Overseas Development Aid

Lord Campbell-Savours Excerpts

Tuesday 9th October 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Baroness will not be surprised to hear that I do not agree, and neither do I agree with the suggestion that the Secretary of State is being disingenuous. Far from it—I think she was very clear, although how those remarks have been interpreted is clearly another matter. So this is a good opportunity for us to make it absolutely clear that we are committed to the SDGs and to 0.7%. The DAC element counts only public sector investment, so it cannot count private sector investment towards the 0.7% target to which we are committed. But, as the noble Baroness and the noble Lord said, we are at one in recognising that you will not provide the 18 million jobs that Africa needs every year between now and 2050 without the private sector engaging with this. You will not bridge the $2.5 trillion gap in meeting the SDGs without getting the private sector involved. That is why the Secretary of State was absolutely right to say that we need to do more to leverage and catalyse that investment which the UK has an expertise in.

[Lord Campbell-Savours (Lab)]

My Lords, DfID projects have historically been subject to post-project evaluations for economy, efficiency and effectiveness—in other words, to make sure that we are not wasting public money. In the event that private investment were to be levered in, in the way that is being suggested—as I understand it, it would be within the 0.7%—what post-project evaluations would take place, not because it is public sector project money but to ensure that that investment meets overseas development criteria, and that it is not simply being attributed to overseas development criteria as a way of spending the money?

[Lord Bates]

An example is impact funds, many of which already exist within the City of London; many civil society groups and organisations such as the UN Global Compact scrutinise how that is accounted for in accounts. With the CDC it is a different process. We were quite specific when we discussed the raising of the threshold—the capitalisation of the CDC—as the legislation went through this House, that no investments could be made under that without a business case being prepared, which then has to be signed off and reviewed at the end of it to ensure that the outputs it was envisaged would be delivered were achieved, and if not, why not? These are therefore all important elements in the exploration of these issues. More can be done, but again, it needs to be done transparently.