International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill

I beg to move,"That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill, it is expedient to authorise the payment out of money provided by Parliament of—""(1) any expenditure incurred by the Secretary of State in consequence of the Act;""and""(2) any increase attributable to the Act in the sums payable out of money so provided under any other Act." I was delighted that the measure, which was promoted as a private Member’s Bill by my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) was granted an unopposed Second Reading by the House on 20 January. The money resolution was tabled on 23 January. It is likely to have some expenditure implications for the public purse, which relate to Department for International Development staff and non-staff costs that are needed to complete new policy work on implementing the new work that the Bill requires, and to prepare an annual report to Parliament. No provision is included for the costs of implementation by other Departments as they are considered minimal. The Bill aims to increase transparency in the provision, reporting and use of aid and to promote coherence in Government policies on international development. To that end, it requires my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to make an annual report to Parliament containing a series of quantitative and qualitative assessments. The Bill requires extensive reporting on UK development assistance provided both directly to developing country partners and indirectly through multilateral agencies. Data on bilateral aid will be broken down by region and by sector, and data on multilateral aid will be broken down according to the groups of multilateral agencies through which the UK contributes. The report will specify the proportions of aid that go to low-income countries. It will also include data on the debt relief that the United Kingdom provides to developing countries. The Bill specifically deals with tracking the UK’s progress towards the United Nations target for expenditure on official development assistance—ODA—to constitute 0.7 per cent. of gross national income. Much of the financial information that the Bill requires is already reported voluntarily. However, to fulfil the Bill’s detailed requirements, the Department would need to develop new financial and management information systems that are capable of producing data, disaggregated to the level of detail that the measure requires. That would require respecification of the management information systems that are currently under design in the Department and incur additional costs. The Bill as drafted would require the Department to prepare regulations prescribing definitions for the terms contained in it. In terms of qualitative assessments, the Bill will, in the first instance, require my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to assess the coherence of UK Government policies on poverty reduction and sustainable development. The Bill also requires an assessment of the UK contribution towards achieving the UN millennium development goals.