Examination of Witnesses (Question Numbers
42-59)
MR PATRICK
WATT, MS
BESINATI MPEPO
AND MR
MAX LAWSON
24 FEBRUARY 2010
Q42 Chairman: Thank you very much for
coming in and helping us with this short inquiry. For the record,
would you introduce yourselves?
Mr Lawson: I am Max Lawson, I
am from Oxfam.
Ms Mpepo: I am Besinati Mpepo,
from World Vision, but representing the UK Aid Network.
Mr Watt: I am Patrick Watt, from
Save the Children.
Q43 Chairman: Thank you very much.
You have all given us written evidence and have said you are not
very happy with the accountability measures. If you have not heard
the discussion, we have been saying what are the sanctions and
what are the excuses? First of all, perhaps, you can just articulate
what you think the Bill should say and whether or not you have
views as to what might be more effective or stronger in making
any such legislation effective and accountable to Parliament and
the public.
Mr Watt: Maybe I will start with
a few thoughts about the accountability aspects of the Bill. I
think the first question is about what are the ramifications of
government failing to meet the 0.7% target if this Bill is passed,
and at the moment it is unclear whether this is a Bill that requires
governments to report on the 0.7% target or to actually meet it.
This seems to me a bit ambiguous at the moment on that point.
So, on the one hand, it establishes a duty for the government
to reach 0.7% but then makes it clear in Clause 3 of the draft
Bill that there is no recourse to judicial review, so it is not
enforceable through the courts. From the advice from lawyers that
we have consulted, we understand this is a fairly unusual state
of affairsthis so-called "ouster clause"which
effectively takes a government duty out of court jurisdiction,
and it is fairly constitutionally questionable. So I think it
is worth the Committee, certainly, investigating that further
and questioning whether Clause 3 is in fact appropriate. If we
look at other bills that have enshrined government targets, in
the Climate Bill in 2008 and the Child Poverty Bill 2009, there
was no such ouster clause. So I think we need to ask the question
as to why that exists in this draft Bill. That would be one comment,
but I will pass to other colleagues.
Ms Mpepo: One of the concerns
coming from the UK Aid Network and World Vision was the reference
to some of the possible reasons for non-attainment of the target.
What we would recommend is that the reasons that have been statedfiscal,
external and economic reasonsshould be removed from the
draft Bill. We feel that having them there weakens the Bill. We
know that in the economic circumstances we would expect the Gross
National Income to be lower and, as such, automatically the 0.7%
amount in absolute terms will be reduced. So we would say that
those three possible suggested reasons should be removed.
Q44 Chairman: I am not an expert
in drafting bills but is it not slightly odd to have a Clause
3 which says it is not reviewable anyway and Clause 2 to say what
your excuses are? One would assume we would need one or the other
but not both.
Ms Mpepo: That is right
Mr Lawson: We would agree that
it does have a bit of a "cake and eat it" feel about
it, and I think they need to either commit or not commit. We do
also think that (we were talking about this outside) that the
people making the financial decisions, the Treasury, need to be
more explicitly referred to in the Bill. Holding the International
Development Minister responsible for a spending decision is probably
not the right place to go.
Q45 Chairman: Again, you all suggest
that the Committee should have a role. The Committee, in fact,
has a role whatever happens, because our job is to scrutinise
the Department and we always have the right to summon the Secretary
of State. Can you be more explicit on what specific role? Do you
think the Committee should, on the face of the Bill, have such
a role, and, if so, what would it do that it would not do anyway
as a Select Committee of the House?
Mr Watt: I think, as a matter
of course, in addition to reporting on this Bill in Parliament
there ought to be a session where the Secretary of State appears
before the Committee. Not only would Save the Children like to
see retrospective reporting against whether the 0.7% target was
met but, also, some forward reporting. In some respects, this
is a weakening of the 2006 Bill because the 2006 Bill requires
forward reporting about the likelihood in which year the 0.7%
would, in fact, met. There is now no forward reporting requirement
in this draft Bill, and of course the 2006 Bill is superseded
by this Bill. I think there is a question there for the IDC in
terms of forward as well as retrospective reporting.
Q46 Mr Evans: You are all just afraid,
are you, that government in a recession is simply just not going
to meet it, then the Secretary of State with this incredibly worrying
penalty that he faces of having to write a letter to say how he
is going to achieve it next year, you just think is pointless.
Basically, this legislation is hardly worth having in the way
that it is framed.
Mr Watt: I think it is worth having
legislation that requires government to report and to report in
detail on whether or not it has met the commitments it has made
and, if so, how it has gone about doing that. So I think that
is worthwhile. I think you are right, at the moment, that the
Bill risks mild embarrassment to the government of the day, and,
probably, not a lot more. I think that is one reason why looking
at the legal enforceability of the commitments is important in
revisiting Clause 3.
