Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

About a third of that money goes to the European development fund, which scored highly in the multilateral aid review, and that suits Britain’s interests because around 40% of it goes to Commonwealth countries and we contribute only 17%. The money spent through the budget is £800 million, over which we have much less control, and we are seeking to ensure that it is better deployed.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The Secretary of State will of course acknowledge that the Government have committed additional funding to post-conflict states because that is where the greatest poverty and the greatest risk of falling back into conflict lies. Nevertheless, does he accept that, although we must do everything we can to stamp out corruption, it is precisely in those difficult climates that risks must be taken if achievements in poverty reduction and conflict prevention are to be secured?

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. That is why we have focused very specifically on our support for the referendum. We are working very closely with President Mbeki on the issues of the border. We have had many discussions about the very points the hon. Gentleman mentions, most recently when I saw Salva Kiir on my visit just before Christmas, and we will be strongly supporting the new state in a whole series of different ways once it is set up.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

What engagement does the Secretary of State have with the African Development Bank and the World Bank on infrastructure development for southern Sudan—which, as he says, is desperately needed—given that the UK is a major contributor to both those organisations? What will their commitment be, and how will the Department for International Development co-ordinate with them?

[Mr Mitchell]

The Chairman of the departmental Select Committee is absolutely right to identify the crucial role that will be played by both the World Bank and the ADB. I recently had discussions on this very subject with Donald Kaberuka, the head of the ADB, in Addis Ababa at the African Union summit, and we will ensure that strong priority is given to infrastructure development. After all, this is a country with less than 28 km of tarmac roads.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I may be alone in finding the shadow Chancellor the most annoying person in modern politics—[Interruption.] No, no. I have a feeling that the Leader of the Opposition will one day agree with me, but there we are.

Where were we? The Potteries, yes. Clearly, there are massive issues because of the decline of the Potteries. I completely understand the need for Stoke to have that support. It is very important that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) is working to bring together the Potteries communities, including MPs and the local enterprise partnership. I will certainly ask my right hon. Friend the Chancellor to look at whether it can be in the next lot of enterprise zones, because we want to help the Potteries communities she represents.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

In the light of the announcement by Statoil this week that it is cancelling £6 billion of investment in the North sea following the Budget, will the Prime Minister ensure that Ministers at the Treasury and the Department of Energy and Climate Change engage with the industry to explain how the field allowances might be adjusted to ensure that this valued investment goes ahead and that jobs are not lost?

Aid Reviews

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I certainly pay tribute to CAFOD and the brilliant work of Chris Bain in leading it. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the importance of transparency, which is why one of the coalition Government’s first acts was to publish our transparency guarantee. He is right about results and openness. We are all strongly behind the Bribery Act 2010. There are some standing instructions that need to be worked out by a number of Departments, but that will happen relatively quickly and the Act will be fully implemented.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The review was right, and the tighter focus is welcome. The Select Committee on International Development will monitor not just the quantity and transparency of aid, but its effectiveness in tackling poverty and creating the space for development. However, will he explain one or two anomalies in his announcement? Burundi, which has already been mentioned, is a surprising omission, given that it is a poor country, but South Africa is included. What is the case for that, given that every other country on the list is a low-income country? Finally, will he confirm that targeting fewer countries will enable some of the staffing shortfalls that have been so apparent to be addressed, so that DFID staff are fully complemented where they are operating bilaterally?

[Mr Mitchell]

The Chairman of the Select Committee makes an important point. Programme staffing will be set to ensure that we can implement all the programmes. South Africa is a regional hub—an engine of economic development throughout the region—and much of our programme there is devoted to that. I have explained the position on Burundi, but, clearly, it too benefits from that engine of regional economic development. On his first point, the independent commission for aid impact, which is led by chief commissioner Graham Ward, one of Britain’s most distinguished accountants, reports to his Committee, not me, injecting that independent evaluation of British aid that is so important in maintaining taxpayer confidence in what we are doing.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman is right that there are more poor people in India than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa. He is right, too, that we should focus on the poorest areas, and particularly on the role of girls and women. Over future years, we expect to be able to assist in ensuring that up to 4 million women have access to income through micro-finance and through focusing particularly on livelihoods. We will also support, of course, the strong programme on education in India. About 60 million children have been got into school over the last four or five years, which is a tremendous tribute to the work of the Indian Government, but it would not have been possible without the intervention of aid and support from Britain and elsewhere.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is worth recording that to lift the poorest people in India out of poverty by $1 a day would cost $166 billion a year, so it is appropriate to continue our transitional arrangements with India? The International Development Committee will visit India next month and we will want to see how DFID’s relationship with the country, albeit with a relatively small amount in comparison with the challenge of the problem, can deliver an accelerated reduction of poverty there.

