International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Friday 27th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

We can all take it from that that the Government are not prepared to say on the record, with all the risks and threats around us in the world, that they are committed to meeting that 2% target. That is extremely disappointing, especially when the Prime Minister is going around telling other countries that they ought to do so. Surely the whole basis of the debate has been about setting an example to the rest of the world.

A number of points have been made. I want to pick up on points made by my noble friend Lord Marlesford and by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, which are profoundly important. The noble and gallant Lord talked about the fantastic job being done by our troops around the world, in conflict zones and elsewhere, to help improve people’s quality of life. That is something of which we should be immensely proud. We should not be proud of the fact that only £5 million of Ministry of Defence spending counted as overseas development aid for the year 2013. The Government are obsessed with sticking to conditions set by other people—who do not actually meet the target—as to what can be included in the target.

I listened to my noble friend the Minister’s boss, the Secretary of State, on the radio this morning, speaking from Sierra Leone. She was very good indeed. She said how committed she was to aid being about helping people economically. She spoke with great affection about the role being played there by our defence forces. But that is not allowed to come off her budget because it does not meet the target. Indeed, in one instance where we sent troops and people—I think to Haiti—the only thing that the MoD was allowed to claim was the fuel for the ships. That is an absurd position, which arises from being determined to meet a particular target determined by someone else, as opposed to thinking about how we can spend the money most effectively to help people in distress and need. In that latter example, humanitarian aid is less than 10% of the budget that we are discussing.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I am grateful to the noble Lord for allowing me to intervene. This is an important point for recognition, I hope, by those who approach this not from the defence side but from the side of international development, whether economic development or aid. The point is simply this. We synergise the efforts, finances and resources of DfID and the Ministry of Defence when specific emergencies arise. We did so in relation to Ebola and the Pakistan earthquake and so on, as I think everyone would accept.

However, there is so much more that we could do on a more general scale to aid the development of countries throughout the world in two areas. One is post-conflict reconstruction, where a massive job could be done for the benefit of people, and I would go further by referring to the second area, pre-conflict reconstruction. Both those are part of what the noble Lord, Lord Howell, mentioned today as developing areas for international development and aid, and they are relatively recent. If we could conscript a vast army not of soldiers but of civilians with expertise in human rights, law, prisons, policing and so on, pre and post-conflicts, there would be enormous benefits. This is not just a matter of the protection of our own country.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I am most grateful to the noble Lord, who speaks from experience, and I agree with everything he says. What we spend at the moment on overseas development aid accounts for about a third of the defence budget. All my amendment would do is say, “If you want to increase the overseas aid budget, you can do so, but we have to meet that other target as well”. That seems entirely reasonable and sensible, and I am afraid that the arguments put forward for not linking these two things were thoroughly inadequate. The advocates of the Bill have been hoist by their own petard.

I would just like to pay a small tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Davies, for saying right at the start that he would be consistent, but I was a little disappointed that he suggested that if I divided the House he might not be able to vote for the amendment because of the drafting. That seems to be something that he should be able to overcome. If the House decides to accept the amendment, I shall be quite happy for the Government to come back with new drafting. I am very happy to work with the noble Lord to ensure that we reach agreement on the drafting, just as we have agreed on the principle of maintaining the support for our Armed Forces and ensuring the security of our country.

Scotland Act 1998 (Modification of Schedule 5) Order 2013

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Wednesday 16th January 2013 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

My Lords, it is a great privilege and challenge to follow the noble Lord, Lord Forsyth, on a subject such as this. On this occasion he probably has more support from more people in Scotland than he ever did when he was Secretary of State for Scotland. When he started his reminiscences, it showed how long he has been involved with these matters. He mentioned that he was a leading member of the students’ union at the University of St Andrews in the days when Gordon Brown was rector of Edinburgh University. I was student president at Stirling University and a certain Mr Alistair Darling was student president at the University of Aberdeen. As he pointed out, in those days—no doubt because of his own prowess—there were some 1,500 members of St Andrews Conservative Association and only four members of the SNP. This is presumably why St Andrews did not belong to the National Union of Students but followed the policy of absolute separatism in those days. I agree with a great deal of what the noble Lord said but I am glad he is not pushing the amendment to a vote for reasons that I will explain. It also liberates me to agree with him more than I would have done.

Two distinct questions are being debated around this order. The first is whether the Government made a good fist of the negotiations, the handling of the communication of their argument and the consultation with Parliament. The noble Lord has just given a pretty devastating critique of all three. The second is how we, as parliamentarians, were to respond, and whether our tactical differences over the mishandling of an amalgam or ensemble of tactical questions were sufficient for us to take a strategic decision to vote to renege on that agreement. That would have placed us in an extremely difficult position because, although I agree with a great deal of his criticism, had we taken such a vote, it would have played into the hands of those in Scotland who wish to portray the Westminster Parliament as somehow opposed to this whole exercise.

I just want to make one correction. It was never promised that devolution would stop the aspirations of the Scottish people for independence or separatism or anything else. What was said was that, all other things being equal, it would minimise the chances of the people of Scotland separating themselves from the people of England. That is still absolutely true, although you would have to speculate where we would now be if, throughout the period of Mrs Thatcher and afterwards, we had never given Scotland any degree of devolution, which is the correct way of balancing that.

I will give way to the noble Lord who, in his normal, non-partisan fashion, will deal with questions concerning devolution.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I just wonder whether the noble Lord can tell me what, “devolution will kill nationalism stone dead” meant.

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

It meant that the nationalist aspiration of separating Scotland from the rest of the United Kingdom would be defeated. It meant that we would remain a partner in the United Kingdom for much longer than we would if we failed to give an inch to the aspirations of the Scottish people to meet their national consciousness through a degree of control over it. In order to prove his point, the noble Lord would have to argue that, had we not done that, the demand for separation in Scotland would be less than it is now, and I would strongly disagree. However, today I want to try to stress what unites us here, rather than historical differences.

Scotland Bill

Debate between Lord Forsyth of Drumlean and Lord Reid of Cardowan

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Reid of Cardowan]

I would be able to understand that if I knew what devo-max is. I am presupposing that if there is a subsequent discussion on the decision to stay in the United Kingdom, some of it will be on what the vote is actually about. I hate to add pigs and pokes to porridge—enough euphemisms have been used—but one of the problems with devo-max is that, since it affects the relationship between the peoples of the United Kingdom, it would have to go to the peoples of the United Kingdom or their elected representatives. Also, at this stage no one knows what devo-max, devo-plus or any of these topics other than staying in the UK or leaving the UK actually constitutes. How on earth that is put to a referendum is beyond me, and therefore it reinforces the fact that there should be a clear, fair and legal decision on one issue, after which there may or may not be discussions between the representatives of the various peoples about changing that relationship. At that stage, presumably, devo-max may represent what the islands the noble Earl referred to already have or it might refer to something entirely different. Part of the problem is that at the moment we have no idea of what it refers to.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

My Lords, the difference is that Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man do not send Members of Parliament to the House of Commons.