Aid Reviews

David Nuttall Excerpts

Friday 2nd December 2016 Commons Chamber

[James Wharton]

We work with a wide range of global agencies, many of which deliver effective programmes that make a real difference to people’s lives. As I said in my earlier comments, where we can efficiently do so, we will always look to work with multilateral organisations that can deliver change—whatever the political origination of those organisations might be.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend reassure my hard-working constituents whose taxes, of course, provide the money that enables international aid to be provided that there will be a laser-like focus on ensuring value for money? Does he agree that, in the long term, the best way to help the poorest countries in the world is for them to develop their economy, so that there is more trade and less aid?

[James Wharton]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point. The Department remains entirely focused on driving value for money. These reviews underline that commitment, and my hon. Friend is, of course, right that we want to help nations and people lift themselves out of poverty by supporting the structures of their society and the pillars of their economy by ensuring that they can trade and generate income, so that they become less dependent on international aid. Indeed, the prosperity fund is a very good example of this Government’s commitment to that course.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 14th September 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

Again, I only just heard the question, but I think it was based on the need for positive dialogue with colleagues in the Scottish National party. If it was, absolutely: that is exactly what I shall be doing.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

T4. What assessment has my right hon. Friend’s Department made of the humanitarian situation in Venezuela?

[Priti Patel]

Of course, international assessments of Venezuela note that it is suffering a deep economic crisis and not just with inflation, but also because there is a health emergency there—a shortage of medicines and a humanitarian crisis. Strangely enough, Venezuela’s economic and political policy models have of course been championed by the Labour party, and we can now see what those policies have led to, with the economic catastrophe in Venezuela.

Illegal Immigrants (Criminal Sanctions) Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Friday 4th March 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Chope]

My hon. Friend says that he is a great man, and I am sure he is. His time in this House happened to coincide with a time when I was not a Member of Parliament, so I do not know him very well. In the other place on Monday, he said in answer to a question from another great man, whom I do know, Lord Green of Deddington, that

“the Prime Minister, the Home Secretary and others have been working hard…to increase the discomfort for those who are in this country illegally.”

What an extraordinary use of words—

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Discomfort!

[Mr Chope]

Discomfort! What did the Minister have in mind when he referred to discomfort? Perhaps the Under-Secretary of State for Refugees, my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Richard Harrington), who is on the Front Bench today, will be able to explain what was meant by that term. It suggests someone who might have a mild medical condition.

Equally inadequate was Lord Bates’ reply when he was asked

“what difference do the Government estimate that the Prime Minister’s so-called EU reforms will make to the figures”?

Lord Green had stated earlier that migration levels could lead to

“an increase in our population of half a million every year, of which 75% will be due to future immigration”.

The Minister, Lord Bates, accepted that Lord Green had been

“correct in saying that if you use the statistical data available to forecast, you arrive at roughly the numbers he referred to.”

He accepted the premise of the question, but when he was asked what the effect would be of the so-called reforms that the Prime Minister came back with following the renegotiations, he said:

“Of course, we must see what effect they will have, going forward.”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 29 February 2016; Vol. 769, c. 576.]

If that is not an imprecise statement on what are being bandied around as essentially good reforms that will transform the status of our relationship with the European Union, I do not know what is. It is an extraordinarily vague response to a very precise question. The Government keep saying that our relationship with the European Union will be debated on the facts, but they cannot even bring any facts to bear in answer to that precise question.

The whole purpose of the Bill is to reduce illegal immigration by identifying, prosecuting and deporting those already here illegally and deterring others who might be planning to come here illegally. How big is the problem that the Bill seeks to address? The Government have very little idea how many foreign nationals are in this country illegally, or so they say. They certainly refuse to gather any data to inform the debate, because of the embarrassment that that would cause. I have some figures that have been produced by the House of Commons Library, and they basically show that the Government have no idea how many illegal migrants there are here. The most recent studies are more than 10 years old, but the figure then was in a range between 300,000 and 700,000. That was 10 years ago, so what would the figure be now? In my submission, it must be well in excess of 1 million.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, given the Government’s trumpeting of the now more widespread use of exit checks, it ought to be relatively simple to ascertain the number of illegals who are in this country by looking at how many have been identified by the exit checks as having left the country and who the records show were not even supposed to be here in the first place?

[Mr Chope]

That is a very intelligent suggestion, and I wish I had thought of it. I hope that the Minister will take it on board. Many other straws have been put into the wind to try to work out what is happening, but my hon. Friend’s suggestion would provide a good way forward. It would give us at least some idea of the figures. One of the problems is that many of the people who are already here illegally do not have any documents. They do not have passports, so I am not sure that they would wish to exit the country using authorised routes. Notwithstanding that problem, however, there is a lot in what my hon. Friend has said.

Whatever the number of illegal immigrants in this country might be, they are certainly continuing to arrive in record numbers. We know that 1.1 million came into the European Union last year. In January 2016, the rate at which people were crossing the Aegean and arriving in Greece from Turkey was around 1,300 a day, compared with around 1,300 in the whole of the month of January in 2015. The numbers are increasing exponentially. I had the opportunity to see this with my own eyes on the isle of Kos last October, and I could see that this was a really big business being organised by criminal gangs across Europe and beyond.

This brings me to the report published last month by Europol entitled “Migrant smuggling in the EU”. The report points to the fact that many more than 100,000 migrants entered the United Kingdom illegally last year. It does not give a precise figure, but the implication is that the figure was higher than 100,000. It also states that more than 900,000 of the 1 million migrants who entered the EU last year used the services of criminal groups of people smugglers who were heavily connected to organised crime. It identifies the UK, Germany and Sweden as the three preferred destination countries and makes it clear that almost all migrants eventually reach their chosen destination, undertaking what the report describes as “secondary movements”. London and Calais are identified as being among the

“main criminal hotspots for intra-EU movements”.

The Europol report refers to the main countries in which suspects operate. It states that criminal suspects born in Bulgaria, Hungary, Pakistan, Poland, Romania, Syria and Turkey concentrate a high proportion of their activities in the United Kingdom. It refers to document counterfeiting having increased significantly, to corruption being rife and to migrant smuggling routes and networks being used to infiltrate potential terrorists, which we know sadly happened during the Paris attacks last November.

The report states that the EU needs to be firm with those who do not need protection, who pose a security risk or who refuse to co-operate with the asylum process. However, we know that that is not happening at all. We now have a system of hotspots that is designed to ensure the rapid return of those without a legitimate asylum case, but again that is not happening.

Another indication of the number of people who may be here illegally came in December 2013, when, following a claim in 2010 that the Government did not have any information on this matter, the Government issued the publication, “Sustaining services, ensuring fairness: Government response to the consultation on migrant access and their financial contribution to NHS provision in England”.

Just as a side issue, let me say that we saw in the papers yesterday that there is a great imbalance between the amount of money that our country pays out to EU countries in respect of the healthcare of British citizens in Europe compared with the amount that we charge European citizens using our health service here.

The NHS document suggested that, at any one time in England, there are about 2.5 million overseas visitors and migrants, of whom 450,000 are from the European economic area, and about 580,000 are irregulars, who include failed asylum seekers liable to removal, people who have overstayed their visas and illegal migrants. Even back then—in 2013—the health service statistics suggested that there were the best part of 600,000 people here.

Earlier today, courtesy of the Mail Online, I listened to what the Home Secretary said to the Conservative party conference in 2014 about the determination of herself and the Government to reduce the number of appeal rights and the number of appeals by foreign criminals against removal from our country. At that stage, she said that there were 70,000 appeals and that she would halve that number by reducing the number of appeal rights from 17 to four. She rightly referred to the abuse of article 8 and the emphasis on foreign criminals and illegal immigrants trying to rely on family connections. At the outset of her speech, she said that she was going to extend the number of “deport first, hear appeals later” cases.

It was with some dismay that I read, on 28 February, in the Mail on Sunday that a Romanian rapist, who had been removed from Britain, had been allowed back in by judges who ruled that his fast-track deportation broke EU law and breached his human rights. This was a person who had been convicted in Romania of rape. He had come to this country illegally, stayed in this country illegally and then, when the rules changed for Romania to join the European Union, he was able to stay here as an EU citizen. The Government have always said that they wish to maintain control of our borders so that we do not have to tolerate criminals from the rest of the EU in our country. It only came to light that that person had a criminal record in Romania when he was convicted of a drink-drive offence. Even in a case as strong as that, the courts have intervened to prevent him from being deported from this country.

The same article refers to another case in which a violent Slovakian sent home under the deport first rule had won the right to return to the United Kingdom for his appeal hearing. The Upper Tribunal ruled that it was unlawful for the Home Office to refuse Roman Kasicky permission on security grounds. The Home Office had said:

“The UK will seek to deport any EU national whose conduct represents a genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat.”

The only problem is that, under our present arrangements with the European Union, we are incapable of being able to deliver on that intent. The only way, in my submission, that we will ever be able to deliver on it is by leaving the European Union, and that is increasingly the conclusion to which people are coming.

In 2014, the Prime Minister said that he recognised that this was a really serious issue, that we needed to take control of our borders, that we needed to reduce the levels of migration to the tens of thousands and that he was going to secure that through fundamental reform of the European Union. There has not been fundamental reform of the European Union; in fact there has been no reform at all. What has happened is that we have a very modest reform of our relationship with the European Union, subject to all the provisos about enforceability and the supremacy of the European Court of Justice. Without fundamental reform, we cannot do anything about these illegal people from the European Union, as exemplified by the case to which I have just referred.

