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International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

I am extremely grateful for that intervention, because I was looking towards where our hon. Friend normally sits in the Chamber and was somewhat concerned by his lack of presence. I am relieved that he will be able to deal with amendments 8, 9, 10, 11 and 37, which stand in his name. I will touch on those briefly at the end of my remarks. Before that, I will deal with the definitions of the accounting period, the 0.35% proposal, the issue of enforcement, which is dealt with in new clause 2, and amendments 1, 2 and 3, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Mr Chope).

Concerns were raised on Second Reading about the original Bill’s provision for a new body that was to be known as the Independent International Development Office. That had been provided for in clause 5. Although the clause was relatively short, the related detail in the schedule to the Bill was extensive. Subsection (1) simply stated that there should be established an independent body, known as the Independent International Development Office—I shall refer to it from now on as the IIDO—and subsection (2) provided that the schedule should make provision for it. The schedule provided a lot of details about the membership of the IIDO, including who its employees were going to be, its duties, its annual report, its accountability and reporting requirements, its financial arrangements, and its internal financial accounting and audit requirements. It was a comprehensive statement of what was to be required of the new body.

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Given that the Bill will enshrine in law a legal requirement to spend billions of pounds of taxpayers’ money every year, I can understand why its promoter felt it necessary to include in it specific provision for oversight. To be fair to the Minister, he made it clear on Second Reading that he was unhappy about the clause and the schedule and that he would seek to change them in Committee. It was no surprise, therefore, that in Committee amendments were tabled that took out clause 5 and the schedule and inserted a new clause 5, which is very much pared down, and simply says:

“The Secretary of State must make arrangements for the independent evaluation of the extent to which ODA”—

overseas development assistance—

“provided by the United Kingdom represents value for money in relation to the purposes for which it is provided…The Secretary of State must include in each annual report a statement as to how he or she has complied with the duty under subsection (1).”

Leaving aside the fact that, by virtue of section 6 of the Interpretation Act 1978, there is no need to refer to both genders because it provides that where one gender

is included in legislation the other is included automatically, this pared-down requirement is not sufficient. While I entirely agree with the Minister that there was no need to establish an entirely new body, with all the extra costs and layers of bureaucracy that that would involve, at least some element should be written into the Bill for separate and independent scrutiny.

That was the reasoning behind my tabling new clause 1, which provides that an existing body, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact,

“shall have responsibility to carry out independent evaluation of the relevance, impact, value-for-money, efficiency and effectiveness”

of the UK’s overseas development assistance as provided for in the Bill. The ICAI, which is not a statutory body, was set up in the early months of this Parliament. The framework agreement between the Department for International Development and the ICAI sets out a broad framework within which the ICAI operates as an advisory non-departmental public body sponsored by DFID. The framework agreement requires it to report directly to Parliament through the International Development Committee. As an independent body for the scrutiny of UK aid, it is the perfect body to take on the role that I foresee for it. I may have some support for that; I am not sure. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) said on Second Reading:

“ICAI is not a comfortable organisation for Ministers…It reports not to Ministers, who are able to sweep inconvenient truths under the carpet, but to the International Development Committee.”

He said that the Committee had shown itself to be

“fearless in pursuing the Government when alerted to difficulties by the independent commission”.

The ICAI can deliver precisely what we want to see in the Bill and what the House wishes to endorse. My right hon. Friend the Member for South Cambridgeshire (Mr Lansley), whom I see in his place, said on Second Reading:

“I confess that I cannot see why the Independent Commission for Aid Impact should not be given statutory backing. I therefore hope that when the Bill is further considered, it might be possible, in clause 5, simply to give statutory backing to what has been created as ICAI.”—[Official Report, 12 September 2014; Vol. 585, c. 1202.]

Essentially, that is what new clause 1 is designed to do, although I appreciate that it may not receive widespread support in the House. The suggestion was made on Second Reading that that was one potential way forward, and it was discussed at some length in Committee, although not at great length.

It is perhaps worth contrasting the work of the ICAI, and the fact that it already exists as a functioning oversight and monitoring body, with the proposal made by my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies). On this occasion, I do not agree with him. New clause 4 and new schedule 2, which he has tabled, are designed to reinstate provisions contained in the Bill on Second Reading that were taken out in Committee. I will leave it to my hon. Friend to explain why he thinks that that would be a better way forward.

Type
Proceeding contribution
Reference
589 cc551-2 
Session
2014-15
Chamber / Committee
House of Commons chamber
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