[Mr Mitchell]

I am grateful to the Chairman of the Select Committee for that comment and also to the Select Committee itself for going to look with care at development in India and the operation of our programme there. He accurately identifies the scale of need. It is worth noting that the number of the Indian population living on less than 80p a day is 7.5 times the total population of Britain. That puts in context the basic nature of this need and shows why Britain’s partnership is so important.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

This is one of the issues that former President Mbeki is particularly addressing in the discussions about Abyei. As the hon. Lady implies, the largest amounts of oil are in southern Sudan but the mechanisms for extracting it and getting it out are pipelines through northern Sudan. The negotiations are continuing and are likely to continue for some time yet.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The Secretary of State will be aware that oil wealth has not always transformed countries in Africa, or indeed relieved the poverty of those in question. What steps will DFID take to ensure that southern Sudan will have the infrastructure and diversification support it needs so that it does not become another country suffering the Dutch disease because of oil?

[Mr Mitchell]

The Chairman of the Select Committee draws attention to the resource curse that has afflicted so many countries in that part of the world. The point he makes is being directly addressed. I discussed the matter with President Salva Kiir when I was in Sudan in November. Sudan is one of the most underdeveloped countries in the world, with illiteracy of more than 82% and only 24 km of tarmacked road in the entire country. There is a huge development issue to be addressed, but there is also the ability, through oil wealth, to make real progress over the last five years of the millennium development goals until 2015.

Zimbabwe

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on the excellent work that he does as Chairman of the Select Committee. I also congratulate the other members of the Committee, and I welcome the debate.

The right hon. Gentleman mentioned human resource. It is, of course, the most important resource in Zimbabwe, but many people have fled Zimbabwe for a variety of reasons. Some have come to the United Kingdom, while others have gone to South Africa, Zambia or other countries in the region. Does he agree that a sign of real political progress and stability in Zimbabwe will be people returning from those countries and others to such places as Harare, so that they can make a real contribution to the country’s future?

[Malcolm Bruce]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The vast majority of Zimbabweans who are not in Zimbabwe would rather be anywhere except where they are. They would like to be back in Zimbabwe, but, for a variety of reasons, it is difficult for them to go back. It is not just a question of whether they are under threat, whether they can return to any assets that they have, or whether those assets are still there; it is a question of whether they can do anything functionally or economically useful.

We found that some doctors and teachers who had left the country had come back, but they were working for a fraction of the money that they could obtain in neighbouring Botswana or South Africa, let alone the United Kingdom. They were returning because they wanted to help, but they were making sacrifices. Perhaps the Minister will say something about that. One of DFID’s activities was trying to supplement those people’s salaries, just to add an extra pull, but that still left them earning well below the market rate for the southern African region.

I have no doubt that if only peace and normality could be returned to Zimbabwe, within a very short time the people would come back, economic activity would return and, indeed—this is what is surely so frustrating for everyone—Zimbabwe could provide a shining example for the rest of Africa. People have the capacity to bring that about, given the chance, but clearly they are not being given that chance.

Obviously I want to focus predominantly on DFID’s activity, but the ambassador has highlighted the difficulties that were apparent in February and are plainly still in existence. There has been very little progress towards any kind of constitutional settlement, and there are mutterings about when an election may take place. The ambassador made it clear unequivocally that

“The constitutional process needs to be completed in an orderly and well-paced way”.

He said that the Zimbabwe electoral commission and the other commissions needed “to be capacitated”, and that

“technical changes need to be made to the voters’ roll”

—and to, for instance, the electoral Acts—

“as well as the putting in place of thorough and comprehensive monitoring arrangements. All this is going to take time if it is going to be held as it should.”

This is the crunch:

“If a poll was held prematurely, it would be most unlikely to be either free or fair”.

It is important for the House to take note of that fresh advice from our ambassador.