My Bill would cover not just those from the European Union, but illegal migrants more generally. If there are 1 million-plus illegal migrants in this country at the moment, this Bill would enable the Government to get to grips with the matter and to get the authorities working on it. If we got tough with illegal migrants in our country, the people smugglers would divert them away from the United Kingdom, as they always try to use the weakest points of entry. Apart from the weakness of our enforcement and detection procedures, one of the perverse incentives for people to come to the United Kingdom is that we do not have a requirement that people should have identity cards. I do not think that we should have such a requirement, but the fact that we do not have it means that people who are illegal migrants can lie low here for years and years and we do not know anything about them. They come to light only when they are convicted of an offence, and by then we are told that they have been here for too long and we cannot get rid of them.

This is a mega crisis in immigration. I proposed this Bill more in hope than in expectation. None the less, I hope that, at the very least, the Minister will have the opportunity to explain how, if the people decide to stay in the European Union on 23 June, all these serious issues will be sorted out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Edward Leigh]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We have to introduce the language of compassion. May I just defend the Government for a moment? There is not a single Government in the whole of Europe who have spent more money on aid to Syria. This Government have a perfectly logical and reasonable point of view, which is that, rather than simply giving comfort to the people traffickers, we should take people directly from the camps. I think that there is widespread support on the Government Benches for what the Government are doing in that regard. If I have not spoken the language of compassion, let me be absolutely clear now that this debate is not about being nasty to people who are desperately seeking a better life.

[Mr Nuttall]

I accept that these people are desperate and fleeing persecution. If that is the case, why are they not seeking a safe haven in the first safe country they reach, rather than trying to get to the United Kingdom? Is that not the question we ought to be asking?

[Sir Edward Leigh]

That is the question that the public ask again and again in the letters and emails we receive. Why is the Dublin convention not being used? My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch was a very distinguished chairman of the migration committee in the Council of Europe, and he is probably one of the House’s leading experts on the whole migration issue. He has spent many hours not just sitting in committees in Strasbourg, but making the effort to go to Lampedusa and all these places to talk about the Dublin convention. That convention basically states, quite rightly, that a person should get asylum or be returned to the first country they enter, so this is what people in this country do not understand: is France unsafe? I quite understand—in the language of compassion—why a person would want to be an economic migrant, but are they an asylum seeker? When they are taken out of the back of a lorry in Lincoln or found at the first service station on the M3, they do not say to the English gendarmerie that they want to get benefits or a job; they say that they are an asylum seeker. The question that the British people are asking is this: if that person is a genuine asylum seeker, given that France is a completely safe and civilized country, with a very generous benefits system, why do they not claim asylum there? It all boils down to why this Bill is needed. I know that this is only a private Member’s Bill, but for the life of me I cannot understand why the Government do not take action on this.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

It is an honour and a privilege to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), who has set out with his usual clarity and wisdom why this Bill is so sensible. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) on promoting it, and I am privileged to be one of its sponsors.

The House should be made aware of my hon. Friend’s determination in this matter. Members will recall that a very similar, though not identical, Bill was debated in this Chamber a little over two years ago. The situation that we find ourselves in today is much worse than it was then. Public opinion has certainly not improved since January 2014. It is worth reminding ourselves that that earlier Bill was tested among the public by Lord Ashcroft. He polled 2,013 individuals about what they thought of the measures, and 86% said that they agreed with them.

[David Morris]

I have to take exception with that, because the Ashcroft polls are not exactly accurate, as the last general election showed.

[Mr Nuttall]

I do not want to get into a debate about polling, but polls, as Lord Ashcroft frequently says, are not meant to be a prediction of the future. They ask people what they think of something at a particular time. The poll in question asked people not for a prediction, but for their thoughts on the measures. To that extent, it must be accurate to say that 86% of those who were asked said, “Yes, we think that the measures are sensible.”

[Mrs Sheryll Murray (South East Cornwall) (Con)]

Could my hon. Friend give an indication of the number of people polled?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

I did mention that briefly, but I may not have stressed it enough. The number was 2,013 and, if I remember correctly, without checking the notes, only 9% said that they did not agree with the measures, while the rest did not know. The positive figure of those who agreed was 86%.

[David Morris]

On the poll’s accuracy, how many people did not take part? It has been found that more than 25% did not take part in previous Ashcroft polls, and that skewed the results considerably.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am sure that some people declined to take part in the poll, but even if we assume, which would be an erroneous thing to do, that everyone who refused to take part did so because they did not agree with the Bill, there would still be a substantial majority in favour of the measures. That is my point.

The subject of illegal immigration is pertinent largely because of the great play that was made by the Prime Minister and others before the 2010 election that the aim of the forthcoming Conservative Government—as we now know, the outcome was a coalition Government—was to reduce the amount of net migration from the hundreds of thousands to the tens of thousands. We heard that claim many times, and I very much support such an ambition and such an aim.

When one looks at the figures, one clearly sees why such an aim and ambition was necessary. The average annual net migration during the 2005 Parliament was about 247,000 or roughly a quarter of a million every year. The figures reached a high of 287,000 in the year ending June 2007, and fell to a low of 205,000 in the year ending June 2009. Was there a reduction in net migration following the 2010 election? Sadly, there was not. In the first year of the 2010 Parliament, net migration increased to 263,000 in the year ending June 2011. It fell a little for the following five quarters, falling as low as 154,000 in the year ending September 2012—the lowest estimated net migration in any 12-month period since the year ending December 1998.

Since 2012, net migration has risen again, reaching 336,000 in the year ending March 2015. That was about 89,000 higher than the annual average net migration during the 2005 Parliament, and it was the highest estimate of net migration in any 12-month period. Before the year ending March 2015, the highest estimated net migration was 320,000 in the year ending June 2005. The most recent estimate of net migration is 323,000 in the year ending September 2015. We have gone from having an annual average of about 247,000 during the 2005 Parliament to the latest figure of 323,000 for the year ending September 2015.

The figures for legal migration are not going in the right direction, so it is understandable, against that background, that there is even more focus on those who have arrived in this country illegally. As my hon. Friends the Members for Christchurch and for Gainsborough have already explained, we must ask ourselves why these desperate people in what the tabloids have called the “jungle” in Calais—I entirely agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough that they will, I am sure, all have desperate stories of fleeing persecution—have not claimed asylum in France or, if they have come up through Spain, in Spain. Those people do not do so partly because of the pull factors, as they are so often called, such as our way of life in this country.

There is a whole range of reasons why people may want to come and live in this country. Our benefits system or our national health system may well bring them here. One reason why they may wish to enter the country illegally is that they know there is very little chance of their being arrested, imprisoned and deported. That is the key point. It is extremely worrying that we have no official estimates later than those for 2005, in the study which has been mentioned, for the number of people who are in this country illegally.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

From listening to the debate in my office and since I have been in the Chamber, it seems to me that, based on the figures, about one in 60 people in our country is here illegally. To put it more simply, someone on a London bus that is three-quarters full is here illegally.

[Mr Nuttall]

That is a very nice way of putting it. My hon. Friend makes a good point. It will be interesting to hear the Minister’s response to such points.

One must question why there has been no more recent study. Of course—but I am sure I must be wrong—the reason why there are no more recent statistics may be that Governments of both colours do not want to know the answers. That is the truth of it, is it not? Nobody wants to investigate this problem because if the truth comes out that there are 1 million people in this country illegally, it would be so shocking. No one dares face up to that fact.

It is worth making the point—this is not a criticism, so I think I am in order, Mr Deputy Speaker—that the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Jack Dromey) claimed back in 2005-06, when he was employed as deputy general secretary of the Transport and General Workers Union, that about 500,000 illegal immigrants were working in this country. I have no reason to disbelieve the analysis he made some 10 years ago. In view of the figures I gave for what we might call authorised migration—legal migration—it is reasonable to assume on that basis that illegal immigration has also increased.

The Bill is not about reducing migration and this debate is not about our involvement with the European Union and the fact that our membership allows the free movement of people under European treaties, but free movement has an impact on illegal migration. Free movement makes it necessary for Governments to clamp down on migration from countries outside the European Union, making it much harder for people from such countries to come into this country legally, so there is an increased inducement for people to try their hand or to have a go.

[Sir Edward Leigh]

We have the absurd situation that someone from Romania who does not work here and will never want to work here can come to this country, but a most distinguished American professor of Shakespearian literature—one of the most distinguished people in the world—who came to Stratford-upon-Avon to talk about Shakespeare but stayed a few days too long, was arrested, frog-marched to a police station and deported. It beggars belief that we are preventing research scientists and nuclear physicists from India or America from coming here. Mass migration from the EU is therefore pertinent to this debate, because people are so frustrated and that is leading to all this illegal immigration.

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I am glad that Sir Edward has given his ruling, but I will give mine. He may think his intervention was pertinent to this debate, but I do not think it was. The EU has been mentioned and there has been a discussion around it, but I do not want this debate to be dominated by the EU. As has already been said, migration from the EU is legal, but this debate is about illegal immigration. I welcome Sir Edward’s rulings when he chairs Committees, but today I am in the Chair.

[Mr Nuttall]

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. I thank my hon. Friend for his anecdote.

In an earlier intervention, I referred to exit checks. I think that the point I made is a valid one. Although I accept that, as my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said, many illegal immigrants will not have the necessary papers and will therefore not be able to leave through the normal channels, there will be many who do have papers and are therefore able to leave the country. There must be some evidence. It may well be that the Minister is able to say, “There’s no problem. Every single person who has left and on whom we have done an exit check was here legally, and not a single person whom we have come across was not meant to be here.” That may be the finding, but I would be interested to know the figures.

