argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Archibald Gavin Hamilton (Conservative, Centre-right): It was some years ago now that I went to visit my noble friend Lord Patten of Barnes when he was commissioner for overseas aid in the European Union. He spent quite some time complaining about how few staff he had in comparison with the number that he had when doing the same job in London. I do not know whether that situation has improved but I suspect that it probably has not—and my noble friend was saying quite clearly that he did not have the resources to manage the programmes under his control.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I do not know whether the noble Baroness shares my concern, but she is quite right that it was a government decision—and I think it is a foolish government decision to say that we are going to hugely increase the money and the programmes being provided while greatly reducing the people who are going to be responsible for seeing that the money is well spent. Perhaps we might come on to that at a later stage The noble Lord, Lord Cashman, made an impassioned plea and told the House that he was very concerned that the discussions which we are having about accountability and value for money would be misrepresented outside this House. I have to say that for him to have tweeted that, "Lord Forsyth clearly enjoys fillibustering and denying with weasel words the needs of the poorest", is really unworthy of him. I think that I have raised nearly £100,000 for women in India. The noble Lord should not question our motives. It should be obvious from the speeches made and the amendments which are being considered that the intention here is to provide flexibility for the department to use scarce resources wisely.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: Macroeconomics
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): In a second. Indeed, the promoter of the Bill at Second Reading in the other place, Michael Moore, said that it was a duty to all constituents, who he pointed out were struggling in the current economic climate, to advocate what is in the best interests of our country—and I agree with that I remind people, when they are talking about spending 0.7% of GDP, that this is not money that we have—it is money that we are borrowing. The proposition here is that we borrow money in order to make a commitment. If you are borrowing money in order to spend it, at the very least you should be absolutely certain that you are getting a sensible return on it, and recognise that you are passing on the burden to the next generation—because borrowing is simply taxation deferred. I beg leave to withdraw my amendment.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: Government Operations
Nigel Lawson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, this amendment is also in the name of my noble friends Lord McGregor and Lord Tugendhat, as well as the noble Lord, Lord Lipsey, who, as we have heard, unfortunately is unable to be with us today A number of the earlier amendments were concerned, as I should think all helpful amendments are in practice, to create a degree of flexibility, which is necessary for good government and in particular for the control of public expenditure. I regret that even though it is customary for this House to rise at 3 pm on a Friday, it is now 4 pm and we are still going. The Bill does not seek emergency powers or anything like that; it should have been tabled for the very first Session of this Parliament, as I think was promised, but we have had to wait until now. That is highly undesirable and somewhat disreputable conduct along the line.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I support my noble friend in respect of this amendment. Our GDP is forecast to increase by more than 3%, which will mean that more than £400 million extra will have to be spent on overseas aid next year to meet the target. That is at the same time as the Chancellor saying that we are in an age of austerity. Given what the Chancellor said in his Autumn Statement and given the OBR’s projections, government spending as a proportion of GDP—or gross national income, if you prefer that terminology—will have to come down. So, as the OBR has highlighted, even health spending will come down as a proportion of GDP. If the Bill goes through unamended, the percentage of government spending that goes on overseas aid will have to keep rising rather than remain constant. Is that the intention—that the spending on overseas development aid not only should be ring-fenced and given special status but should always rise as a proportion of overall government spending? I believe that my noble friend’s amendment addresses that particular anomaly, and I look forward to hearing from the sponsor of this Bill, the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, as to whether that is indeed his intention I do not want to detain the House. I just say to the Front Benches that I think that it is absolutely outrageous that the business was changed and that we are dealing with these very important matters at 4 pm on a Friday afternoon, particularly since this is apparently a Private Member’s Bill. I look forward to citing these precedents in future regarding other Private Members’ Bills. If the Government think that this will in some way prevent the House from having an opportunity for all Members to be here to debate these matters, they have another thing coming. There is another stage, Report, when I hope we will be able to discuss these matters more fully. On that basis, I leave it at that in respect of this amendment.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): The noble Lord has been asked two specific questions. One was asked by my noble friend, which was whether the Bill is a paper tiger and there is no sanction on any Secretary of State if they do not meet the target, other than that they must produce a report explaining why. With respect to the noble Lord, I do not think he answered it. All he has to say is, "Yes, that’s right" The second question I put to him was: is he really content to have the effect of this Bill in an era where public expenditure is being restrained? We hope that the economy will start to grow; the effect of the Bill will be that spending on development aid will rise as a proportion of overall government expenditure, unlike any other programme.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Again, can the noble Lord answer the question that I asked him? Is he content to have a situation as a consequence of the Bill where the proportion of government expenditure that goes on overseas aid rises while it does not rise for other programmes? That would be the effect of what he is proposing.