International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for International Development (Baroness Northover) (LD)]

My Lords, on behalf of DfID and the Government, I am delighted to speak in support of the Private Member’s Bill sponsored by my noble friend Lord Purvis. As the noble Lord, Lord McColl, put it, he introduced it with a passionate, comprehensive and evidence-based speech. I pay tribute to my right honourable friend Michael Moore for having the vision, grasp and commitment to introduce and then pilot this vital Bill through the other place. I also pay tribute to all those who have supported the Bill there and here, and for the cross-party agreement here.

I pay tribute to those who have helped to develop the UK’s outstanding record in development, including the right honourable Clare Short and my noble friend Lady Chalker, whose speech showed her long and deep commitment to this area and her understanding of how underpinning economic growth brings the relief of poverty. I thank the noble Lord, Lord Collins, and the noble Baroness, Lady Royall, for pledging the Opposition’s support for the Bill, which is exceedingly welcome.

As other noble Lords have, I pay tribute to the NGOs for doing all that they have to explain, from their own work, why the Bill and the commitment of better-off countries is so important. It is transformational to those in extreme poverty and at the very margins of life around the world. I also pay tribute to DfID staff working in-country—for example, those on rolling shifts in Sierra Leone and those currently locked down in the DRC—and to others from the United Kingdom whose work in humanitarian crises or in longer-term development is so important.

To hear praise from my noble friend Lady Tonge as she crows, as she put it, particularly warms my heart as we do not always please her. I also note the pride expressed by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather, and she is right.

I am delighted to be part of the United Kingdom Government who have, for the first time, met the 0.7% target of GNI going to support worldwide development. I thank noble Lords for their tributes to that and, from the Government Front Bench, I make it crystal clear that we support the Bill, which will enshrine this commitment in legislation. This was in the coalition agreement and I am delighted that we are so close to ensuring that the legislation is agreed.

[Lord Davies of Stamford]

Is the Minister going to be able, in the course of her remarks, to respond to my question: why did the Government, who are so evidently in support of this measure, do nothing about it for nearly five years? Even now, it has not been brought forward as a government Bill although the Government appear to be in the process of taking credit for it.

[Baroness Northover]

I have in my notes an answer to the noble Lord, which was slightly lower down in what I was seeking to address. He said that he was mystified as to why we were dealing with this now. What occurred to me was that I was somewhat mystified that the previous Government had not legislated for this, despite their commitment. What we should welcome—and that is true across this House—is that we have finally ensured that we have met that 0.7% commitment, and that we are now seeking to legislate. That is the important thing and I welcome the cross-party support for it.

The House of Commons has passed the Bill overwhelmingly and handed it to us. It is now our responsibility to help ensure that my noble friend Lord Purvis is able to carry this through and into law. We have heard outstanding and compelling speeches and even those who feel that this is not the right move—

[Lord Tugendhat]

I take the Minister’s point about the responsibility to carry it forward into law, if that is what the majority want. However, I hope she will agree that this is an amending and revising House, and that there is a duty to seek to amend and improve Bills, regardless of where they are. I think back to the debate we had some months ago on the referendum Bill where many noble Lords opposite, whom I supported, argued that just because such a Bill had a majority in the Commons that was no reason not to try to improve it in the Lords. The same applies on this occasion.

[Baroness Northover]

I will be coming on to that in a while. Perhaps the noble Lord will be satisfied to wait a little for that.

As I have said, we have heard outstanding and compelling speeches which have recognised that aid is transformational. It is also interesting to note that even those who do not feel that this is the right move are committed in terms of aid, which of course is important. The noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, is an economist and not one to misuse statistics, but he expressed more than 90% agreement to what we are doing in terms of aid. I for one will bank that. I knew that we would have a powerful debate on this Bill, that noble Lords would speak from huge experience, and that we would take a far-reaching international perspective.

