Select Committee on Statutory Instruments Fifth Report


Draft Instrument: reported for not yet having a power to make the Order

Draft African Development Fund (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) Order 2006

1.1  The Committee draws the special attention of the House to this instrument on the ground that there is, as yet, no power to make the Order.

1.2  The purpose of the draft Order is to enable the Secretary of State, on behalf of the Government, to make payment of further contributions to the African Development Fund pursuant to arrangements made between the Government and the Fund, and to make payment of sums required to redeem any non-interest-bearing and non-negotiable notes or other obligations issued or created 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 an international financial institution having economic development as one of its objects, 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 institution, and (b) the draft Order is approved by the House. Paragraph 3 of the memorandum submitted by the Department for International Development (printed at Appendix 1) explains that no obligation to make the payment will arise until an Instrument of Commitment is deposited by the Government. The draft Order has been laid at this time in order to secure the approval of the House before the deposit of the Instrument of Commitment, and to authorise the making of the Order in terms of the draft which would justify making the payment. Paragraph 3.3 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 Instrument in question.

1.4  The Committee has resolved to follow its usual practice[1] of reporting this type of draft Order on the basis that, although there is, as yet, no power to make the Order, there is no technical reason for the House not to approve the draft Order: it should merely be aware that it is acting, as on occasions in the past, on a Ministerial undertaking. The Committee reports the draft Order accordingly.





1  First, Third and Fourth Reports 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.  Back


 
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