International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill

I will of course bear in mind the comments that the hon. Gentleman has made, both in relation to his own 10-minute Bill on the subject and in exchanges that he and I have had in the House on other occasions. I hope that, in turn, he will bear in mind my responses, in which I highlighted the full range of auditing opportunities that exist for British development assistance and for improvements in the Government systems that benefit from the aid that we give. I shall turn now to the part of the Bill in which I know that the hon. Gentleman takes a particular interest. The last part of the Bill requires an assessment of the UK’s contribution to promoting transparency in the provision and use of aid. As I mentioned on Second Reading, the Government agree with the thrust of the clause on transparency, but we believe that, as drafted, it is over-prescriptive. As drafted, the Bill requires the Department to undertake new work negotiating formal bilateral agreements with all countries to which the UK provides aid—some 130 in 2004–05—and to commission and publish independent monitoring and evaluation reports recording the development objectives achieved by those countries.