argyrotsipi/train-dataset huggingface dataset:
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Kate Ofunne Osamor (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes a valuable point, but the Bill still needs scrutiny. That is what I am laying out We all know that transparency is something that DFID does very well indeed. Its performance in the aid transparency index demonstrates an international gold standard in that regard. Historically, however, the same cannot be said for CDC. It is of the utmost importance that the proportion of the ODA budget that is channelled through CDC be subject to the same checks on outcomes and value for money to which DFID holds itself. New clause 4 lays down conditions that would guarantee transparent governance through an agreed framework reached with the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and CDC. Proper annual measurements of outcome would be a welcome addition to the Bill In relation to new clauses 1 and 8 and the issue of CDC use of separate financial centres where countries do not have sufficiently robust regulatory environments, now is the time to put on record the Government’s commitment to strengthening financial service centres in developing countries. The Opposition know that the importance of addressing and tackling CDC’s use of tax havens cannot be overstated. Although we heard assurances in Committee from Diana Noble, the chief executive of CDC, that using offshore financial centres ensures legal certainty and lessens risk for investors, far more than reassurance is needed to ensure transparency on that point. We need clear legislative safeguards, which is why the Front-Bench team will press new clause 1 to a vote. New clause 1 requires any proposal to increase the limit by secondary legislation to be accompanied by a thorough analysis of CDCs use of such centres. Where the countries in question do not have sufficiently robust regulatory environments, it is the UK’s job to ensure that those centres are made more robust.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Kate Ofunne Osamor (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point, and I will touch on that in my speech. Regardless of any development, we must always be robust and we must be able to show taxpayers that we have a transparent and accountable system. That is at the forefront of our objections to the Bill I seek assurances from the Minister of State, the hon. Member for Penrith and The Border (Rory Stewart), that he will consider supporting the implementation of such safeguards. It is of course to be applauded that the whole ethos of CDC has been transformed since it was the subject of widespread controversy some years ago. It is testimony to the organisation’s willingness to change that it reacted to that criticism by becoming a more positive institution and implementing an overhaul of the systems that were in place. These efforts were praised in the most recent report by the National Audit Office, which assessed CDC’s progress in implementing the recommendations that the NAO made in a report in 2008. It was heartening to read in the follow-up report that CDC has proved successful in adapting its strategy in accordance with NAO’s earlier recommendations, including instituting frameworks to limit excessive pay and to refocus CDC’s priorities on the world’s very poorest nations, rather than investing in markets that already attract foreign investors.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Kate Ofunne Osamor (Labour, Centre-left): No, I need to make some headway It was also encouraging to learn that CDC has not only met but exceeded the targets agreed with DFID relating to its financial performance and development impact, and has improved its procedures for documenting fraud and corruption. Although we on the Front Bench praise CDC for making those changes, we must not forget that the recent NAO report was by no means unequivocally positive, and that it highlighted significant areas for improvement. Allow me to quote directly from a passage in the report examining the efficiency of CDC’s methods of capturing its development impact: "It remains a significant challenge for CDC to demonstrate its ultimate objective of creating jobs and making a lasting difference to people’s lives in some of the world’s poorest places. Given the Department’s plans to invest further in CDC, a clearer picture of actual development impact would help to demonstrate the value for money of the Department’s investment." That is quite some statement. According to the NAO, it is "a significant challenge" for CDC to demonstrate how effectively it does the very thing it was set up to do.