Opposition Day — [18th Allotted Day] – in the House of Commons at 7:17 pm on 24 July 2007.
The next motion is on global poverty. I must advise the House that Mr. Speaker has selected the amendment that stands in the name of the Prime Minister and that there will be a 10-minute limit on all Back-Bench speeches in the debate.
I beg to move,
That this House
reaffirms the cross-party commitment to increase the aid budget to 0.7 per cent. of gross national income by 2013; recognises the ability of effectively organised aid to contribute to sustainable economic development in low income countries;
acknowledges the need to avoid imposing over-prescriptive conditions on aid;
supports the wider use of tracking surveys and independent accounting as well as increased independent scrutiny of the United Kingdom's aid budget to make the ultimate destination of aid payments more transparent;
welcomes the suggestion that donors should work together in partnership trusts to ensure coordination of bilateral aid budgets in each recipient country;
and urges the Government to work towards the unilateral removal by the EU of trade barriers against low income countries.
This topic is, by common consent, probably the most important one that the world currently faces. Probably the worst feature of our world is that so many people live in dire poverty. That is a matter of consensus among not just ourselves and Government Members, but Liberal Members and, indeed, I am glad to say, the whole political establishment in Britain, but I wonder whether it is as keenly felt by all our fellow citizens as it might be.
I certainly admit that, over a number of years, the Conservative party, although it shared the consensus on spending, for example, and has done for many years in this field, did not pay the subject the attention it was due. One of the very first things that happened when my right hon. Friend Mr. Cameron became leader of the party is that we asked my right hon. Friend Mr. Lilley, who is in his place, to chair a policy review group to look into how we might propose sensible, robust and effective policies to improve Britain's performance in this area.
The right hon. Gentleman mentions Mr. Cameron. Does he agree with me and the Daily Mail that the right hon. Member for Witney would be better placed in his own constituency, looking after the flood victims, rather than chasing a photo opportunity in Rwanda?
I hope that, as we proceed with what I, at least, intend to be a serious debate on the most pressing problem of the world, we will not descend to partisan repartee. In fact, over the years, it will be seen that the commitment of my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney to this subject and his willingness to continue with his engagement, notwithstanding the considerable political pressure to the contrary, is a sign of the same kind of commitment that is displayed by the fact that the group chaired by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden has now produced what is, by common consent of those who are expert in the field, a very serious piece of work. Today we met a large number of representatives of the non-governmental organisations, who had many good and useful things to say in support of much of what is in the report. I hope that the debate will be the beginning of a prolonged national discussion of the propositions in the report. We certainly intend that discussion to inform our policy as it emerges.
The report does much more than merely commit to a seriousness in relation to the relief of global poverty. It refocuses the discussion of the relief of global poverty. In particular, it offers a clear view of what the route out of global poverty is and has to be. In a way, what it says on that ought to have been obvious, but, over the past 20 or 30 years—this is not a partisan point; it is a point about the trend of British government over many years—it has not been followed up as if it were obvious. The report says that the way out of poverty is economic development and growth. It points out that our policies as a country have been, to a degree, deficient, in that we have failed to do as much as we could have done for growth in low-income countries.
In particular, the report points to two parts of our policy that have been, to a degree, deficient: first, our policy on trade and, secondly, our policy on aid. The report makes a bold proposition about trade, which it describes under the heading of a "real trade campaign". It proposes that Britain and our partners in the European Union should join together and seek to achieve a unilateral disarmament in our barriers against trade from low-income countries. I stress the word "unilateral". The report does not propose that we should merely demand a reciprocal reduction in barriers on the part of low-income countries. On the contrary, it proposes that we should tear down the barriers and offer what is built on the everything-but-arms basis. But, more than that, it involves a significant change in the rules of origin. It proposes that that should be offered to low-income countries on a unilateral basis, from the European Union. That is a major potential step forward in the thinking about how we can open ourselves up to trade that may benefit us, but, much more importantly, offers the prospect of growth and economic development in parts of the world that do not have it in sufficient quantities.
It is of course critical that the report deals not just with unilaterally tearing down barriers against trade from low-income countries, but with the need to encourage and foster south-south trade—trade between low-income countries. It makes a number of proposals about how that too can be encouraged. Nor is it the case that the report deals merely with tearing down barriers to trade. It also makes it clear that aid itself needs to be oriented more firmly towards the promotion of trade. I will come on to that as I describe the report's propositions on aid. This is an important step forward in thinking about trade, and the ability of the UK and our partner countries to promote trade from low-income countries.
The report is equally committed to improvements in our aid programme. I stress that the report does not suggest that our aid programme is a disaster or that the Department for International Development does nothing right. As the Secretary of State will see if he chooses to read the report at some stage, it provides a fair-minded and balanced analysis of the advantages and disadvantages of the way in which DFID has been going about its business.
The report suggests that our aid programme could be improved significantly if various things happened. First, our aid programme could be more devoted to economic development than has recently become fashionable. The report notes that, a couple of decades ago, aid for economic development began to acquire a bad name—partly because of tied aid, which by common consent we now do not believe in, and partly because of large-scale projects that did not work out right. The Secretary of State is nodding his head, but if he thinks that it was merely one set of Governments that failed in those respects, rather than many, he is wrong. It was a common failing, both across different Administrations in the UK and across other Administrations in other countries. The report argues that, as a result of all that, aid aimed at economic development acquired an unduly bad name.
Secondly, the report notes that not only did aid have attached to it for a considerable period the wrong conditionality of being tied to our exports, but, following that period, it had attached to it—and still has attached to it—what the report regards as an excessively prescriptive view of how the aid is to be used. The report argues for a different form of conditionality. It argues that aid can do serious things—if it is the right kind of aid, rightly delivered—for the development of agriculture and of the economy as a whole in low-income countries. It argues that microfinance institutions and demand-led funding can make a significant difference to the development of those countries.
The report argues that the conditionality that needs to apply is transparency. It argues for the much wider use of expenditure tracking surveys, independent accounting and efforts to make sure that outcomes match inputs. The report argues that DFID and Britain would be better served if there were an independent evaluation group, reporting to a Select Committee and looking into the outcomes achieved by DFID. The report notes that the public service agreements and the objectives of DFID are wide in nature and not sufficiently related to the outcomes achieved by aid.
The right hon. Gentleman is certainly presenting an interesting argument. Given the fact that a great deal of British aid is spent through multilateral institutions such as the World Bank and the development banks, how does he propose that we would track the outcomes and hold those organisations properly to account?
The hon. Lady asks an interesting question. The report does offer a route to achieving that. The route has another advantage as well. The report suggests that—this is something of which I have had a good deal of personal experience in the various African countries in which I have worked—the often fragile governmental organisations in low-income countries suffer from an excess of bureaucratic requirements from a range of well-meaning donor countries and well-meaning multilateral donors. It points to the extent to which the bureaucracies in those countries can be forced to complete a huge number of forms and responses for those many donors.
As a way of dealing with that—this would also do what the hon. Lady and I both seek—the report suggests the formation of what it calls partnership trusts. They would be bodies in the recipient countries that would be co-operatives, or partnerships, involving a range of donor countries with aid programmes in those countries, and multilateral institutions. On their boards would also sit, perhaps as observing rather than voting members, various local non-governmental organisations, governmental observers and so forth. In that way, the aid programmes from many different sources could be co-ordinated more efficiently and be made subject more effectively to expenditure tracking and independent accounting.
The report proposes that the process that I have described would enable one to envisage encouraging the media and other organisations of civil society in recipient countries to invigilate the effectiveness with which the aid reaches the schools, hospitals, farms and infrastructure projects to which it was directed. It argues that that is likely to provide a more sustainable basis for checks and balances against corruption and poor governance than present arrangements.
The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting case and I welcome the contribution to the debate on global poverty. Does he accept that building up the capacity of the local finance ministry is the ultimate priority for many developing countries? Is there not a danger that setting up a parallel structure would put pressure and strain on their resources that they could not sustain? To be fair to the Department for International Development, one of the benefits of budget support is that the Department has to work with the local finance ministry to deliver that accountability. Setting up a parallel structure poses risks, whereas establishing a successful finance ministry would be a good start.
I wholly agree with the right hon. Gentleman, as I think would my hon. Friend Mr. Mitchell, the shadow Secretary of State. Building up the capacity of finance ministries is a crucial component, and the report makes that very point. That is why it favours direct budgetary support, rather than highly prescriptive aid on one side. Indeed, it goes further, arguing that support for health programmes would be better achieved by giving direct budgetary support that is then passed on to the health system as a whole than by minutely targeting specific health initiatives that turn out not to have the infrastructure and support that is needed to maintain them.
Neither I nor the report suggests that a parallel structure that undercuts a recipient country's finance ministry be established. On the contrary: the report suggests setting up a partnership trust of donors whose board could discuss its programmes with the local finance ministry, and that that could enable the finance ministry to do better at finding ways to render transparent how the money is used. It could also enable civil society in the recipient country to invigilate the finance ministry. The idea is to create a sustainable process in that country, and not impose a parallel process from outside.
