Draft African Development Bank (Fourteenth Replenishment of the African Development Fund) Order 2017 Draft Asian Development Bank (Eleventh Replenishment of the Asian Development Fund) Order 2017 Draft Caribbean Development Bank (Ninth Replenishment of the Unified Special Development Fund) Order 2017

Andrew Selous Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 General Committees

[Andrew Selous (South West Bedfordshire) (Con)]

I shall make only a few brief comments. First, within about half an hour’s debate, a small group of Members of Parliament will be responsible for authorising a total of £588 million of British taxpayers’ money. I speak as a Member who is supportive of UK aid. I think that giving aid is morally the right thing to do and that there is a strong enlightened self-interest argument for what we are doing, in terms of reducing terrorism and immigration and providing the markets with which British companies can trade in the future.

That said, will my hon. Friend the Minister please give us some assurance as to how the money is being spent? It is being spent at one remove from Her Majesty’s Government, because we are handing it over to the three development banks. The National Audit Office recently raised some concerns about the ability of officials in the Minister’s Department to ensure that there is always value for money as far as British taxpayers’ money is concerned. Concerns have also been raised about the need to rush to spend money before the financial year ends. Given that the sums are quite large and that all of us as constituency Members of Parliament probably have in our areas public services with specific needs—in my own area, Bedfordshire police need an extra £10 million to function—it is right and proper that we ask the Minister to go through in a little more detail why it is right for the British taxpayer to be spending £588 million in this way. As I have said, I speak as one who is generally supportive of what the Minister’s Department does.