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Kate Ofunne Osamor (Labour, Centre-left): I said in my opening remarks that CDC has improved, but the report says that it is still very hard to know and to demonstrate the impact of development, and work on that still needs to be done. The report is not totally scathing, but we must pick up such objections. If CDC was transparent, I am sure Labour Members would not have to stand up in the Chamber and say what we are now saying New clause 7, tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), lays down conditions about investing only in certain sectors and about not investing in sectors that provide little or no development impact in ending poverty. These sectors include the fossil fuel sector, the primary education and healthcare sectors that charge at the point of contact, the building of real estate, mineral extraction and work in the palm oil sector. If DFID’s investment in CDC is to increase the level proposed in the Bill, this challenge must be urgently addressed and resolved In spite of CDC’s very welcome improvements, the NAO’s recommendations show that we should not forget that it remains very much a work in progress for this organisation to demonstrate transparently and robustly that it is achieving its objectives. With that in mind, we cannot regard the Bill as the end of the process. There is no room for complacency within CDC or DFID on the need to alter the organisation’s processes further to ensure and to demonstrate the delivery of its goals. Given the scale of the proposed increase in DFID funding—from a limit of £1.5 billion to one of £6 billion —and the resulting consequences both for the UK’s development programme and indeed for the developing countries it supports, it is right that the Bill is robustly challenged and meticulously scrutinised where it is found lacking, and that stringent precautions are appended to it where necessary New clause 10 lays out that any proposed increase in the current limit would not in any one calendar year constitute more than 5% of total official development assistance.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: Education
Kate Ofunne Osamor (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady makes a valid point, but I am talking about private education, for which someone with no money would have to pay. I do not think we should support that in a developing country, because we do not do it in this country. If someone wants to pay to go to university, there are challenges in relation to that, but I am talking, ideally, about primary education.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: Education
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): New clause 7 is in my name, and I will speak about it in due course. Does my hon. Friend agree that there is an important choice for DFID to make? It previously invested significantly in promoting free healthcare and education—making it available to all people, and removing such user fees—so to allow the CDC to continue to invest in private, fee-paying education is a significant shift away from the work the Department did in the past.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Kate Ofunne Osamor (Labour, Centre-left): I now need to make some progress Labour Members remain positive about the Bill’s ability to achieve its aim of improving the quality of life of people in some of the least developed countries in the world, but we believe that this can be achieved to its fullest extent only if appropriate safeguards are put in place. We retain our right to withdraw our support for the Bill if it becomes clear that the Government have not made sufficient progress.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I am listening with interest to the hon. Lady’s point, but does she not accept that there is a bit of a double standard? The Secretary of State issued a letter on 16 December to other DFID suppliers—institutions, non-governmental organisations and people in receipt of our aid money—making it very clear that they should not invest in tax havens, yet she seems unwilling to apply the same to the CDC, which is also in receipt of taxpayers’ funding. Is that not a double standard?
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): In July last year, as part of our ongoing inquiry, the International Development Committee visited the Democratic Republic of the Congo. As part of that, we went to see a hydroelectric power plant in the Virunga national park, which has been part-funded by the CDC. It is reinvesting a proportion of its earnings into community development projects and protecting the environment. The plant is bringing electricity to a region in which only 15% of the population has previously had access to power, and it has the potential to generate millions of dollars each year and thousands of jobs for local communities. I cite that because such projects are impressive and demonstrate the positive impact that the CDC is already having.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): The hon. Lady is a highly valued member of the International Development Committee and I agree with her. The purpose of my remarks on Report this afternoon is to reinforce the point she made. Those are positive projects. We want to ensure that the high-quality we saw in that example in Congo becomes the norm for all the CDC’s investments, particularly as the limit is increased, which I will come to in a moment The private sector provides around nine out of every 10 jobs in developing countries. Its development and success is vital in helping countries to achieve sustainable and long-term development. I therefore believe it makes sense to increase the CDC’s investment threshold Poverty reduction must be at the heart of the Government’s development agenda, which must explicitly include the work of the CDC. In 2011, the predecessor International Development Committee produced a report, "The Future of CDC", as the