investment is clearly key in lifting China and India out of poverty. However, that still leaves many people in poverty, which is why we are involved with so many multilateral organisations. For example, my noble friend Lady Hooper mentioned Latin America and the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, mentioned South Africa. Our involvement with the Global Fund and the World Bank helps to address poverty in those countries. We have to try to ensure that we have a more equitable society globally. Relying on foreign direct investment and remittances does not necessarily achieve that.

My noble friend Lord Astor wondered whether this was just about DfID’s spending. It is not; it is about official development assistance. Most of it is spent by DfID but other departments, such as the Foreign Office, the MoD and the Department of Energy and Climate Change rightly also have ODA budgets. I say to my noble friend Lord Shipley that ODA restraints mean that you cannot spend the money on arms. He is quite right: that would not be an acceptable route to go down. I can write to my noble colleague Lady Tonge about Addis.

I have mentioned the National Audit Office report. I suggest that noble Lords take a very close look at that. As regards those who are concerned about the money that was spent at the end of 2013, I point out that we had the Syrian crisis, with many more displaced people facing a winter in Syria. There was a lot of pressure from your Lordships that we should commit spending to that. We also had Typhoon Haiyan, which cannot be put down to DfID suddenly deciding to do something, and my noble friend Lord Fowler rightly chivvied me endlessly to support the Global Fund, which he and the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, emphasised the significance of in terms of dealing with AIDS, TB and malaria. All departments work to a budget. DfID knew that its budget was increasing and, fortunately, we were able to increase our commitment in some very important areas.

My noble friend Lady Williams rightly emphasised the involvement of young people. As my noble friend Lady Jenkin said, it is fantastic that people involved in the ONE Campaign are present in the Gallery. I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Fox. I obviously did the right thing in supporting him when he was introduced in the House and look forward to his further contributions.

As noble Lords have said, and as my noble friends Lord Purvis and Lady Suttie emphasised, passing this Bill means that we can move on from the debate on whether we do this to how we do it, and ensuring the quality, predictability and effectiveness of our absolutely vital aid. I hope that noble Lords will give the Bill a Second Reading. Given that this is a simple and effective Bill, which has been carefully scrutinised and amended in the Commons, I hope that it will proceed through all its stages formally and by acclamation. However, if that is not the case, I am sure that noble Lords will engage fully in scrutinising the Bill and, most importantly, making sure that we pass it for all the reasons that they have laid out.