I do not know whether my right hon. Friend is familiar with my International Development (Anti-Corruption Audit) Bill, which I introduced early last year. In it, I suggested a mechanism by which, in countries where it was transparent that corruption was rife, the finance ministries and public accounts committees could have an independent, external audit carried out by Parliaments and international institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank. Does he think that that proposal should be pursued, as a way of making sure that children no longer die at the present rate? For example, poor water and sanitation mean that one child dies every 15 seconds. I know that the report is excellent, but we must not underestimate the importance of external audit when the countries concerned are simply not listening to what we say.
I hope that my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden will succeed in catching your eye, Mr. Deputy Speaker, and be able to speak for himself. However, I think that I can say on his behalf that he was indeed aware of my hon. Friend's contribution, as was I. If the proposed measures are to be effective, independent audit will be an important component. In the report, there is considerable discussion of the need for independent audit, although it suggests that it should be conducted under the local finance ministry and not be imposed from outside.
However, I can go further. The report also makes immensely important suggestions about the need for a new corruption Act in the UK., and about the need to do better at tracking our unwitting participation in corruption abroad as a result, for example, of activities that may be going on in the financial centre that is London.
I know that many colleagues want to speak, so I shall summarise my argument. The report is not conceived in a partisan spirit. It is the product of an immense amount of consultation and work—with NGOs, recipient country Governments, and experts from across the world. It has a remorselessly growth-oriented focus, and argues that both trade and aid can make colossal contributions to promoting growth in low-income countries. It argues for a radical proposal across the EU to remove barriers to trade, and for aid that is provided on a basis that is less prescriptive but more transparent. It believes that such aid is more likely to be effective and better directed at promoting the growth permitted by the removal of trade barriers.
I believe that the report will form the basis of a considerable, ongoing discussion. I hope so, as that may assist the Government—and the Opposition, as we formulate our policy responses in this critical area.
Before I close, I want to say one other thing. I welcome the Liberal Democrat amendment, although I know that Mr. Speaker did not select it for debate. If Liberal Democrat colleagues read the relevant sections of the report, they will find them penetrated throughout by a recognition of the critical significance of adaptation to climate change in low-income countries, and the necessity to pass the aid programme through what it calls the "filter" of its effects on climate change.
On several occasions, the right hon. Gentleman has said that there is growing basis of cross-party support in this area of policy, and I am very pleased by what is a very welcome change. However, does he see anything in the Government amendment to the Opposition motion with which he disagrees? Is the level of cross-party support such that there is no need to divide the House at the end of the debate?
I would have welcomed it if the Government had not tabled an amendment, although I did not expect that. I am not sure that our motion contains anything with which the Government particularly disagree. The Government amendment essentially agrees with much of the substance of the motion, but adds congratulations, on a considerable scale, to the Government. It is, so to speak, a "Toad of Toad Hall" amendment: there is nothing amiss with that and I can quite understand the principle but, if the hon. Gentleman supposes that we would vote for a mass of unnecessary congratulation, he is stretching my impartiality and non-partisan nature a mite too far.
I beg to move, To leave out from "House" to the end of the Question, and to add instead thereof:
"acknowledges the Government's global leadership on international development;
welcomes the Government's stated objective to increase the aid budget to 0.7 per cent. of gross national income by 2013; further welcomes the widespread support which this policy has secured;
further acknowledges the centrality of effectively delivered aid to low income countries' sustainable economic development;
welcomes the Government's untying of aid;
supports the United Kingdom Government's moves to establish an independent evaluation mechanism and its increased focus on aid effectiveness, results and impact;
and acknowledges that the UK Government is working at the multilateral and bilateral levels to remove the trade barriers which developing countries face and to help them take advantage of new market opportunities through the provision of aid for trade."
Two weeks ago, the United Nations published a report showing progress towards the millennium development goals. The scale of the remaining challenge is clear: every minute, a woman dies in pregnancy or childbirth, and as we have heard, every 15 seconds a child dies because they did not have access to clean water and sanitation. Each year, malaria claims 1 million lives, tuberculosis nearly 2 million lives, and AIDS 3 million lives. It is seven years since the world pledged to "spare no effort" to free men, women and children from extreme poverty, yet only one of the eight regions of the world cited in the UN report is on track to achieve all the millennium development goals.
However, we can—and we must—make a difference. The Department for International Development's work is rightly respected around the world. The Development Assistance Committee of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said that the United Kingdom
"offers a powerful model for development cooperation."
The Canadian Institute of International Affairs said that the Department is
"generally considered to be the best"— development agency—
"in the world."
The Leader of the Opposition was perhaps rather more charitable than Opposition Front Benchers have been this evening: he was willing to make the point forcefully last year that
"We should...be proud of the Department for International Development's achievements", and he described it as
"the leading national aid agency."
Indeed, it is estimated that the Department's work lifts 3 million people out of poverty every year. I put that evidence before the House not out of complacency or false pride, but out of determination that the Department should build on its success in the years ahead to help more of the world's poor. We must do so with an informed understanding of the challenges facing us at the start of this young century—migration, climate change, conflict, and of course disease, which we have already mentioned.
The White Paper "Eliminating world poverty: making governance work for the poor", published just over a year ago, sets out how we will tackle global poverty in a changing world—a world in which, each year, more than 190 million people leave their shores in search of a better life; in which climate change is not a theory, but a fact of life for many struggling with floods, drought and crop failures; in which scarce resources threaten to spark new conflicts; and in which disease can spread rapidly across continents.
Later, I will talk about the contribution that the international community can make in helping the world's poorest people to tackle those challenges, but what happens within their borders is critical to their future. That is why good governance was at the heart of the White Paper. Good governance is about building effective states that are capable of providing political stability, rules and services for their citizens, that respond to what people want, and which are accountable to them. Every society will, of course, reach good governance in its own way. Our role is to support Governments, Parliaments, civil society, the media, trade unions and all the actors who will play an important role in forging that path.
Notwithstanding the floods at home, Rwanda has been in the news, and I applaud the Leader of the Opposition's courage in spending 24 or 48 hours in that country at a difficult time for him and his party. Let us focus on that country for a moment. The United Kingdom has provided £380 million of assistance to Rwanda over the past 10 years, and has helped to implement public service and land reforms, and to ensure improvements to health and education. The result was that Rwanda's economy grew by over 10 per cent. a year for a decade. The proportion of Rwandans living on less than a dollar a day has fallen from 70 per cent. in 1994 to 57 per cent. last year.
Even where governance standards are at their lowest, as in Zimbabwe, we will not abandon the poorest people; that would doubly punish the people in those afflicted countries. As the Government announced only last week, the Department has committed £50 million to providing seeds, fertilizers, livestock and access to HIV/AIDS care, through tried and tested partners, so that we can assist 2 million of the most vulnerable Zimbabweans.
As well as safeguarding our aid, we must use it to fight the causes of corruption. The extractive industries transparency initiative brings together global business, Governments and non-governmental organisations to show how much money Governments receive from oil, gas and mining revenues. The Nigerian Government estimate that in one year alone that new transparency index saved $1 billion that would otherwise have been lost through corruption. That is money that can and should be spent on basic services, such as health and education services, clean drinking water and sanitation, and a safety net that people can rely on when times are hard. The White Paper committed us to increasing our spending on those public services, so that it becomes at least half of our bilateral aid budget.
We will make more long-term commitments to help developing countries plan for not one or two years, but for a decade—commitments such as the one that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister made in Mozambique last year, when he pledged that the United Kingdom would spend £8.5 billion over 10 years to get every child into school. That will mean that countries that certainly need support can build a school and know that the money will be there to maintain it, and can train teachers, knowing that they can afford to pay a salary at the end of the training.
There has already been much discussion on the Floor of the House on growth and trade this evening, so let me turn to those issues.
Unfortunately, when the former Prime Minister went to the G8, no progress was made on water and sanitation—issues that the right hon. Gentleman mentioned. However, the former Prime Minister did write to me on
Of course I am happy to confirm that water and sanitation are continuing sources of concern to us, and I will certainly make sure that I write to the hon. Gentleman after this evening's debate about the agenda for the G8 in the years to come.
The hon. Gentleman's observation on partnership and working collectively in the G8 brings to mind a concern regarding trade policy that I would like raise with his Front-Bench team. I applaud Mr. Letwin for saying that we must work effectively to open our doors more completely, so that we allow poorer countries the opportunity to trade their way out of poverty, but surely the right hon. Gentleman accepts that if we are to exercise genuine influence in a debate on trade policy, it behoves us to work constructively and effectively with our European partners.
Notwithstanding the fanfare of today's announcement about new campaigns, given that trade is a competence of the European Commission I struggle to understand how it assists endeavours to build a genuine coalition for fair trade within the European Union if only one party in one single country is willing to identify itself with the modern Conservative party. Surely that powerfully makes the case for the Conservative party to stay within the European People's party alliance, which allows mainstream voices in the European Union to be heard. If one limits oneself to speaking to a particular Czech nationalist party, which, as I understand it, does not even accept the existence of climate change, one's leverage and purchase in debate on trade policy will be commensurately diminished.
