International Development Aid

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Monday 7th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the Government’s strategic defence and security review set out a clear vision of enhanced UK work on upstream conflict prevention. Building on this, DfID, alongside the FCO and MoD, is taking the lead in developing the Government’s new Building Stability Overseas strategy to be published in the spring. This strategy will set out how we will use development, diplomatic and security tools in an integrated approach to tackling conflict and instability overseas. No fragile state has yet achieved a single millennium development goal.

[Lord Tomlinson]

My Lords, is the Minister aware that her statement about getting value for money for every pound spent from the development budget will be very welcome? Can she tell us which precise, ring-fenced developmental objectives were met by the transfer of £1.8 million from the DfID budget to finance the visit of his Holiness the Pope?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the money was not taken out of ODA but was a part of DfID’s budget. The work that the Pope and the Catholic Church do overseas is welcomed; they do a lot of work through educational and medical care across the world. It was therefore not ODA money but came out of the DfID budget.