International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill

I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) on the characteristic clarity and compassion with which he introduced the Bill to the House. Several Members mentioned the reception that was held last night, when our right hon. Friend the Chancellor reminded us of something that Gandhi had said—that when we face decision or action to eradicate poverty, we should remember the last face we saw that was suffering the devastating effects of poverty. That brought to mind a number of things, including a delegation of which I was a member, as was the hon. Member for Stone (Mr. Cash), in 1998. That was my first visit to Tanzania. Nothing can ever prepare one for a first visit to Africa. We see it; it comes into our living rooms every day, but somehow the television screen manages to diminish the extent of the poverty. It is only when one travels hundreds of miles by road, as we did on that occasion, that one sees the face of poverty in all its devastation for the millions of people who, sadly, are still at the sharp end of that. I listened with interest to what the hon. Member for Stone said about his Bill. On that visit to Africa, we were studying the rule of law and democracy, and examining issues of governance, which are extremely important. It is essential that they are covered by the reporting system that my right hon. Friend seeks to introduce through his Bill. I will look with interest at the proposals of the hon. Member for Stone, although I would be cautious about the costs and bureaucracy that they would entail, which could get in the way. Nevertheless, the hon. Gentleman has aroused our interest in his Bill. I visited Africa again four or five years later, after travelling to Nigeria with a Commonwealth Parliamentary Association delegation. I cannot forget the mile after mile of poverty. That, together with the urging of our constituents to do something about it, engages us all in measures to bring about international development and tackle poverty. Some hon. Members will associate me with championing Fairtrade chocolate here in the House of Commons—on one occasion I even brought chocolate on to the Floor of the House without anyone noticing. I do not think that we are supposed to bring food into the Chamber, but I did on that occasion. I followed my visit to Nigeria with a personal visit to Ghana, which I asked the Divine chocolate company to assist me in bringing about. I asked if I could meet a cocoa grower and I was taken into the Ashanti country to a village called Fenaso Domeabra, which means ““If you love me, you will come to me””, a delightful name for a village, and I was introduced to a village of cocoa growers. That brought home to me the positive side, but also the reality for people whose lives are blighted by poverty. Hon. Members have heard me speak of that visit before, so I shall just take a couple of points arising from it that are important to the issue of transparency with which the Bill deals. Fair trade had allowed that village to invest in a water well, and I saw for myself how that transformed the lives of the women and children in particular. Previously, they had had to walk for four hours every day to get the water that the village required, and that meant that there was no time for school, and at that time they probably did not have the money either. The well had transformed their lives. It made it possible for children to spend time in school, and it allowed the women of the village to use the time that that made available to develop a second cash crop, crushing palm fruit and extracting oil for sale, thereby helping, however modestly, to raise their standard of living, and that was very necessary. The village had a school when I visited, but it was a salutary lesson to be faced with the raw facts. The villagers’ income at that time was about $1 a day, and out of that they paid for the schoolteacher. That village had education, but it paid for it out of very low incomes. The whole question of sustainability, which my right hon. Friend, through transparency, seeks to develop, particularly in clause 7, will allow us to focus on how we can make the money work much more effectively. During that visit, some farmers and their wives walked for two hours from a neighbouring village to ask me how they, too, could obtain a water well, because they could see how such a simple measure, even at that very basic level, could transform their lives. My right hon. Friend reminded us of the distance that we have to travel in order to meet the millennium development goals to bring water, education and health to many more villages in Africa and elsewhere, and the Bill will help us to focus on what we can do. Ghana is one of the 10 countries that we would be reporting on in greater detail, and clause 7(2)(d) and (e) deal with furthering sustainable development, including the protection of the environment, and with expanding trading opportunities for low income groups. The Kuapa Kokoo company, which is a co-operative with 750 cocoa growing villages, is exactly the sort of the project that we should highlight in the annual report and the regular debate. Yesterday, I was working with people to develop our economic vision for Plymouth. It was an exciting day that involved an ambitious yet realistic agenda to tackle the poverty that we inherited in our city, which was one of two in our country to host an Oxfam project in 1997. I am pleased to say that we have made so much progress in Plymouth since then, but my constituents have also found time to urge me to support initiatives on debt reduction, trade and international development. After yesterday’s Plymouth economic development strategy meeting, I went to the annual event hosted by Hamoaze House, an imaginative project that seeks to assist substance abusers. It presents its annual report imaginatively, using drama, poetry and film. The second contribution—sadly, I could not stay for the whole presentation—was from a woman who has managed to restore her self-belief and deal with her substance abuse issue. She recited a poem that she had written as a seven-year-old about how important it is that all the children of the world receive education. People in this country whose lives are blighted by poverty understand the importance of the millennium development goals on a worldwide scale. The hon. Member for Buckingham (John Bercow) has suggested that the annual reporting associated with the Bill could help us to educate our constituents. He hazarded a guess that perhaps as few as one in 100 of our constituents understand the issue, but I am not sure whether that is correct because several hundred of my constituents write to me regularly. For example, Carrie Flint of Connaught avenue, Plymouth, states that only five of the richest countries are fulfilling the promise to provide 0.7 per cent. of gross national income in overseas aid, and that six countries, including the UK, have set a clear target to reach that objective soon. She has a clear understanding of the Bill and why I should support it.