I visited Burundi and Rwanda last month with colleagues from the all-party group on the great lakes region and genocide prevention, and the point was made time and again that the Department for International Development is doing a tremendous job in offering support. People were also very complimentary about our EU partners, and the help that they give the Department to ensure that support reaches the areas where it is most needed.
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for his observations, and I, too, pay tribute to the work of the all-party group. I know that my hon. Friend was in the Rwandan Parliament when a historic commitment was made to abolishing the death penalty in that country. Given its great troubles in recent decades, that was truly a historic day. He makes a point that is well taken by Members on both sides of the House: we must do more than simply send delegations to visit such countries. We must build effective partnerships that can support those countries in their journey from poverty to development. I return to the point that I made earlier: the European Union offers an extremely powerful mechanism by which we can strengthen our capacity to assist those countries by working effectively and collaboratively.
On exactly that point, when the Select Committee has met the European Commission, the Commission has shown a degree of common cause with the British Government. It has expressed frustration, however, that many of the other member states do not share our commitment to poverty reduction as the overriding objective of development and aid. What does the right hon. Gentleman believe he can do, on the lines that he described, to persuade countries such as France, Germany and Italy to make a stronger commitment to poverty reduction, rather than using aid to tie to their own NGOs and to their own mercantilist interests?
That is a valid point. I draw on my own experience as the former Europe Minister during the British presidency. During that time, and immediately preceding the British presidency, in the run-up to Gleneagles, members of the Government worked very hard indeed to secure widespread support, particularly among the A10, the newer members of the European Union, who for historical reasons were not as familiar with the cause of development in Africa, in particular, as some of the older members of the European Union, to secure genuine cross-European Union support, especially to double aid to Africa.
In many ways that seems a model of the work that we need to do. Of course we should work effectively with our European partners to secure a progressive trade policy, but I recognise that that often involves difficult conversations. I remember a particular debate in which I took part in the General Affairs Council when Peter Mandelson, the Trade Commissioner, was seeking a fresh mandate from the Council of Ministers in order to be able to negotiate on behalf of the European Union. At that meeting I was obliged to speak forcefully from the British seat against a proposal from the French Government that would have effectively bound the hands of the Trade Commissioner ahead of a critical stage in the negotiations.
The hon. Gentleman's experience as Chair of the Select Committee and his familiarity with European issues would, I hope, convince him, as those experiences convinced me, that in order to have influence with those European partners, we need to be inside the room exerting influence, rather than choosing to be outside the room deciding to launch a campaign or to protest.
In many poor countries, the aid about which I spoke earlier is a much needed catalyst for development, but in no country will aid be sufficient. As I am sure we all agree, economic growth is the surest path out of poverty, and trade is crucial to growth. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has made clear his determination that the Government will
"align aid, debt relief and trade policies to wage an unremitting battle" against poverty.
Delivering the promise of the Doha round remains our priority. We remain committed to finding a multilateral solution to the challenge that we face. The UK was instrumental in the launch of the round, and has kept it at the top of the international agenda ever since. Though the difficulties are real, the potential gains for the poor from a successful conclusion to the Doha round are huge. At the same time, we must also help developing countries to improve their ability to trade effectively. The investment climate facility for Africa, launched last year with $30 million of UK funding, uses the expertise of the private sector to help Africa become a better place in which to do business. The Government have therefore pledged to spend $750 million a year on aid for trade by 2010.
But the benefits of trade and growth for the poor can be realised only if we also tackle perhaps the greatest threat facing development, the challenge of climate change. Dealing with climate change is a clear priority for the Department for International Development. We are working across Government towards an international agreement on a cap and trade system which will reduce emissions and help developing countries on to a path of lower carbon growth by providing financial incentives.
The Department is also helping developing countries to preserve their vital ecosystems. Our contribution of £50 million to a new Congo rainforest conservation fund is intended to help prevent the double tragedy of that forest's deforestation, for 50 million people depend on it for their livelihood, and we all depend on it as a second lung of the world.
Yet international action on shared challenges such as climate change, securing growth or securing fair trade, requires effective international institutions. We accept that the international system today was created for the second half of the 20th( )century, not the first half of the 21st. That is why the report of the UN high level panel on system-wide coherence, in which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister took part, is so important and points the way forward for the United Nations in the area of development. The UK has long pressed for UN reform, and I can assure the House that that will remain a priority for the Government.
When I met Bob Zoellick, the incoming president of the World Bank, the week before last, I underlined to him the importance that the Government attach to working with the World Bank as one of the key multilateral institutions.
In May last year the UK Government withheld £50 million from the World Bank because of concerns about conditionality in economic growth and aid. If presented with evidence of the World Bank embarking on such conditionality, would the Secretary of State consider doing that again?
I hope it is a comfort to the hon. Gentleman that the broad issue of conditionality and the approach that the bank is taking was one of the issues that I had the opportunity to discuss in the earliest days of Bob Zoellick assuming his position within the bank. We have been clear that we are looking for a number of steps to be taken to ensure the requisite degree of transparency in the work that the bank does, and to ensure that the voices of developing countries are heard, perhaps more effectively than has been the case in the work of the World Bank in the past.
If I had to identify the challenge, I would say that it is to make sure that we have greater effectiveness of spend in-country. That often means devolving more decision making to country levels. In some ways I hope that the World Bank would take the kind of journey that has been taken by the Department for International Development in recent years, with a higher proportion of decisions now being taken within country. However, I would also want to ensure that the voices of developing countries are heard within the governing structures when those decisions are being taken. I was encouraged by the conversation that I had with Bob Zoellick on these matters. He is obviously reflecting on the challenges that he faces having come into the job only in the past month. I would expect that as we move towards the annual meetings later in the year we will have a clearer sense of the strategy under his presidency. I am optimistic that we will see some of the reforms that we have been urging upon him as we anticipate the International Development Association contribution later in the year.
The Secretary of State will know that one of the surprising agreements following the UN summit was that the budget should be released only every six months, depending on UN reform. Would the Government support that approach? They have done it with the World Bank, so surely it would be appropriate to do it with the UN.
I am rather wary of transferring specific methods of exerting influence from one institution to another. The nature of our relationship with the UN, as one of its very many members, albeit a member of the Security Council, is somewhat different from that of being a shareholder in the World Bank. However, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we are actively engaged in conversations about the need for reform of the UN system, particularly in terms of system-wide coherence, and about the broader need for reform within the World Bank, which we will continue to press for in the critical months ahead as Bob Zoellick gets his feet under the table and begins work. We will stay actively engaged with the World Bank and with other multilateral institutions, because that reflects the broader approach that we want to see. We do not want a relationship of patronage, so much as one of partnership with developing countries, and it is vital that multinational institutions reflect that in the work that they do.
Since 1997, the work of the Department for International Development has moved from the periphery of Government to the Cabinet table. We have gone a long way towards ensuring that Britain's contribution is no longer simply to provide the sticking plaster of old when crisis came, but to provide the building blocks for the poorest on earth to build a better future for themselves. Aid is a means by which we will alleviate poverty; development is how will end it. In our age, shaped as it is by the twin forces of globalisation and interconnectedness, to talk of one world is no longer to utter an abstract thought but to describe a concrete reality. In that one world, aid and development is not an act of charity but a vital investment in peace and prosperity, in equality and justice, in hope and humanity. If there is anything greater than the scale of the task that we face, it is the need for us to succeed. I commend our amendment to the House.
When I first assumed my Front-Bench position and met all the non-governmental organisations and people who populate the world of international development, I formed the impression that the former Secretary of State for International Development walked on water—I am sure that the current one will follow—in as much as DFID has vast amounts of money to give out to a great number of countries and causes. However, as an Opposition party we need to establish whether, in terms of those billions that go to the developing world, we are spending our money well. Do we get bangs for our bucks? Is the funding delivering? Is it being spent in a way that addresses global poverty, not just in terms of the great humanitarian need of sustaining life, but in terms of moving from poverty and dependence to independence, which must ultimately be our aim?
This is a pretty consensual portfolio to have. I think that we would all agree that Make Poverty History was a phenomenal campaign whereby people across the developed world joined hands to put pressure on their Governments to make them give substantive promises at the G8 at Gleneagles. Great Britain can hold its head high in some respects. We provided £6.85 billion in aid last year—an increase from 0.47 to 0.52 per cent. of gross national income—although that is still some way short of the 0.7 per cent. target. Other promises, particularly from other countries, remain undelivered. Indeed, the Africa Progress Panel, headed by Kofi Annan, claimed that the western world is only 10 per cent. of the way towards fulfilling its Gleneagles commitments. In 2006, for the first time in a decade, total aid from the west fell.
I welcome this debate. It is a timely reminder of the progress we have made and the challenges that remain, coming as it does at the mid-point between the setting of the millennium development goals and the 2015 deadlines. It is now becoming increasingly obvious that those goals will not be met—at least, not by many countries. Liberal Democrats are committed to a target of 0.7 per cent. of GNI by 2011 at the latest; it was a manifesto pledge. I was pleased to read the first recommendation of the Conservative review because it shows that they agree that the 0.7 per cent. target should be met sooner than 2013, although today's motion does not make that leap.