When the Bill was debated the last time, one of the arguments against adopting the measures in the Bill, which I thought was a weak argument, was that it was too expensive to do anything and much easier to allow people to go about their business, and that when the Home Office could get around to it, it would deal with the problem. That re-emphasises the point that people will take a punt. They will come here on the basis that their chances of ever being detected are fairly low, and that if they just keep their heads down, they will not be locked up or deported.

The other argument put forward by the Minister at the Dispatch Box was that the Bill had no merit because it replicated measures that were already in statute, in particular the Immigration Act 1971, so there was no need for those in the Bill. That is all very well. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch mentioned that fewer than two people a week have been prosecuted under the 1971 Act. I think that he gave the figure of 72 in a year. Can the Minister confirm, as a matter of interest, that everyone who was prosecuted was deported? That would be an interesting fact to know.

We are in a similar situation today to that of two years ago when, as luck would have it for the Government, the 2014 Immigration Bill was going through Parliament. Another Immigration Bill is going through Parliament at present, which contains a provision to make it a criminal offence for an illegal immigrant to work in this country. If, apparently, the 1971 Act provides sufficient penalties to deter people from being here at all, it would presumably cover the situation of their working here illegally. Let me put that another way. Can the Minister think of any circumstances where someone who is prosecuted under the new Immigration Bill could not already be prosecuted for being here illegally under the provisions of the 1971 Act?

Most of our constituents would consider this Bill sensible. I accept that it is not easy to calculate the number of illegal immigrants in this country. It appears that no attempt has even been made for more than a decade. But to try and brush the issue under the carpet because it is too difficult is not the way forward. We have to tackle the matter. The Bill is a modest measure, but it is one that would be welcomed across the country, and I am pleased to be able to support it.

[Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)]

It is a great pleasure to be here again on a Friday morning. I always enjoy these moments. The memories of them will last me into my old age.

I was worried that we would not get to this Bill today—after all, we had two Report stages and Third Readings beforehand. However, the hon. Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope) was kind enough to talk to me and reassure me that we would indeed have the opportunity to discuss his Bill. In fact, he was kind enough even to tell me what time I would be speaking, and he was 10 minutes out. What can I say? I was here in decent time and I am grateful.

[Mr Nuttall]

Was that 10 minutes early or 10 minutes late? Should I have extended my remarks?

[Lyn Brown]

It is always a pleasure to listen to the hon. Gentleman. An extra 10 minutes would have taken me to the time that the hon. Member for Christchurch told me I would start.

[Mr Nuttall]

I was cut short!

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

By himself.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Harrington]

My hon. Friend is right: our policy is not to allow asylum seekers to work until their legal status has been decided, but we have tried to shorten the intervening time. I should make clear that those who are covered by our humanitarian protection programme are allowed to work with no interregnum, because their status was sorted out when they were given their visas in the first place. However, I think we would all agree that, whether their applications are successful or not, the period during which asylum seekers do not know where they stand is too long. Given that they are also a burden on the United Kingdom taxpayer because they receive significant assistance from the state—although some might argue that it is not enough—it is in everyone’s interests to ensure that their status is determined very quickly.

We are taking further steps to limit the factors that draw illegal migrants to the United Kingdom. We have, for example, created a role for a director of labour market enforcement, which extends the powers that are currently available to the Gangmasters Licensing Authority. We are also amending the criminal sanction for employing people unlawfully in the United Kingdom, which will make it easier to bring prosecutions. For the first time, rogue businesses will face a real possibility of imprisonment for repeated or serious breaches of labour market legislation. At present, many such breaches are punishable through a fine, which the businesses involved regard as merely a cost of working, almost as we regard paying tax or any of the other normal working expenses. That is outrageous, because they are committing a criminal offence.

We are improving immigration enforcement by imposing tougher conditions on illegal migrants, denying them further access to services including housing and banking, and giving more powers to immigration officers conducting enforcement operations. The Immigration Bill will enable landlords to obtain possession of their property when their tenants no longer have a right to rent. We are also creating four new criminal offences to target rogue landlords and agents who deliberately and repeatedly fail to comply with the right to rent scheme, or fail to evict individuals who they know—or have reasonable cause to believe—are disqualified from renting as a result of their immigration status.

We are dealing with rogue employers, just as we are dealing with rogue landlords and driving by illegal immigrants. Many people have been taking advantage of the present system, but they will no longer be allowed to do so, and will face criminal sanctions. It will be possible, for instance, to close business premises for up to 48 hours when an employer has already incurred a civil penalty, or has been prosecuted for employing illegal workers. We are attacking the infrastructure that currently surrounds illegal immigrants: we are attacking every aspect of their lives that is illegal. More important, we are attacking those who actually perpetrate the illegality. For example, the Bill makes illegal working a criminal offence in its own right, because we think that that is sensible.

[Mr Nuttall]

Will the Minister now answer the question that I asked earlier? In January 2014, he said that these provisions were not necessary because they were in the Immigration Act. If someone who is in the country illegally can already be dealt with under the Act, what is the point of creating a specific offence?

[Richard Harrington]

I did answer my hon. Friend’s earlier question, and I will answer this question in the same way. We are talking about the combination of an existing Act and a Bill that is going through Parliament. As I have just said, the Immigration Bill will make illegal working a criminal offence in its own right, and that will cover self-employed as well as employed people. Moreover, it will be possible for wages paid to illegal workers to be seized as the proceeds of crime, through the activation of powers conferred by the Proceeds of Crime Act 2002.

There seems to be an argument that we need this Bill because the Government are doing nothing, and because there is complete anarchy relating to illegal immigration. The European Union referendum came up quite a lot in the earlier part of the debate, and I accept that that discussion would have been stopped if we had been under your supervision, Mr Deputy Speaker. Your predecessor in the Chair—Mr Speaker himself—was perhaps more tolerant on this issue. [Hon. Members: “Ooh!”] I did not mean the issue of whether we should remain in the European Union; I meant the issue of whether this debate should be expanded to cover that subject.

I always listen very carefully to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough. He centred a lot of his speech on Europe and on the consequences of leaving the EU that French Ministers have been mentioning recently. I do not think that that is relevant to this debate. I think it was my hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Tom Tugendhat) who said that if we were not in the EU, we would have to have different relations with France anyway and everything would need to be renegotiated. So I am slightly confused about this. What does my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough think an illegal immigrant is? No one could possibly say that all the people from Europe who are here at the moment, including the Polish people who have been mentioned, are illegal immigrants. Would they become illegal immigrants? It has been made very clear that they are all coming here to work.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Friday 5th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the clause be read a Second time.

[Mr Speaker]

With this it will be convenient to discuss the following:

New clause 2—Reduction of Cabinet members’ salaries if 0.7% target not met—

“If an annual report laid before Parliament in 2016 or any subsequent calendar year shows that the 0.7% target has not been met in the report year, salaries provided for under Section 1 and Part 1 of Schedule 1 to the Ministerial and Other Salaries Act 1975 shall each be reduced by £1000 in the following financial year.”

New clause 3—Annual reporting: relevant period—

“(1) The International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act 2006 shall be amended by leaving out section 1(2) and inserting—

“(2) In this Act, “relevant period” means a period of 12 months ending with 31 March in the case of information which is normally produced by reference to financial years.”’

New clause 4—Independent International Development Office—

“(1) There shall be established an independent body known as the Independent International Development Office (referred to in this Act as “the IIDO”).

(2) The Schedule [The Independent International Development Office] makes provision about the IIDO.”

New clause 5—Calculation of ODA for the purposes of section 1—

“An amount equivalent to the following annual payments, or estimates thereof, shall be included in the calculation of annual UK ODA for the purposes of section 1—

(a) the amount payable by the United Kingdom to the European Union.

(b) Welfare benefits paid to foreign nationals.

(c) Welfare benefits paid to UK nationals living abroad.

(d) The administrative costs of the Department for International Development and its agencies and associated public bodies.”

New clause 6—Calculation of Gross National Income for the purposes of section 1—

“Adjustments to the figure provided to Parliament as the UK’s gross national income as at the end of the financial year shall not change or invalidate the UK’s performance against the target under section 1.”

New clause 7—Applicability and expiry of the provisions of this Act—

“(1) This Act shall come into force on such a day appointed by the Secretary of State by an order contained in a statutory instrument.

(2) An order under subsection (1) shall not be made unless a referendum has taken place in the United Kingdom and more than 50% of those casting a vote do so in favour of meeting the target.

(3) This Act shall only have effect in those years where the United Kingdom records a budget surplus.

(4) The Secretary of State may vary the target mentioned in section 1 by an order contained in a statutory instrument in response to the UK leaving or joining a multilateral organisation which itself disburses ODA.

(5) This Act shall expire on the anniversary of its coming into force in the fifth year of its being so in force.”

Amendment 16, in clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out “gross national income” and insert

“final gross national income of the preceding year.”

Amendment 20, page 1, line , leave out “met” and insert “progressed toward”.

Amendment 18, page 1, line 5, leave out “calendar” and insert “financial”.

Amendment 5, page 1, line 5, at end insert

“when the central government net cash requirement is in surplus.”

Amendment 21, page 1, line 6, leave out “the 0.7% and insert “a 0.35%”.

Amendment 6, page 1, line 7, leave out from “by” to end of line 9 and insert

“the Office for Budget Responsibility.”

Amendment 19, page 1, line 13, at end insert

““financial year”, for the purposes of this Act, includes a period which begins with the day on which this Act comes into force and ends on the following 31 March.”

