International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill
Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Philip Davies(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend is extremely generous.
In return for this extraordinarily favourable arrangement for British development policy, we have to honour the electorate by ensuring that we demonstrate that we really do secure the results that we promise—that for every pound of their hard-earned money, we really do secure 100p of development on the ground. That is why this Government have conducted multilateral and bilateral aid reviews, to ensure that we can demonstrate to the public that this money is really well spent.
Philip Davies
My right hon. Friend keeps talking about how we should spend our money, but he might have noticed that we have not got any money. What he is actually asking us to do is borrow billions of pounds to pass on to other countries. The actual cost to the taxpayer is even more than 0.7% because we have to pay interest—
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Philip Davies(13 years, 4 months ago)
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Mr Mitchell
The hon. Gentleman, who is enormously experienced in the ways of Parliament, will know that that is not a matter for me as the Secretary of State for International Development; it is a matter for the business managers and the usual channels. I suggest that he refers his question, on an appropriate occasion, to one of them.
Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
Any Government can spend as much money as they want on overseas aid if they want to do so. Lots of Departments have very important priorities, so why do we have to have a specific target in law for overseas aid and not for anything else? Is this not just ludicrous gesture politics, rather than anything that is actually meaningful?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend is right to this extent: we could spend this hard-earned budget twice over, because there is need that we could satisfactorily address. But the world, many years ago, settled on a figure of 0.7%, and all of us have made a promise to stand by that commitment and the Government are absolutely right, even in these difficult economic circumstances, not to seek to balance the books on the backs of the poorest people in the world.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Philip Davies(13 years, 9 months ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
2. What his Department’s policy is on providing aid to India; and if he will make a statement.
The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)
From now on in India, we will focus our support on three of the poorest states. Our programme will change to reflect the importance of the role of the private sector and private enterprise.
Philip Davies
India spends $36 billion a year on defence and $750 million on a space programme. It has one of the fastest-growing economies in the world and is developing its own overseas aid programme. Given that we must cut public expenditure in this country, will the Secretary of State accept that many of my constituents will think that such aid to India is now unjustifiable?
Mr Mitchell
That is why our programme in India is in transition, why we will focus on three of the poorest states in the country and why, over the next four years, up to half the programme will transition into pro-poor private sector investment. That is the right way for us to position our development work in the partnership with India, which is of course much wider than development, and which the Prime Minister very significantly re-energised in his major visit last year.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Philip Davies(14 years, 4 months ago)
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Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)
The Secretary of State will recognise the concern about recent newspaper reports of the amount of his Department’s budget that was spent on trade unions in this country and other politically correct causes. Given also the money that goes to China and India, and other money wasted by the EU, does he not accept that all that taken together undermines the case for the 0.7% requirement, particularly in this age of austerity?
Mr Mitchell
My hon. Friend makes an important point about value for money and the effectiveness of British aid. That is why we have set up our bilateral review of every place where Britain is spending this important budget, so that we can be sure, as I said earlier, that for every £1 of hard-pressed taxpayers’ money, we are really getting 100p of value. He specifically mentions China. He will know that, on the day that the Government took office, we announced that we would stop all aid to China. The bilateral review is of course looking at India.
On trade unions, I would make two points. First, trade unions spend overseas money well on building the capacity of societies to hold their leaders and politicians to account. What is wrong, in my view, is funding development awareness. Sadly, the former Secretary of State felt it was right to spend hundreds of thousands of pounds of British aid and development money on supporting Brazilian dance groups—