Draft Instruments: reported
for not yet having power to make the Orders
Draft African Development Bank (Tenth Replenishment
of the African Development Fund) Order 2006; Draft Asian Development
Bank (Eighth Replenishment of the Asian Development Fund) Order
2006 and Draft Caribbean Development Bank (Sixth Replenishment
of the Unified Special Development Fund) Order 2006
1.1 The Committee draws
the special attention of the House to these instruments on the
ground that there is, as yet, no power to make the Orders.
1.2 The purpose of the draft
Orders is to enable the Secretary of State, on behalf of the Government,
to make payment of a further contribution to the Funds mentioned
in each Order pursuant to arrangements made between the Government
and the relevant Development Bank, and to make payment of sums
required to redeem any non-interest-bearing and non-negotiable
notes issued by the Secretary of State in respect of the payment
of the further contribution.
1.3 Section 11 of the International
Development Act 2002 (which repeals and re-enacts similar provisions
in the Overseas Development and Co-operation Act 1980) provides
that, where the Government becomes bound to make a payment to
a multilateral development bank, the Secretary of State may make
the payment if it is approved by an Order made by him with the
approval of the Treasury. No such Order can be made unless a draft
of it has been laid before and approved by the House of Commons.
Thus, the Secretary of State's power to make the Order in terms
of the draft will only arise when: (a) the Government becomes
bound to make the payment to the bank, and (b) the draft Order
is approved by the House. The voluntary memoranda submitted by
the Department for International Development and printed in the
Appendix explain that no obligation to make the payment will arise
until an Instrument of Contribution (or Instrument of Subscription)
is deposited by the Government. The draft Orders have been laid
at this time in order to secure the approval of the House before
the deposit of the Instrument of Contribution (or Instrument of
Subscription) , and to authorise the making of the Orders in terms
of the draft which would justify making the payment. Paragraph
3.3 of each memorandum contains an undertaking by the Secretary
of State that no Order will be made in terms of the draft until
the Government is bound to make the payment on the deposit of
the relevant Instrument .
1.4 The Committee has resolved
to follow its usual practice[1]
of reporting such draft Orders on the basis that, although there
is, as yet, no power to make the Orders, there is no technical
reason for the House not to approve the draft Orders: it should
merely be aware that it is acting, as on occasions in the past,
on a Ministerial undertaking. The Committee reports the draft
Orders accordingly.
1 First Report of the Select Committee on Statutory
Instruments (Session 2005-06), and the earlier Reports of the
Committee mentioned in the footnote at page 5 of the First Report.
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