International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Baroness Hooper Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Hooper (Con)]

My Lords, it is a great pleasure to voice the congratulations and welcome of the whole House on the excellent maiden speech of my noble friend Lord Fox. His background and successful career in industry—and in communications in particular —mean that his contributions to our debates will be practical, well informed and persuasive, as was his speech today. We look forward to hearing from him on many occasions in the future.

I also wish to associate myself with the tribute paid by my noble friend Lord Fowler to the late Lord Brittan, whom, I, too have known as a contemporary since university days.

I support all that has been said concerning the purpose of the Bill and the need to embed the spending target in law to ensure that the commitment that has been made by this Government will be continued into the long-term future, as my noble friend Lady Chalker explained. I am proud that we are one of the few countries to have complied with the target, and I certainly feel the warm glow that was referred to by the noble Baroness, Lady Flather.

Much has already been said about the importance of development assistance, and examples of projects and success stories in many parts of the world have been quoted. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, on his lead and on his splendidly comprehensive introduction. I do not need, therefore, to underline the importance of clean water, emergency food assistance, education, access to financial services or the health benefits brought by this funding and the work of NGOs in the field, save only to highlight the example of the fight against malaria. Deaths of young children in Africa have more than halved since 2000. This work must be sustained.

The economic development and the welfare of developing countries are of prime importance in today’s world of interdependence. Ethical and humanitarian considerations apart, it is plain common sense to try to help people and countries to avoid catastrophe and to build themselves up to be economically, as well as politically, independent.

Of course I acknowledge the need for precautions voiced by my noble friend Lord Tugendhat in particular. Of course there must be good, clear and transparent administration of any fund, but the problem of economic refugees taking dangerous means to transport themselves to developed countries has to be averted. If all European Union countries met the 0.7% target, that would make a huge difference to the countries of, for example, sub-Saharan Africa, and prevent some of the tragedies and loss of life resulting from the attempts made by the poorest of people to reach European shores in order to find jobs and security.

I recognise that the part of the world with which I am most involved—Latin America—is outside the overseas development funding criteria. Most countries are now considered to be middle-income or high-income countries. The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, made some important points about this. I assume that it was as a result of the peer review process. I also recognise that some funding to that region may get through on a multilateral basis via the European Union, the IMF and other agencies.

However, there are still pockets of poverty—others have mentioned this—even in the middle-income and high-income countries. There is an issue over the waste and hardship caused when existing country programmes are terminated—or were terminated in the case of Latin American countries—abruptly. Will the Minister tell us whether any direct funding still goes to any Latin American country? Is any thought being given to creating a smoother transitional arrangement for projects in countries that are deemed no longer to require official development assistance?

In general, I hope that the United Kingdom will continue to give a lead in this area and work to persuade other countries in the European Union and, indeed, in the Commonwealth—I think of Canada, Australia, New Zealand and India—to reach the targets. My noble friend Lady Williams of Crosby made some very interesting suggestions in this respect which merit further exploration. The passing of this Bill and the arguments and ideas put forward in today’s debate will, I hope, help to ensure this, and I feel confident that it will have a safe and successful passage through your Lordships’ House.