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Nigel Lawson (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, that most recent exchange between my noble friends Lord Forsyth and Lord Purvis has been quite illuminating. I want to mention two points that came up in the discussion but, before I do so, I want to go back to the earlier remarks of my noble friend Lord Purvis. He was completely muddled and I would like to straighten him out. He said that this amendment was inconsistent with the amendment that sought to look at aid expenditure over a five-year period in connection with the target. Even if you look at it over five years, in this country, as in most countries, there is an annual Budget, an annual Autumn Statement, figures for public expenditure and figures for taxation, and they are all, and will continue to be, produced annually, even if the amendment relating to the five-year period, which was withdrawn, had been passed. So that does not change anything at all and there is no conflict whatever I now turn to the two matters that my noble friend Lord Forsyth and I raised, and my first point may be what lies, to some extent, behind the question put by my noble friend Lord Forsyth. At the moment, expenditure on aid is running at more than £11 billion a year. That is not far short of what we spend on the police. The police are not a protected programme and therefore, inevitably, given the overall policy to curb public expenditure, spending on the police will go down and spending on aid will go up. It will not be long before we are spending more on aid than on the police. No doubt my noble friend Lord Purvis will be, to use his own words, very proud of that, but that cannot go on for ever. You cannot have this ratchet effect year in, year out. We have the danger of terrorism in our midst and the police have all their other duties of catching and prosecuting criminals. We cannot have public expenditure on aid going up and up indefinitely, irrespective of the needs of other heads of expenditure. The technicalities of what education spending and health spending mean do not wash; they are just nitpicking. There is a fundamental point here that needs to be addressed However, on the other point that was raised, I am less dissatisfied because the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, has admitted that if a future Government—we know where the present Government stand—take seriously the problems of spending on the police, the health service and education, and take the view that they cannot properly continue to increase aid spending, the term "legally binding" does not amount to a row of beans because all they have to do is present a statement to Parliament explaining why they are not increasing aid spending and are falling short of the 0.7% target. That is a great relief, and it will be a great relief to the people of this country. The commitment is a bit of a paper tiger. With that, I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
David Arthur Russell Howell (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, as we are looking at page 2 of the Bill and the amendment of my noble friend Lord Astor, which seeks to add a further paragraph to the three issues listed in paragraphs (a), (b) and (c), one or more of which might lead the report to explain why the target has not been hit, may I ask a question of my noble friend Lord Purvis, or perhaps the Minister, about paragraph (c), which refers to, "circumstances arising outside the United Kingdom" Would that include the views of the proposed recipient countries of overseas aid saying that they no longer want the aid? We had this situation with India recently, where India reviewed its relationship with Britain, felt that the relationship should mature and that far better outcomes for development and escaping from poverty would be achieved through other fiscal changes such as two-way investment flows, impact value investment and a whole range of new techniques, and therefore it did not want to go on receiving old-fashioned official aid because official aid, as a large part of the world has discovered—not, I fear, everybody in your Lordships’ House—is not the main instrument, or even the most effective instrument, for lifting people out of poverty, ending real suffering and accelerating economic growth. So if countries come forward and say, "We do not actually want this assistance", would that be one of the, "circumstances arising outside the United Kingdom", which might disembarrass the Secretary of State and enable him to explain why the target had not been hit?
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, on that point about the use of multilateral organisations, does the Minister agree with the National Audit Office report? It states: "The Department phased its contributions to 2 key multilateral organisations to increase 2013 ODA. The Department has used the flexibility it has over when it issues promissory notes to fund some multilateral organisations to help manage ODA. In line with OECD rules the notes count as ODA when they are issued, which is typically 2 years before they are cashed".
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to my noble friend. I do not mean to harass her, but she did not really deal with the point that I was making. I am not making a point that the department does not give money to multilateral organisations, often for very good causes. I was asking her to confirm that the department uses multilateral organisations where the rules on what constitutes expenditure, which in this case was two years ahead of the programme being achieved, are driven by the need to balance the budget and not by the merits of the programme and that that arises because of the lack of the flexibility for which my noble friend’s amendment would provide.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I was not really intending to speak on this amendment, but I want to get to the bottom of this point. I entirely agree with my noble friend Lord Fowler about the importance of that programme and I pay tribute to the work that is done all over the globe in combating AIDS and to the organisations involved This is not about the merits of particular programmes; it is about the means by which the money is managed because of the lack of flexibility, which the amendment would provide for. Paragraph 15 on page 8 of the summary of the NAO report says: "The need to increase spending was a factor the Department considered when it decided in autumn 2013 on the size of promissory notes it subsequently issued in December 2013 to the World Bank’s International Development Association and to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. The Department’s decision to issue more notes to both organisations in 2013 did not alter the total value of notes it planned to provide them and did not affect the content and timing of the programmes" So we are not talking about the programmes; we are talking about what happens as a result of having to find programmes in year where you have no flexibility. The advantage of going to multilateral organisations is that the expenditure counts towards the target when it is issued, even though it might not be incurred until two years down the line. That does not apply to bilateral programmes. Therefore, it creates a bias against bilateral programmes in circumstances where the budget needs to be managed. It is not about the merits of the programmes; it is about how the rules and the corset that is being imposed by the provisions in this Bill result in bad decisions potentially being made.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Before my noble friend sits down, perhaps I may get absolute clarity on this. The reports states, on page 8, paragraph 15: "The need to increase spending was a factor the Department considered when it decided in autumn 2013 on the size of promissory notes it subsequently issued in December 2013 to the World Bank’s International Development Association and to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria" Is she saying that that is not correct?
