That is disgraceful. No doubt the noble Lord, Lord Cashman, will want to withdraw his tweet. I am not sure how you “untweet” or “detweet”, but I am sure he will wish to do so. I am afraid I am not sufficiently technologically proficient to advise him on this matter, but I am sure he knows all about it.
Turning now to the remarks of the Minister, I wish to deal with three points in particular. First, she made a great defence of her department, DfID. I have to say that she has half a point here. If one looks at the various aid agencies around the world, DfID is probably one of the best. However, part of the problem is that a large proportion of British overseas aid is handled not by DfID but by multinational institutions, in particular the United Nations and the European Union—and all the evidence we have indicates that neither of those institutions has anything like the robust high standards to which DfID aspires. That is a major problem, and of course the more ODA is increased, the greater the problem becomes.
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On the question of the effectiveness of even DfID, noble Lords would do well to read a very recent report of the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee—not the one we have been talking about; there have been so many problems with aid that there has been rather a number of things that the NAO has had to look into. I refer to Oversight of the Private Infrastructure Development Group. It is a strange enterprise. Four national aid agencies, of which DfID is one, have banded together with each having 25% of the votes. DfID is therefore outvoted and in a minority, and yet virtually all the money has been put up by DfID on behalf of the British taxpayer.
This Private Infrastructure Development Group has been doing a number of odd things, of which I shall mention just one:
“We questioned the Department and the Private Infrastructure Development Group on alleged links between investments funded by PIDG with UK taxpayers’ money and companies associated with known criminal fraudsters”.
That is what is going on. The Public Accounts Committee refers explicitly to the department’s “weak oversight” of the PIDG. The highly respected Centre for Global Development has pointed out in a working paper that as far as the target is concerned, it is,
“fundamentally flawed as there is little empirical evidence showing a relationship between aid, investment and growth”.
Of course, growth is needed to raise living standards, and that is what we are all concerned about.
As I said when I moved Amendment 1, the amendments in this group are about increasing flexibility. This is perhaps the most important group of amendments for doing that. It beggars belief that my noble friend the Minister can say with a straight face that being
able to average out the aid over a five-year period does not give more flexibility than having a strict one-year limit. I could not believe my ears, but that is what she said. She tried to support the statement by saying that the Government do their accounts annually. Of course the Government do their accounts annually for all their income and all their expenditure, and that is quite right. However, that has nothing to do with the fact that when you are going to spend a certain amount of money, if you are able to do so over a five-year period, that provides greater flexibility than having to spend it in one year, particularly because it is important to examine not merely what the outcomes are in terms of money, but in terms of avoiding corruption, contact with fraudsters and all the rest. This does not add up.
The Minister’s final argument was that the rest of the world has an annual target, so we should, too. The rest of the world does not have the slightest intention of observing the 0.7% target. As I pointed out earlier—but will repeat for the benefit of my noble friend the Minister—not one of the other six countries in the G7 is anywhere near the 0.7% target, and nor do they have the slightest intention of reaching it. France and Germany are running at 0.4%, while at the other end of the scale, Italy and the United States are running at 0.2%. They have no intention of setting a 0.7% target and they have no intention of having a target that is legally binding.
I hope that nothing alarming has occurred in the Chamber. I had better pause for a moment.