Aid Reviews

Tom Clarke Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend said he was going to make a micro-economic point! He has great experience of such matters from his distinguished past, and he is absolutely right. Seeing assets that have been installed but are not in working order is an enormously depressing aspect of international development. Seeing empty schools in Africa that do not have children to go to them or teachers to serve them is similar to what he described. All our work is designed to achieve effective and transparent results that work not only for British taxpayers but for those we are trying to help.

[Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)]

I declare an interest as the chair of the all-party friends of CAFOD—the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development—group. Does the right hon. Gentleman acknowledge the contribution of aid agencies and non-governmental organisations to the current focus of his Department’s work? Does he also agree with the overwhelming view that the greater the transparency, the greater the support will be from the British people for our objectives in this field? As two examples of how he can act quickly on such matters, may I urge him to accept the advice about implementing the Bribery Act 2010 as quickly as possible and to consider the role of British companies involved in mineral extraction in developing countries?

[Mr Mitchell]

I certainly pay tribute to CAFOD and the brilliant work of Chris Bain in leading it. I agree with the right hon. Gentleman about the importance of transparency, which is why one of the coalition Government’s first acts was to publish our transparency guarantee. He is right about results and openness. We are all strongly behind the Bribery Act 2010. There are some standing instructions that need to be worked out by a number of Departments, but that will happen relatively quickly and the Act will be fully implemented.