We know only too well that no man is an island—I might feminise that. As my noble friend Lord Purvis made clear, the first point to make is the moral case, and many noble Lords have made that case. Indeed, it was made with particular power by the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby and—not least through his presence here—the former Archbishop of Canterbury the noble and right reverend Lord, Lord Williams of Oystermouth. I welcome his engagement, and we are pleased to see them involved today. My noble friend Lord Steel quoted strong passages from two global religions as to why we must do this. We heard my noble friend Lord Chidgey’s moving account from Juba, as well as those from the noble Lord, Lord Judd, and others. They all made the moral case exceptionally clear.

As noble Lords also laid out, we recognise our interests and how we are all interlinked. We can see that a weak health system in Sierra Leone, seemingly a distant place, results in an epidemic taking hold on an unprecedented scale. Even in Britain we have felt the effects of that. International development is not an optional extra or an afterthought; it is vital. Investing now to help the poorest can and will prevent some of the terrible situations we see today from happening tomorrow and affecting us. I was especially struck by the powerful speech of the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, about what might have happened had this measure been implemented 40 or 45 years ago. The noble Baroness, Lady Royall, quoted Nelson Mandela saying that:

“Poverty is not an accident”,

while my noble friend Lady Manzoor talked about tackling poverty.

The 2004 report of the UN High-Level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change, of which our colleague the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, was a leading member, noted the interconnectedness of our world. That was a very important conclusion for the panel to come to. I shall quote from the report:

“Development and security are inextricably linked. A more secure world is only possible if poor countries are given a real chance to develop. Extreme poverty and infectious diseases threaten many people directly, but they also provide a fertile breeding-ground for other threats, including civil conflict. Even people in rich countries will be more secure if their Governments help poor countries to defeat poverty and disease by meeting the Millennium Development Goals”.

Quite so, and that underpins the powerful speech of my noble friend Lady Falkner about what other countries should be doing. It is excellent that at least we are taking the lead in this.

One of the most important principles of effective development is to ensure continuity. It is no use moving into a development programme one year and abandoning it the next. Continuity and certainty of programmes over a number of years are essential to securing good development outcomes. That is why we have committed to budgets over four years and why a Bill such as this, which commits us to spending 0.7% of our national income, is so important. There is otherwise the risk that the international development budget will fluctuate and fail to provide our partners with certainty when they need to make critical investments in health and education. I can recall, as no doubt can other noble Lords, when Ireland was delighted to make the commitment that it would reach an aid budget of 0.7% by 2007. I remember that that happened after an internal struggle. I also recall, with great disappointment, how quickly it moved away from that—and it is not yet achieved. Neither, prior to 2013, did we in the United Kingdom achieve it.

There is voter pressure in the United Kingdom for other budgets; for example, for the Department of Health, the Department for Education, and the DWP. Their budgets are very large, as my noble friend Lady Barker pointed out, and they are, largely, predictable. That has never been the case for overseas aid. The pressures are very clear as regards that budget, yet we seek to support similar projects: for example, getting girls into and through schools, and establishing and maintaining clinics, as the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, rightly demanded of us.

I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Tugendhat, recognises that need for predictability. I am sure that he supports our long-term financial commitment to the EU—would it not be easy to push that budget back and forth?—yet we grant to the EU according to our legal obligation, and we are right to do so. The EU can then plan and budget. This is no different. The conflict across borders—

[Lord Tugendhat]

It is totally different. The problem that I—and I think other members of the committee—have is that while we are fully supportive of aid and made that quite clear, we also made it clear that we are worried, as are others, about the way in which money is spent. We are dealing with multiyear programmes. With such programmes, you will run into a lot of trouble if you have to spend on what is called—since the noble Baroness invokes Europe—the douzième provisoire: that is, if you have to spend one-12th on an annual basis instead of spreading it over the commitment. In the case of the EU, there is a formula by which the member states are assessed, and we pay according to that formula. However, it is not linked to projects. The problem here is that you have a multiyear project and you are saying that a given amount has to be spent each year. The Minister may or may not agree with me, but she is invoking a false parallel.

[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.