Amendment 22, in clause 2, page 1, line 16, leave out “the 0.7% and insert “a 0.35%”.

Amendment 7, page 1, line 17, leave out

“as soon as reasonably practicable”

and insert

“, no more than 10 days during which both Houses of Parliament are sitting,”.

Amendment 8, page 1, line 18, leave out from “statement” to end of line 19.

Amendment 23, page 2, line 2, leave out “the 0.7% and insert “a 0.35%”.

Amendment 24, page 2, line 5, leave out “the 0.7% and insert “a 0.35%”.

Amendment 9, page 2, line 7, leave out from “State,” to end of line 8 and insert

“need take no action on the basis of such a revision.”

Amendment 10, page 2, line 8, leave out from “statement” to end of line 9.

Amendment 11, page 2, line 10, leave out subsections (3) and (4).

Amendment 25, page 2, line 10, leave out “the 0.7% and insert “a 0.35%”.

Amendment 26, page 2, line 19, leave out “the 0.7% and insert “a 0.35%”.

Amendment 1,  page 2, line 25, leave out clause 3.

Amendment 15, page 2, line 36, leave out clause 5.

Amendment 2, in clause 5, page 2, line 39, at end insert

“and is relevant, sustainable and capable of having a measurable impact.”

Amendment 37, in clause 6, page 3, line 4, leave out subsection (2).

Amendment 3, page 3, line 4, leave out “1 June 2015” and insert “1 January 2016”

New schedule 1—The Independent Commission For Aid Impact—

“Accountability and Reporting

1 (1) It will be the responsibility of the Secretary of State for International Developent to lay responses to reports of the ICAI before Parliament.

(2) The ICAI shall carry out all other duties as established.

Finance

2 (1) The budget of the ICAI for the purpose of section ( ) will be agreed by the Secretary of State for International Development.

(2) The Department for International Development may make to the ICAI such payments out of money provided by Parliament as the Department for International Development considers appropriate for the purposes of enabling the ICAI to meet its expenses arising under this Act.

(3) Payment are to be made at such times, and subject to any such conditions, as the Department for International Development considers appropriate.”

New schedule 2—The independent International Development Office—

“Membership—

1 The IIDO is to consist of a member to chair it and six other members, appointed by the Secretary of State for International Development following apre-appointment hearing by, and with the consent of, the International Development Committee of the House of Commons.

Employees

2 (1) The IIDO may employ staff.

(2) Staff are to be employed on such terms as to remuneration and other matters as the IIDO may, with the approval of the Minister for the Civil Service, determine.

(3) Service as a member of staff of the IIDO is employment in the civil service of the State.

(4) The IIDO must pay to the Minister for the Civil Service, at such times as the Minister may direct, such sums as the Minister may determine in respect of the increase in the sums payable out of money provided by Parliament that is attributable to the provision of pensions, allowances or gratuities under section 1 of the Superannuation Act 1972 payable to or in respect of persons who are or have been members of staff of the IIDO.

Duties

3 (1) The IIDO will have the responsibility to carry out independent evaluation of the relevance, impact, value-for-money and sustainability of ODA.

(2) The IIDO will develop systems to verify the extent to which ODA is spent efficiently and effectively.

Annual report

4 (1) The IIDO must prepare a report of the performance of its functions in each financial year.

(2) The report relating to a financial year must be prepared as soon as possible after the end of the financial year.

(3) The report must be sent to the Department for International Development.

(4) The Department for International Development must lay the report before Parliament.

(5) “Financial year” means—

(a) the period which begins with the day on which this Schedule comes into force and ends with the following 31 March;

(b) each successive period of 12 months.

Accountability and Reporting

5 (1) It will be the responsibility of the Secretary of State for International Development to lay responses to reports of the IIDO before Parliament.

(2) The International Development Committee of the House of Commons may provide parliamentary oversight of the work of the IIDO and report annually on its current and future work programme.

Finance

6 (1) The budget of the IIDO will be agreed by the Secretary of State for International Development.

(2) The Department for International Development may make to the IIDO such payments out of money provided by Parliament as the Department for International Development considers appropriate for the purpose of enabling the IIDO to meet its expenses.

(3) Payments are to be made at such times, and subject to any such conditions, as the Department for International Development considers appropriate.

Accounts and audit

7 (1) The IIDO must—

(a) keep proper accounts and proper records in relation to its accounts, and

(b) pre pare in respect of each financial year a statement of accounts.

(2) Each statement of accounts must comply with any directions given by the International Development Committee as to—

(a) the information to be contained in it and the manner in which it is to be presented,

(b) t he methods and principles according to which the statement is to be prepared, and

(c) the additional information (if any) which is to be provided to Parliament.

(3) The IIDO must send a copy of each statement of accounts to—

(a) the Secretary of State for International Development, and

(b) the Comptroller and Auditor General, before the end of the month of June next following the financial year to which the statement relates.

(4) The Comptroller and Auditor General must—

(a) examine, certify and report on each statement of accounts, and

(b) send a copy of each report and certified statement to the Secretary of State for International Development.

(5) The Secretary of State for International Development must lay before Parliament a copy of each such report and certified statement.

(6) “Financial year” has the same meaning as in paragraph 4(5).

(7) The IIDO must keep under review whether its internal financial controls secure the proper conduct of its financial affairs.

References to International Development Committee

8 (1) Any reference in this Schedule to the International Development Committee of the House of Commons—

(a) (a) if the name of that Committee is changed, is to be treated as a reference to that Committee by its new name, and

(b) if the functions of that Committee (or substantially corresponding functions) become functions of a different Committee of the House of Commons, is to be treated as a reference to the Committee by which those functions are exercisable.

(2) Any question arising under sub-paragraph (1) is to be determined by the Speaker of the House of Commons.”

Amendment (a), to new schedule 2, line 3, leave out “six” and insert “four”.

Amendment (b), line 4, leave out “for International Development”.

Amendment (c), line 5, leave out from “of,” to end of line 6 and insert

“a committee in the House of Commons and an equivalent committee in the House of Lords”.

Amendment (d), line 6 after “Commons” insert

“and equivalent committee in the House of Lords”.

Amendment (e), line 12 leave out sub-paragraph (3).

Amendment (f), line 19 at end insert—

“2A All costs associated with the IIDO shall count towards the target set out in section 1 of this Act.”

Amendment (g), line 38 leave out “for International Development”.

Amendment (h), line 72 leave out “for International Development”.

Amendment (i), line 78 leave out paragraph 8.

[Mr Nuttall]

As the House will have seen on the amendment paper this morning, there are seven new clauses, two new schedules and several amendments. I propose to divide the amendments into several sub-groups, although others may choose to deal with them in a different way. For the sake of clarity, it might be helpful if I draw together a number of different threads. I will start with new clause 1 and new schedule 1.

[Sir Peter Bottomley (Worthing West) (Con)]

For context, and for those who read our debates, perhaps we should remind ourselves that we are talking about whether, from every £100 of our wealth, we should give 70p each year to those who will use it well. It is important for people to know that some Conservatives—probably most—want the Bill to go through and some oppose it, and some of these discussions help to delay the passage of the Bill.

[Mr Nuttall]

I do not want to be drawn immediately off target. We are considering some rather detailed provisions this morning. I accept that there are different views. There are many on the Government Benches who think it would be a good thing to use some of our public money—moneys that we have taken from the taxpayer—to pay for international aid. To a large extent, I go along with that, but what the Bill does is entirely different. It tries to enshrine in statute one particular area of Government spending, which no other areas of Government spending enjoy. It could be argued that it is better for a Government to spend whatever they want, be it 0.7% or 0.8%, of their own free will, rather than being obliged by statute to do so. There is another point. There may be those who, once they see that the 0.7% target has been enshrined in statute, think the job is done.

The people of this country have a long and proud history of giving generously to charity, and long may that continue, but is not there a danger that some—although not all—might think that, because 0.7% is enshrined in statute, the Government are doing that job for them? I for one do not wish to go down that road. I would like people to feel that it is also their responsibility, as an act of charity, to contribute to international aid.

[Mr Chope]

Is not the problem with the Bill highlighted by the autumn statement? GDP is forecast to increase by more than 3%, which means more than £400 million extra will have to be spent on overseas aid next year in order to meet the target. At the same time, the Chancellor is saying that we are still in the age of austerity.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Several newspapers have today reported that that would indeed be the effect of an after-the-event revision in gross national income. Some of the amendments that we will consider today attempt to deal with that problem.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

Is it not worse than that, though? Given what the Chancellor said in the autumn statement, and given the OBR’s projections, Government spending as a proportion of GDP will have to come down. As the OBR has highlighted, even health spending will have to come down as a proportion of GDP. If the Bill goes through unamended, the percentage of Government spending that goes on overseas aid would have to keep rising, rather than remaining constant. Our amendments are designed to deal with that anomaly.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. That is one of the reasons why we are attempting to change the definitions in the Bill.

As I mentioned, there are several new clauses, two new schedules and 22 amendments. I propose to speak first to new clause 1 and new schedule 1 and then to contrast them with new clause 4 and new schedule 2, together with several amendments thereto that have been tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). I will then deal with the proposed changes to the definitions in the Bill and one or two stand-alone amendments that do not fit into the other categories. I will deal with the accounting period at the same time. I will then speak to a series of amendments that would reduce the figure from 0.7% to 0.35% and explain how that proposal arose.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend mentioned our hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). Perhaps I should point out that he has been detained as one of his children is performing in a Christmas event at school, but he will be dashing here as soon as he can to speak to his amendments. I thought that I ought to put that on the record.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am extremely grateful for that intervention, because I was looking towards where our hon. Friend normally sits in the Chamber and was somewhat concerned by his lack of presence. I am relieved that he will be able to deal with amendments 8, 9, 10, 11 and 37, which stand in his name. I will touch on those briefly at the end of my remarks. Before that, I will deal with the definitions of the accounting period, the 0.35% proposal, the issue of enforcement, which is dealt with in new clause 2, and amendments 1, 2 and 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope).

