International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill

My Lords, it is a duty, but it is also a pleasure, to follow immediately after the maiden speech in this House of the noble Baroness, Lady Quin, and for me to welcome that excellent speech. I do so all the more cheerfully as the noble Baroness has chosen the same subject—international development—as I did for my own maiden speech here some five years ago. I had the pleasure of working with the noble Baroness first as a Member of the European Parliament, then when she was a Front-Bench speaker on foreign affairs in opposition, and when she became Minister for Europe while I was successive Governments’ special representative for Cyprus. I hope she will not mind my saying that she was a much appreciated and most effective Minister for Europe, not least because she took the trouble to speak the languages of more than one of our EU partners. In Cyprus, she and I had an experience that could well end up in the Guinness Book of Records when Mr Rauf Denktash spoke for 49 minutes without giving her a chance to get in even an opening remark—not something, I am glad to say, that could happen in your Lordships’ House. Anyway, her contribution to the debate will leave us with a lively expectation of her further participation in the work of this House. I shall speak briefly in support of the Bill, which I believe to be an admirable and necessary measure. I do so in particular to show support for it from the Cross Benches, signifying I hope that here, as in another place, this Bill enjoys the support of all parties and of those, like me, with no party allegiance. For many years, the British Government paid lip service to their commitment to the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNP to be devoted to official development aid. UN conferences came and went and we continued to subscribe to the target. Meanwhile, our actual disbursement of aid moved away from the target, not towards it. This was a discreditable way of behaving, which undermined not only our own credibility and reputation but that of the United Nations. In more recent times, we have begun to move effectively towards achieving the target, and now the Government have committed themselves to a precise timetable for that. The Bill will underpin that commitment by obliging the Government to chart each step of the course. It will thus greatly increase the credibility of our position, and if it inspires other countries, which are also now committed to a precise timetable for achieving the 0.7 per cent, to do likewise, as I hope it will, it could have a multiplier effect and will facilitate the crucial task of monitoring the commitments, which is so essential. In that context, the Bill is of a piece with the very welcome announcement by the Prime Minister earlier this week of the establishment of a panel, to be chaired by Kofi Annan, to work on the follow-up to the commitments to Africa made last year. It is also of a piece with the publication next week of the report by your Lordships’ own EU Select Committee on the European Union strategy for Africa, and in particular on that strategy’s effective implementation. But the measure will do more than that. By linking our overall aid performance to progress towards achieving the different UN millennium development goals, in particular towards goal 8—the reduction of poverty, it should increase the pressure on receiving countries to be able to demonstrate clearly and transparently that Britain’s aid really is going to support programmes in health, education and other vital objectives set out in the millennium development goals. The reference to preventing corruption is particularly important. Nothing undermines the general case for overseas aid more insidiously than the widespread belief that it will end up in the wrong hands and is not going to be applied effectively to the objectives identified for the grant of the aid in the first place. We need now to build up an effective alliance between the donors and the recipients to resist corruption and to convince the recipients that it is as much in their long-term interest as it is in ours to be able to demonstrate that aid is helping to achieve the millennium development goals. That measure should help to achieve that aim. On a purely procedural point, I would urge, along with noble Lords who have already spoken, that Members of this House do not move any amendments in Committee. The peculiarities of the procedures here and in another place would mean that any such move would be likely to result in the Bill being lost, which would be a miserable outcome. In any case, to my relatively untutored eye, the provisions of the Bill seem to be admirably clear and concise. I understand that it enjoys the enthusiastic support of the Secretary of State for International Development. I hope that we can today wish it on its way to speedy adoption.