We are in a position of compromise—a sort of limbo. The Library note refers to “limping along”. However, the position is better than it was. Few analogies stick for very long, but a slight comparison can be made with some of the hiccups along the way in Northern Ireland. The longer even a small improvement continues, the harder it becomes to go back to the situation as it was previously. There is no guarantee, however, and the big fear is that too many people in powerful positions in Zimbabwe would like to take the country back and they have the capacity to do so. We need to rely on the genuine friends of the people of Zimbabwe, and although the United Kingdom stands among them, I acknowledge that we have a difficult role to play and that we have to play it from a distance. We need to work discreetly and to recognise the legitimate role of the neighbours in Africa, especially South Africa, but also the Southern African Development Community states. In this context, it would be nice if SADC became a more effective and coherent organisation. The fact that the tribunal judgments of SADC have been denounced and ridiculed by Zimbabwe, which says it does not recognise SADC, is clearly a weakness to the south African states in the region.

The continuing situation in Zimbabwe is not only a disaster and a frustration for the people of Zimbabwe; it is a drag anchor for the whole of southern Africa. If the situation is not resolved, the capacity of many other countries in southern Africa to fulfil their potential will be comprehensively weakened. That is perhaps understood more than it was, and the mood is changing, although perhaps too slowly.

We made some specific points in our report, and I would be grateful for an update on them from the Minister. I am sure he will tell us about current DFID activities in the country. The figure was $100 million, much of it spent on health. Has there been any change in that, or any consideration of whether we could, or should, be doing more on education, or do we feel that others are doing that satisfactorily? Also, do we feel we have the capacity to increase funding?

I think the Committee was in agreement that where we saw funds being effectively spent, they were delivering real results. If we could find comparable projects on a wider scale, we would certainly support additional funding. Again, I would appreciate the Minister stating the Department’s view on that. So far as we were able to gauge, the money was going precisely to where it was intended. Great precautions were taken to ensure it did not get into the wrong hands and was not misappropriated, and that it delivered results.

The point about precautions raises the issue of the mechanism or agency used. A number of the partners, both international, local and national, said it led to bureaucratic delays, and to inflexibilities and extra expense, which for some small organisations were disproportionate to what they were trying to achieve. There was an understanding of why the precautions were in place, but if anything can be done to simplify the process and make it more flexible without losing the certainty that money is not being misappropriated, that will be widely appreciated by the partners with whom we are engaging.

There was considerable concern about the extraction of diamonds and the ownership of those diamonds by people very close to the President, and the apparent inability of the Kimberley process to function. One or two of the interlocutors we engaged with said this might be the single issue that would give ZANU-PF the mechanism to destroy the Government of national unity and to re-establish itself as a dominant one party in control, so it is important that they—whoever they may be—are unable to trade illegally in illicit diamonds and thereby secure funding for programmes of expropriation and violence that threaten the state itself. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister could say what action is being taken if not to enforce the Kimberley process, then to isolate the illicit diamonds from Zimbabwe and deny them access to the markets, where they could be used to fund the undermining of the current arrangements.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The House has been done a great service by the Select Committee’s report. What my right hon. Friend has just mentioned raises a dilemma for everyone involved with Zimbabwe. We want to persuade the international community to start to invest in Zimbabwe and to get financial institutions to start to engage with it, but responsible companies, investors and financial institutions are clearly going to be very concerned about engaging with the extractive industries and some of the other key industries in Zimbabwe, for exactly the reasons that he just outlined. How does the Committee see us squaring that circle of encouraging responsible investors to get back into Zimbabwe but doing so in such a way as not to prop up or enrich those who would continue to subjugate Zimbabwe for their own political glory?

[Malcolm Bruce]

That is a very relevant and pertinent question. The practical thing that people can do is talk to our ambassador, because he has both views on this and indications about what to do.

The next item that I was going to discuss was investment and selective sanctions. The first thing to make clear is that it suits the ZANU-PF dimension of the Zimbabwean Government to make out that the economic failures of Zimbabwe are entirely a result of the application of selective sanctions and that they are targeting the poor people of Zimbabwe and preventing economic activity. The point that the ambassador made is that only one in 70,000 Zimbabweans is at all affected by the sanctions. Of course, he also points out in his statement today that the economy of Zimbabwe has been growing since dollarisation was reinstated. So that particular argument has been nailed. I shall return to my hon. Friend’s question, but I just wish to say to the Minister that I understand that some dialogue with the EU is taking place about selective sanctions and it would be helpful if he could update the House on the current position and what the UK’s engagement is. My impression is that there is no general view, apart from among the obvious sources, that those sanctions should or deserve to be lifted. However, to be fair, Morgan Tsvangirai said that they were a constant source of friction when he was trying to engage with his ZANU-PF co-Ministers.