Concerns were raised on Second Reading about the original Bill’s provision for a new body that was to be known as the independent international development office. That had been provided for in clause 5. Although the clause was relatively short, the related detail in the schedule to the Bill was extensive. Subsection (1) simply stated that there should be established an independent body, known as the independent international development office—I shall refer to it from now on as the IIDO—and subsection (2) provided that the schedule should make provision for it. The schedule provided a lot of details about the membership of the IIDO, including who its employees were going to be, its duties, its annual report, its accountability and reporting requirements, its financial arrangements, and its internal financial accounting and audit requirements. It was a comprehensive statement of what was to be required of the new body.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful case for new clause 1. Given that the proponents of the Bill say that the proposals in new clause 4 received overwhelming support when they formed part of the Bill on Second Reading, does he not think that those people should have the opportunity to vote for the Bill that they voted for on Second Reading rather than for a Bill that a few individuals decided to change in Committee? Is new clause 4 not, therefore, helpful because it would allow people to vote for the Bill that they thought they were voting for the first time around?

[Mr Nuttall]

I certainly hope that the House will have the opportunity to choose between the options that are available. The will of the House may well be for a new body to be established, but I have concerns about that. A new quango will need staffing; it will need to find new premises, probably at great expense—perhaps in London, or perhaps in another part of the country; it will need to set up a new website; and it will need to set up its own accounting functions. It will need to start from scratch, whereas the ICAI is already up and running. In Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr O’Brien) said of the ICAI that

“we have been extremely pleased with the members who have served on it under an expert chairmanship.”

Of course, my right hon. Friend was a DFID Minister back in 2010 when this body was being established. He went on to say:

“They were able to make their own selection of the projects they wanted to examine, after looking at a menu of options. None of that was steered by or in any way discussed with Ministers or the Department. It was entirely an opportunity for ICAI to make its own judgment; indeed, that is precisely what it has done over the years. I think everyone would agree that that has had a good and beneficial effect, in terms of scrutiny and ensuring real accountability for the massive aspirations that are tied to this public money reaching the intended destinations and public goods. ICAI now has a track record.”––[Official Report, International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Public Bill Committee, 11 November 2014; c. 36.]

My right hon. Friend clearly thinks that there may be a role for the ICAI and I hope it will find favour with the House.

[Philip Davies]

Clause 5 states:

“The Secretary of State must make arrangements for the independent evaluation of the extent to which”

the aid

“provided by the United Kingdom represent value for money”.

The Bill does not say how that will be achieved, so without either new clause 4 or new clause 1 Members will potentially be voting for a pig in a poke.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I hope that when the Minister addresses this sub-group of amendments he will explain exactly how the provision in the version of clause 5 that was inserted in Committee—it is not the same version that the House agreed on Second Reading—will be achieved in practice. It is all very well to say that the Secretary of State

“must make arrangements for the independent evaluation of the extent to which ODA”

represents value for money, but it would be helpful to know exactly how that particular provision will be delivered.

[Philip Davies]

Is not the danger with the Bill as crafted that, in effect, the Government will be responsible for deciding what constitutes an independent evaluation and for marking their own homework? Surely it is the duty of this House to set up the basis on which we think the Government should be scrutinised, rather than leave it to them to decide for themselves what constitutes independent evaluation.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is right. Indeed, more suspicious minds than mine may wonder why the Government are reluctant to include a provision to enable either the ICAI or my hon. Friend’s proposed body to carry out independent evaluation and oversee the Department’s work. There may be a good answer to that and I look forward to hearing the Minister’s explanation.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Nuttall]

Yes; I am pleased to see that my hon. Friend has arrived in the Chamber.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

It is always one of life’s great pleasures to be in the Chamber, and it is always a sadness to be away from it.

My hon. Friend is making an interesting point, and I wonder whether it brings us to the underlying tokenism of the Bill: without any proper mechanism for checking whether the money is well spent, it is merely a grandiloquent expression of intent, rather than proper legislation.

[Mr Nuttall]

That is the core problem, which some of us have pointed out since the Bill’s inception: it is a Bill without teeth. One of the new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley shows how the Bill might be given more teeth, or enforcement powers.

The ICAI would be the perfect body to carry out the role of scrutiny and evaluation because it operates on the basis of the following core values. It is independent: it undertakes its work without fear or favour, and reports the facts as it finds them. It has professional rigour and uses the highest professional standards to gather and evaluate evidence. It is transparent in that it places on its website all its reports and, crucially, the supporting analysis, as well as its records of costs and activities. It is responsive in that it takes into account public and parliamentary opinion in selecting its work programme and undertaking its work. It is innovative in that it makes the most of its new status to experiment with new ways of working, reporting and interacting with its stakeholders. Its last core value is to operate with the greatest integrity by ensuring that its operations are characterised by value for money, high ethical standards, transparency, and accountability to Parliament and the public.

The ICAI is a fairly small body. It consists of just four commissioners, who are led by the chief commissioner and supported by a small secretariat. We are not talking about some large, burgeoning bureaucracy. I accept that it has not been going for many years, but it has been around for most of this Parliament. As I said, it has been well received. Its work has been praised by former Ministers of the Department and the International Development Committee.

The ICAI is the ideal body to take on this role. It will have to be undertaken by somebody, because clause 5 states that the Secretary of State “must”—it does not say “may”—

“make arrangements for the independent evaluation of the extent to which ODA provided by the United Kingdom represents value for money”.

If the ICAI is not going to carry out that work, who is? It is vital work on behalf of this House and, indeed, the country.

I will go through the other proposals in passing. New clause 5, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, gives us a flavour of what I have loosely termed the definition amendments. It sets out that

“An amount equivalent to the following annual payments, or estimates thereof, shall be included in the calculation of annual UK ODA for the purposes of section 1—

(a) the amount payable by the United Kingdom to the European Union

(b) Welfare benefits paid to foreign nationals

(c) Welfare benefits paid to UK nationals living abroad

(d) The administrative costs of the Department for International Development and its agencies and associated public bodies.”

There was some discussion on the last point in Committee on whether the cost of running the Department should be included in, or excluded from, the target. It seems entirely sensible to include the cost in the target for the simple reason that it gives those involved in the work of international development programmes the desire to help themselves. The more they cut down on administration, the more they can put towards the cost of helping the people around the world we all want to see helped. I am sure my hon. Friend will have more to say about the quite astonishing figures relating to the amount of welfare benefits that go around the world. Without new clause 5, they will not be included in the definition of what constitutes overseas development assistance.

[Jacob Rees-Mogg]

Before my hon. Friend moves on, he mentioned payments to the European Union being included. As most of those payments go to poorer countries in the EU, is it not perverse that they do not count as overseas aid?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend, as ever, is absolutely right. That is one reason why new clause 5 should be included in the Bill. As we all know, a substantial part, if not the largest part, of EU funds are disbursed in regional grants to the poorer parts of the EU.

[Philip Davies]

Just to give an illustration, the overseas aid Department gives aid to Moldova, which is the poorest country in Europe. If Moldova were to become a member of the EU, we would be expected to make higher contributions to the EU to pay for all the work that would need to be done to bring Moldova up to scratch. The money we currently give to Moldova in overseas aid would then have to go somewhere else. In effect, the money would be spent twice.

[Mr Nuttall]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that example, which is a perfect reason why it would make sense to accept new clause 5.

New clause 6, also tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley, concerns the calculation of gross national income for the purposes of section 1. As has already been touched on briefly in an intervention by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch, some difficulty has arisen this week concerning national statistics. As often happens, to be fair, they are subject to revision as more information comes in and more firms send their statistics to the Office for National Statistics.

New clause 6 therefore proposes:

“Adjustments to the figure provided to Parliament as the UK’s gross national income as at the end of the financial year shall not change or invalidate the UK’s performance against the target under section 1.”

Together with the other amendments that are being proposed, that would go some way towards dealing with the problem we have seen this week.

Amendment 16 proposes:

“Clause 1, page 1, line 4, leave out ‘gross national income’ and insert ‘final gross national income of the preceding year.’”

It would also deal with the problem of changes being made to the gross national income after the figures had been reported.

Amendment 5 is slightly different. It was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset, who has disappeared for the moment. It proposes:

“Clause 1, Page 1, line 5, at end insert “when the central government net cash requirement is in surplus.””

That is an important change, given the overall position of our nation’s finances, and I am sure that my hon. Friend will have more to say about this and his other amendments before the House today.

Amendment 20 would

“leave out “met” and insert “progressed toward”.”

That would cut down on the number of times the Secretary of State has to account for not having met the target.

Amendment 6, which would amend clause 1, page 1, line 7, deals with the inclusion of a role for the Office for Budget Responsibility. This is perhaps one of the most important amendments being proposed this morning, because rather than leaving matters as are currently provided for in the Bill it would be much better if the responsibility for determining whether the target had been met was decided by the independent OBR.

The OBR has been much in the news this week, as it has given its report on the nation’s finances. Again, rather than having the current provision in the Bill, it would be much more sensible if this task was given to the independent OBR. It would not be much of a further imposition on its resources. It is the organisation that has these figures, and each week, each month and each year it has to report to this House. It will be the first organisation to know whether the figure—0.7% or any other figure that the House may decide upon—has been met.

