International Development: Budget

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2013 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Empey, for securing this debate and all noble Lords for their contributions. There has been gratifying agreement about the importance of supporting development and support for the UK’s stance in reaching 0.7% of GNI on aid. We are, of course, the first G8 country to do so. I thank noble Lords for that agreement. The noble Lords, Lord Judd and Lord McConnell, the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and other noble Lords paid very generous tribute to the Government over that, which we really appreciate.

Especially in a period of austerity, I am very proud of the fact that we have done that and know how important it is morally. Singing, I suppose, in agreement, we have the right reverend Prelates, the Bishop of Chester and the Bishop of Derby, along with other noble Lords. The noble Earl, Lord Listowel, and other noble Lords emphasised that and pointed out what a difference it makes to the poorest around the world. However, it is also in our own national interest that we do this, which has been recognised as well. As my right honourable friend the Prime Minister pointed out on Saturday at the Nutrition for Growth summit:

“We understand that if we invest in countries before they get broken, we might not end up spending so much on dealing with problems—whether that’s immigration or new threats to our national security”.

The noble Lord, Lord Empey, and other noble Lords asked further about the Prime Minister’s position. Earlier this year, in India in February, the Prime Minister said,

“conflict states … haven’t met a Millennium Development Goal between them … it’s obviously true that if you can help deliver security and help provide stability … that is the base from which all development can proceed”.

He made it clear that spending would be compliant with international rules that define aid spending.

The Prime Minister did not say that he was filling some MoD black hole with the aid budget, whatever some decided he might have meant. He was saying that we need to work together to ensure we establish security for people in fragile and conflict-affected states, so that development can be built on. I am sure that the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, and other noble Lords would agree with that. I note the real sophistication in this House in understanding how security and stability underpin development. As the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said, both the MoD and DfID are about human security and well-being. That was a brilliant encapsulation. They are complementary.

I assure my noble friend Lord Bates that, as he knows, as do other noble Lords, that the rules do not allow blurring. As noble Lords are well aware, and as the noble Lord, Lord Rosser, pointed out, the 0.7% must be spent in line with the definitions of official development assistance—ODA—as set out by the Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. These directives define ODA as flows to eligible countries and multilateral institutions, each transaction of which is,

“administered with the promotion of the economic development and welfare of developing countries as its main objective”.

The right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby should find the multiple locks of the OECD reassuring. As noble Lords are well aware, the OECD directives rule out, for example, financing military equipment or services—including helicopters—unless funding is used to cover the additional costs to the military of delivering humanitarian aid.

I assure the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, and the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Derby, in terms of aid workers being put in danger, that we are clear that humanitarian assistance should be administered impartially and on the basis of need. The protection and expansion of the humanitarian space protects aid workers from being seen as targets, but we are well aware of the general threats to them worldwide. We pay tribute to their efforts.

There is, of course, a wide understanding in this House that DfID, the FCO and the MoD need to work together, as the previous Government agreed, to ensure that we bring together development, diplomatic and defence expertise on the ground. The Building Stability Overseas strategy was produced jointly by DfID, the FCO and the MoD in July 2011 with a strong integrated approach across government at its heart, developing work done by the previous Government. Improving stability and security in fragile and conflict-affected states is vital for development. Conflict and instability undermine our efforts to reduce poverty. No conflict-affected country has met a single MDG. That is why the Government have committed to spend 30% of UK ODA in fragile and conflict-affected states by 2014-15. The noble Lord, Lord Judd, is right to emphasise that.

The UK-led Helmand provincial reconstruction team in Afghanistan is demonstrating how DfID, the MoD and the FCO can work effectively together. There we use the military’s strengths in delivery, access and know-how and the civilian staff’s political access, sector expertise and longer-term focus. This ensures maximum impact from our combined resources and expertise. Civilian and military teams work jointly to plan and deliver infrastructure projects on the ground, building schools, clinics and roads where needed and in keeping with Afghan government plans and capacity. Support for such development would not be possible without the military, which provides the security needed for governance and development to take hold.