There is no restriction on investment in Zimbabwe. There is nothing to prevent companies from outside Zimbabwe investing, apart from one thing that was introduced earlier in the year: the “indigenisation” of business. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister could update us on the position that has been reached. That measure fundamentally said that people could not do business in Zimbabwe other than through a company that was 51% owned by Zimbabweans—those Zimbabweans would, of course, be those approved by the stronger part of the Government. That may not be a total cast-iron restriction, as there is a Government of national unity and there are Ministers who are trying to offer, with some success, a growth strategy, a development strategy and a rebuilding strategy for Zimbabwe. Businesses may therefore have opportunities to find partners who are not going to subvert the money, but clearly nobody could invest in Zimbabwe without having an assurance. The Minister may be able to provide that or our excellent ambassador may be able to give advice. My instincts are that doing business is difficult, but may not be completely impossible.

That raises an interesting dilemma in the whole issue of development. We engage in states where there is conflict, in post-conflict states and in states with dysfunctional regimes, and the easiest thing is to say, “Let’s have nothing to do with them.” Yet the one thing that might just break the cycle of poverty, repression and tyranny is some kind of economic opportunity. I do not have an answer to that point, but I am sure that we should not say that there should be an absolute block on doing businesses with countries with dubious regimes. We should find out whether there are ways of doing business that are reputable and safe.

Let me make a somewhat exaggerated comparison. People do business in Russia, which has huge question marks over it and vies with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in terms of corruption. There are probably business opportunities in Zimbabwe that have less risk and they might be worth exploring.

I believe that we should ask people to understand that there will not be a quick and easy solution in Zimbabwe. The Committee’s observation was that, imperfect though it is, engagement with the Government of national unity was able to deliver health, education and infrastructure improvements to significant sectors of the people of Zimbabwe who were denied them before. Frankly, that Government are the only thing that stands between Zimbabwe and chaos and we must use whatever influence we have to try to persuade people, wherever they are, that there is a better place for Zimbabwe to head for than back to where it was.

We might need to acknowledge that not everybody in ZANU-PF is entirely self-seeking—we met one or two of them—and that some of them realise that their country has a place to go and that they need to be part of it. That was the other issue that was made quite clear to us. Experience in government, knowledge, contacts, communication and political capacity are mostly controlled by ZANU-PF and not by the MDC. The MDC’s members might have learned something in the past year and a half—I hope and am sure they have—but if Zimbabwe is to have a longer-term future, some of the people who have been part of the problem must be part of the solution.

That point was made to us on a few occasions and at the same time it was pointed out that, for example, every Minister was allocated a 24/7 personal “bodyguard” appointed by the President. I am quite certain that that was not an entirely comfortable experience. Interestingly, one politician said that the funny thing about that was that it created a dialogue between two groups of people who had had no connection or communication with each other before and some started to understand that the other side had a more multidimensional aspect. The avenues of communication are only beginning to open. The report from the ambassador today does not suggest that things have changed very much, and they could get worse.

What is clear is that we should not collude in any early rush to an election. An early election would almost certainly bring the present inadequate partnership to an end in favour of something worse. It could not be free and it could not be fair. The measured words of the ambassador disguise the fact that there is no electoral register, which means that those who control the polling stations can write their own register. That is no basis for any kind of election. It would be a total fiction.

In conclusion, the Committee came away impressed that good things were being done that were bringing real benefits, that it was possible to reach people, that the longer we could create such space the more chance there was of people seeing a better future, and that we had to put up with setbacks, pitfalls and compromises and not walk away. Nothing can be guaranteed, but we must do nothing that allows this troubled partnership to be brought to an end and the re-establishment of a one-party state. That would set back not just Zimbabwe but the whole of southern Africa for another generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Hugh Bayley]

I think that there will be an election next year, and the international community needs to prepare for an election next year. I believe that other countries need to put observers in place now, rather than a month or two before the election, to report on what is happening on the ground, and that those observers need to come from Africa. [Interruption.] I hear my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) protesting, but I still think that they need to come from Africa. [Interruption.] No doubt my hon. Friend will have more to say when she makes her own speech.

