International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Lord Purvis of Tweed and Lord Butler of Brockwell

Friday 27th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I similarly acknowledge the wide experience of those who have put their names to the amendment. I acknowledge that one of the signatories, the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull, is a distinguished ODI fellow, and I do not question the commitment that noble Lords have to international development aspects. However, I do not accept the amendment and I hope to explain why. I will avoid some of the wider aspects that are more relevant to further groupings that we will be debating.

First, as a practical step of good legislation, the reference to a “spending round” is deficient because it has no definition in statute or standing in law. The House of Lords Library conducted a search of the legal database of all primary and secondary legislation for me, and there is no reference in statute to what a spending review may well be. Spending reviews or spending rounds, as the Treasury itself says, are interchangeable terms, and the only reference there has been came in Explanatory Notes referring to statements by Ministers. The amendment would therefore open up a high degree of potential confusion in primary legislation, without a definition or legal clarification of what a spending round may be, of what period is involved or of who conducts it.

However, that is not the essence of the amendment, which is whether, once a Government have announced their intention to meet our long-standing 0.7% commitment—it is not a new commitment—there would be a secondary power for the Treasury alone to authorise exactly the same thing but post hoc, and on an annual basis. This would be after the departmental round of discussions to which the noble Lord, Lord Reid, referred. There would therefore be a secondary process—the first part of the discussions would be on how the departments responsible for delivering ODA were conducting their business, and the second would be on whether the Government would actually meet the 0.7% target. Both are not compatible processes of discussion with the Treasury.

The argument about lack of control is not therefore valid, because the processes that DfID has to carry out, including the annual estimates that are then brought to Parliament, will continue on an annual basis. Indeed, on coming to the House this morning, I went through the main estimates for 2014-15. If the noble Lord, Lord Ramsbotham, and my noble friend Lord Marlesford wish to refer to the main estimates, they will see clearly that the Department for International Development estimates include those for the Department of Energy and Climate Change, the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Ministry of Defence, component parts of the ODA and also the FCO. It takes a wider consideration, and these estimates are part of the discussions about delivering best value for the aid programme that we wish to carry out.

The Bill already therefore creates the duty for the Secretary of State to demonstrate value for money in other parts of the Bill, as has been mentioned—including by the Minister and noble Lords opposite. There is therefore a very high level of accountability to Parliament. The question is: is this level of accountability unique, as well as maintaining the existing processes and the level of scrutiny by the Treasury? The level of accountability is unique. This Bill is unique and the Department for International Development is an unusual department. That is why there are frameworks with independent verification not only through ICAI, the National Audit Office and, indeed, our international partners in the OECD Development Assistance Committee—which carries out both peer review and annual reviews that we report to—but also in Parliament by the International Development Committee. That framework, far from exempting proper scrutiny, provides arguably a much higher level of scrutiny of delivery than other departments.

I wish to address the trade union of former Permanent Secretaries with a quote from the director-general of finance at DfID, Richard Calvert, who gave evidence to the International Development Committee in the Commons. He was asked about almost exactly this point regarding good budget management in the department. He said that,

“now we have reached 0.7% and we are into delivery of 0.7% at a broadly consistent level, there is a lot to be said, from a departmental management point of view, for keeping a steady budget. It comes back to the point about living within annual control totals anyway. We are going to have to live within an annual financial-year control total. From my perspective, having that broadly steady and then just managing 0.7% within that is more straightforward than having that zig-zagging up and down, particularly having late adjustments because maybe you have undershot or overshot in a previous year”.

That is rather compelling.

Finally, most of us who were here at Second Reading were taken with the contribution of the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey. She said that,

“it is critical that people know from year to year how they are going to be able to finance projects. One of our great nightmares was that we never knew how much we were going to have”.—[Official Report, 23/1/15; col. 1523.]

This Bill is one part of correcting that, and in addition to the level—in fact, the increased level—of proper scrutiny for value for money, I hope that that will persuade the noble Lord not to press his amendment but to withdraw it. If he is minded to test the opinion of the House, I respectfully invite it not to accept the amendment.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, I am very grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for his reference to the noble Lord, Lord Turnbull. As he said, the noble Lord is a strong advocate of overseas development aid and wanted me to express his regret that he could not be here today.