I want to address three key issues that are pre-eminent in the fight against global poverty: the nature of sustainable development, the tackling of corruption and climate change. If we do not make the tackling of those our priority, we shall fail in perpetuity to lift poor and vulnerable countries out of dependence, poverty and misery. As has been discussed already, we must remove unfair trade barriers against low-income countries. I hope that it is obvious that a key objective of international trade policies has to be to stimulate sustainable development, because no country has ever been lifted out of poverty by aid alone. An over-reliance on debt relief and aid leads to an unhealthy dependence, which creates a vicious circle that can be impossible to escape from.
As the Secretary of State said, it is vital that we reinvigorate the Doha talks to ensure a positive outcome for developing countries. We must reduce agricultural subsidies and trade barriers to guarantee a level playing field for all. The World Trade Organisation operates on a principle of one country, one vote, but we fail to give the poorest nations a voice in international trade negotiations.
It is easy to blame the international community for the desperately unjust situation we are in, but we also need to look a bit closer to home. The European Union's record on free trade is deplorable, despite our best efforts. I cannot help thinking that our real chance to push that issue home was when we had the presidency of the EU in 2005. We have to help developing countries to build up their economies and civil society so that they can move away from dependency. China and India have pulled huge portions of their populations out of poverty through economic growth, which has primarily been driven by international trade. We also have to realise that it is in our own interest to liberalise the trade agenda. Farming subsidies come out of the public purse; taxpayers' money is being diverted from where it is most needed in order to fill the pockets of a small but powerful minority.
Another part of the motion on global poverty mentions the need for
"independent accounting as well as increased independent scrutiny of the United Kingdom's aid budget".
We think that that is a very good idea, but corruption robs the aid budget of so much of its full value. We need to make sure that our money is delivering, and that the 10 per cent. take all the way along the line is stopped in its tracks.
Aid donors can take four direct actions to strengthen the hand of political leaders in developing countries that need help in reducing corruption, as well as some less direct measures. First, there is a need to tighten up procurement rules, in terms of the legal framework and the rules on the use of aid. Corruption can add 20 to 100 per cent. to the cost of our aid. Obviously, it is easier to tackle the rules than the legal framework—the World Bank, EU and Department for International Development rules have significant loopholes or latitude.
On another tack, as has been mentioned, there are lots of ways to trace the siphoning off of funds, but efforts at identifying the beneficiaries often appear half-hearted. The World Bank and others use specialists to trace funds. We can see how much Mobutu and Marcos money has been recovered after the fact. If Governments, including Her Majesty's Government, possess or can get such information about how and where money has been siphoned off, why do they not act? We must track down criminals and recover the money.
We also appear to lack the will to use international law and United Nations institutions. Many developing countries are now signatories to the UN convention that requires an anti-corruption institution. Yet many signatories barely comply with the letter or spirit of the convention in practice or in law. There is much scope for extra leverage by donors if they help such fledgling institutions become robust.
Even more problematic, much corruption in developing countries is legal. It ranges from the absence of a prohibition on Ministers owning companies that are recipients of hugely inflated contracts to permissiveness in capital markets, which enables Ministers, parliamentarians or officials to benefit directly from privatisations, bond issues and share acquisitions. That must change if we are to tackle corruption. We should be in there, helping strengthen anti-corruption measures with a review of a host of matters, from bribery to anti-competition laws; from insider trading to state governance.
We need to start from the bottom up. Donors should channel more funds through local government because that can strengthen vital local democracy. Much large-scale corruption occurs via singular central elites, and that leads to the so-called "necessity" of single tribes or ethnic groups grabbing control of the reins of central Government. One central target that holds all the power and wealth of a nation is a much greater danger than local government responding to local needs and demands. Clearly, strengthening local governance and local democracy, and concentrating on the grass roots would cut corruption.
I have been able to cast only a brief glance over the weighty tome that is the Conservatives' policy review, which was launched today, but it contained little mention of local government and the importance of channelling funding, especially economic development, at the level of the company, the firm and the local market. If we are serious about strengthening countries through help to help themselves, local governance and local democracy is a must to defeat corruption. Simply monitoring and watching corruption and knowing that it exists is not enough.
A couple of months ago, Results UK arranged for me to meet a woman from Kenya called Lucy. She told me that, in Kenya, money from the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria had been suspended because the Kenyan Government had failed to disburse the previous grants. It was only through grass-roots action and pressure from civil society groups such as hers that those blockages were removed—the Kenyan Government had to respond to the local demand for honesty. The Kenyan national TB programme could then continue its work.
Sadly, advising on the necessary steps to tackle corruption abroad seems a bit rich coming from us at the moment. We can tackle corruption only if we are squeaky clean in our dealings across the world. Now is not the best time for us to hold up our heads.
I want to consider an issue that hon. Members of all parties have acknowledged to be overwhelmingly important for the developing world: the threat of environmental degradation. I am upset that our amendment was not selected, but grateful that Labour and Conservative Members commended it.
Catastrophic climate change is not the only environmental problem but it is, clearly, the most urgent one, especially for poor countries, which are constrained in their ability to react to a rapidly changing climate. Climate change will hit the poorest and the most vulnerable countries in the developing world first. A recent WWF report demonstrated that, of all the millennium development goals, the goal on environmental sustainability—MDG 7—is the only one for which the overall position is getting worse rather than better.
Although the poorest people in the world have done least to cause climate change, they are the ones predicted to be worst affected. Poor people depend most directly on the services delivered by natural resources and ecosystems. They depend on them for food, fibre, water, fuel and income. The developed world, which is mostly responsible for climate change, should therefore help the developing world with adaptation. Applying the "polluter pays" principle, the developed world has an obligation to help poor and vulnerable countries to adapt to climate change. Therefore, we need in partnership to find additional funding for adaptation. The UK should perhaps take a lead on that, because we are one of those countries responsible for much of the pollution.
Judging from the Government's past performance, as well as from my first impressions of the Conservatives' report, I am not convinced that there is a real urgency about addressing the need for action. The Make Poverty History campaign was a brilliant example of civil society action to put pressure on the G8, but I wish that equal efforts had been made on the other G8 priority of that year—climate change. Uncontrolled climate change will undo all the good that debt forgiveness or higher aid can deliver. Mr. Cash is no longer in his place, but it is good, as he said, that the G8 agreed to a UN-sponsored process on climate change.
However, there is in fact already a process: the Kyoto protocol, which involves all the key developing countries. If President Bush had been serious about wanting to involve the US in climate talks, all he needed to do was to ratify the Kyoto protocol and join the ongoing talks about targets for the second commitment period, post 2012. Developing countries also need to accept emissions reductions. Equally, however, we cannot expect them to do that unless the industrial countries move further and faster. That principle is written into the UN framework convention on climate change, which almost every country has ratified, including the US.
International institutions also need to adapt much more urgently to the new world of an increasingly unstable climate. The World Bank still does not pay enough attention to the issue and the International Monetary Fund almost none at all. Similarly, the World Trade Organisation treats environmental issues as an unimportant sideshow. It is notable that the environmental components of the Doha agenda have been all but abandoned. We must work for universal climate-proofing of development assistance if we are to ensure that climate change is mainstreamed in development programmes and initiatives. That is going to require co-ordination among the World Bank, the IMF and the OECD group of export credit agencies, to ensure that development objectives fully support climate change mitigation.
In conclusion, development will be impaired, reduced, slowed and diminished, and we will not get value for money if we continue to refuse to liberalise trade. Our spend must be delivered effectively, which means tackling corruption, not just saying that we are tackling it. The driving imperative of development, in all its incarnations, must become inseparable from the environmental cataclysm that is climate change.
We are halfway between the year 2000, when the millennium development goals were set, and 2015, when the aim is for them to be implemented. This month the UN published its 2007 report on the millennium development goals, which records substantial but uneven progress. For instance, the proportion of people living in extreme poverty—on less than $1 a day—has fallen from a third of the world's population in 1990 to less than a fifth now. If that trend continues, that goal will be met globally at least, but not in every region of the world. A great deal of the progress that has been made is down to the economic growth of one particular country—the world's most populous country, China. China's per capita income in 1979 was $210; last year it was $1,750.
China is the world's workshop. Eighty per cent. of the world's photocopiers are produced there, as are 60 per cent. of its mobile phones and half of all its computers and textiles. It is a sleeping giant that has woken up. Economically, it is doing well, although it still faces major development challenges relating to halting and reversing the HIV and AIDS infection rates, to gender inequality and to access to safe water and sanitation, on which its performance is on a par with some of the poorest countries in Africa. Inequality is rising extremely fast in China. It is a more unequal country than the United States of America. These are some of the problems that the Chinese communist party congress will address this autumn, and the National People's Congress—China's attempt at a Parliament—will discuss them when it is called together again in the spring of next year.