Those who delivered the damning reports on the intimidation and violence that took place during the last election were, by and large, African observers, because they could get into the country to observe and others could not. If it is possible to obtain a wider range of observers, that is fine: I would strongly support such a development. However, there is clearly more traction politically when Africans from the region blow the whistle than there is for Europeans who do not live in the region year in, year out—notably those in this country—and who have colonial baggage. It is important to ensure that resources are available to enable observers from non-governmental organisations and other bodies in the region to get into the country, get there early, and start giving us their reports.

The global political agreement was a fragile compromise. It was the best that could be delivered after the last election. However, it has provided a window of opportunity. Zimbabwe is not well governed under the unity Government, but it is governed a great deal better than it was under a ZANU-PF Government. The Ministries that are led by MDC Ministers are much better managed than those that are still led by ZANU-PF Ministers. I hope that the people of Zimbabwe will support the parties whose Ministers are delivering palpable improvements, and that they will be allowed to show that support in an election.

[Malcolm Bruce]

Does the hon. Gentleman, who is my colleague on the Select Committee, not recall that Zimbabwe’s Minister for Health and his permanent secretary were from different parties—the MDC and ZANU-PF—but they were working very effectively together as they had gone to the same school? People from the two parties are delivering results in some areas, therefore; it is just unfortunate that that is not apparent in many quarters.

[Hugh Bayley]

I am glad to be reminded of that; yes, it is true. In order to create a good future for Zimbabwe, every opportunity must be capitalised on, and some people from the ZANU-PF political tradition have a great deal to contribute to the future of Zimbabwe.

The UK has always been a large donor. In 2003, we gave some $59 million to Zimbabwe, and by 2008 that had risen to $89 million, an increase of 50%. The right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), the Chairman of the Select Committee, told the House that the figure has now risen to $100 million. When we were in Zimbabwe, we saw that aid being used to good purpose, such as in health care as both I and the hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich have mentioned, and in humanitarian relief. A very small amount of aid goes to the Government to support two or three advisers in the office of the Prime Minister, but almost all the aid is channelled through the United Nations or non-governmental organisations as there is still not sufficient confidence to channel it through the Government of Zimbabwe. DFID ought now to be planning for that to change, so as to be ready to provide aid through the Government when conditions allow.

The global political agreement following the last, flawed, election set a timetable for the approval of the new constitution and stated that a fresh set of elections should be held after the constitution had been agreed. The process is behind time; consultation on the new constitution ended behind schedule, in October. The consultation process was flawed—the security forces were intimidating people—yet it provides a platform for elections to take place.

Robert Mugabe is threatening to end the global political agreement in February next year, prior to an election, because that is when it formally comes to an end. Our country, and other countries in the region, should be saying that the unity Government must continue until there has been a referendum on the new constitution, and if the referendum approves the new constitution, until there is an election. Any manoeuvring to force MDC Ministers out of the Government before an election would hinder a process through which a freer and fairer election could take place.

I do not know whether the UK should be optimistic or pessimistic, but DFID and the Foreign Office must act on the assumption that there is an opportunity to make political progress. If we were to do otherwise, it would become a self-fulfilling prophesy and make a setback more likely. To have got to a position, after decades of single-party rule and catastrophically bad governance, where there is a power-sharing arrangement within the Government, provides an opportunity.

We should be using aid to support a process of reform and change. I do not know whether it will work, but we certainly should not pull the plug. I was pleased that the new Government responded to the report that the Select Committee wrote before the general election, and I am glad that they understand and support it very well. We should be planning to expand our programmes of assistance, so that if there are opportunities, following an election, for a different kind of governance in Zimbabwe, we will be in a position to move quickly and show that a different style of government delivers tangible benefits for the people.

One thing that we should be addressing is the question of land reform. A report by the all-party group on Africa last year went through some of the history and, I hope, challenged some of the myths, which are widely believed in Africa. One such myth is that Britain failed to deliver on promises to pay billions of pounds for land purchases. Such promises were not made, although Britain has put in official development assistance money for land reform. The programmes of land reform that we funded, before the farm invasions made it an impossible thing to do, were relatively effective. Funding land reform cannot be left to Britain alone. We should be talking with other donors, in particular the World Bank. We should encourage it to set up a trust fund especially for this purpose, and we should seek to win support for it from others in the EU and from the donor community more widely. We should do all that we can to remain a good friend of Zimbabwe during its troubled times and to prepare to expand our programmes of assistance as soon as we get signals from the country that the money will be well spent.

