Clause 1 - Annual reports: general

Part of International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Bill – in a Public Bill Committee at 9:00 am on 15 February 2006.

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Photo of Tom Clarke Tom Clarke Labour, Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill 9:00, 15 February 2006

It is an enormous pleasure, Mr. Hood, to sit under your chairmanship. I welcome you to the Chair, and I am sure we all look forward to working under your distinguished chairmanship.

The Committee will be aware that on Second Reading I was asked to tighten up the Bill’s provisions. On reflection, the changes outlined in the amendments seem not only sensible and practical but necessary. To that end I have endeavoured to take such advice on board. Above all, these amendments and others to which I intend to speak later this morning are based on numerous discussions with the Department for International Development, with sponsors and supporters of the Bill and with the Clerks, and I am grateful to them for all their advice and support. I am especially grateful to my hon. Friend the Minister. Throughout those discussions, I have genuinely attempted, in the spirit of the United Nations   millennium development co-ordinator, to make it a cross-party Bill, and to take on board as far as possible the points made on Second Reading by Members of all parties.

I believe that considerable progress and improvements will be made as a result of the amendments, largely because I have had access to such a wide cross-section of suggestions. In amendment No. 14 and the others in this group, I seek to outline the importance of the annual report and to spell out, in the detail that I believe is required, the technical nature of the reports. To that end, the amendments are for the purposes of simplification; they will shorten the clause to a summary clause, and the detailed provisions will be set out in subsequent clauses.