Overseas Aid

Baroness Northover Excerpts

Wednesday 12th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Rawlings]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government by how much United Kingdom overseas aid will be increased in 2014-15 as a result of the growth in gross domestic product and the 0.7% target for overseas aid.

[Baroness Northover (LD)]

My Lords, at the spending reviews in October 2010 and June 2013, the UK Government provided sufficient funding to deliver 0.7% of gross national income as official development assistance—ODA—in 2013, 2014 and 2015. The Government will continue to keep GNI movements under review to ensure that sufficient resources are available to deliver the 0.7% target.

[Baroness Rawlings (Con)]

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her Answer and commend the Secretary of State and her predecessor, my right honourable friend Mr Andrew Mitchell, on putting economic development as a DfID core priority. How much more money will we give this year through the DfID budget, given the current rate of GDP growth? Can the Minister tell your Lordships the actual sum that we give over and above the DfID 0.7% once we have included the registered official development aid—that is, money—from other government departments, such as the MoD’s expenditure on training the Afghan police?

[Baroness Northover]

ODA is grouped together. As my noble friend recognises, it is not all spent through DfID, although the vast majority of it is. A number of other government departments contribute to deliver some of this—for example, DECC contributes on climate change—although, as I said, most goes through DfID. In the 2013 Budget, the Treasury projected that £11.6 billion would need to be spent to achieve the target of 0.7%. At the Autumn Statement 2013, that figure rose to £11.9 billion—an increase of about £300 million.

[Lord Harrison (Lab)]

My Lords, will the noble Baroness please ensure that the Government continue rightly to resist the calls to divert overseas aid money to tackle the floods? Will she also take the opportunity to clarify from where the money to help flood victims in the south will come, given the confusion wrought by the recent words of the Prime Minister?

[Baroness Northover]

I thought that the Prime Minister was extremely clear in his support. I can also point out that we have spent £3.1 billion on flood management and protection. However, I think that the noble Lord is right and I welcome the cross-party support. This is a false choice. I received an e-mail this morning from Justin Forsyth of Save the Children. He said:

“To raid this money that literally saves millions of lives would be immoral”.

Surely he is right.

[Lord Howell of Guildford (Con)]

My Lords, is it possible to press the authorities which decide the ODA definitions to provide a wider definition that would allow, for instance, the expenditure by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in support of the BBC World Service—or however it is to be supported in the future—to be included in the overall figure? Can these definitions be changed to extend in that direction?

[Baroness Northover]

The ODA definition, as the noble Lord probably knows, is relatively wide. To seek to change that requires international agreement, and there are risks to that. That said, we fully recognise the contribution that the BBC World Service makes.

[Lord Barnett (Lab)]

My Lords, now that the Prime Minister has made crystal clear that money for flood victims is not a problem, can the noble Baroness confirm that her department is not considering transferring any money at all from her department’s funds to help in this instance?

[Baroness Northover]

Maybe I might answer by saying what we have done in Pakistan in terms of floods. The UK committed £134 million overall in aid for the 2010-11 Pakistan floods. The floods left 20 million people in need of serious assistance, including 2,000 dead; destroyed 1.7 million homes; and affected an area four times the size of Britain.

[The Lord Bishop of Worcester]

My Lords, the Minister has already referred to Pakistan. I was going to draw her attention to the Bangladeshi floods of 1998, which resulted in the loss of 30 million homes and cost the economy of that country 4.8% of its GDP. Does the Minister agree that the spending of money generally on countries which are affected terribly by climate change is both in our national interest and a moral responsibility?

[Baroness Northover]

The right reverend Prelate sums it up extremely effectively.

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

When do the Government plan to fulfil their promise to legislate to put into law the UK’s commitment for 0.7% of GNI to be given in overseas aid? Surely, as the noble Baroness has already said, with cross-party support, there is no reason not to do this. Or is the fear of another Tory Back-Bench rebellion the real reason?

[Baroness Northover]

The key issue is whether we have made this commitment. We, this Government, have, and it is the first time that any G8 or G20 country has done so. I realise that a number of Scandinavian countries are ahead of us, but we are ahead of the previous Government, who, as the noble Lord knows, sank down to 0.3% in what they gave. In fact, before that, in 1999, it was just above 0.2%—a drop from the previous Government.

[Lord Dholakia (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend and the Department for International Development on transforming the lives of many poor people by encouraging the development of small businesses at local level and creating more accessible markets, particularly in Tanzania. Can my noble friend look at how we could further reduce poverty for those involved in agriculture? An example of this is the Mtwara region in Tanzania where there is access to 40 million hectares of arable land, of which only 25% is used.

[Baroness Northover]

That is an example of the work that DfID is undertaking as it seeks to transform agriculture and therefore the livelihoods of people in some of the poorest countries in the world. In Tanzania, DfID is currently working with the Aga Khan Development Network to try to increase productivity levels of farmers growing rice and sesame.