I hope that the House will agree that some very powerful arguments have been made in favour of the amendment. I am very glad that they were not all Treasury arguments. There are wider arguments for it. I have listened carefully for what reasons there might be to treat this programme uniquely. Some of the arguments have been answered. The noble Lord, Lord Davies, argued that the purpose of the legislation is to send a message. Frankly, I am always a bit allergic to the idea that the purpose of legislation ought to be to send a message. It is really not the purpose of legislation. What matters are not the words or any law we pass but what we do. The UK’s record in that respect is, and I hope will continue to be, very good.

The noble Lord, Lord McConnell, said that one of the values of the Bill would be that it would allow the debate to move on from the input to the output. I agree that what we should concentrate on is the output, but we cannot ignore the input. The purpose of looking at the input is precisely to be able to challenge it, look at what the programme is achieving and ensure that it goes on achieving it. The noble Lord, Lord Anderson, referred to Select Committees being an alternative machinery for doing that, and now, as a parliamentarian, I am wholly in favour of Parliament being effective in this way and of the work of Select Committees. However, that is after the event. What we are talking about here is the processes in government before the event, and planning programmes properly.

Finally, I come to the argument made by the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis. I say with great respect to her that it is, I am afraid, a misunderstanding of the process of government to say that the consequence of the amendment would move responsibility from a Secretary of State to the Treasury. The Treasury is not being given unique control by this amendment. The Treasury is part of the Government. Of course, if the Government and Secretary of State reach the conclusion that 0.7% or a higher figure should be spent on overseas aid, the Treasury has no independent right or way in which to countermand that. What we are talking about here is a collective process in which Treasury scrutiny performs a vital role.

The noble Baroness, Lady Northover, and the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said that the Treasury will continue to do that within government. I say to them, with great respect, that if that is what they are saying, surely this is a reason why they can accept the amendment. I notice that she nods her head—actually she shakes her head—but surely those two points follow from each another.

With gratitude to those who have taken part in the debate on both sides, I am afraid that I cannot find myself persuaded that there are reasons to treat this programme uniquely. I am realistic enough to know, with the Opposition and the Government seeking to get the Bill through in this pre-election period without further amendment, that the prospects of this amendment succeeding are not great. However, I ask those who share my view that the amendment would be in the interests of good government, proper process and achieving the best value for money for the programme, to support it and express their opposition to rushing through a Bill in this way, which does not promote its objectives but in many ways undermines them. With that, I beg leave to test the opinion of the House.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed]

My Lords, this is a sunrise clause amendment before we debate a sunset clause amendment, neither of which I would accept. Commencement orders come with legislation, usually through secondary legislation to do with the administrative implementation of agreed primary legislation, but usually to do with technical aspects of proper timing for administrative or technical purposes. That is quite different from this measure. The Bill has now had more than 25-and-a-half hours of parliamentary scrutiny. It has gone through the House of Commons and has been tested by Division in both Houses. Once it is on the statute book in this Parliament the proper parliamentary manner in which this would be repealed would be for a measure to be put forward in the next Parliament to repeal it. That would have to be done in the full glare of public opinion after significant debate and, one hopes, after a degree of consensus. Funnily enough, all those aspects are why this Bill was presented to Parliament. All those aspects are there, and that is why I believe it is strong. I know that the noble Lord who put forward this amendment is not like other noble Lords who have indicated very clearly that they oppose the 0.7% target in principle. They have said that it is gesture politics and a dishcloth of a proposal. I know that the noble Lord does not hold those views, but nevertheless I do not believe that this is appropriate. Parliament will have expressed its view on the Bill. I hope that it will be enduring legislation but the proper course would be for a future Parliament to repeal it, if it so chose. Therefore I hope that the noble Lord will withdraw his amendment. If he does not do so, I would ask the House not to accept the amendment.

[Lord Butler of Brockwell]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for his generous words. He said that there would be a proper course for a future Government to repeal the Bill, but that that would have to be done in the glare of publicity, which would of course be extremely difficult. The Minister said that the effect of the amendment would be that a future Government would have to decide to implement it. Precisely—that is what I believe ought to happen when we are so near an election and a new Government will shortly be coming in.

This is a point of principle. I regret to try the patience of the House but, for one last time, I beg leave to seek the opinion of the House.