International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Lord Lamont of Lerwick and Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville

Friday 27th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Lamont of Lerwick]

It is not intended to be each year of the five years but an average of or a rolling over the five years. That is what I suggest. Of course, we would be open to amending the amendment if my noble friend chooses to give us his support. The confusion which can be caused by the different outcomes of GNI is also recognised under Clause 2(2)(a), where,

“under section 1(4) of the 2006 Act”,

it is possible for the Secretary of State in a subsequent year—this could be years later if it proves that, because of revisions of GDP, the target it was thought had been met had not in fact been met—to make a subsequent statement, which would not refer to the current year but to years gone past. Of course, one might have a whole series of statements where one year it was thought that the target had been met and then the next year it was thought that the target in the previous year had not after all been met. You could go on contradicting yourself year after year because these statistics bob around on a very thin margin which could easily affect the 0.7% one way or another. That is why I say to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, and others that the idea that the 0.7% gives certainty is somewhat fallacious and not very profound. Those are the external factors.

More importantly in terms of policy and what we are trying to achieve in debates around this issue, there may be factors other than external factors which affect whether the target was not met. These could be that projects were not ready or that there was not enough time to get them ready, However, if we want to place a premium on management, rather than just meeting the target on outcomes rather than input, again I suggest that that would be greater if we looked at this target not in one year but over several years. If we looked at it over several years, it would remove the incentive which came to light in Committee to hand over cash to multilateral institutions simply in order to meet the target. Although, as we learnt in Committee, it would take on average two years before the money handed over to a multilateral institution is spent, for the purpose of meeting the target it counts as though it was spent. Therefore, in any year, if you are not getting near to the 0.7%, there would be a tremendous incentive just to hand the money to a multilateral institution in order to say that the target has been met.

It also seems to me that the way in which the 0.7% works is that there will be a great incentive to spend money rather than to economise or to manage it efficiently. There is no way to claw back money in years in which there is an overspend. If the target is exceeded—if it is 0.8% of GDP—there is no way in which that money can be recouped. Therefore, the fear of the department will never be of overspending, it will always be the risk of underspending and, therefore, it will tend to overspend. For all those reasons, the amendment put forward by the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, would be conducive to good management of the budget and thoroughly consistent with the aims of the Bill as put forward by its promoters.

[Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville (Con)]

My Lords, this debate is essentially about flexibility, and this measure is essentially one which has been brought forward by Members of the Liberal Democrats. I wish to say a brief word about my relations with their party. Before anyone accuses me of making a Second Reading speech let me say not only that I could not make a real Second Reading speech at Second Reading but also that my relations with the Liberal Democrats are an essential part of my contributing to this particular amendment.

In the 183 years since the Great Reform Bill—which amounts to six generations, at 30.5 years each—six members of my family, one per generation, have served in the House of Commons, the first four being Liberals and the final two being Tories. The first was Member for the Southern Division of Northumberland. He was said to be the richest commoner in England, and he was presumably a Whig. It was perhaps apposite for what was then essentially an Irish family that the second MP was the MP for Armagh, a niece of his having married into the Brookeses.

The third Member was my great-grand-uncle, the son of the richest commoner in England. He entered Parliament as a Liberal MP for Wakefield.