International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Marlesford Excerpts

Friday 27th February 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ramsbotham (CB)]

My Lords, I strongly support the point so powerfully made by my noble friend Lord Butler, for reasons very much connected with what the noble Lord, Lord Reid, has just said. The Committee on Soft Power, which was so admirably chaired by the noble Lord, Lord Howell, considered this matter because the contributions of all the other ministries to that 0.7% must be taken into account. It should not merely be a 0.7% DfID budget. Therefore, if in future, as I hope, the contributions of all the various ministries are included in the 0.7%, it is essential that DfID’s co-ordination of that contribution—if that is what it amounts to—should be subject to the discipline of making certain that it is properly spent in the national interest.

[Lord Marlesford (Con)]

My Lords, I am a mere observer of government over quite a long time. Obviously, we all support the 0.7% target and the whole gesture of telling the world that we intend to stick to it. However, you cannot translate a gesture literally into statute like this. The way that it is being done shoots an arrow straight into the heart of good government. The Treasury system of controlling spending is a complicated and sophisticated one but one that, in my view, has done very well.

The last big change to it was in the 1970s. At that time, public spending was based on the old Plowden system of allocating resources, which effectively pre-empted decisions. The House of Commons was, again and again, asked to vote supplementary estimates, which it did with virtually no discussion. The whole thing descended into total chaos and there was a major economic crisis. That was then changed to the present system, with cash limits and proper scrutiny of each proposal, by the great Leo Pliatzky, who was then the Permanent Secretary in charge of spending. That was based on the system of cash-flow management used in the private sector. Until cash-flow management came into force, an awful lot of perfectly good companies went bust because cash flow was out of control. I do not believe we can change the principle of proper control of public spending for one particular thing, however desirable and however much we support it. That is why I support the amendment of the noble Lord, Lord Butler.

[Lord Armstrong of Ilminster (CB)]

My Lords, it is 45 years since I walked out of the Treasury, never to return. However, that was after 20 years there, and once a Treasury man, always a Treasury man. For that reason, and for many others, I support the amendment in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Butler. Like him, I have no difficulty with the commitment to make the target 0.7%. We do not need legislation to do that. The noble Lord, Lord Davies of Stamford, talks about the signal that the passage of the legislation would send. With great respect to him, I do not believe that the passage of a Bill with this title would set all the flags flying in the capitals of the developing world. Legislation is not the best vehicle for gestures and signals. If you want to send gestures and signals, things like manifestos and Queen’s Speeches are the appropriate means of doing that. Therefore I support wholeheartedly the spirit behind this amendment, that this expenditure, however good and however meritorious, needs to be subject to the same discipline as other public expenditure.

--- Later in debate ---

This is a very serious matter. The world has become increasingly dangerous, volatile and unstable. During precisely that period, we have been cutting our defence capability. We must change that and we must set the right example to our EU and NATO partners. Doing something of this kind—accepting the 2%—would be the right way to do it. One of my great hopes for the country is that, in the course of the coming election campaign, both major parties—in the tradition of responsibility over national security that they have both displayed for countless generations, thank God, otherwise we would not be here today—will commit to spending not less than 2% of GDP on defence.

[Lord Marlesford]

My Lords, the speeches of the noble Lord, Lord Reid, and the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, emphasise a very important point: the synergistic act between aid and the military. We know that the help we recently sent to Sierra Leone to combat Ebola had to be assisted by military forces to make it possible to administer it. I suspect that there are a lot of instances where the provision of what we loosely call aid is the need to make it possible to deliver the aid.

I suggest—it may not be a matter for this amendment, although I think it is the point of the amendment—that very much more careful consideration be given to the extent to which the Ministry of Defence budget is used to facilitate aid. Particularly now, in the days of ISIS, that so much is needed to introduce minimum stability—to help refugees, for example—I suggest that one could look at the defence budget and the aid budget as a single budget and use that synergy to make both most effective. It is quite extraordinary to me that we set aside the aid budget with a special ring-fence and do not do the same for defence, especially when we are underspending on it.

[Lord Forsyth of Drumlean]

I entirely agree with what my noble friend is saying. However, of course the root of this problem is that the Government’s focus is on meeting an international target, and the requirements as to what can be included in the international target exclude things which are contributed by the MoD, even though they are helping poor people in difficult circumstances.

[Lord Marlesford]

In that case, I would have thought that we should redefine aid to take into account the need to be able to deliver it, if necessary unilaterally but maybe with other countries as well—particularly the United States, where the expenditure is not that great, as we have heard.

[Baroness Northover]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lords for tabling this amendment, and I agree that both the ODA target and the level of defence spend are very important issues. Once again, reflecting this House, we have had a profoundly well informed debate on this amendment, with the participation of, I reckoned: a Chief of the Air Staff—later Chief of the Defence Staff—a First Sea Lord, a former Secretary of State for Defence, and so on. Where else but here? This has also been extremely thoughtful and well argued.

However, to tie one set of spending to the other would not do justice, in our view, to the intention behind the Bill, which aims to increase the predictability of the aid budget and consolidate the United Kingdom’s position as a leader in international development. I understand the noble Lords’ concern to ensure that the defence budget is adequate for the task at hand. They will know that the United Kingdom has the second largest defence budget in NATO and the largest in Europe, and that the Government are committed to spending 2% of GDP on defence. I absolutely hear what noble Lords have said about the importance of the defence of the realm. However, I am afraid that, while I respect the views expressed by noble Lords today, I cannot agree that this amendment belongs in the Bill.