International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Cashman Excerpts

Friday 6th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Cashman (Lab)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord for giving way, but I want to introduce a degree of realism that is somewhat missing. The comparisons that he is making, and where they are being made, bear no relation to the suffering and needs of people in other parts of the world. No matter how we dress these words up, outside this House it will be read as an intention to deny and delay the very projects and needs which the poorest of the world are calling out for. Think only of this: not of the child that needs to go to bed with food in its stomach but of the woman who loses her life and her child in childbirth because not enough money is going into that maternity service. Think of that and then choose your words.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for making my argument, because if he really is concerned about these people, he will be concerned about what the NAO report says.

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I will, if I may, reply to the noble Lord’s noble friend first. This is the National Audit Office. It has no partisan view. Its report says that rescheduling had to take place, leading to,

“£250 million … of planned activity”—

meaning the very people the noble Lord is talking about—being moved from the first three months of 2014 into 2014-15. It was delayed. The NAO claims that the rescheduling,

“is likely to have delayed some of the benefits those activities were designed to provide”.

If the noble Lord is sincere in what he is saying, as I am sure he is, he is on my side of this argument.

[Lord Cashman]

I am again grateful to the noble Lord, and this, I promise your Lordships, will be my last intervention, but with all due respect he cannot represent my argument and I do not believe that he ever could. Audits are there to look at something through a particular lens. The economic arguments that we have heard have been dressed up as an exact science. If that is so, I would be interested to hear why economists and certain Treasuries have got it wrong for so long. At the heart of the debate is making sure that commitments that we have made globally are met and that we imagine that we are the poorest, not that we sit in this noble House and go home and afford ourselves the services that we do. I will not intervene again but, with all due respect to the noble Lord, he does not and could not make my arguments.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Tugendhat]

My Lords, I had not intended to speak a second time, but I feel that I cannot allow the words of the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, to go unanswered. I and a number of other noble Lords have made it clear that we support the British aid programme and its objectives and we understand that DfID is a very good administrator in these fields. The suggestion that in trying to improve the Bill one is in some way trying to deny the needy or trying to take food from the hungry is quite unjustified. I very much hope that he was not uttering those words in a personal sense.

Let me continue, because there has been a certain amount of moral indignation, which I find very difficult to take. Noble Lords, including two former Chancellors of the Exchequer and a former Chief Secretary to the Treasury—I am a former Budget Commissioner in the EU and have had a lot to do with large expenditure programmes in the private sector and the public sector—owe it to the House to draw on our experience to seek to improve the legislation that comes before us. I recognise that, as my noble friend Lord Fowler says, we are in a minority. I also recognise that although the Economic Affairs Committee, which is made up of members from all parties, reached a unanimous conclusion, its view is in a minority in this House.

However, the fact that one is in a minority does not mean that one should be constrained from drawing on one’s experience in trying to improve legislation. I believe that this Bill is flawed and that the amendments will improve the Bill. If the Bill can be improved, it will be more effective. However, if the Bill falls, that will in no way interrupt the flow of British aid or inhibit the Government’s ability to spend 0.7% or 0.8%. I hope that noble Lords, such as the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, and others who think like him, will accept that we are speaking with good intentions.

[Lord Cashman]

I thank the noble Lord. I am happy to go back to the record but I think that it will show that I stated to your Lordships that that is how this debate will be reviewed and viewed outside this House.

[Lord Tugendhat]

Perhaps I may ask the noble Lord whether he believes that the way in which one’s words are viewed and reviewed should be an inhibiting factor in drawing on one’s experience in order to seek to improve legislation.

[Lord Cashman]

My Lords, I have always believed that we must speak in defence of our principles without hesitation and bring to that our wisdom. However, one must also be aware of the weight of one’s words and how those words will be represented. In terms of one’s experience, I also said that economics is being viewed as a science. If it is such a science, how come economists and Chancellors have got it so wrong for so long?

[Lord Tugendhat]

I am afraid that the way in which human beings are constructed means that error is endemic in all our assessments, but that should not be an inhibition in drawing on our experience to try to improve the proposals before us. I quite accept the point made by the noble Lord about how statements may be viewed and reviewed. I would also say to him that there is a danger of them being misrepresented and that what he has said will encourage that.