--- Later in debate ---

[Malcolm Bruce]

I am pleased that you are in the chair, Mr Deputy Speaker, as I wish to put it on record that you were a member of the Committee that took part in the visit to Zimbabwe. You will therefore have had a personal interest in the debate.

The debate has been extremely valuable, and it has been well informed by Members on both sides of the House who brought a variety of expertise and special interest to bear on the matter. It is also timely, because the next few months will see developments that could take Zimbabwe in a number of directions, not all of which are good, but I hope that some will have positive outcomes. I endorse the thanks not only to our ambassador, but to Dave Fish, whom I should have mentioned in my opening speech. He and his team gave us a huge amount of support and are doing a fantastic job in Zimbabwe.

I want to make two points. On farming, agriculture and land ownership, the tragedy is that the SADC tribunal has identified a way forward, and it has deemed that the regulations being applied by the Government of Zimbabwe are racist, as is the indigenisation legislation, which defines Zimbabweans not as citizens of Zimbabwe, but as black citizens of Zimbabwe, excluding a whole section of the community by their racial origin, not their citizenship. Clearly, it is unsatisfactory that SADC’s position is unenforceable in one of its own member states, and that must be addressed in the longer term.

My final point is that however difficult the situation is, the MDC has control of finance through Tendai Biti, and has produced a cash-positive budget—

Overseas Voluntary Sector

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 24th November 2010 Westminster Hall

[Mr MacNeil]

The hon. Gentleman anticipates me. He raises the concerns of many. I hope to demonstrate that such fears can be allayed, so perhaps the Gentleman will bear with me. If I do not answer his concern, I would welcome another intervention.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing this important debate. I apologise because I will not be able to stay to the end.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the partnership between DFID and VSO is hugely valuable and that millions of people benefit from it? It is not an unreasonable proposition for its funding to be limited to 40%, but it might be unreasonable for that to be done in too short a time. VSO recognises that, if it has to accommodate that within three years, its programme could be halved. Does he agree that the Government should be prepared to negotiate to ensure that VSO’s services are not cut and that it gets the money, and that business, for example, should support this valuable work?

[Mr MacNeil]

Again, my remarks have been anticipated. I welcome the right hon. Gentleman’s comments. It is important that money is spent properly and that, if changes are made, there is a managed transition, not a breakneck-speed shift overnight.

VSO has also helped in one of the most important government activities, without which there would no health care, no education and no spending. It has helped the Governments of Bangladesh and Sierra Leone specifically to collect taxes from their people. Perhaps Ministers’ eyes will light up at this point—perhaps not—but that is a sign that people are getting round to trusting their Governments. Perhaps some hon. Members would like VSO to go into the City of London to ensure that every penny of tax is paid. But I digress. VSO’s work in that regard shows that corruption abroad can be tackled, that the high-value components we take for granted in our civic lives can be established and that normal society can start to be built.

VSO specialises in capacity building. It takes nationals from various countries—mainly the United Kingdom—and places them mainly in less fortunate countries. The value of the professionalism of volunteers, if they were to be paid what the market paid them before they joined VSO, would be some £18 million. Hon. Members might want to think about that. Volunteers forgo £18 million in wages annually, presumably based on a 40-hour week, but on top of that they move abroad. However, it is not quite the abroad that we know or as we like to imagine it—it is the other abroad of malaria and dengue fever. I met a volunteer in Phnom Penh who was getting over a rather nasty dose of dengue fever. Of course, volunteers are often abroad in a village with no electricity and, perhaps, no running water—for not just 40 hours a week, but 168 hours a week and 24/7.

Volunteers build capacity in education and health. They build capacity wherever it is needed. They are ordinary men and women and I would argue, perhaps controversially in the current surroundings, that they have a greater sense of service than politicians, although, in fairness, most politicians get into politics to serve society. However, these people seem to get into volunteering to serve humanity.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg and I am sure—I know—that other organisations do good work as well. However, this is threatened by what could happen to just 1% of the DFID budget. My colleague from Northern Ireland, the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), raised the following matter in his intervention. VSO received 51% of its funding last year—less than a third of 1% of DFID’s budget in that period—from DFID. Almost a decade ago, VSO received 90% of its funding from that source, but this year it is projected to fall to 48% and in five years it will be less than 40%.