Of course, as noble Lords know, this co-operation cannot be funded in such a way as to go beyond the OECD definitions. Therefore, for such operations, a mix of ODA and non-ODA resources is required. The Conflict Pool, to which noble Lords have referred, provides a funding mechanism made up of both resources. This was put in place by the previous Government. The mix of ODA and non-ODA is to give maximum impact. This enables the Conflict Pool to pay for military-led activities that help create stability in the most conflict-affected environments. The Conflict Pool is separate from and additional to departmental budgets.

My noble friend Lord Bates is right to praise the Conflict Pool as a tried departmental mechanism to increase the effectiveness of our programmes. Its aim is to reduce the number of people around the world whose lives are or might be affected by violent conflict. It is jointly managed by DfID, the MoD and the FCO and operates on the principle that all policy and programming decisions are taken jointly.

In 2012-13, £175 million of ODA was available through the Conflict Pool. The MoD spent about £2 million of this. As noble Lords will appreciate, the MoD spends more non-ODA from the Conflict Pool: about £40 million in 2012-13.

Like my noble friend Lady Tonge, I found myself going back a little in time as I was preparing for this debate. In 2009, for example, I submitted Written Questions to the previous Government about transfers from DfID, and I shall give a selection of the detail in the answers from the noble Lord, Lord Tunnicliffe. Noble Lords will find a trail of questions and answers in the months following March 2009, should they wish to look.

In answer to me on 9 March the noble Lord mentioned that transfers from DfID to other departments included £1,650,000 to DCMS for developing sport to do with the Olympics; £300,000 to the MoD; £1 million to the FCO; £6,716,000 to the FCO; £18,899,000 to the MoD for the conflict prevention pool, and so on. There was another transfer of £917,000 to the MoD for stabilisation in Iraq and £1 million to the FCO for police reform in Pakistan. In summary, the noble Lord replied that overall transfers will not significantly affect the UK’s ODA/GNI ratio.

The word “significantly” is interesting. I noted back in my questions that almost all the transfers were in one direction—away from DfID. I hope the noble Lords, Lord McConnell, Lord Rosser, and others, will note that there is a track record for the transfer of funds to other departments from DfID. For example, after the earthquake in Pakistan in 2005, the military supported relief efforts, providing helicopters, engineers and airlift capability. A memorandum of understanding was developed in 2000 between the MoD and DfID which provides the framework for DfID to request the use of military assets where civilian capabilities are either unavailable or inadequate to meet humanitarian needs in accordance with international guidelines.

My noble friend Lord Chidgey asked about the NSC, which has considered the topic of development in conflict, as one would hope it would. This is to ensure that the Government’s efforts are as effective as possible. The MoD recently published a joint international defence engagement strategy with the FCO, and among the four pillars of that are conflict prevention, post-conflict reconstruction and stabilisation.

Of course we can understand departments looking across at other departments’ budgets, not only DfID’s, I can assure the House. I am sure the previous Government experienced the same thing. I can assure noble Lords that our commitment to cross-departmental work for development is carried out in accordance with OECD rules. Noble Lords have made it clear in the debate that they fully understand the need to ensure that we work across departments, and that is what we must do. Whether it is the MoD, the FCO and DfID, or DfID, DECC and Defra on environmental issues and climate change, or DfID, DoH and DfE on health, development and education, we must ensure that what the UK Government do has the greatest effect in the relief of poverty around the world.

Noble Lords would expect no less of us. We are clear that the Government are committed to spending 0.7% of GNI on aid. Aid is defined as official development assistance by the OECD. We need to work across departments to achieve as much as we possibly can while we work with international organisations, both public and private, as shown in the nutrition summit. We are all agreed on how important it is to deliver the MDGs and their successors so that we can eradicate poverty worldwide. There is a sophisticated understanding in this House that to achieve that requires working across government.

House adjourned at 8.30 pm.