Mr.
Lancaster: The hon. Gentleman has made a reasonable point.
Our principal concern is simply that the geographical location of a
country should not be the main reason why it gets
support.
Mr.
Moore: The hon. Gentleman has made that point slightly
differently from the way in which he expressed it in his speech, but I
welcome what he has said. He is right to keep asking the question, if
he is not satisfied. If the treaty is ratified, it will allow us to
focus on the steps needed to allow Europe and the rest of the world to
catch up on what is, so far, fairly poor progress in reaching the
millennium development goals.
The hon.
Gentleman rightly pointed out in his speech his concerns about the
effectiveness and slowness of European aid provision and the
difficulties with corruption. In all the meetings the Minister and his
colleagues will attend, it is important that the delivery of aid and
tackling corruption are at the heart of the next steps for the European
Union. We have different opinions on qualified majority voting, but I
take the hon. Gentleman’s point about Hamas, although I do not
intend to distract the Committee or test your patience, Mr.
Atkinson, by debating Europe’s and Britain’s approach to
aid to the Palestinians. Simply put, we have qualified majority voting,
but he should be more confident that Britain will find supporters to
block proposals that he does not like. On the other hand, it is surely
critical that Britain and other countries that have major reasons for
developing a policy or set of actions do not get held up by other
countries that hold a veto over every last step. Frankly, that makes
the whole policy area more vulnerable to the politicisation than any
other mechanism.
European
development policy is easily broken down into basic points. We need the
money, and we need to ensure that it is spent well to promote wealth
through trade. We need to ensure that our policy and Europe’s
are coherent, so that one country’s policies do not undermine
the core objective of tackling poverty and assisting countries that are
less developed than ours. There are significant shortfalls on key areas
in aid for trade. If he cannot do this today, will the Minister set out
what other countries are doing in a letter to members of the Committee?
The member states’ contribution to aid for trade is, quite
shockingly, behind schedule.
I share the
concerns expressed by the hon. Members for North-East Milton Keynes and
for South Ribble about the dip in the United Kingdom’s
contributions to direct aid. I appreciate what the Minister has said
about the effect of reaching the end of the debt relief
programme—there was clearly going to be a step down after that.
There are a lot of warm words and supportive gestures in the
documentation, but we need a few more specifics to give us the
confidence to say that we will reach the targets.
The
Commission clearly spells out the fact that Europe already has the
tools and the policies, but it must now move from words to action.
There is no shortage, sadly, of instances in which Europe has been
over-bureaucratic and slow, so we ought to welcome the
Commission’s impetus, which is focused on the predictability of
aid, taking conditionality away and, crucially, teamwork, to clarify
the division of labour between different
donors. The
Minister faces a busy year of attending different summits. I hope that
the energy that he and his colleagues put into the matter means that,
when we have equivalent debates a year from now, we will see progress,
and that we will not be ruing the fact that we are still behind
schedule.
5.44
pm
Mr.
Malik: I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for
South Ribble for championing the cause of HIV/AIDS in the developing
world—he has done so for many years—and for his broader
commitment to international development. It was a pleasure to be in
South Ribble last week.
To answer the
initial question asked by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh
and Selkirk, which he integrated into his closing comments, the 0.7 per
cent. by 2013 target is political. As such, it is unaffected by growth
variance. On the assumptions built around the comprehensive spending
review, the target of 0.56 per cent. by 2007 to 2010 is
based on growth of 3 per cent. in 2007, slowing to between 2 and 2.5
per cent. in 2008, and rising to between 2.5 and 3 per cent. in
2009-10. I concur with hon. Gentleman’s interpretation of the
Lisbon treaty. As I attempted—unsuccessfully—to
articulate, the new text is far superior to the previous one. The focus
is very much on poverty, which is welcome, and 90 per cent. of European
development fund assistance will go to low-income
countries. The
hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes rightly focused on Africa and
sub-Saharan Africa, and he is right that that is where the challenge
is. In some ways, it is helpful that half the increase to 0.7 per cent.
in the EU will focus on Africa. Concern is so great that the Prime
Minister launched the call to action with UN Secretary-General Ban
Ki-moon to reinvigorate the world community’s efforts to meet
the millennium development goals.
The agenda
for action that Development Ministers agreed at the General Affairs and
External Relations Council in May will identify specific actions in key
areas, such as education, health, the environment, water, gender
equality, agriculture, growth and infrastructure. Those actions will be
based on collectively agreed milestones for 2010 to enable us to
achieve the MDGs by 2015, and we support that.
The hon.
Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk spoke about the slowness
of the European Commission, and nobody can deny that things could be
better and faster. However, there has been some improvement, and
disbursement time reduced by a third between 2000 and 2005. As ever,
however, it is important that we are vigilant on these
issues. The
hon. Member for North-East Milton Keynes has discussed fraud. The
European anti-fraud office—OLAF—has stated that just 1
per cent. of total fraud cases relate to external spending, which
should give some comfort.
The EU is
absolutely vital in dealing with the issues that we have discussed.
Three key issues are order volumes, aid predictability and, as the hon.
Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk has said, the division of
labour.
On the Paris
declaration, additional EU targets are extremely helpful. There are
four such targets: all capacity-building should be conducted through
co-ordinated programmes; 50 per cent. of aid should be channelled to
Governments through country systems; the number of unco-ordinated
missions should be reduced; and new parallel implementation units
should be avoided.
This debate
has been extremely useful. The MDGs are off-track, and it is vital that
we use 2008—the halfway point to 2015—to make a global
step change in
addressing them. The EU has a crucial role to play not only because of
its size, influence and aid volumes, but because it can set the bar for
the international community in the run-up to the G8 and UN meetings
later this year. The
Government can rightly be proud of their leadership role on
aid—leading the international community, of which I have given
many examples, and meeting their pledges to the developing world. It is
our job now to work much harder in order to ensure that other donor
countries meet their commitments. We should also engage civil society
and the private sector to ensure that we meet the challenge of our
time, which is to eradicate poverty and disease. Those wretched
elements still remain
in far too many parts of the developing world, and I know that hon.
Members on both sides of the Committee would like to see them
eradicated sooner rather than later. Question
put and agreed to.
Resolved,
That the
Committee takes note of European Union Document No. 8403/08 and Addenda
1 to 5, Commission Communication, The EU—a Global Partner for
Development—speeding up progress towards the Millennium
Development Goals (MDGs); and welcomes the progress being
made.
Committee
rose at ten minutes to Six
o'clock.
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