Q47 Mr Evans: There is not going
to be even mild embarrassment, is there? Can you imagine, during
a period of recession, that a government does not reach its 0.7%,
writes a letter to say: "Terribly sorry, but we decided to
spend the money in hospitals in Britain instead". Where is
the embarrassment there?
Mr Lawson: It is part of our job
to provide some embarrassment. I think there is quite a substantive
constituency out there who are impressed with the commitment of
this Government. We are all agreed that they could have got to
0.7% by now; it has taken quite a long time, but it is good that
they are trying to enshrine this in law, and we are broadly supportive
of this Bill and making it happen. I think it is important to
see a difference between the next two years, getting to 0.7%,
and when you are actually there, in terms of the budget discussions.
We know this from our Dutch colleagues and our Swedish colleagues,
who have been at 0.7% for a very long time; it is actually reasonably
easy to have a budget discussion about staying at 0.7%; what is
very hard is to give DFID a 13% increase for the next two years
in order to get there. I think that is going to be the problem.
The political costs of coming back from that target, once we are
there, will be substantive. I think it will be quite embarrassing
internationally, in the same way that, conversely, Britain is
showing enormous leadership on pushing towards the 0.7% as the
only G7 country really serious about it. I think it is our job
to provide that constituency and I think it does exist; people
want us to be at that point. Also, it is a relative thing; it
is recognising that this is a very, very small chunk of government
expenditure. Our polling shows on a regular basis that the British
public think we spend twice, three, four times more on foreign
aid than we actually do, so I think it is our job, as agencies,
to continue to educate the public that this is a worthwhile investment,
and it is not an enormous one either.
Q48 Mr Evans: It is a little bit
off piste, this one but those of us who are contesting are going
to be fighting a General Election within weeks, and on the doorstep,
yes, we hear all sorts of messages. What would you advise candidates
to say (all the political parties are the same on this; we all
want to see 0.7%) to people who say: "No, charity begins
at home"?
Mr Lawson: I would certainly focus
on how little it is. I think it is about being British, it is
about Britain in the world and it is about a cross-party consensus
about doing the right thing. That would be the case I would make.
The first thing I would say is: "Do you understand just how
small the aid budget is?" As I say, in some polls we did
a couple of years ago, the average voter thought we spent more
on foreign aid than we did on the NHS. It is no wonder that people
have these crazy ideas that it is all lost through corruption.
So the first thing is this is not much money, and the influence
that Britain buys, the benign influence that we have across the
world, with this money is incredibly important.
Q49 Chairman: Specifically on the
Bill, obviously, not surprisingly, the Treasury fingerprints are
all over it. Simon Maxwell before suggested there should be some
automaticity. I used the expression "like a Rooker-Wise amendment"
which said, that for example, tax thresholds are automatically
indexed unless the Government actually moves against it. As you
said, it is a big increase. Would you like to see the Bill saying
it is automatic? The Treasury will not like it, of course, and
probably will not accept it but it would bind the Treasury.
Mr Lawson: Once we are there,
that would be great. It makes perfect sense that once we reach
0.7% then it should be standard that we stay there. I think that
is how it works, and we have that in the Scandinavian nations;
that is what people expect to happen.
Q50 Mr Lancaster: It is fascinating
listening to the conversation, not least because, of course, you
are all supporting the principle of the Bill. However, Mr Lawson,
you have described it as the Bill is almost trying to have its
cake and eat it, and Mr Watt you said it actually may well weaken
the 2006 Bill, and when it comes to penalties the worst thing
is there could be mild embarrassment to the government of the
day. Of course, we can all remember the great fanfare when the
Prime Minister stood up at the party conference and said that
we were going to have this Bill. Now that we have got the reality,
we have not even got a Bill; we have a draft Bill. We have a draft
Bill the chances of which seeing the light of day before the General
Election arewell, perhaps that is something we can pursue
this afternoon. Are you not slightly disappointed that despite
all the fanfare we have a draft Bill rather than a Bill? What
do you think the political motivations were for a draft Bill?
After everything we hearda draft Bill. Why do you think
it is a draft Bill?
Ms Mpepo: It is difficult to say
why it is a draft Bill because from the NGO sector, certainly,
we wanted to see it as a full Bill right from the beginning. We
think that it is a fairly straightforward and simple ask and as
such it should have been made full right from the beginning.
Q51 Chairman: Has Ms Mpepo spoken
for all of you?
Mr Watt: I think you need to press
the Government on why it was introduced as a draft Bill rather
than a full Bill. I am sure people in this room have got their
guesses as to why
Q52 Mr Lancaster: What is your assessment?
Why do you think, after everything we heard, actually, their mind
was changed and we only have a draft Bill? I am asking what your
assessment is.