New clause 7, also in this sub-group, was tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley and is entitled, “Applicability and expiry of the provisions of this Act”. Subsection (1) reads:

“This Act shall come into force on such a day appointed by the Secretary of State by an order contained in a statutory instrument.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Chope]

I have not signed new clause 7, but its heart seems to be that the Bill will have effect only in years when the UK records a budget surplus. Does my hon. Friend agree that without such a provision the Bill will require the Government to increase borrowing to fund overseas aid?

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. While we are in deficit we are undoubtedly borrowing money to pay for the overseas aid budget. There is no getting away from that. It is a fact of economic life. Some might think it a good idea to borrow money with one hand and give it away with the other; others might not take that view. It would be an interesting referendum were one to be held on that question.

In one way or another, new clause 3 and amendments 18 and 19 deal with the accounting period in the Bill. I might have missed it—I am happy to stand corrected—but nowhere in our proceedings have I seen a convincing explanation of why the accounting period by which our success in meeting the target is to be assessed is a calendar year, rather than a financial year, which we all deal in. The new clause and amendments would change the relevant accounting period from a calendar year to a financial year, bringing to the Bill much greater clarity, openness and transparency, because all the Government’s accounts are done in financial years. I cannot see why this aspect of Government expenditure should be any different. I hope that those amendments find favour with the House.

[Mr Chope]

Does my hon. Friend agree that, as drafted, the Bill will require a lot of extra expense and work? The figures are already calculated on a financial year basis, so changing the basis to a calendar year will incur additional expense.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It makes sense for those who want to see the United Kingdom making the maximum impact with the money available for international aid, including some who have tabled amendments, to make the reporting requirements—everyone accepts we need some means of evaluation so there must be reporting requirements—as simple as possible. I cannot understand why we make them so complicated by putting them on a different basis from all the other Government accounts. It seems to me logical and common sense to assess the accounting period on the same basis as for all other annual accounts.

Amendments 21 to 26 would reduce the figure of 0.7% to 0.35%. Before anyone jumps up to say that this will mean cutting our aid in half, let me say that that is not necessarily so. This issue reveals the problem with the Bill. At the end of the day, the Government could continue to spend more than 0.35% on international aid; they could continue to spend 0.7% or even 0.8% on it if they were so minded. It is worth while considering why this figure of 0.7% has achieved almost mythical proportions.

[Philip Davies]

Does my hon. Friend agree that we need some flexibility around what is affordable for the country? Simply having a very high target every year, irrespective of the country’s financial circumstances, is ludicrous. These amendments would thus allow some flexibility to take much more account of the nation’s finances.

[Mr Nuttall]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I will not go into all the detail, but other countries have realised this point. If the suggestion of 0.35% were adopted and the Government decided on it—I do not think for one second that they will—it would put us in the pack rather than being second in the list, as we are at the moment. We would not be behind the rest of the world. It is worth looking at the detail of the figures. Anyone who does so will see that, rather bizarrely, for most of the last two or three decades we have spent around 0.35% and that it is only in the past three or four or probably five or six years—and incredibly since the financial crash—that there has been a huge increase at a time when the country can arguably least afford it.

I am conscious of the fact that there are many amendments, so I shall move on quickly to deal with the final two groups. My hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch has tabled three amendments, one of which is amendment 2. It sets out one of the criteria for evaluation of the policy and provides that it should be

“relevant, sustainable and capable of having a measurable impact.”

I look forward to hearing my hon. Friend’s explanation of the definition of “sustainable”. Perhaps he will convince me that that can be easily assessed. Amendments 8, 9, 10, 11 and 37 were tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset. I should mention in passing that any Member who looked at the Notices of Amendments in the Table Office yesterday should bear it in mind that at that stage amendment 37 appeared as amendment 10. The second “amendment 10” should have been “amendment 37”. I am sure that my hon. Friend will set out in convincing detail his reasons for believing that the amendments should be accepted.

It is right and proper for the Bill to be scrutinised this morning. Millions of people outside the House support this country’s aim and ambition to do all that it can to help those around the world who are starving and need help—no one denies that—but I do not think that giving special status to our aid programme has universal support in this country, and I think it important in a democracy for all sides of the argument to be put.

As I have attempted to say during the last few minutes, the amendments would not wreck the Bill. In fact, they would make it more understandable. If they were implemented, more rather than less money would be available for international development. They would make the Bill more straightforward and transparent, and would increase the funding available for international aid.

[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I hope that we shall make good progress today, and respond to the concerns of those who have tabled amendments, new clauses and new schedules. Given the number that have been tabled, I shall not speak to each one; instead, I shall address the broad themes into which they can intuitively be grouped.

The first of the themes that I can discern is independent evaluation—the independent oversight of the duties for which the Bill provides. This group includes proposals for the evaluation to be overseen by, variously, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, the Office for Budget Responsibility, and a newly created independent international development office—as well as, confusingly, a proposal that there should be no independent evaluation at all.

The hon. Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) has called for the creation of an independent international development office. The hon. Gentleman’s late conversion to the quangocracy is a surprising development, which is somewhat at odds with his own preference for

“Parliament regulating things rather than handing them out to random bodies.”—[Official Report, 12 July 2013; Vol. 566, c. 720.]

I look forward to hearing his views.

I can reassure Members that

“the independent evaluation of the extent to which ODA provided by the United Kingdom represents value for money”

was debated extensively in Committee—

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

The hon. Gentleman says “absolute rubbish” from a sedentary position, but there is lots of evidence that that does happen. In fact, he makes my case for me. If he thinks it is rubbish, then let us set up a body to prove that it is a load of rubbish. What his party and the Government fear is a body that points out that these things are happening, and so they have done away with it, because it may be embarrassing for all these things to be out in the open. We should have a body, which this House voted for on Second Reading, to scrutinise objectively what the Government are doing to ensure that the money is being spent wisely. How on earth can anyone disagree with that? What is there to disagree with about ensuring that the money is spent wisely and for the purposes for which it was intended? Why does no one have the nerve to stand up and disagree with it? They would rather slouch in their seats and try to railroad this Bill through Parliament.

My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North mentioned the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. Chief Commissioner Graham Ward said:

“We saw very little evidence that the work DFID is doing to combat corruption is successfully addressing the impact of corruption as experienced by the poor.”

When the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) says “rubbish”, he is at odds with what the ICAI chief commissioner said about corruption. Indeed, the chief commissioner went on to say:

“Indeed, there is little indication that DFID has sought to address the forms of corruption that most directly affect the poor: so called ‘petty’ corruption. This is a gap in DFID’s programming that needs to be filled.”

When we have the ICAI making that point for us, it is perfectly obvious that signing up to a blank cheque of overseas spending needs to be properly monitored. The ICAI has made it clear that the Government are not doing that effectively at the moment. Now it seems that the Government do not want anybody to judge how well they are spending the money. It is completely unacceptable to taxpayers to expect them to hand over money without any proper scrutiny.

New clause 5 requires a calculation of overseas aid spending for the purposes of clause 1 and asks that the calculation of ODA includes the amount paid by the UK to the EU, welfare benefits paid to foreign nationals and welfare benefits paid to UK nationals living abroad. All those things should be included in the 0.7% target, as I do not see how they could not be described in one way or another as overseas aid.

Let me give an example to illustrate. We as a country hand over to the EU just short of £20 billion every year and I think that we receive back about £8 billion a year, although my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North is the expert in these matters. One purpose of the money that comes back to the UK is for it to be spent in the areas of greatest deprivation in the UK. That is what the European Union does and, fortunately I guess, the UK clearly does not have that many areas of mass deprivation in an EU context, which is why we get so little back compared with what we put in. The extra money that we have put in is then diverted around the rest of the EU, in effect to prop up the poorest countries and to try to bring their economies up to a level similar to that of the rest of the EU. That is the purpose of how the EU is funded: it is about taking money from the richest countries and handing it over to the poorest. If that does not constitute overseas aid, I do not know what does.

If the Minister had had the courtesy to speak for more than five seconds flat, we might have known his opinion on this, but I thought that the purpose of overseas aid was to take money from the richest countries in the world and transfer it to the poorest. That is exactly what our funding to the EU does on a European basis. That seems to me to be overseas aid, without any controversy. It therefore seems quite extraordinary that everybody now argues that that is not overseas aid, that it should not be counted as such and that it should be paid on top of it. That means that our overseas aid spending will be not 0.7% but considerably higher— probably 2% of GDP by the time we add in all these other factors.

There is a clear case that our money to the EU should be classed as overseas aid and therefore form part of this target. Then, of course, we have welfare payments paid to foreign nationals. In recent years, far too many people from other countries have come to this country and, to be honest, migration is at levels that we cannot cope with. We are regularly told by people who are in favour of all this immigration that all these people will not stay here but will go back so we should not worry about it at all. I do not believe that, but I am humouring those people. That is their argument, but if that is the case it is perfectly clear that people are coming over here to get some of our British money, as we might want to describe it, to take back to their much poorer country. That seems to me to qualify as overseas aid by anybody’s standards, because in some cases the money is passed back to the country of origin while the person is in the UK. We are basically handing our money out to benefit the economies of those much poorer countries and we give a considerable amount in that way.

The third part of the new clause involves welfare benefits paid to UK nationals living abroad. Again, this is a considerable amount. I cannot find the figures offhand, but from recollection I would say that in the region of £3.8 billion a year is given by the Department for Work and Pensions to UK nationals living in countries around the world. That money does not benefit the UK economy in any shape or form. It benefits the economy of the country where those people reside, so that is clearly UK taxpayers’ money going out to benefit the economy of the other countries around the world. It seems to me that that is also overseas aid according to anybody’s reasonable definition.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does my hon. Friend find it astonishing that jobseeker’s allowance is included in those benefits? It is difficult to understand why the country is paying people jobseeker’s allowance when they are not even in the country.

