International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill (Money)

Debate between Gavin Shuker and Anne Main

Monday 3rd November 2014 Commons Chamber

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

It has been a pleasure to watch the debate for the past few minutes. Watching Members on the Government Benches has been a bit like watching one’s mum and dad arguing.

I want to say a few words about the Bill, and about why we will be supporting the money resolution this evening. I am grateful to the Minister for outlining the financial implications of the Bill. The Labour party stands for a just society not only within our own borders but across a just world. More Labour MPs than any others voted for the Bill on Second Reading. The rights and benefits that we have established for people in the UK derive not from those people’s nationality but from their humanity. We must do all that we can to establish those same rights and benefits for the rest of the world’s people.

[Mrs Main]

I hope that the hon. Gentleman will accept the words of the previous Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Sir Alan Duncan), who said:

“it would be fruitless for us to invest in aid to relieve the plight of the poor in the short term if we did not seek to bring about lasting change.”

He went on to emphasise the importance of tackling corruption. Given that so many aid programmes are showing as either amber/red or red, it is important that we ensure that taxpayers’ money goes to the needy and not to the greedy.

[Gavin Shuker]

It is hugely important to ensure that aid gets to the right people. Indeed, the reports to which the hon. Lady referred in an earlier intervention make it clear that those who lose out the most are the poorest people in the poorest parts of the world where there is the most corruption. It is up to the Government to defend those people. I want to be generous and say that this challenge is faced by all developed nations when rolling out their aid programmes. I also agree with the hon. Lady about spending the money effectively, which is why I believe we can do much more to make the Department for International Development a real force for good in the world in relation to global institutional reform. It should not simply be the charitable arm of the UK Government. That should be our focus as we take the Bill through Parliament.

We live in a global community, yet every 10 seconds a child dies from hunger and malnutrition. A population more than three times the size of Birmingham dies each year from water-related diseases, and 1 million children die on their first and only day of life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Gavin Shuker]

Those discussions are going on between the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) and the Government at the moment. It will ultimately be a matter for the Committee to decide, but we are certainly open to any measures that would ensure that the Bill reached the statute book in good time. This should be agreed on a cross-party basis, and I believe that we would all be in a much stronger position if we went into the next election with this legislation in place.

[Mrs Main]

The hon. Gentleman mentioned Africa. One of the commissioners of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, Diana Good, who oversaw its work there, said:

“We had a number of grave concerns, from the £67 million unused money and misreporting to excessive expenses, against the background of a programme which was regarded as a flagship but failed properly to take into account the impact on the poor. DFID just relied on the assumption that the poor would benefit”.

We owe it to the British taxpayer to ensure that the poor are helped, not just to assume that they are being helped.

[Gavin Shuker]

We absolutely do. The hon. Lady makes an extremely good case for additional scrutiny. The Opposition hope that we do scrutinise the Department for International Development effectively. I simply point out that as we discuss this money resolution for a Bill about the total size of the envelope, we must not lose our sense of momentum in holding the Government to account. However, I say to the hon. Lady that those are slightly separate issues, and it would be good for the House if we made progress on the resolution.