International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton

Friday 6th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

The noble Countess says no. I could go through the whole of the report strengthening the point about targets. I am picking up only headline points. For example:

“The Department added activities at short notice in 2013 which constrained choice … The activities the Department added in 2013 reduced its available budget at the start of 2014, and contributed to the delay of some of its planned activities”.

What that means is that the fact that it had been given a statutory target meant that some people in desperate need around the world had their projects cancelled because of the financial management difficulties imposed by having a target.

The NAO also found:

“The limited flexibility in the target led to the Department rescheduling payments in 2013, first to increase outturn, and then to reduce it … The Department phased its contributions to 2 key multilateral organisations to increase 2013 ODA”.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I am now puzzled. Usually, I can follow the logic of the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth. The obvious logic, the House may feel, would have been to group together a whole lot of amendments, because that would have led to clarity about what we were discussing.

However, in my experience over the years, all departments and all Governments have set a financial limit for the year. I do not recognise the world that the noble Lord is speaking of, in which projects are not deferred because the department is coming to the end of the financial year without money. I well remember the noble Lord, Lord Heseltine, as Secretary of State, allowing youth services to spend money providing that they committed to it within a week. An officer in Lancashire had to follow me down the railway station platform so that I could sign the application. This is managing budgets. The noble Lord must accept that all budgets are fixed and that there are management difficulties at the end of the year with that. I wish that noble Lords who are confusing the issue of how the budget is set—

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I apologise to the noble Baroness, but I think that she is making a Second Reading speech with that intervention. I have to ask her whether she has read the report.

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

I have.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

No, she has not, because if she had read the report she would not have made that intervention. The problem arises because the target of 0.7% is over a calendar year, so from January to December it is necessary to reach 0.7%, but the department’s budget period runs from April. Therefore, it is trying to manage programmes in respect of one financial year against a target set over a different financial year. The reason for that is because the Government are trying to set an example to other countries by meeting what they believe to be the UN target, which is measured over the calendar year in order to get equivalence.

The effect of that is that the unfortunate civil servants in DfID find themselves having to organise the budget with those two financial years. Even then, it is further complicated by the fact that only 82% of that budget is within the control of the department, because another bit of the budget is spent on environmental measures and another is spent by the Foreign Office, over which it has no control, so the civil servants have to find out what is happening in those other departments. The effect is that they end up shuffling money or writing cheques to multilateral organisations to meet the target when they should be concentrating on using the available resources efficiently and effectively to do the best for people in abject poverty around the world.

I know that the noble Baroness and others think that this is some kind of exercise to try to stop the Bill. I do not wish to stop the Bill, but I wish it to operate in a way that ensures value for money for the taxpayer and that projects around the globe are properly supported, not subject to some last-minute financial juggling in order to meet a ridiculous, but no doubt well intentioned, target in the Bill.

The amendment which my noble friend Lord Lawson was trying to move—the House was very discourteous to him over that—draws attention to that. The very same point was made two years ago by the Economic Affairs Committee unanimously, with all-party support—

European Union (Referendum) Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton

Friday 31st January 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I can see the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, nodding at points on the issue of the views that may be expressed in the Daily Mail. I hope that your Lordships will forgive me if I remind the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, that during the passage of the legislation to establish the Scottish Parliament he supported his much lamented friend John MacKay when he argued that the waiter from Brussels living in Scotland would have a vote but his daughter who worked in Brussels and was Scottish would not. I know that the noble Lord will make certain that the views he expresses on this Bill will be in line with his firmly held principles on that occasion.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I have been tempted to rise. Actually I was not in this House when my late noble friend Lord MacKay was performing at the Dispatch Box, and the Scotland Bill is not a piece of legislation that I am associated with as a great friend. The noble Lord is making a very curious argument because in the Scottish referendum, Scots who have made their lives south of the border are being given no votes at all. It is very unfortunate that the noble Baroness should pick on Scotland as an example because it makes the case against her noble friend.

Arrangement of Business

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton

Thursday 26th April 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Farrington of Ribbleton]

My Lords, I listen to the noble Lord, Lord Low, with care every time he speaks. I remind the House that many Members travel a long distance to get here. I fear that the reason for not suggesting that the debate begin on Thursday afternoon was that the noble Lord the Leader of the House knows that it could excite the wrath of, for example, the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on suddenly being told that Thursday afternoon was the time being suggested. I still have not heard the reason for the noble Lord’s absolutely unusual refusal to listen to the House, except that the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, apparently agreed to it. Having heard the views of the noble Lord, Lord Tyler, on the future of the House of Lords, perhaps we do not need to debate it at all.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, perhaps I am being naive again but I thought that the whole point of having this debate on Monday was so that we could make the case for a Bill not being included in the Queen’s Speech. My noble friend argues that there will be two more days to debate the Queen’s Speech—by then it will be too late. I thought that the whole purpose of the debate was for the Government to be informed. I have not put my name down to speak because, frankly, I did not fancy hanging around until 2 am. However, if my noble friend were to agree to the additional time, I would be happy to add my thoughts, which I am sure would be very helpful to the Government.