The problem stems from that rainy afternoon, where I read in point 2 of the FAQs titled, “Proposal and Logical Framework information”:

“Successful applicants cannot receive a PPA which is more than 40% of their annual income, averaged over the previous three years.”

That would be immediate from next April.

I know and hope that the Government’s heart—like that of every hon. and right hon. Member in this Chamber—is in the right place, but do they realise what a sudden swing of the axe could do? It could equate to a reduction of volunteers by 50% and reduce the number of beneficiaries—the 26 million who are affected, reached and touched by VSO programmes—to 12 million. In short, the cuts will not hurt VSO as much as they will hurt those who benefit from the help and aid.

Organisations such as One World Action and Progressio will be pushed to cut where it is administratively quickest and easiest. Cuts will be too quick and too deep; transitional arrangements will be hard to make, if indeed they can be made at all. However, DFID is receiving an increase in funding. It is one of four Whitehall Departments to receive an increase, and one of two Departments, together with the Cabinet Office, to receive a double-digit increase in funding. According to the comprehensive spending review, the Cabinet Office budget has risen by 28% and that of DFID by 37%. On the surface, that seems to bode well for all organisations that use DFID funds. However, an increase in the departmental administration budget seems not to guarantee the safety of funds that go to the overseas voluntary sector.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman needs to look carefully at the words that I used at the summit, about which he has just made his nice remarks. The fact is that 2.5 million deaths are caused by a lack of sanitation and 39% of people in our world do not have any access to a basic hygienic latrine. That is why we are focusing not on rhetoric but on results in trying to achieve specific outcomes in this very important area.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

In the last Parliament, the Department for International Development acknowledged that it had refocused its priority on sanitation in the wake of the report by the International Development Committee. Given that, according to figures from the “Water, Sanitation and Health 2008” report, 79% of rural homes in India have no access to sanitation, what will the Secretary of State do within the programme for India to ensure that sanitation is a key priority?

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[The Prime Minister]

What I say to the hon. Gentleman is, first, that the chief constable has said:

“We have been working for some time on plans to ensure the Force provides the most efficient service and the maximum resources are focused on frontline policing.”

When one looks at the figures for how few police officers really spend their time on the beat because of the paperwork and the form-filling, and when one looks at how we are managing our police forces and at the numbers in human resources, finance, IT and training, I say that we must do better. There is a choice. We can either say, “All reductions in public spending are a disaster and we can’t deal with them,” or we have to try and find a way to get more for less. That is what we are doing in the coalition Government. The Opposition are just not engaged in the debate.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that as an international trading nation and a leader in international development, it is vital that we can attract key people from around the world to this country for short and long-term stays? When will he be able to tell the House how the Government are finalising the criteria for the visa and immigration cap, to end the uncertainty that could damage investment in the UK as a preferred location?

[The Prime Minister]

I can tell my right hon. Friend that we are working on the issue. I do not think there will be any difficulties in achieving the two goals that we have. One is to get the immigration system that we inherited under control. The current level of net immigration into the UK of 200,000 a year—2 million over a decade—is too high. It needs to be brought down, but we should do that in a way that is business-friendly and helpful to the economy. When we look at the rules that we inherited and the fact that people were coming into this country under tier 1, but often had no skills at all or were not working in skilled jobs—some were even working in pizza restaurants—it is clear that the system was not working properly. That is what we have to get right.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 13th October 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The right hon. Gentleman has some credit for having masterminded and pioneered the Bill that became that Act through the House of Commons. He is right to underline the importance of the transparency that the Act ushered in and the importance of the House of Commons being able to discuss it, with Ministers being accountable to this House for that. So I can assure him that, through the usual channels, I will underline the point that he has made.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The Select Committee on International Development warmly welcomes the Secretary of State’s initiatives to make aid more transparent, and will co-operate with him and with Parliament to ensure that we give effective voice to that. Does he acknowledge that there are some concerns that ensuring that everything is transparent means that we might sacrifice longer-term, less measurable outcomes for shorter-term ones? Can he assure me and the Committee that that compromise will not undermine the effectiveness of British aid?