group approached its then cap of £1.5 billion, as set out in the Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 1999. The Committee’s report concluded that the CDC’s mandate should be changed to a specific focus on poverty alleviation. Given that job creation is one of the very best ways to reduce poverty, it is important that the Government have a development investment arm that will help poorer countries to create new and innovative jobs As has been said by Members on both sides of the House, the CDC made significant changes following the 2008 National Audit Office report and the 2011 International Development Committee report in line with recommendations to move towards a focus on the alleviation of poverty. As has also been said, those changes were reviewed recently by a further NAO report released just before Second Reading of the Bill in November 2016. The report was mostly positive, and noted that the 2012 to 2016 investment strategy shifted the CDC’s investment focus to poorer countries, which is welcome. The report noted that the CDC had exceeded the targets agreed with DFID relating to financial performance and development impact. However, it also said that the CDC should do more to measure the development impact of its investments. That would not only provide a better basis for investment decisions, but increase the transparency of the CDC Poverty alleviation is absolutely central if we are to make a success of the global goals—the sustainable development goals agreed in 2015. Africa needs to generate 15 million new jobs every year if it is to achieve its global goals. That can be achieved only by working with the private sector, including organisations such as CDC. CDC has helped to create nearly 25,000 jobs in Africa and south Asia directly, and it says it has helped to create more than 1 million jobs indirectly. The businesses in its portfolio support around 18 million jobs. I am therefore happy to see the increase in the threshold, but I have a number of concerns to which I should like the Minister to respond.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): I am certainly not arguing for prescriptions to be applied to the CDC that would not be applied to other organisations funded by DFID. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) has made the valid point that, shortly before Christmas, the Secretary of State set out a number of conditions for suppliers to the Department, and that they should apply to the CDC. I am emphasising my support for the proposal to put poverty reduction at the heart of the CDC. All hon. Members would agree that that should be at the heart of the Government’s entire development and aid strategy, including DFID. I can plead not guilty to the charge that the right hon. Gentleman puts to me. I am not proposing in any sense to hamstring the CDC. I am certainly not proposing, and I do not believe the Opposition amendments seek, to impose any restriction on the CDC that would be out of step with the restrictions we apply to other bodies funded through overseas development assistance.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend makes a strong point, which is very much the point. The proposals are about bringing the CDC more in line with DFID’s overall priority countries and sectors, and with the restrictions placed on other UK aid money.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen Twigg (Labour, Centre-left): I agree with my hon. Friend. I have read what the Minister said in Committee—reassurance can be gained from it—but I look forward to hearing him again today. It is very important that we have a sense that, with a very substantial increase in the potential money going through the CDC, we will ensure that it is geared towards poverty reduction wherever it is invested. As my hon. Friend rightly points out, part of that is the question of which parts of the world and which countries the CDC will invest in. Investments in some countries can deliver a lot more jobs and poverty reduction than investments in others As I have said, I am happy with an increase in the investment threshold, but we must ensure that the money is spent wisely. The 2012 to 2016 investment plan has expired and we are yet to see the 2017 to 2021 investment plan. I suggest that it would have been beneficial for the Bill, the Government and the CDC if Parliament had seen the plans for the next four years of investment before it was asked to raise the investment threshold. The amendment from my hon. Friend the shadow Secretary of State would ensure that, if the Government introduce regulations further to increase the limit, they would have to be preceded by a detailed plan of investment from the CDC that could be scrutinised by Parliament. I welcome and support that amendment.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Wesley Paul William Streeting (Labour, Centre-left): Successive Governments can be proud of the role played by DFID in improving lives and the economies of some of the world’s poorest countries but, in light of much of the public debate on international development spending, much of what my hon. Friend says on parliamentary scrutiny is correct in principle. Does he agree that that is absolutely essential for maintaining and building public confidence in international development spending?
