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Gershon Review

7. Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby) (Con): What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Health regarding the efficiency review being conducted by Sir Peter Gershon. [172716]

The Chief Secretary to the Treasury (Mr. Paul Boateng): Treasury Ministers meet their Department of Health counterparts frequently to discuss a range of issues, including the efficiency review. The Department
 
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of Health is working closely with Sir Peter Gershon and his team to maximise the benefits of the efficiency review for front-line services.

Mr. Robathan : We have just heard a lot about the Government publishing things—but the Government commissioned this report. Why have they not published it, and when will they do so?

Mr. Boateng: The Government intend to ensure that in the course of the publication of the spending review, we see the results of the efficiency review in relation to each of the Departments concerned.

Mr. Geoffrey Robinson (Coventry, North-West) (Lab): Is my right hon. Friend aware that Sir Peter Gershon's reports contain some hard targets that are difficult to meet, and will he look closely at the methods for calculating public sector efficiency and productivity? I am thinking in particular of the proposals of the Office for National Statistics, on which the Opposition have commented. Their perverse effect is such that, even if my right hon. Friend were to fan an epidemic throughout the country—I would not put such a task past his considerable powers—create a conflagration the size of the great fire of London, double class sizes and imprison half the population, he could show some remarkable increases in productivity on the basis of ONS procedures. Can we therefore hope that the reviews of Sir Peter Gershon and Sir Tony Atkinson will provide a much better basis for measuring efficiency and productivity, and put an end to the irresponsible exploitation of what are experimental figures—as the ONS itself describes them—by the Opposition?

Mr. Boateng: My hon. Friend makes a very good point—in his inimitable way. He is absolutely right: the current productivity measures give a distorted picture, which is why we welcome the decision of the national statistician and Registrar General to ask Tony Atkinson to develop better measures of public sector productivity. We look forward to the involvement of Front-Bench spokespersons from all parts of the House in ensuring that we get a productivity measure on which we can agree.

Mr. Howard Flight (Arundel and South Downs) (Con): No tangible efficiency savings have been announced in health or education; Home Office staff numbers have grown so much that they cannot fit into the new office; the Minister for Local and Regional Government is backtracking on Gershon procurement and back-office savings; Treasury administrative costs are up by 16 per cent.; and the Prime Minister was wrong about UK administrative costs, which are up by 8.5 per cent. as a percentage of total spending. Are the Government serious about Gershon, or is the £20 billion-worth of savings just smoke and mirrors?

Mr. Boateng: I recommend that the hon. Gentleman try the alternative remedy of some camomile tea. As he knows very well, there is no backtracking but an absolute commitment to maximising the benefits of the efficiency review to front-line services. That is why, not least in relation to the Department of Health, the concentration is on procurement, making better use of
 
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professionals' time and ensuring that the IT programme delivers real benefits to patients. But we all know what the hon. Gentleman really feels about public sector workers, because he shared that view with us in one of his occasional missives. He said:

"The whole mentality in the public sector then and now is to do as little as you can."

That is how Opposition Members view the public sector. We seek efficiency and gains for the front line; they would undermine, cut and privatise.

International Aid

8. Mr. David Stewart (Inverness, East, Nairn and Lochaber) (Lab): What plans he has to increase expenditure on international aid in the coming spending round; and if he will make a statement. [172717]

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown): UK development aid has doubled since 1997. It has risen from £2 billion to more than £4 billion, and will rise from 0.26 per cent. of gross domestic product to 0.4 per cent. by the end of the spending round. As I announced in the Budget, we will not cut aid in the new spending round, but will continue to increase the resources that we give to the poorest countries.

Mr. Stewart : Will my right hon. Friend reassure the 700 young constituents whom I recently met at Culloden academy, Inverness, and who called for an end to child poverty throughout the world, that this Government are committed to increasing international aid and to meeting their millennium goals?

Mr. Brown: I am grateful to my hon. Friend, whose interest in this issue has been shown not just in Parliament, but in the campaigns that he has run in his own constituency. I can assure him that our commitment is that every child be given the chance of primary education, and that that goal be achieved over the next 10 years, with 120 million children who do not receive education being given that education as a result of our proposals. Our commitment is to cut by two thirds child and maternal mortality, and to halve poverty over the next few years. We will do that best by the world coming together to make resources available. In our view, that will be best achieved through the international finance facility, and we are ready to talk with all our international partners about how we can tackle poverty in the poorest countries by increasing the resources that the richest countries give.

Mr. Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con): In addition to increasing international aid, the Chancellor will surely appreciate that it is important to target it, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa. What steps has he taken to ensure that we root out corruption? Clearly, it is a major problem that much international aid goes to several war-torn sub-Saharan countries, so what steps has he taken to ensure that we target international aid money to best effect?

Mr. Brown: As I said just a few minutes ago, the protocol signed with Ethiopia made it a requirement that, before further aid would be given, the country had to sort out human rights issues, problems of corruption
 
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and the misuse of resources. Also, under measures agreed with the IMF, two centres have been set up in Africa to advise on the proper preparations of fiscal and monetary policy, which the hon. Gentleman would accept is important. It is a condition of the international finance facility and, indeed, the Monterrey consensus, that countries receive the proposed development aid only if they show that they are tackling problems of corruption, lack of transparency and those associated with fiscal and monetary stability as well as opening up to trade and investment.

At the same time, we want to encourage the better use of aid. We should remember that aid to sub-Saharan Africa has been cut from the rate of $33 per person 20 years ago to only $20 per person today—a savage halving of aid at a time when needs have become even greater. We have not only untied aid, but, for the first time, $1 billion of aid is going directly to Africa and to the projects that the hon. Gentleman would support—in health and education.

Diana Organ (Forest of Dean) (Lab): If the Government are proposing to provide future aid through the international finance facility, does my right hon. Friend agree that, in order to prevent aid flows from falling after 2015, when the millennium development goals are due to be met, the Government must make a clear commitment to reach and maintain an aid budget of 0.7 per cent. of the UK's gross national income?

Mr. Brown: I know that my hon. Friend has taken a big interest in this matter. I can reassure her that we are committed to reaching that 0.7 per cent. target. We will announce in the next spending round what we can do in the next few years. I have to tell my hon. Friend, however, that even if we reached that 0.7 per cent. target tomorrow, the amount of resources created for the international community would be about £3 billion. The additional resources created by front-loading aid under our proposals could, if the whole international community came together, amount not to £3 billion, but $50 billion.

Given the scale of the problem and the ambition of our proposal, the best way forward is to persuade countries effectively to double their aid while at the same time subscribing to a long-term and predictable flow of aid. That is the best means by which we can encourage the poorer countries to invest where they should be investing—not in military arms, but in health, education and anti-poverty programmes.

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