China's growth has profound implications for the global economy and for global development policy. By 2015, the target date for the millennium development goals, China could be a bigger economic partner for Africa than many of the OECD countries. On trade, for instance, China exported less than £1 billion worth of goods to Africa in 1995, yet by 2005, its exports to Africa were worth £11 billion—a twelvefold increase in just 10 years. In the same period, UK and French exports to Africa approximately doubled in value. In 1995, Africa exported £1.26 billion worth of goods to China, which was less than a third of what it exported to the United Kingdom. In 2005, it exported £8.9 billion worth of goods to China, nearly double its exports to the UK.
The two-way trade between China and Africa—the sum total of their imports and exports—was nearly £25 billion in 2006, and certainly by 2010 and possibly by next year it will reach roughly £50 billion. That is approximately the volume of EU trade with Africa. By 2015, China's trade with Africa will certainly dwarf the EU's trade with Africa.
It is hard to estimate the volume of China's aid to Africa. It is not a member of the OECD's development assistance committee, so it is difficult to compare like with like. Western donors distinguish between aid—official development assistance—and commercial investment, but a great deal of China's commercial investment comes from state banks or state-subsidised companies, so it is extremely difficult to make that distinction. At China's summit with African leaders last year, its president, Hu Jintao, pledged to double China's aid to Africa, although he did not specify what that would mean in cash terms. He did, however, announce credits and preferential loans to Africa with a value of US$5 billion.
Last year, China committed $8.1 billion of assistance to Angola, Nigeria and Mozambique. To put that in context, last year the World Bank committed some $2.3 billion in new loans to Africa, which is considerably less than the sum committed by China. Chinese aid is often criticised for being tied aid. It involves not only money spent in Chinese companies but includes Chinese labour that goes to Africa to deliver many of its construction projects. China's aid is often linked to its gaining access to natural resources, although, looking back over the years, one cannot say that UK aid or western aid in general has always avoided commercial advantages. Chinese aid is often made conditional on political goals—the One China policy, for instance. The declaration from the China-Africa summit at the end of last year committed all the African leaders present to supporting that policy as part of the deal.
Some Africans criticise China's aid policy. For example, the Kenyan " Nation" newspaper says:
"China has an Africa policy, but Africa does not have a China policy... the danger is that China will politely rip off Africa just as the west did".
However, most African political leaders support what China is doing in Africa—and it is not just those of Sudan, Angola or other states who are in receipt of a lot of Chinese aid because of the raw materials they supply to China's economy. President Festus Mogae of Botswana—a country that most of us would regard as a model of African development and a success story—says:
"The Chinese treat us as equals, the west treats us as subjects".
Mauritius is another African success story. Last week, it announced that it had secured $113 million in cheap Chinese grants and loans to develop its roads and telecommunications structures.
The Commission for Africa identified that western donors had neglected infrastructure. China has identified that, too, but it is moving a great deal faster than we are to provide infrastructure support to African countries. The Sierra Leonean ambassador to China, Sahr Johnny, said:
"If a G8 country had wanted to rebuild the stadium, for example, we'd still be holding meetings. The Chinese just come and do it."
Other African leaders make similar comments about the nature of their relationship with China as a donor.
I believe that China's priorities for Africa are different from ours, but that it is genuinely committed to Africa's development. China would gain a great deal from working more closely with western donors. We are not in a position to dictate terms to China, but I would like to see DFID building a closer working relationship with the Chinese and inviting China to become an observer at OECD development assistance committee meetings.
A great deal of World Bank aid still goes to China. As the International Development Committee learned last week, a major loan package to help China to green its energy sector is being negotiated. I warmly welcome that, as China needs that kind of support. Since China has such enormous foreign exchange reserves, I do not think that the World Bank should be a net donor to China. We should invite the country, in view of the size of its foreign exchange reserves, to make a contribution to the next International Development Association replenishment equivalent to the size of the loans it receives from the World Bank and to become a donor, along with other World Bank nations.
With only nine seconds to go, I must quickly say that we should seek to plug the gaps that Chinese aid does not touch, such as on governance and supporting the capacity of Parliaments in Africa to hold the—
It is a pleasure to follow Hugh Bayley, who made a significant speech on an extremely important subject. The issues that he raised are addressed in the report; indeed, he may well find matters of great interest to him there. I am thinking of a paper written by a brilliant young man of Chinese origin, who makes three succinct points. First, we should never miss the opportunity to engage with China on governance issues. Secondly, we should recognise that China will double its aid, so we—the G8—should keep our promises to double our aid. Thirdly, we and our partners should redouble our efforts and co-operate in pursuing governance issues to ensure that they are not undermined by other new donors coming on the scene.
I am indebted to my right hon. Friend Mr. Letwin both for securing the debate and for his masterly exegesis of a lengthy report. In delivering that, he has rather relieved me of the obligation that I had intended to fulfil of spelling out what it contains in its 453 pages. Therefore, perhaps I could address matters from a different angle from that which I intended.
I came to the subject of development many decades ago when, as my mother put it, I had a proper job and I was a development economist working on aid and development programmes in Africa and Asia. At that stage, had someone asked me whether I would still be interested in those subjects and whether we would still be facing so many of the same problems today—some of the countries that I have revisited face even worse levels of poverty than they did then—I would not have believed them. I thought that by now poverty would be history.
The situation was brought home to me clearly by someone who put it in stark terms. The aid effort began perhaps in 1948 with Harry Truman. Since then, $1 trillion has been spent on aid. Why is not poverty history? One reason is that that sum, although apparently large, is actually not so large spread over half a century and over billions of people. It is a handful of dollars for each poor person each year. Small wonder then that it has not cured the problem. There is every reason for us to increase aid, which I think the House is committed to do. My party, I am happy to see, is committed and has reaffirmed its intention to meet the 0.7 per cent. of GNI target by 2013, or earlier if possible.
Another reason is that, for much of that period, aid was given largely for reasons other than the alleviation of poverty. The cold war meant that aid was used to buy allegiance rather than to end poverty. Tied aid meant that money was given to subsidise donors' domestic industries, rather than to relieve poverty. Once one reaches that conclusion, that is a good reason to put much more emphasis on the effectiveness of aid, and that is what we do in the report to a considerable degree.
Although some of those problems have disappeared, for various reasons, ineffectiveness is still built into the governance of aid. Much attention is paid to the issue of governance within recipient countries but not enough to the issue of governance by donor countries. Tanzania has to give 2,400 reports in a single year to donors. It has to meet 1,000 or more delegations from donors. The pressure, weight and burden that is put on such countries by well meaning donors throughout the world is undoing the work that they are trying to achieve. That is why we put forward the proposal for partnership trusts to try to persuade as many donors as possible to give their money through a single channel, and to do so more effectively, efficiently and conveniently for the countries that we are helping through aid.
Another reason is that a lot of aid is top-down. We in this country recognise that the man in Whitehall does not know best how money should be spent in Swindon. Why do we think that he knows best how money should be spent in parts of Africa or Asia? Therefore, we propose that we should try to move to demand-led funding, and to harness the experience, expertise and knowledge of people in the countries that we want to help by saying, "Bring projects or programmes to us, be you Governments, local governments, companies, non-governmental organisations, or groups in the country." The demand-led fund will provide aid, subject to those projects being the best ways to achieve the ends that the groups put forward, and there being measures of performance and appropriate arrangements for auditing. We want that method to be tried. We hope and believe that it would work, expand and form a more significant part of the funding, or be used by partnership trusts themselves in handling funding for projects that they were carrying out in country.
A third response can be made to the statement that poverty is not history: for many people it is history. Millions of people do not experience poverty, disease or hunger because they and the countries in which they live have risen out of poverty as aid has worked. Aid has been successful in eradicating diseases—or at least eliminating them from large areas. Among such diseases are smallpox, polio, guinea worm disease and African river blindness.
One of the great successes in terms of hunger has been the green revolution in Asia. That is why we want there to be an extension of agricultural aid to produce a green revolution in the rain-fed and arid areas of Africa and Asia that were not touched by that first green revolution. We ought to make more of the successes in aid, and build on them. That is another of the report's themes.
The greatest successes have come about as a result of countries growing economically, and the great motor of such growth is trade. There have been great changes in opinion and a great mobilisation of support for increasing the aid effort and eliminating the burden of debt through campaigns such as Make Poverty History, Live 8 and drop the debt. We want a similar mobilisation of opinion through a campaign by all parties in this country and by all the countries of Europe and the developed world to create real trade opportunities for developing countries.
The right hon. Gentleman and I went on the same trip to India, where we saw the slums of the textile manufacturers. What does his report say on corporate social responsibility, as we were often told on that trip that western buyers demanding the lowest price was the driver of the worst conditions?
Actually, I recollect agreeing with the hon. Lady on those visits in that we were both struck by the fact that people who worked in what we might describe as sweatshops said how delighted they were to have those jobs and how that had meant that their incomes had increased and their prospects had improved so that they could now send their children to school. Then, if not now, she and I agreed that we wanted more industrial development and growth and more companies competing for markets. We did not see that situation as simply showing that foreign companies needed to adopt different standards. Most of the companies concerned were domestic companies who were doing the best by their people and who would be unable to compete if unduly onerous obligations were put on them.
