Clause 1 - Development assistance

Part of International Development Bill [Lords] – in a Public Bill Committee at 10:00 am on 22 November 2001.

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Photo of Edward Leigh Edward Leigh Chair, Public Accounts Committee, Chair, Public Accounts Committee 10:00, 22 November 2001

One advantage of the Committee is that we can have genuine debate. The hon. Gentleman will be able to share that report with us so that we may sift through the evidence. I hope that I am a reasonable person. If I am wrong and it can be established that UNFPA is having an impact on the ground, I will accept that. However, the evidence is conflicting, and I doubt whether we should be providing aid to a body when, at best, its activities are controversial and the evidence of its influence for the good is conflicting. That raises serious questions about what is going on and what we should do.

There is enough evidence to suggest that there is at least a real possibility that bodies to which we, British taxpayers, give money are in some way complicit in, or have an influence on, a barbaric programme of coercive population control. However, we continue to fund them. My amendment is simply designed to stop that funding.

Let me say what the US Government have done.