[Mr Mitchell]

As the Chairman of the Select Committee rightly says, transparency is about accountability not only to our own taxpayers in Britain, but for the people whom we are trying to help in the poor world; it is about enabling them to hold their own leaders to account. On the nature of evaluation, to which his question also referred, it is important that this should be about not only value for money and the accountancy-driven approach to that, but development expertise. As he says, a lot of development is very long-tailed, so we need to meld both those two streams of expertise together to achieve the right results.

Pakistan Floods

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his welcome for the statement and I will try to answer his questions.

First, may I thank him for his comments about the hard work of officials across Whitehall and the brilliant work that is being done by British charities throughout the flooded area? He asked me about the meetings that have taken place. Off the top of my head, I cannot speak for all the meetings that the Deputy Prime Minister has had, but I can tell the right hon. Gentleman that I had a raft of meetings when I was in Pakistan and New York, as well as having numerous phone calls since I got back. I talked to the Finance Minister and the Prime Minister in Pakistan, to all the leading non-governmental organisations, and to the head of the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs in Islamabad, who has responsibility on the ground for the cluster system. I also had bilateral meetings with Canada, Norway, the United Arab Emirates, Japan, Australia, and with the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the European Union while I was in Pakistan. In New York, I had meetings with the UN Secretary-General and John Holmes, and I lobbied hard with the UAE Minister for Foreign Affairs. I also spoke to my opposite number in the United States, Raj Shah, the Pakistani Foreign Minister, the Swedish Development Minister, the Irish Development Minister and Lord Malloch-Brown. I hope, therefore, that the right hon. Gentleman feels that the British Government have used this opportunity to lobby hard and to get across the points on which he and I are agreed.

The right hon. Gentleman asked how much of the funding is new money and how much is coming from existing programmes. I cannot tell him that at the moment. Obviously, we first ensured that we found the money required, and in due course we will see what budget line it will come from.

The right hon. Gentleman next asked whether I am satisfied with the preparations made to tackle the secondary health crisis. He will be aware that the water is draining from Sindh extremely slowly because it is built on clay, and it might be many months before that drainage takes place. He is right to identify water-borne diseases and the dangers from them spreading rapidly through the vulnerable community, particularly among children and older people. All I can say is that we are on the case. I have spoken personally to the Secretary-General about that specific point, and all the money announced by the Deputy Prime Minister when he was in Pakistan last week will go directly to confronting that issue, which the right hon. Gentleman rightly raised.

Finally, the right hon. Gentleman mentioned leaks. I have seen these leaks, and I think that he will understand, having held this office, that there is probably less to them than meets the eye. However, he made two specific points. On the central emergency response fund—this proves my point—when his predecessor, the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), announced the setting up of CERF, we gave it strong support in opposition. I pressed in New York for additional amounts from that fund to be made available, and as part of our review, we will certainly see whether we can build on the substantial benefits accrued from that decision.

The right hon. Member for Paisley and Renfrewshire South (Mr Alexander) made another point about the lessons to be learned from this disaster. I am sure that there will be lessons—although obviously at the moment we are focused on confronting the emergency phase of this disaster—and I hope very much that they will be picked up and learned by the emergency humanitarian review that we have set up and is being chaired by Lord Ashdown.

[Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and agree with him that the UK’s response, from his Department, across Whitehall and the private sector, and from private citizens, has been a leadership to the world, and also cements the relationship between the United Kingdom and Pakistan, which is very close and important. In the reconstruction effort, will he ensure that there is co-ordination between the World Bank, the United Nations, the IMF and the European Commission so that reconstruction is done to a standard that will ensure that, even if floods like this never happen again, future floods will not result in the same scale of devastation, because the standards will be higher and able to withstand the pressures? Finally, Pakistan has suffered from earthquakes and these devastating floods, and is tackling a very difficult insurgency. In those circumstances, would it not be appropriate for Pakistan to be promoted probably to the top of our bilateral aid list?

[Mr Mitchell]

On the last point raised by the Chairman of the International Development Committee, I said before these floods hit Pakistan that I thought it likely that, as a result of the bilateral aid review, Pakistan, within a comparatively short period, would become Britain’s most significant bilateral aid programme—so I underline the point that he made in his third question.

On his first point, I thank him for what he said about British leadership. It is encouraging to note that there has been a significant increase in support for the Secretary-General’s appeal fund. On his second point, about the reconstruction effort, he is clearly right that there needs to be strong co-ordination between all those taking part, and I hope that it will be provided by the pledging conference, which undoubtedly will take place before too long, and which I hope will take place in Islamabad.