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
William Astor (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, for his response. Obviously I do not have Section 6 of the International Development Act at hand but I will look at it carefully and read what he said in Hansard. He certainly gave a considered response, for which I am grateful I am also grateful to the Minister. She said, importantly, that there was flexibility in the department, and we are all grateful for that. I would have been happier if she had been able to say that, should the Bill go through, there will still be flexibility in the department. That is the important thing that we all want and are trying to achieve.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I, too, support this amendment. Like my noble friend, I was very surprised that the provisions for scrutiny were withdrawn from the Bill in the other place I have to say that when the Independent Commission for Aid Impact gave evidence to the Economic Affairs Committee before our report, we were less than impressed with it. We felt that it was rather extraordinary that there were four commissioners to deal with a huge budget that was going to be increased very substantially. But having read the NAO report and various other reports in preparation for the consideration of this Bill, it would seem that it has in fact done a good job. Perhaps the committee’s worries on that score were taken on board I still worry, of course, that we are dealing with a programme that is being increased enormously and a department that is being reduced enormously. In business, in the private sector, if I saw a company that was reducing its back office by 40% while increasing its balance sheet by 30%, I would sell the shares pretty rapidly. But once again, we must put our faith in the ability of the officials at DfID to cope with this stress Having said that, it seems that an earlier amendment was withdrawn because it proposed setting up an entirely different body to carry out the scrutiny. It was not proposing that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact should be that body so I assume that it was taken out of the Bill in line with our policy of having a bonfire of the quangos and reducing the number of public bodies that are a burden on the taxpayer. Perhaps the Government had the thought that the Independent Commission for Aid Impact might be that body. But of course, as we have seen, even though this is a Private Member’s Bill, the Government seem absolutely determined to rush the Bill through both Houses without proper scrutiny. The Independent Commission for Aid Impact seems to be the obvious body to carry out that scrutiny However, that body is in a bit of an odd position. It is a creature of the department but it is supposedly independent. I would have thought that my noble friend Lord Hollick’s amendment would have been even more effective and the Government might wish to take it on board, as might the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, if it was a statutory body and had statutory independence. It is an absolute nonsense to have a body that does not have statutory independence scrutinising a programme that is a third of the size of the defence budget. It is an enormous amount of money being spent. I would have thought that any person wanting to ensure that the least amount of controversy surrounded our overseas development aid would welcome having in place mechanisms that would avoid any future scandals or disquiet on the part of what is, in the opinion polls, a rather uncertain and dissatisfied public.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: Government Operations
Nigel Lawson (Conservative, Centre-right): I was puzzled when my noble friend said she does not believe that there should be a particular organisation responsible for this. The Bill as originally published specifically set out an independent organisation to do this job. That is very important. When the amendment to remove that was discussed in the other place, at no time did my noble friend’s counterpart there say that the reason it was being removed was because they did not want just one body doing it. They said they did not want to set up an additional body. What we suggest is not an additional body but an existing one. Clearly the job needs to be done and it needs to be specified in the Bill how it is done.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Could the noble Baroness help me in respect of this amendment? Clause 5 says: "The Secretary of State must make arrangements for the independent evaluation of the extent to which ODA provided by the United Kingdom represents value for money in relation to the purposes for which it is provided" My noble friend thinks—and I agree—that that is somewhat inadequate. Then, subsection (2) says: "The Secretary of State must include in each annual report a statement as to how he or she has complied with the duty under subsection (1)" I presume that means subsection (1) of this clause, which says that she must make arrangements for the independent evaluation. Is the idea that the arrangements for the independent evaluation are subject to some kind of annual review? Surely the arrangements for independent evaluation should mean the creation of some kind of authoritative body to carry it out. The fact that Clause 5(2) says that you must have an annual report on this suggests that we will never get there.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: Government Operations
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): I am most grateful to my noble friend, but what then does Clause 5(2) mean when it states: "The Secretary of State must include in each annual report a statement as to how he or she has complied with the duty under subsection (1)" By the way, I do not know why we have "he or she", because the rule is laid down that you do not need to provide for both genders in statutory legislation.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): Yes, very stupidly, I have diverted from my main point. As we are here discussing not equality legislation but overseas aid, can my noble friend explain why it is necessary for the Secretary of State in each annual report to include a statement about how the Secretary of State has complied with the duty under subsection (1)? Surely that duty should be complied with immediately, not subject to some annual review.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill — House of Lords, 2015-02-06
Topic: International Affairs
Michael Bruce Forsyth (Conservative, Centre-right): That is a very important point, but can my noble friend answer my question, which is: why is it necessary to have in each annual report a statement as to how the Secretary of State has made, "arrangements for the independent evaluation of the extent to which ODA provided by the United Kingdom represents value for money in relation to the purposes for which it is provided" Surely she should have those arrangements in place, or is the intention that they should go on for ever and never be completed?