International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Andrew Mitchell Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I will not detain the House for long, but I want to add my congratulations to my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) on piloting this Bill through the House so skilfully. I also want to say that it is a matter of huge pride to many of us in the House and to our constituents that this Bill will, we hope, reach the statute book before too long. It puts into operation a promise that all the three main parties in this House have made to the public. It is not only the right thing to do, but it is hugely in Britain’s national interests. It not only makes some of the poorest people in the world more secure, safer and less conflict-ridden; it also helps to make them more prosperous, and it does the same thing for Britain, too—it makes us safer and more prosperous in the long term. It is a huge investment in the future lives of our children and grandchildren.

The one point I want to emphasise is that passing a Bill like this in this House places a strong obligation on us to ensure that the taxpayer is getting value for money: that we are delivering these results on the ground; that when we take a pound of hard-earned taxpayer’s money, we really do deliver 100 pence of value.

I have some sympathy with the comments that some of my hon. Friends made about value for money and the importance of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. As the Minister just said, the ICAI is the right body to tell the public—the taxpayer—whether the money is being well spent. We made a commitment in opposition to set up an independent commission, and we did so after the election when we were in government. Many voices from the civil service and the international development community urged us not to set it up, but we did so. As I know, it is an uncomfortable experience for Ministers to see its findings, but this was the right thing to do. In deciding to pass the Bill today, this House must acknowledge that the other side of the coin is to accept independent evaluation from a body reporting to Parliament, the legislature, not to Ministers in the Executive, to ensure that the money is being well spent.

Britain is a brilliant exponent of international development. We are very good at it, but when we get it wrong we must put our hands up, and we must have the self-confidence to accept the discipline of independent evaluation by the ICAI. The commission is very well run by Graham Ward and his fellow commissioners, John Githongo, Mark Foster and Diana Good. They have already done a great job, and we must have the confidence in ourselves in order to have the confidence in them to ensure that the ICAI is now a permanent part of the international development architecture.