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. You would not let me get sidetracked into discussing the definitions of benefits and how they should be paid, Mr Speaker, and I do not want to do so either, but it is worth mentioning in passing that £1 million a year of jobseeker’s allowance goes to people who live abroad. Like my hon. Friend, I am not entirely sure how they can qualify as a jobseeker, but that is a slightly incidental point.

I have the figures now for your benefit, Mr Speaker. In 2013-14, £3.6 billion of DWP money was given to people living abroad. That is a considerable amount of taxpayers’ money that benefits those countries and I do not really see why it should not count in the overseas aid budget. On all three counts, the Minister might want to explain why his Department does not think that that is the case, because he has given no indication of that at all.

New clause 5 also covers the administrative costs of the Department for International Development, its agencies and its associated public bodies. My hon. Friend the Member for Bury North touched on this and I am grateful to him for his support for my new clause in that regard. I am not entirely clear where the administrative costs for DFID and its agencies stand, and if people did not rattle through their speeches so fast, we might all actually learn something. Are administrative costs counted as overseas aid or do we say that overseas aid is paid over and above them? I am not entirely clear. I am clear, however, that they should be included in the overseas aid budget because, as my hon. Friend said, that gives the best possible guarantee that the Department will cut its cloth to ensure that as much money as possible is handed over to the people who need it most rather than being spent on self-serving bureaucracy. We are none the wiser today, but perhaps that might be clarified at some point in the future.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is right. Nobody could deny that if the recalculation means that we have underspent, everyone will be clamouring for the extra money to be found for a non-existent project somewhere in the world just to satisfy themselves, but if the GDP figure is downgraded, there will not be many in the House calling for some of the money to be clawed back. The Bill, in effect, sets a minimum target for spending, not an amount. That is not what most people have in mind. The public will be confused about why they have to spend an extra £550 million—I have no idea where the money would come from—to meet this arbitrary target because it did not happen to match the projection that was made. That is ridiculous.

My new clause 6 means that none of those adjustments would be made. If the calculation was wrong but the money was spent in good faith on a good-faith calculation, that should be that. There should be no end-of-year recalculation of the budget based on an upgrade or a downgrade—it could work either way and I cannot predict which way it would go. It strikes me as ridiculous that the Treasury should have to dig out money from nowhere just to hit a particular target. That is why the new clause is so important.

The way in which GNI is calculated is changing: 0.7% of the old GNI is quite different from 0.7% of the new GNI. For no reason other than statisticians deciding to calculate things differently, the taxpayer will have to find hundreds of millions of pounds extra in order to hit the 0.7% target.

[Mr Nuttall]

Will my hon. Friend make it clear that the Office for National Statistics has had to change the way national income is measured because the ONS was required to bring it into line with the rest of the EU? It is because we are members of the EU that we have to do this.

[Philip Davies]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that. I am sure everybody in the country will be pleased to know that the taxpayer has been stuffed because of the European Union—not for the first time and, no doubt, not for the last time.

The fact remains that we have a new calculation. This is not a pledge that was made in the 1970s or even when the proponents of the Bill first wanted to enshrine it in law. We are being asked to sign up to something entirely different from what we were originally told, and it will cost the British taxpayer more. If 0.7% of the old calculation was good enough, why can we not stick to that figure and that calculation? Why do we have to move to the new calculation? What evidence is there that that is necessary? What is the thinking behind it? We have had no explanation of that. Nobody has even touched on the issue. The taxpayer is expected to hand over a few extra hundreds of millions of pounds. Some in the House do not care that they are spending other people’s hard-earned money willy-nilly, but I care about people’s hard-earned money and the taxes that they pay, and I want to make sure that those are spent properly. It is just an accountancy figure to many Members, who do not care.

The GNI figure is essential. By passing the Bill unamended and without my new clause, we are at the whim of any future recalculation of GNI which requires the Government to hand over even more to hit the arbitrary 0.7% target. We should not allow that to happen. My new clause 6 would put in place safeguards for the taxpayer.

New clause 7 is also extremely important. It deals with one of the assertions from the Opposition. It provides that the Bill would take effect only after a referendum had taken place and had resulted in more than 50% of the people voting in favour of the target. I am constantly told that the target is extremely popular out in the country, that everybody wants to see it met, and that only a few reactionaries do not. I am prepared to take my case to the country and have it tested in a referendum. If more than 50% of people vote to spend all that money on overseas aid, I will be the first to accept that. I will try to make sure that the money is spent as well as possible, and I will accept the will of the people in a referendum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Nuttall]

Is my hon. Friend aware that, in an August 2012 report specifically on the introduction of targets in legislation, the Institute for Government made it clear that having no teeth or penalties to back them up

“brings into question the point of putting a target into law in the first place”?

[Philip Davies]

I absolutely agree with that. Apparently this ridiculous Bill is very important, but there is no sanction if the Government do not deliver on it. Surely there must be some sanction available. If I understand the Bill correctly, the only sanction is that the Government would have to make a statement to the House—and that’s it! It does not even have to be an oral statement; it could be a written statement. What a complete joke! This is a piece of joke legislation and I am afraid that the Government are treating us with contempt by having no sanction in place if they do not deliver on it.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

David Nuttall Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con)]

I am a co-sponsor of the Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore). With the exception of one very minor tweak, it encapsulates the wishes of all three major political parties in the commitments we made at the last election.

At this very dangerous time in international affairs, I want to start by expressing heartfelt gratitude for the bravery and selflessness of those who work in the humanitarian and development world, increasingly placing themselves in personal danger and jeopardy to help those less fortunate than themselves. In this House we often pay tribute to the extraordinary bravery of our armed forces, and rightly so, but I wish today to salute this vital and selfless work, and the bravery and commitment that is being shown by British members of the humanitarian and development community around the world in some desperate and difficult places. Over the past few years, large numbers of them have been harmed, kidnapped, brutalised and killed as they seek to help those caught up in conflict, violence, deep insecurity and poverty. They are heroes of our time.

Over some seven and a half years in government and in opposition, as the shadow Development Secretary and then Development Secretary, I have had the privilege of working with some of Britain’s leading non-governmental organisations. They are world leaders, and this House should never forget the brilliant work that they are doing, day in and day out, in very insecure places.

The commitment to 0.7% is an all-party commitment. I remind my Conservative colleagues that page 117 of our 2010 manifesto said:

“We will legislate in the first session of a new Parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from 2013.”

We all understand the reasons why that was not possible in the first Session, but we have a chance to do it now.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Mr Mitchell]

I will in a moment, but I want to make some progress first.

On page 116 of the manifesto there is a very fetching picture of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) teaching in Rwanda on Project Umubano. I was teaching in the classroom next door and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) were also teaching. The Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), was not far away in Butare at the time.

The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), made a powerful speech today. He talked about David in the genocide memorial in Kigali, which has been visited by hundreds of Conservatives on Project Umubano who were as moved as the right hon. Gentleman was to see it. That is part of the way in which the commitment to international development has grown across the House, which is very welcome indeed.

I do not like declaratory legislation and fully understand why many Members believe that it is insulting and that it diminishes the House of Commons, because it implies that we cannot be trusted to do what we say we will do and that we therefore have to satisfy the public by enshrining it in law. Of course, former Prime Minister Tony Blair passed declaratory legislation to abolish child poverty, but child poverty then immediately went up. I therefore understand why declaratory legislation is frowned upon in this House, but this is different: we have reached 0.7%. As the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, said, we have ascended the mountain and reached the top. We should all be incredibly proud, particularly on the Conservative Benches, that it was a Conservative-led Government who introduced and honoured this commitment to the poorest in the world at an extremely difficult time in our own economic affairs.

The great and important point about the 0.7% is that it gives certainty to budgetary methods and budgets in the Department for International Development. That matters a lot: it means we can plan for the long term, for reasons I will come on to. It also reflects the state of the economy, because it is predicated on the gross national income, and it gives certainty to planning.

A report on international development by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee—a most senior Committee in Parliament—praised almost everything this Government are doing, but complained about the 0.7% because it is an input. It is right that we should be obsessed with outputs—the results and what this money is achieving. Nevertheless, this particular input is the exception, because it enables us to plan future international development spend with certainty.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

I wholeheartedly agree. As many Members will be aware, Malawi has gone through many challenges since then, but that is a story of success and, indeed, there are many other success stories as a result of the support from aid.

Also that summer I spent a number of days and months in the fine city of Edinburgh in advance of the Gleneagles summit, and I was privileged to march with, and stand alongside, 250,000 people from all over this country—including many from across Scotland—who took advantage of that unique opportunity and our role in the G8 and on the world stage to put the pressure on to do the things that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) talked about, and to cancel that debt, to treble the aid, and to argue for fairer trade rules. That shows how passionate people up and down this country are about this issue, despite the siren voices we hear from the other end of the spectrum of opinion. There were people from churches, from mosques, from all faiths and none, and from communities up and down this country. The rich and the poor and young families marched alongside each other, making clear that no matter what challenges we face in this country—and we face many—they want to stand alongside those who live in abject poverty and injustice in this world. I shall return to that point.