We want there to be a campaign for real trade. The Secretary of State did not engage with the main arguments, but instead made some rather strange points on Europe. He does not seem to realise that the person who chaired the campaign for real trade steering committee is Syed Kamall, a member of the International Trade Committee of the European Parliament. He will seek support across parties and across countries in an attempt to mobilise opinion.
I hope that everyone will respond in a manner in keeping with the spirit of the proposal, so that we generate passionate commitment to plans and calls to create opportunities for developing countries to participate and share in our markets, such as by unilaterally opening ours to them, by removing unnecessary and unintended restrictions such as those on rules of origin, by abolishing export subsidies, by helping to open up trade between neighbouring countries, and by putting greater emphasis on aid for trade to increase their export capacity. All those steps might receive cross-party support. I hope that they do so, and that they get support across the country, across Europe and across the world, and that we put a genuine pro-poor package at the heart of a revived Doha—or, if it does not revive, in its place.
It is always very interesting to follow Mr. Lilley. The Government have a good story to tell about their approach to tackling global poverty, and I wish to examine how that approach is being developed in Afghanistan, because that has some interesting lessons for us. I remind the House of the atrocious poverty in Afghanistan. More than half the population live on less than $1 a day, one in four Afghan children die before their fifth birthday and 30 per cent. of rural Afghans are partly malnourished. Of course, the situation has been exacerbated by 27 years of war.
What is crucial is that the people of Afghanistan want their country to improve. It is also important that we do not see the situation as overwhelming. That is why the approach that has been adopted by the Government is so helpful, and they are leading the way for other countries. The Government have signed a 10-year development partnership with the Government of Afghanistan and that has brought together their shared commitments to reduce poverty and meet the millennium development goals; to respect human rights and other international obligations; and to strengthen the financial management and accountability of money that is donated, which is directly relevant to the Opposition's motion. Specifically, DFID has given itself the challenge of supporting the delivery of the Afghan national development strategy, which seeks not only to tackle poverty, but to develop the economy of the country. DFID is also providing development assistance by working with other partners to alleviate poverty and promote development.
DFID has made a three-year rolling commitment, from 2006 to 2009, delivering £330 million of development aid. It has said that that assistance will continue until 2015-16. That is really important, because we need to make a long-term commitment to those countries with huge problems. Tackling poverty and putting systems for development in place do not happen overnight, especially when one starts from the low base in Afghanistan.
At the moment, some 80 per cent. of aid from Britain is being directed through the Government of Afghanistan. That causes some issues for NGOs, who would prefer more of the money to go to them. Work to address that issue is being undertaken through DFID and its partner agencies in Afghanistan, to involve NGOs in the delivery of services, so that they are able to receive money indirectly through the Government of Afghanistan. That approach is still in the early stages of formulation and we may need to consider how effective it is in the future. DFID has said that it is keeping the 80 per cent. figure under review, and that is important.
The level of aid provided is of course critical, and we should note that the UK is the largest donor to the Government of Afghanistan's recurrent budget, but it is very important—as expressed in the Government's amendment—that we consider the outcomes. It is important to work with other countries and to ensure that delivery is achieved on the ground. Indeed, there is evidence of that in Afghanistan, in the development not only of new towns but also of basic infrastructure.
DFID is making progress. Due to DFID's work with the Afghan Government and other partners, more than 5 million children are in school—up from 45,000 in 1993. A large number of refugees have returned to Afghanistan. Forty thousand fewer babies die, mostly because of vaccination programmes supported in part by DFID. The number of functioning health clinics has increased by 60 per cent. The proportion of women receiving antenatal care has also increased, from 5 per cent. in 2003 to 30 per cent. in 2006.
The economy has grown by 8 per cent. and it is certainly hoped that growth will continue this year. An important aspect of support is that given to microfinance, which supports small farmers and women in cottage industries and helps to build up the economic base. Microfinance is being adopted by the Government and others to support development through the economy.
Since 2001, DFID has spent more than £490 million on reconstruction and development, and a large proportion of that money is now going through the Afghan Government. With reference to the point made by Lynne Featherstone, it is important that some of the money is being devolved to the municipalities, such as Kandahar. We are used to thinking of Afghanistan in terms of security, which is obviously important; our armed forces are in the country and we must never forget the security concerns, but development is taking place, too. In Kandahar, people have been able to build roads; there are housing projects, six parks and a new industrial park, which supports 70 factories where the number of work opportunities is growing.
The evaluation carried out by the Afghan Government found that such projects were exactly what they should be doing. Supporting such factories in the municipalities makes it possible to reduce poverty and increase security; if people have jobs they will have less interest in participating in illegal activities that are harmful and detrimental to the community's security and progress. We can see a direct link: aid goes to the Afghan Government and then to the municipality where it creates jobs for people on the ground, which is obviously what we want.
There are of course still incredible challenges and it would be wrong to suggest that we have got there with Afghanistan. That is clearly not the case. However, the way in which the Government have put the money in—working through the Afghan Government, trying to give them advice and support to make their systems more accountable, as well as working with other aid agencies—provides a useful model. There are still issues with regard to co-ordination and there is clearly a role for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan. The security situation needs to be stabilised so that more development can take place.
The institutions of civil society need to be developed, and the Afghan Government are interested in working with us to deliver a stronger civil society. Obviously, the aid process needs to be inclusive so that local people feel that they have some say over how the money is spent in their local communities. That is happening increasingly in Afghanistan, and it is an example of Britain leading the way in tackling global poverty through economic development and—crucially—sustainable development.
I congratulate my right hon. Friend Mr. Lilley and his colleagues on an excellent report. I think we have all come to international development wanting to see the eradication of poverty, and to that extent the starting point for us all has been the millennium development goals, but even since the Commission for Africa three new matters have emerged. The first has been the rise of China. I entirely agree with Hugh Bayley and I would not wish to add anything to what he said. He described that position extremely well. We must all take note of the rise of China, both as a country that is going to take its people out of poverty and which we should therefore help to meet the millennium goals, and for the contributions that it is making to Africa.
Secondly, I agree with Dr. Blackman-Woods that, sadly, the relationship between security and development, which we are witnessing in Afghanistan, will be one of the increasing complexities for DFID and conflict resolution as we move through the 21st century.
Thirdly, as Lynne Featherstone said, so many policies will now need to be regional strategic policies, on such issues as climate change. Those of us who have visited Darfur and Chad have had cause to wonder how much of that situation has been an ethnic problem and how much has been a climate problem in terms of the loss of pastoral land. These new issues are emerging and making life more complicated, but poverty has focused the minds of both donors and recipients.
There are things that we need to do to move on. First, we need to ensure that countries keep up to the mark on the amount of aid giving and the 0.7 commitment. In the report, the idea of a global donor index is very impressive because actually many of the commitments that were made at Gleneagles have not been met, as the sums of the German presidency demonstrated. We also need to ensure that there is greater aid effectiveness. This evening we have heard of a number of instances of developing countries having to cope with a huge number of donors, and therefore the idea of partnership trusts makes a lot of sense. I think that hon. Members from all parts of the House will realise that when they look at this proposal.
But one of the most important points in the report is this. Wherever the International Development Committee goes in aspiration, one question that it asks itself is, "Where will the jobs come from?" It is for that reason that trade, and ensuring the success of the Doha round or a replacement for it, are crucial. I hope that hon. Friends will have the opportunity to look at the detail of the proposals for a real trade campaign, because ensuring that there is momentum on trade will be really crucial for developing countries in the coming years. We are all anxious to allow every colleague a chance to speak, so time does not enable me to develop that theme, but before anyone seeks to knock the report, I simply ask them to read the proposals on trade; they are compelling.
Lastly, I am at a loss to see the difference between the motion on the Order Paper tabled by my right hon. Friend Mr. Cameron and the Government's amendment. There seems to be no difference at all. This is an issue where Members on all sides of the House should be trying to reach the greatest agreement. I agree with the Secretary of State; I was campaigning for Europe quite a long time ago, and we need to have a united voice as a House and as a country if we are to have real influence in the European Union and elsewhere in the world.
As Mr. Lilley said, this debate reflects the fact that when we contrast our expectations for progress on world poverty and experience, it becomes clear that progress does not roll along on the wheels of inevitability. We need concerted efforts; we need to make real commitments and follow through on those real commitments; and we need to recognise that setting targets is very good but delivering targets is even better. We also need to recognise that partnership must be the ethic that runs through all our aid efforts. The Government have established a firm credential for partnership, unlike other countries that still have a strong element of patronage permeating their aid policies and programmes, but none of us can be smug about such things.
I will not rehearse the points that other hon. Members have made about the challenges that we face, but one of the issues that we perhaps need to consider as we tackle poverty and the different challenges is, of course, the complexity that arises in the context of conflict. In particular, we need to ensure that our approaches to aid and trade and our work in and with developing countries take account of the difficulties, tensions and pressures that can arise.
