International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Lord Shipley Excerpts

Friday 23rd January 2015 Lords Chamber

[Lord Shipley (LD)]

I, too, was a member of the Economic Affairs Committee when it conducted a lengthy inquiry into the economic impact and effectiveness of development aid two years ago. I spoke in the debate in your Lordships’ House and said then that it was morally right for rich countries to give aid. It can help to make the world a safer place by spreading wealth and opportunity.

This Bill enshrines in law that figure of 0.7% and, as I said in that debate, that figure exists as a statement of the responsibility of richer countries to support poorer ones, and I subscribe to it. This Bill means that we can move the debate on from whether to spend aid to ensuring that we spend it most effectively. However, it should not be paid in such a way that it enables or encourages fraud, corruption, capital flight or the purchase of arms, and it should always be properly audited to give confidence to UK taxpayers who fund it. That is why Clause 5 is so important. It requires an independent evaluation of the extent to which development aid reaches its target and gives value for money. For this to be achieved, it will be important for proper systems of audit to operate in each country on the ground, not just in capital cities.

Spending 0.7% cannot be an end in itself. Rather, it should be the consequence of what we do project by project and programme by programme. It is on that that we now need to focus. In our debate two years ago, I expressed some doubts about the speed of the increase in spending—some 37% to 2015—and queried whether DfID had the resources to do it successfully. Evidence was given to us that there had been a serious loss of experienced staff in DfID. I hope the Minister when she replies will be able to say something about DfID’s current staffing levels.

In fully supporting the Bill, I emphasise that the development aid we give must be in a form that can be audited for its outcomes. Budgetary support to other Governments is not fully auditable, and it would be interesting to know how much of our aid is still in that form. We heard, for example, evidence from Professor Jeffrey Sachs of Columbia University advising strongly against budgetary assistance. He said that handing over money to central Governments and expecting it to reach the local level was “a hope too far”. He urged well targeted and well defined programmes that accomplished a specific purpose, such as vaccines or bed nets, which can be properly audited. That seems sound advice.

It is good that this country has achieved the 0.7% UN target. However, we should note the NAO report last week, which pointed out that £3.7 billion out of the £11.4 billion budget in 2013 was spent in the last two months of 2013, raising questions about target-driven spending. We will no doubt learn more about this in due course, but my own reaction is similar to that of my noble friend Lord Fowler, in that spending it as humanitarian aid seems absolutely appropriate in the circumstances.

The Bill is important, and Clause 5 is particularly important because it will build public confidence that their money is being well spent. The Bill as a whole gives a certainty to future planning of overseas development aid. We should welcome that.