There are two fundamental arguments, and many Members have touched on them. The first is our moral duty. I have always fervently believed this, influenced by my own faith and upbringing, and I know many Members share that view. It is based on the idea that the character of poverty is similar wherever we see it, whether in this country or abroad. Obviously, it is experienced in extreme forms in a number of the countries we have been talking about, and there is the same lack of hope, of aspiration and of opportunity. Ultimately, we are all born equal, but unfortunately some of us do not have the opportunities that others have, and I believe we fundamentally have a duty to serve those who have less than we do.

The other argument that has always been absolutely clear to me is that this is in our common interest. It is clearly in our national interest, but it is in our common interest, too, to care about these matters. I spoke in my very first speech in this House about the impact of conflict, instability and poverty on communities in my own constituency—the links of many people from places such as Somalia, Somaliland, Yemen, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the concern they have for their fellow brothers and sisters in the countries from where their families originally came—but also the impact that poverty and instability in a number of those countries is having on our own streets. Poverty, injustice and oppression go hand in hand with conflict and instability, and we must act. We must give a solid commitment in this House and stop this zero-sum game of trying to separate off defence, diplomacy and development and what we do in our own country. We try to separate them all off from each other, rather than look at them as a holistic whole, and in doing so we are making a huge mistake.

[Mr Nuttall]

Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the passage of this Bill will not result in a single extra pound being spent on this country’s international aid budget?

[Stephen Doughty]

If the economy grows, it will do, of course. The crucial thing is that we are tying this to the state of our overall economy, but it is also setting a worldwide standard, and it is meeting a promise we made in the 1970s, and which, indeed, all parties in this House committed to.

We could give many examples. The right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) mentioned one from Malawi, and I have seen for myself the impact of effective aid led by the expertise in DFID, whether in Sierra Leone in tackling maternal mortality and the deaths of young children, and the impact we were able to make with a very small contribution and removing user fees for basic health care services; in our action to tackle malaria, on which the right hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien) did excellent work in his time as Minister in the Department; or through the education programmes we have funded, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, the former Prime Minister, spoke about. There is also our work on HIV and AIDS, which I know many Members are very passionate about, and, indeed, our humanitarian work.

It was also a privilege to be able to serve alongside people from DFID, the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service and the Foreign Office, who worked on our response to the terrible Haiti earthquake many years ago. Disasters such as Haiti demonstrate exactly what is at stake. In addition to providing the immediate humanitarian response, we also need to address the underlying causes of vulnerability in those situations. That requires long-term, predictable and assured assistance from countries such as ours.

The argument about predictability has been put forward a number of times. Members have asked why we need the Bill, and why we need to firm up this commitment and put it into law. The reason is that the predictable assurance of effective aid in the long term creates an ability to move away from aid. If we can support countries in building up strong health and education systems and good governance, we will ultimately be able to move them away from needing development assistance.

This activity also helps to create a social contract in countries where people should be able to expect services such as health and education to be provided by their Government. Our assistance can get them over that hump. That is what happened in this country. Let us not forget that, many years ago, health care and education services were provided voluntarily, as charity, here before we moved to nationally funded systems. We can have a debate about how those systems should be handled in the future, but we have moved to those national systems with national standards and predictable, secure funding. That creates an expectation among the population and helps to further democracy and the overall quality of life in a country. We should never forget that. This is a fundamental point to be made to those who ask why we need this commitment.

--- Later in debate ---

[Philip Davies]

No, I will not.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden provided some of the history. I recommend the 6th report of the Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs for the Session 2010 to 2012, which was a marvellous report on the effectiveness of overseas aid. This all dates back to the UN General Assembly of 1970. The idea that this target is somehow well thought through and relevant to today’s needs and environment is complete and utter nonsense. The target was first plucked out of the air 44 years ago. The idea that it is likely to be the right one to use now is for the birds. It is completely nonsensical to think that the right target in 1970 automatically must be the right target in 2014, when the world is so different.

[Mr Nuttall]

Will my hon. Friend confirm that when that motion was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, the aim was for countries to exert their best efforts to achieve the 0.7% target by the middle of the 1970s, not by the middle of the 2010s?

[Philip Davies]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The original target is completely out of date. Indeed, I note in passing that if this matter is so important for the Labour party and vital for the future of the world, it is interesting that the attendance on their Benches is a bit thin. I think I have seen about 20 Labour Members come in the Chamber to support the measure. Perhaps they might want to explain why that is.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

The estimate so far is that about 400 people from the UK have taken part in fighting with ISIS. However, that number is based much more on what is happening in Syria, rather than in Iraq, on which we have considerably less information. Together with the Home Secretary and others, I have chaired a series of meetings in Whitehall to ensure that our intelligence, security and policing services are focused as sharply as they can be on this problem. It is estimated to be a greater threat to the UK than the return of foreign jihadis or fighters from the Afghanistan-Pakistan region. As I have said, we need to ensure that we are doing everything we can to keep our country safe.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Q10. While it is good news that the budget deficit has been cut by a third, there is much more to do. One way of helping our country to live within its means is to send back all the convicted criminals who are foreign nationals, because it is costing British taxpayers hundreds of millions of pounds each year to keep them in our prisons. All too often, attempts to send back such criminals are scuppered by human rights legislation. What plans does the Prime Minister have to put an end to that ludicrous state of affairs?

[The Prime Minister]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend that we need to do more on that front. We have removed about 20,000 foreign national offenders since the Government came to office, but the number is still too high. I have allotted individual Ministers to individual territories that have the highest numbers of foreign offenders—countries such as Nigeria, Jamaica, Vietnam and China—to ensure that we make progress on returning those prisoners. We need to use the prisoner transfer agreement within the European Union, because that could lead to the return of a large number of prisoners, not least to Poland. We have to keep up the pressure on this issue. I believe that if we get a Conservative Government after the next election, we will have substantive reform of the Human Rights Act, which is not working properly for Britain.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I will look very closely at the cases that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, but the key point is that we must ensure that our legal aid system is affordable. When we compare our system with those of similar common-law countries, we see that we are still spending far more per head than, for instance, Australia and New Zealand. The right hon. Gentleman shakes his head, but it is no good for Members of Parliament to come to Parliament every week and vote against every single spending decision, while not recognising that we must get our deficit down in order to help our economy to recover.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Will the Prime Minister take a few minutes over the Easter recess to read at least the winning entry in the Institute of Economic Affairs Brexit competition, the results of which were announced last night? I am sure that, if he does read it, it will give him some good ideas about why leaving the European Union should become part of our long-term economic plan.

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend and I agree on many things, but I am afraid that that is not one of them. However, I will happily look at the Institute of Economic Affairs pamphlet as a potential piece of holiday reading, and see how it competes with alternatives such as, perhaps, the novel written by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Bedfordshire (Nadine Dorries), which is obviously another possible choice for the festive period.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The only thing that this coalition Government have been “pushed into”—which is what the hon. Lady said—by Labour is rescuing the economy after the disastrous state that it was in. We had to pull the economy back from the brink because that is where Labour left it. We have had to do emergency surgery to the banks because Labour sucked up to the banks. We have had to fill the black hole in the public finances because Labour created it.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Q11. As you know, Mr Speaker, I am always anxious to be helpful, so in the spirit of friendly co-operation with our coalition partners, I have given advance notice of my question. Given that the Deputy Prime Minister is at the Dispatch Box today only because the Prime Minister is in China drumming up more orders for British business, can he please tell the House what the Common Market share of world trade was when the UK joined in 1973 and what the EU share of world trade is today?

[The Deputy Prime Minister]

The EU share of world trade today I think is around 20%. I would merely say to my hon. Friend—in an equally friendly spirit to that in which I know the question was intended—that the Prime Minister has actually been advocating a new EU-China trade deal, precisely because the European Union remains, notwithstanding all the other changes in the world, a very powerful trading bloc on the world scene.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Nuttall Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What is correct is that no one on the lower rate of payment will receive less as a result of their move to universal credit. No one will be affected by that.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

Does the Prime Minister agree that a meaningful cap on benefits is essential if we are to end the something-for-nothing culture that developed under the previous Government?

[The Prime Minister]

I think that that is absolutely right. It is right to bring in the cap. It introduces a new principle, which is that you should not be better off on benefits than the average family is in work. What we have had from the Labour party is complete silence. Will it support us tonight in the Lobby? Why does the Leader of the Opposition not just nod? Nod? Answer came there none. I thought that it was all about taking tough decisions—that they were in favour of a cap; they were going to tear up some of Labour’s history; it was time to make some bold decisions. Come on, one bold decision—just nod. Are you with us or are you against us? A great big vacuum.

Pakistan Floods

David Nuttall Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for both asking and answering his question. He is right to talk about the importance of developing green infrastructure as part of the recovery phase, and I can assure him that that will be considered, but the truth is that a flood of such a completely unprecedented scale would have swept away almost everything in its path.

[Mr David Nuttall (Bury North) (Con)]

I thank the Secretary of State for his statement. I also thank him on behalf of my constituents, many of whom have family in Pakistan, for the work his Department has done. While declaring an interest as a member of the Rotary club of Bury, may I ask the Secretary of State to join me in paying tribute to the work of Rotary International for the work it has done in helping to relieve the suffering of those in Pakistan who have been affected by the floods, particularly through the work of its ShelterBox scheme?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my hon. Friend for his comments, and he is of course right to say that the 1 million or so members of the Pakistani diaspora, many of whom have relations directly affected by the flooding, have been extremely concerned and worried. We have been able through a number of mechanisms to give both information and reassurance. I pay tribute to my noble Friend Baroness Warsi, who has been very heavily involved with all the diaspora community and who came with me to Pakistan. I also join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the work of Rotary, which makes such a tremendous contribution in this and so many other areas of development.