I suggest that, just as in many ways the EU as a model of conflict resolution has found itself with a strong capacity to engage in certain theatres in the world, there is another dimension that we need to think about: the historic conflict resolution that we have achieved on these islands between a large country and a small country. We have a history of colonisation within these islands. We have a history of famine in Ireland, and so on. In the current context, Britain and Ireland working together in some areas would bring an added benefit and purpose.
I hope that Ministers here and Ministers elsewhere will perhaps consider that one of the things that we might spin off in the context of the British-Irish Council is a framework whereby our development co-operation effort can properly include and involve the various devolved Administrations in these regions, who are seeking to have an input into development policy. The Scottish Executive have developed a programme in relation to Malawi. There are efforts in Wales, and many of us in Northern Ireland are part of an all-party group that is looking at something similar. But rather than us all engaging in karaoke versions of our own DFID, I believe that between the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin and the excellent work of Co-operation Ireland and the very good work of DFID, those Administrations and, indeed, local government more widely might be better engaged in more fruitful development co-operation in terms of partnerships.
With the emphasis that so many hon. Members have put on governance, administration, transparency and programme delivery, much can be given in that regard. I am certainly reinforced in that view by my experience in a devolved Administration of some of the challenges that we faced as we dealt with the models of governance that worked for us. Indeed, people elsewhere in the EU accession countries came to Ireland, north and south, to learn how we handled EU programmes, the transparency and governance issues and the various partnership questions with stakeholders. Many lessons can be applied in that respect. That is not to set aside any of the other very important points, but I wanted to confine myself to adding an additional aspect that might be missing from some other contributions.
It is a great privilege to follow Mark Durkan. The debate was opened by my right hon. Friend Mr. Letwin with that combination of intellect, erudition and courtesy that are his defining characteristics and that command the respect of hon. Members on both sides of the House.
There is no doubt that the fact that more than 1 billion people in the developing world exist—I will not say live—on less than a $1 a day is a scar on the face of humanity that disfigures and in a very real sense diminishes every single one of us. In seeking to tackle that appalling human tragedy and to offer hope for the future, there are three points that at this stage in our proceedings and in our national deliberations we need keenly and authoritatively to address.
First, if we believe in more aid—we do in each of our respective parties; I have argued for it from the Front and Back Benches, throughout the last Parliament—we must recognise that there is at least as important a duty on us to recognise and fight against corruption. Indeed, I would argue to the Secretary of State in a non-partisan spirit that that obligation is more important at the time of a rising aid budget.
Of course we want more transparency, accountability, scrutiny, support for Parliaments, exposure of wrongdoing and appropriate punishments. We also have a duty to recognise that corruption must be fought wherever it rears its ugly head, whether it is in the practice of recipient Governments or the behaviour of corporate entities. My right hon. Friend Mr. Lilley is to be warmly congratulated on the suggestion that we work towards the formulation of an EU common code on this subject, to which individual countries and perhaps businesses would sign up. We should give real teeth to our commitment to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention on bribery by translating its essence, spirit and provisions into domestic legislation. That has not happened and it is overdue. There is a compelling case for it and there is now an opportunity for it to happen. I hope very much that it will.
My second point is that, notwithstanding the efficacy of, and the case for, increased aid, there is a real opportunity to improve economic development and a demand for that. That requires a new focus on, and commitment to, infrastructure in two forms: commercial and physical. I emphasise commercial infrastructure. We should seek to foster the creation of what I would call the institutional infrastructure of competitive capitalism in the developing world. That means the creation of clear systems of property rights; a recognition of the concept of credit; transparent, simplified and intelligible taxation systems; the enforceability of contracts; and courts through which we can give effect to that principle.
Physical infrastructure is important too. Okay, the past was disappointing. There were failures. Mistakes occurred under successive Governments. Prestige projects went wrong. Too much money was spent and it was very badly accounted for. Scandals resulted. But that does not in any sense reduce—still less obviate—the responsibility upon us now to go forward seeing the merits of decent infrastructure. Without decent roads, decent rail, decent transport and decent communication systems, the aspiration to economic improvement, to individual fulfilment, to national development in the developing world remains just that: an idle aspiration. So, yes, we need to have economic development. That must be a prime objective of British, European, and multilateral aid policy.
Finally, we must have a massive expansion of trade, because the catalyst that it provides for economic development is potentially enormous. There is a compelling argument for unilateral initiatives, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden has so rightly proposed, and, yes, it is about the removal of trade barriers and the elimination of trade-distorting subsidies. It is also about doing what we give the impression that we intend to do. We must mean what we say and say what we mean.
I give the example of duty-free and quota-free access. I say to the Secretary of State that it is no good international leaders saying that 97 per cent. of tariff lines will be of benefit to the developing world because there will be duty-free and quota-free access, if the more than 300 individual product lines—the 3 per cent.—that are of most importance to the countries, and offer the most potential benefit, do not form part of the equation. Bangladesh has to be able to export its textiles to the United States, and other countries that specialise in footwear, or, for that matter, fish or leather products, have to be able to sell those products.
It is time that the developed world ceased its nauseating hypocrisy of preaching free markets while practising protectionism on a truly industrial and breathtaking scale. As a consequence of the failures of multilateral policy and a lack of imagination, too many people in the developing world have suffered too much for too long with too little done to help them. That situation must change, and it will better change with cross-party support in the House and multilateral backing in the international community.
It is a privilege to sum up this debate and to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend Mr. Lilley for his seminal work entitled "In it together: the attack on global poverty". That is an apt title and a good place to start. There have been some excellent speeches from the hon. Members for City of York (Hugh Bayley), for Foyle (Mark Durkan), and for City of Durham (Dr. Blackman-Woods), but I am going to concentrate on the speeches made by my right hon. Friends the Members for West Dorset (Mr. Letwin) and for Hitchin and Harpenden, and my hon. Friend Tony Baldry, and on the excellent speech made just now by my hon. Friend John Bercow. As always, he was erudite, concise, and said a great deal in the time available to him.
A consensus is developing across the House about what we need to achieve with the UK aid effort. I used to be chairman of the all-party population and reproductive health group, and long ago there was a campaign to achieve the target of having 0.7 per cent. of gross domestic product given in aid. At long last, the consensus in the House is that we should move towards that target, and one of the very few monetary pledges made by my party is that we should achieve it by the year 2013. Incidentally, that would mean that DFID's current budget of £5.9 billion would rise to £8.6 billion by that date.
When the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, Mr. Thomas, winds up the debate, I hope that he will deal with some of the very serious proposals in this report. We need to use aid money more effectively to lift out of poverty the more than 1 billion who live on less than $1 a day—something that my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham rightly called a scandal. We must all work to that end, and neither the Opposition nor the Government have a monopoly of wisdom about how that can be done. I hope that the Minister will not spend his entire speech trumpeting the Government's marvellous success at achieving that.
It is critical that aid is effective. To ensure that it is, we must concentrate on what people in recipient countries want. As my hon. Friends have said, that means that we should concentrate on outcomes rather than inputs. Above all, our policy should be intelligible, and easy to operate in the countries for which it is intended.
I remember having a conversation with the UN ambassador to Sierra Leone, in which he told me about what happened after the election there. We all know that there was a huge campaign and a civil war before the British Government eventually succeeded in getting that country to move towards democracy, but three days after the election the UN agencies wanted to know what the new Government's next 10-year plan was. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden says, we must stop bombarding countries like that with requests and targets—and he used the very good example of Tanzania being required to produce 2,400 reports.
In the short time available, I want to concentrate on the effectiveness of our aid. As the report proposes, it can be delivered in a simpler way, through partnerships that involve various international donors and Governments acting on a multilateral basis. In that way, we can offer an aid package to countries that is much simpler to operate.
The hon. Member for City of Durham drew on the experience that she and I gained on our visit to Afghanistan. There, as she will recall, we found that most European Governments give their aid directly to the Government, in a deliberate attempt to bolster that Government's capacity. Sadly, we also found that the US—whose aid budget, estimated at £9 billion this coming year, is by far the biggest—gives most of its aid unilaterally, through USAID. That has caused much confusion, and it would be much better if all donors were to operate in concert.
I want to press the Minister a little to find out how he sees our part of the EU aid package operating. Does he agree that it should be on a unilateral basis, so that the EU can offer concessions to the poor donor countries? Those concessions could take the form of reducing tariff barriers and obstacles to trade, although we should not expect the poor donor countries to introduce similar cuts themselves, as to do so could leave them devastated. I hope that the Minister will say something about that.
The second part of the report sets out how trade should encourage growth. Ultimately, it is only through growth that most countries will be lifted out of poverty. Vietnam offers a good example of that. After the war, it was poorer than most African countries, but today it has a flourishing economic base and is about to apply to join the World Trade Organisation—a real success story.
With effective aid, there is no reason why many African countries should not be able to do exactly the same thing. It was a great sadness to the Opposition that the Government were not able to complete the WTO's Doha round. There is no doubt about it: a successful WTO round will put billions of pounds into developing countries' pockets, so it is one of the most effective ways of lifting countries out of poverty. I hope that, even now, the Government will put every effort into trying to persuade our EU partners to complete the Doha round successfully.
