Aid Reviews

Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right to identify St Helena as an important dependent territory which rightly has our support. He will know that negotiations are ongoing on three key areas which, when they are the subject of agreement, will form the basis of a contract. I hope to be able to give the House more information in due course.

[Ms Gisela Stuart (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab)]

I very much welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement. He categorised the multilateral organisations as the good, the bad and the ugly, so will he say where, in his assessments, CDC falls?

[Mr Mitchell]

CDC is not one of the organisations that has been assessed as part of the multilateral aid review, because we are in the process of reforming the way in which it operates. The point that we have made in a written statement to the House is that widespread consultation is taking place on how we inject more development genes into CDC. Those negotiations and discussions are continuing, and I hope to be able to say more to the House shortly about how that will proceed.