International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill

I agree. One does not need the wisdom of Solomon to come up with an adequate definition of those terms. I am sure that my hon. Friend would offer his services to ensure that they were properly defined, should the Government and the House accept the amendments, as I hope they will. Amendment No. 5 is similar to amendment No. 4, and—as I said earlier—on reflection I am not sure that it is one of the stronger amendments. Amendments Nos. 29 to 31 address the waste of money. My hon. Friend pointed out the amount of bilateral aid that has been misused, stolen or diverted into fraudulent schemes, and surely any report on international aid has to focus on how much of that aid has been diverted into fraudulent schemes or, as in amendment No. 30,"““has been paid, directly or indirectly to nationals of any country, either directly or indirectly through their employment, who are not citizens of the countries to which the aid is…addressed””." I do not understand why hon. Members do not want such information to be clearly stated in the report. Surely we all want to ensure that taxpayers’ money is not wasted. The amendments would ensure that taxpayers’ money was spent properly. If amendments Nos. 26 and 27 are not accepted, we may have to wait 11 months or so for information. We want information to be collected and made available straightaway. It is pointless to have a Bill that requires information on certain subjects if a provision is included that says that information does not have to be included in the report if it cannot be obtained in time, and paragraph 7 of schedule 2 would undermine everything that the Bill seeks to achieve. It would strengthen the Bill to remove that paragraph so that DFID would have to find the relevant information. I was fascinated by what my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch said about new clause 5 and the millennium development goals, some of which were so far in the future that they were essentially meaningless. Goals such as halving poverty by 2015 are important, and we may want to reassess whether the goals are still suitable. He mentioned the goal of increasing the number of women in parliament, and surely that cannot go hand in hand with the goal of halving poverty. Everybody can see that some of the goals are more important than others. The benefit of the Bill is that it would stimulate a public debate on how the Government are spending the money. Many of my constituents feel passionately about that. The Bill gives us the potential to stimulate public debate about how money is spent. After the public have made their views clear, we may want to reflect on amending some of the millennium development goals, such as the number of women in Parliaments, and focus on some of the more important aspects of international development.