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): I rise to speak in favour of new clause 7 and the other new clauses and amendments in my name and those of my right hon. and hon. Friends It is fantastic to see so great a consensus in the room around the 0.7% aid target and Britain’s role in international development—in contrast, perhaps, to the shriller debate in the media in recent weeks. It might surprise those hon. Members who have criticised my amendments that there is actually much agreement around the role of CDC; I believe it has a vital role to play—I made this clear in Committee, as I am sure the Minister would acknowledge—in the wider portfolio of our international development effort and in the spending of our official development assistance. I would like to thank my fellow Co-operative party MPs and the shadow Front-Bench team, as well as other Members from across the House, for adding their names to many of my amendments. It shows the level of very reasonable concern around the many unanswered questions concerning the priorities and operations of CDC. Those questions need to be addressed before we can countenance such a large increase in the official development assistance resources it receives from DFID. I am not suggesting that CDC should not get any more resources—it has reached the cap of £1.5 billion set in 1999 and clearly needs some increase and headroom to expand its activities—but it is worth recognising that it has coped well by recycling resources within itself, partly thanks to some of the investment successes it has enjoyed.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: Government Operations
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): Clearly, the hon. Lady did not listen to what I was saying. I did not say that. I said that the Minister had acknowledged that it was not going to be spent in one year, which was the fear when this was initially proposed. What we are asking for in the amendments is just that clear business case. I hope that the Minister—he was nodding earlier—will be able to set out how that process and scrutiny of it will occur, which is only right. There was only limited scrutiny of the last amounts spent, which were quite significant.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): What my hon. Friend describes is, in civil service language, the ghastly phrase "absorptive capacity". He will know that, unfortunately, the Department for International Development has allocated some funding into various World Bank trust funds that have not been fully spent with the originally envisaged timescale, suggesting that the Department is beginning to struggle to find suitable sources that can absorb its money as it wants. My hon. Friend is, in my view, right to worry aloud that this is a huge increase in money without any proven capacity to spend it.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): Indeed. My hon. Friend, one of the longest-serving Ministers at DFID, knows this only too well. He makes a very important point. I have spoken to other experts in the sector who suggest that to absorb that amount, even a doubling would be a struggle, so it certainly applies to the levels we are seeing. That is why it would be much more helpful if the Minister were clear about the schedule for this spending. What is his idea of the number of years over which this increase would be spent before we might require another Act to increase it even further We tabled some crucial amendments, as did SNP Members, in new clauses 3, 4 and 6 and my own new clause 9, emphasising the importance of focusing on the poorest, least developed and low-income countries and of ensuring that we remain coherent with the sustainable development goals—the global goals agreed by the UN—and focused on poverty eradication rather than other priorities.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Ivan Lewis (Labour, Centre-left): My hon. Friend is making an excellent case. Has not DFID led the world on the importance of aid transparency and a focus on poverty reduction? The problem at the heart of these proposals is that there is very little prospect of transparency of how these resources are spent. Equally, there is very little ability for the Government to guarantee that the resources will be deployed and focused on poverty reduction. Is that not a matter of major concern?
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: Macroeconomics
Gareth Thomas (Labour, Centre-left): Is my hon. Friend aware of comments made by the Secretary of State when she was a Treasury Minister about tax evasion and the need to limit the use of tax havens? Why does the Treasury seem to be concerned about the issue, and why is DFID suddenly not concerned about it? One would have thought that, when it came to such a crucial issue, there would be joined-up government.
Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill — House of Commons, 2017-01-10
Topic: International Affairs
Stephen John Doughty (Labour, Centre-left): That was also a great surprise to me. I referred earlier to the letter that the Secretary of State sent to many of the other DFID contractors on 16 December. That letter was very clear about tax avoidance measures and tax havens. It contained a series of criteria, most of which I think are very reasonable, and which we should expect to be observed by organisations that are benefiting from our aid spending. My question is this: why are those criteria not being applied to CDC? The Secretary of State repeatedly refused to confirm that they would be. There seems to be one rule for one organisation and a different rule for others Eurodad research found that 118 out of 157 fund investments made by CDC went through jurisdictions that feature in the top 20 of the Tax Justice Network’s Financial Secrecy Index. That does not seem to me to be coherent with the other statements that are being made by the Government. Indeed, the will of the House has been shown by cross-party support for amendments to other Bills that would crack down on tax avoidance and evasion Lastly, I want to return to the issue of coherence, and I urge colleagues to support new clause 7. The hon. Member for Bedford (Richard Fuller) referred to this as some sort of laundry list and suggested I was creating hypothetical straw men that did not actually exist and was dealing with things that have happened in the past. That is not the case; I am talking about things that are happening now. It is a fact that, as data revealed to me since the Committee stage in parliamentary questions show, in 2015 alone CDC invested £56.9 million in private fee-paying education and £117.9 million in private fee-paying healthcare.