Treaty of Lisbon (No. 6)

Of course my hon. Friend is right to recognise that there are vast numbers of poor people in India, which partly explains why the Department's largest bilateral programme is with India. He also makes the fair, broader point that given the appropriate focus in the Department on low-income countries, we need to be mindful of the fact that there continue to be large numbers of poor people in middle-income countries. Equally, it is important to recognise that it is reasonable to look to a country such as India, whose aid dependency is diminishing as foreign reserves rise, to have a growing capacity to take responsibility for the poor people within its borders. In that sense, we have an effective development relationship with India, which was a subject of discussion between our Prime Minister and Manmohan Singh, the Indian Prime Minister, at the recent UK-India summit, but we need to continue to watch the situation.