Pope Benedict XVI: State Visit Funding

Lord Tomlinson Excerpts

Thursday 10th February 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

As I tried to explain to the noble Baroness, it came from the running costs of the department. It does have running costs; and costs contributing to this project, along with all the other departments which contributed, including the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, are taken out of the funds that are used for running the department. Other economies might have had to be made in the running of the department, but they are not specified and I cannot give an answer.

[Lord Tomlinson]

Does the noble Lord accept that his reply is misleading to the House? Making a semantic distinction between the running costs of the Department for International Development and official development assistance is quite unacceptable. The administrative costs are there to administer the cost of overseas development, and however welcome was the visit to this country of His Holiness the Pope as a head of state, that can in no way be defined as overseas development.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

The noble Lord is usually right in his interventions, but in this case he is dead wrong. The contributions from DfID and other departments all had their good reasons. It so happens that the Government take the view—and, I suspect, the noble Lord takes the view—that the work of the Catholic Church in health and education overseas reinforces and combines with our work in a most valuable way. I hate to hear any suggestion that it should be downgraded as the noble Lord’s question implied.