Business of the House

Philip Davies Excerpts

Thursday 12th February 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

That is not a bad idea. The latest allocation from the LIBOR fund, of £35 million, adds to the money we have already given to military good causes benefiting armed forces personnel and their families, and veterans, and to many other good causes. The police treatment centre in my hon. Friend’s constituency is another good example. This week I announced the creation, with a £1 million donation from the LIBOR fund, of our first academic centre on women, peace and security at the London School of Economics—something a bit more substantial than a pink bus going around the country—and we will continue to use LIBOR money to benefit such excellent causes.

[Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con)]

May we have a statement from the Secretary of State for International Development on aid to India? On 9 November 2012, The Guardian was one of many newspapers to report that

“The government will stop all financial aid to India by 2015”.

It now seems that the Government are stopping aid to the Indian Government, but are continuing to supply other aid to India. Given that India has its own space programme and is spending $35 billion a year on defence alone, surely we should be telling the country that it is responsible for looking after its own people, rather than saying “Keep on spending all this money on building up your military arsenal while we look after the people for whom you should be responsible.” I believe that most of my constituents thought it was right to end aid to India, and will be horrified to discover that that is no longer the case.

[Mr Hague]

There has been a big change under this Government. On coming to office, we found that some British aid was going to Russia and China, for instance, but DFID has stopped those programmes. What the Secretary of State for International Development announced in 2012 was that all financial aid grants from the United Kingdom to India would cease in 2015, after which DFID would provide support only in the form of private sector expertise and technical assistance, and that is exactly what is happening. The financial aid grants to India will end this year, and any new projects will be supported by development capital investment and technical assistance. No doubt DFID will be able to expand on exactly what that involves for the benefit of my hon. Friend.