If aid is to be delivered successfully, it must be seen to be properly scrutinised, and I welcome the proposals for independent scrutiny in the report produced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Hitchin and Harpenden. In particular, I welcome the suggestion that Parliament should debate our proposals on partnerships. It is through debate, scrutiny and proper publication of the goals and aims of each donor project that we can deliver aid more effectively.
I agree with the Liberal amendment to the motion. Eliminating or reducing climate change is critical, just as aid is, because if we do not try to reduce climate change, we cannot hand on a better world to our children and grandchildren, and I came into politics to do just that. If each and every one of us makes a little bit of difference to the world and passes it on in a better state than we found it, we will have achieved something in our political careers.
I welcome the debate, which provided the House with a further important opportunity to consider what further steps the international community can take to make progress in the fight against global poverty. As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and Mr. Letwin said, given that more than a billion people live on less than a dollar a day, we in the developed world have a particular responsibility to help to tackle that poverty.
Our aid is already having an important impact. Over 10 million more children in India are in school as a result of aid that we have provided over the past three years. There are some 700 more nurses in Malawi, and the number of people who have access to antiretrovirals in southern Africa has more than trebled in recent years as a direct result of our aid. Under the former Prime Minister, and indeed the current Prime Minister, our leadership across the world, and within the European Union and the G8 in particular, has resulted in a debt relief deal worth up to $55 billion for the poorest countries of the world. Aid levels are rising, too, but clearly more needs to be done in some countries in the European Union. Our aid has trebled since 1997, and we are the first Government in the nation's history to set a timetable for reaching the UN's 0.7 per cent. goal.
We will continue to champion a Doha round of world talks that is genuinely in the interests of developing countries, as hon. Members have asked us to. We will also champion economic partnership agreements that genuinely offer hope to our friends in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific, and new trading opportunities on fair terms with the prospect of new jobs to come. We will also champion an "aid for trade" package of support that genuinely helps countries to exploit the market access offers that such talks will eventually secure. We recognise that there is more to do, and John Bercow gave one important example of the challenges that we face in the negotiations.
My hon. Friend Hugh Bayley was right to highlight the new role that China plays as a donor, particularly in Africa. He rightly highlighted the importance of engagement with China on that activity—a point echoed by Mr. Lilley. I am sure that both Members will be reassured to hear that we are indeed engaging with the Chinese. We are meeting delegations in the UK and in Beijing to discuss how aid resources are spent and climate change, a common challenge for us.
My hon. Friend Mark Durkan raised the important issue of continuing to work in countries that have been devastated by conflict. He will know of the particular importance that we attach to helping fragile states. He may know, too, of the recent visit that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State made to Darfur to continue to explore what we can do to help address the terrible situation in that country.
The tragedy of the report is its timing. It is 20 years too late. Twenty years ago it would have been radical. The views on trade would have been particularly revolutionary. We can ask how many fewer children would be out of school now, how many extra nurses would be helping to fight HIV/AIDS in southern Africa, and how many extra miles of roads and metres of water pipes would have been laid, had the report been published 20 years ago. Instead, we saw the Conservatives continuing to cut the amount of aid available to be spent on development in poor countries.
I say gently and with sadness that we on the Government Benches will find it difficult to take seriously the pledge on 0.7 per cent., when at the first sign of pressure from the right wing of the Conservative party, the Leader of the Opposition caves in. Can we have any confidence that the Opposition will be able to resist the temptation to raid the development budget to find tax cuts for the few and appeal again to the party's right wing?
The right hon. Member for West Dorset was right to say that aid from one country will not make enough difference fast enough. It is also true that the right policies on debt relief from one country will not make enough difference fast enough.
Will the hon. Gentleman give way?
It is true, too, that the right policies on trade on the part of one country will not make enough difference fast enough. A collective international effort is required, but as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State rightly pointed out, the Opposition do not have the record or the credibility with other leaders and parliamentarians in Europe and beyond to put that international coalition together.
The Opposition are isolated in Europe—
The truth is that the Conservatives cannot come to terms with the fact that they are isolated in Europe, isolated in the international community, and isolated on their own Front Bench. They lack the ability to give international leadership on the issue. To be advised by the Opposition about spending aid money well has shades of King Herod advising on child care. They, after all, were responsible for the worst misuse of development assistance that our country has seen—the Pergau dam affair.
I turn to the comments of Lynne Featherstone. She rightly raised the issue of corruption and governance. She will know of the considerable effort that we have made to help countries put in place the robust financial systems that they need to ensure that our aid money, and their own tax revenues, are well spent. She will know, too, that on occasion we have withheld aid from countries which we did not think had made enough progress in putting such financial systems in place.
On governance, we know that charity is not enough. The point did not seem to have been properly grasped in the report. NGOs have a crucial role to play, but on their own they are not enough. In the end, it is Governments whom we must help—not Governments in Sudan, of course, or in Zimbabwe, and certainly not in Burma, but yes, Governments in Ghana, Zambia, Mozambique, in Rwanda definitely, India, Afghanistan, Tanzania and Botswana. We must help Governments so that they can help their people. In the end it is Governments who have to create health services for all their people, build an effective civil service, and put in place the mechanisms to ensure that their countries have a strong Parliament, free media and a vibrant civil society. It is Governments who can create the economic stability necessary for the private sector to thrive.
I thank the Minister for giving way. If the consequence of a trade deadlock is to cause the poorest countries in the world to lose $5,000 million a month, does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is merit in trying to persuade the European Union unilaterally to abandon its trade protectionism?
I entirely agree that we need to do a considerable amount more to persuade our colleagues in the European Union to make additional concessions. However, we also need to use our leverage in the Doha round of negotiations to ensure that our allies across the Atlantic give way, particularly on cotton subsidies and on trade-distorting domestic support. Similarly, we need to use our leverage as the European Union to ensure that other developed nations give way and offer up better access for developing countries. I simply do not see how the hon. Gentleman thinks that his party would be able to have that influence with European Union allies when it does not have the relationship with the other political parties that are necessary to give leverage.
Until the Minister's speech, there was a great deal of unanimous agreement across the House, which is much more effective than the rather partisan way in which he is handling the debate at the moment.
I would be negating my responsibility to the House if I did not point out the Conservatives' dismal record on these issues and the weaknesses in the report that they have published. I simply offer these comments in a spirit of helpfulness and friendliness, and a little in the spirit of sadness towards the hon. Gentleman. I have no doubt that if my speech and that of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State are carefully scrutinised, they will help to improve the quality of the continuing debate in the Conservative party.
Good governance is the reason South Korea is developing and North Korea is not developing. It is the reason Botswana, despite all its problems, makes progress and Zimbabwe, tragically, as the House debated only last week, goes backwards.
We have achieved a lot over the past 10 years. As I said, our aid budget has trebled. We are making a difference through the way in which our aid is spent. We are helping to ensure that more children in Ethiopia and Ghana are in primary school. We still face huge challenges in terms of the numbers of children—more than 70 million—who are out of school. Those children are denied the most basic opportunities of all—to learn and to read and write, and to have a teacher open their minds to the world beyond the walls within which they live.
There is an awful lot more to do. We are continuing to work with colleagues across the European Union to encourage them to raise their aid, to deliver on the debt relief commitment that they have made, and make progress on the international trade talks—the Doha round and the economic partnerships agreements that Members on both sides of the House recognise are so crucial if we are to achieve in developing countries the routes out of poverty and to economic stability and growth. That is why I was in Brussels yesterday at a meeting of Trade Ministers, where I made the case for more liberal and simplified rules of origin and for the Commission to make a more generous offer in the Doha round. I suspect that in time a more generous offer will also be needed on economic partnerships agreements. I am sure that the House will be pleased to hear that many Trade Ministers expressed considerable support for that point of view. Although the G4 talks at Potsdam were not as positive as we would have liked, the gaps have narrowed considerably.
However, there is more work to do. That is why my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has already spent a considerable amount of time and effort in talking to President Bush and to key figures in Brazil and other parts of the developing world who are engaged in these talks. He has been talking to Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany, and to others in the European Union, looking to galvanise new momentum into the talks—
rose in his place and claimed to move, That the Question be now put.
Question, That the Question be now put , put and agreed to.
Question accordingly negatived.
Question, That the proposed words be there added, put forthwith, pursuant to
Mr. Speaker forthwith declared the main Question, as amended, to be agreed to.
Resolved,
That this House acknowledges the Government's global leadership on international development; welcomes the Government's stated objective to increase the aid budget to 0.7 per cent. of gross national income by 2013; further welcomes the widespread support which this policy has secured; further acknowledges the centrality of effectively delivered aid to low income countries' sustainable economic development; welcomes the Government's untying of aid; supports the United Kingdom Government's moves to establish an independent evaluation mechanism and its increased focus on aid effectiveness, results and impact; and acknowledges that the UK Government is working at the multilateral and bilateral levels to remove the trade barriers which developing countries face and to help them take advantage of new market opportunities through the provision of aid for trade.