Well, I have been on the receiving end of a certain amount of abuse, and this is a very important point. As my noble friend has indicated, the difference between GDP and GNI for the United Kingdom is limited. But in support of the United
Kingdom being in the van and being ahead of virtually every other OECD country in committing itself to a target of 0.7% of GNI, the proponents of that policy have argued that other countries—I think that there are five—have set an example. One of those countries is Luxembourg. The difference between GDP and GNI is that, for a country such as Luxembourg, which appears to meet the target very generously, the GNI is considerably higher than the GDP, because the GNI includes revenues that are repatriated from the country to outside. So if you set a target that is based on GNI, it gives anywhere that is a tax haven a huge advantage in meeting the target as opposed to countries that are not—and I thought that Members opposite were rather against tax havens and making life easier for tax havens. I cannot give the exact figure, but I would estimate that, if we take into account the moneys going through Luxembourg through multinational companies and going back to the United States and elsewhere, instead of more than meeting the target, I suspect that it is less than halfway towards it. This is not a nitpicking point. It is an important point. It is important because, as I said earlier—I am not going to repeat the argument—when the target was originally set by the UN, it was for GDP.
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My second point in support of my noble friend is to ask why, for this one thing, we are choosing GNI. For example, our commitment to NATO is to try to meet at least 2% of GDP, not GNI. So why are we choosing a different measure when all our other international treaty commitments, as far as I am aware, are based on GDP and all our discussions in terms of our commitments to the health service and other services are based on GDP and not on GNI?
My noble friend’s amendment is an eminently sensible one. I would have thought that the Minister would have no difficulty in accepting it. I suspect that she will say in reply, “Ah, you do not understand. The Government want to make a commitment on GNI because that is the established standard by which other countries will commit themselves in terms of ODA”. I just point out that that established standard is actually cheating people in the developing countries of the support that they would otherwise get when those countries are countries such as Luxembourg where a large part of the receipts is not retained within the country itself. It seems rather extraordinary that we should give credence to that. Indeed, those who are committed to this policy of 0.7%, on the basis that the resources that should be made available for poverty alleviation around the globe, even at 0.7%, are not going to be sufficient, and resources should be maximised as much as possible, which I suspect is the feeling of this House, would do well to argue that it should be GDP not GNI that is assessed for the purposes of that target. However, that is not to say that I in any way agree with making that target a statutory target that has to be met, for the reasons that I explained earlier and which I shall not repeat—because, although we have lost our stand-in Speaker, I dare say it would irritate the House.
I very much support the amendment, which it seems to me is one that the noble Lord ought to be able to accept and which I would have thought that the
Government, as the keeper of consistency, transparency and accountability in our national statistics, would find it helpful to have included in the Bill.