I have made that point, but I agree with my hon. Friend.
Who will calculate the calendar year figure? As far as I understand it, it will not even be domestically set, because the OBR works to a financial year and so it will not be doing it. I suspect that the decision on whether we have hit this figure will be determined solely by the international body that calculates these things on the basis of a calendar year. In effect, we are setting up Government spending without any of our own controls over it—not even with our independent body determining it for us, but rather with it being done by international body in whose calculations and figures we may or may not have any confidence. Having our Government spending determined not by ourselves—not even in this country—but by an international body is a very dangerous precedent to set.
Amendments 21 to 26 are consequential amendments that flow from one another. They would remove several references to 0.7% and replace them with 0.35%. I believe that I may have been overly generous with the target of 0.35%, but I am a generous kind of chap. I set out earlier the fact that we give lots of overseas aid—whether to the European Union or in welfare payments—that is not covered by the Bill. When all those things were added on, even if we were to accept my amendments and make the target 0.35%, we would be spending way over 0.7%. My amendments are, therefore, rather modest.
11.30 am
As others have mentioned, a target of 0.35% would not prevent a Government from spending 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid if they so chose. At the moment, there is nothing to prevent any Government from spending 0.7% if they choose to do so. Believe it or not, we already do. The Bill is an unnecessary, pointless exercise in gesture politics, because it makes no difference to what the Government already do. My amendments would not prevent the Government from spending 0.7% if that is what they wanted to spend, and if they could command a majority in the House in favour of doing so. The amendments would simply mean that we did not have a ridiculous law underpinning that.
Given all the other things that I have mentioned, 0.35% seems to me to be a much more affordable figure. It is more or less the figure that we have spent in most years since the 1970s. Our spending has always been
around that figure; sometimes it has been a bit higher and sometimes it has been lower, but that is approximately the level of support that this country has provided around the world since the 1970s, give or take a few years. A figure of 0.35% is not ungenerous at all. It would put us much higher than many other countries around the world, if we look at what they give. It is almost double what the United States gives in overseas aid as a proportion of its GDP. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield will, I am sure, know the figures far better than I do—I am relying on recollection—but I believe that the United States gives approximately 0.19% of its GDP in overseas aid. That is a huge amount of money, but as a proportion of GDP it is quite small. If my amendments were accepted, we would give almost twice as much overseas aid, as a proportion of GDP, as the United States. That would put us higher than most of our European colleagues, who are a long way below that level.
One of my concerns about the proposal is that the more money we give in overseas aid, the more excuse we give other countries to say that they do not need to spend as much money on overseas aid. They may say that because the UK is doing all the heavy lifting, they can cut their spending to a level that they can afford. It is striking that other countries around Europe, which have also had terrible financial problems, have cut their overseas aid budgets. At least they have some common sense and they know that they should spend only what they can afford. They are allowing us to take up the slack. How stupid are we? They are taking us for mugs. Unfortunately, by going along with it, we are accepting that we are mugs. My amendments would deal with that, and I hope that we will reduce what we are legally obliged to give. To give an illustration, my amendments would put us more in line with Germany, which is at 0.38%, Australia at 0.34% and Canada at 0.27%. We would be more in tune with some of our European partners and Commonwealth friends.
I have already referred to amendment 19, which is consequential on trying to change the operational period from a calendar year to a financial year. I want to leave out clause 5, which was agreed to in Committee. It might be described as the pointless clause, because it got rid of any independent oversight of what the Department should spend and merely inserted:
“The Secretary of State must make arrangements for the independent evaluation of the extent to which ODA provided by the United Kingdom represents value for money”.
That, as I mentioned in a brief intervention earlier, is the ultimate in the Government marking their own homework. Parliament will not set up a body to scrutinise what the Executive are doing; the Government will set up their own body. One of Parliament’s key roles is to hold the Executive’s feet to the fire, but the Bill will not allow any of that. Parliament will not hold the Executive’s feet to the fire; the Executive will hold their own feet to the fire. You may trust the Executive to hold their own feet to the fire, Mr Speaker, but I have been here long enough to know that no Executive, no matter of which party it is made up, can be trusted to do that. Clause 5, which, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bury North has said, is not a new clause but a rewritten version of the original clause, is completely pointless and worthless. It basically gives the Government a green light to mark their own homework and, no doubt, produce a report
to say how marvellously well they have done. I predict that the evaluation of the Government’s work every year will be that they have done a great job.
If I might deviate slightly, Madam Deputy Speaker, I am delighted to see you take your place and I wanted to take this opportunity to apologise to you for my behaviour last week. I spoke to you in a way in which I should not have done, and I said things that I should not have said. I think you realise that I felt aggrieved, but no matter about that. I should not have said what I said, and therefore I hope that you will accept, in a brief deviation, my apology, sincerely and genuinely meant, for what I said to you last week.