International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market

Friday 27th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, I rise to support this amendment for non-Treasury reasons, which may be a relief to noble Lords. We all know that the Treasury is full of very clever people, but frankly the Treasury is not always right and therefore there would have to be good reasons, other than the very fine reasons put forward by noble Lords who have already spoken, for urging that there should be an extra annual check on this programme and target.

My reason is simply that other, more effective, ways of promoting overseas development, eradicating poverty and meeting development goals are emerging all the time. The concept of ODA was invented 30 or 40 years ago, possibly more, and many new ideas have developed for promoting development and for contributing to development in more effective ways since then. The truth is that in looking at this Bill and the idea of the 0.7%, your Lordships are really dealing with an old agenda. These were fashionable views 20 or 30 years ago. Aid and development techniques have moved on rapidly.

Official development assistance—the ODA concept that we are dealing with—is rapidly becoming irrelevant. The complex challenges the world is now facing require a radically different financing model, one that requires a comprehensive approach to financing, embracing all sources of public and private finance available to developing countries. Tying the development effort unconditionally and without annual review into an “ODA-able” programme is bound to divert resources from far more productive ways of helping the poorest and encouraging development in today’s conditions.

One of the major contributions developing countries need is peace and security through military assistance, techniques and training, none of which is “ODA-able”. We are deliberately limiting our capacity to help the development process in the conditions of the 21st century, so the case for annual review and revision by the Treasury to keep our development spending programmes up to date and effective seems unanswerable.

[Lord MacGregor of Pulham Market (Con)]

My Lords, I am very much aware of ex-Treasury Ministers speaking, but nevertheless I want strongly to reinforce the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Before I go on to my arguments, I state for the record that I wholly support the commitment and proud record of the UK on humanitarian and development aid. We are one of the world leaders. I do not agree with the noble Lord, Lord Davies, that it has to be enshrined in law to make that point, because our record and the level of spending to which we commit ourselves demonstrate that. This amendment in no way detracts from that.

I shall make four points in favour of this amendment, and I shall repeat very briefly what the noble Lord, Lord Butler, said. It all stems from my years of experience in dealing with public expenditure, in particular as Chief Secretary when the noble Lord, Lord Butler, was leading the programme in the Treasury under my noble friend Lord Lawson as Chancellor.