Mr Watt: Certainly I think there
is a concern that this does not become a kind of fairly short-term
device to create political dividing lines.
Q53 Mr Lancaster: Do you think that
is possible?
Mr Watt: I think there is a risk
and I think we have seen, very encouragingly, the emergence of
a consensus on 0.7% across the parties since 2005. I think that
we need to be looking to cement that and make that more durable.
I think if this Bill is put forward in the right spirit then that
can happen, but I think it is important that it is not used to
try to create dividing lines. I think that is a concern.
Mr Lawson: I would agree with
that. It would seem to me that the obvious way to avoid that is
for all parties to commit to make it law by the MDG summit in
September, just to literally stop it being a political football.
If there was full commitment to pass this legislation it would
no longer be an issue. We are very disappointed that it is not
a full Bill and it is not going to happen in time for the Election,
but we still think that it should happen this year, it can happen
this year, and the leadership that that would show for the next
government, as we run into a series of summitsand we have
seen figures recently from the OECD that all the other rich nations
are not delivering on their promisesI think it is really
important. For us, as Oxfam, we are lobbying on these issues all
over the world, and British leadership is really helpful to us,
and I think this would help with that.
Q54 John Battle: In the light of
that, it might be good to build party political consensus on a
commitment to a "real Bill mark", as was suggested by
others outside this room, including me. However, I think it is
important to keep the consensus about getting something that works.
As the person that put down the Early Day Motion in Parliament
campaigning for 0.7% in the wake of the Make Poverty History campaign,
for which we had one of the highest number of signatures of any
EDM in the history of this House, and we have got this far, I
want to now press to say how effective is it going to be, because
I do not like just passing a law for the sake of it, if there
is a good intention but there is no follow-through and there are
no sanctions, as Nigel has said. I want to know from you particularly
about the contributions of other departments, because some of
you have made an issue on this. If we say we will meet the target
and then include the whole of the defence budget, the whole of
the refugee and asylum budget and the whole of the climate change
budget, we could do it tomorrow, but it would de-nature what development
means. Some of you have said that perhaps we need to be using
ODA reporting requirements to actually spell out what goes into
that 0.7% and what counts? We have got some way, and it is an
all-party commitment, that poverty reduction should be the absolute
priority of the work of DFID, and we have gone a long way to get
that and other countries have not got thereuntying aid,
and that kind of thing. How would you respond to the question
of the risk that the effective use of ODA might be avoided by
having that increased reporting requirement built into the Bill?
Do you see us going down that line as a way of strengthening the
Bill?
Mr Watt: I think that is important.
If we look at what has happened over this current spending round,
the share of DFID spend in overall UK ODA has decreased, so more
money is going through other departments. That may or may not
be a good thing but I think it is very important that we have
much more disaggregation of reporting than is currently the case
so that it is very clear what has gone through DFID, what has
gone through other government departments, what has gone through
multilaterals and what has been counted, for example, through
the Commonwealth Development Corporation.[8]
There are a number of items against which this commitment needs
to be monitored, but I think we also need more detail on exactly
what the spending, for example, of ODA through FCO, or wherever
it is, is going on. That is not terribly clear at the moment from
the reports that DFID provides. I also think it would be important
for the Committee to recommend that any changes in how the UK
reports against ODA are part of the reporting requirement of the
Secretary of State, because at the moment the UK does apply the
DAC ODA definitions more restrictively than some other donors.
It does not at the moment count (at least, we think it does not)
UK refugee-related spending against ODA, for example. If that
were to change I think it would be extremely important that that
is reported on in the year in which that change was introduced.
Q55 John Battle: We need to be particular.
For example, funding for the International Organisation for Migrationdoes
that count as refugee work in Britain or internationally? So there
are bits of edges that need to be clarified. Are you saying that
we should go down that route of particularist reporting requirements
and spell those out in the Bill? How far can we go down that road
to tie it down? That is what I am really asking. You can pass
a general bill saying that we would like to do good things and
achieve targets to tackle poverty in the world without even a
figure in it. There is a figure but it is whether we can gather
round that figure to define it more. Should we do that on the
face of the Bill?
Mr Watt: I think so.
Mr Lawson: Yes, I think we would
agree. As we have said in our written submission, I think the
Bill would benefit from a requirement for the Committee to scrutinise
and report on the extent to which the annual targets have been
met, in line with the requirements of the International Development
Act in 2002. We were very proud and pleased with that Act. There
has been a lot of talk recently about ODA definitions or not ODA
definitions; the ODA definition is pretty baggy, and what has
been quite impressive about this country in the last 10 years
it is how we have gone beyond that. Substantively, the quality
of our aid is held to a much higher standard and we need to keep
that standard. We think it should be enshrined in this Bill so
that you as a Committee get to scrutinise that.
Ms Mpepo: We would agree.
Q56 Chairman: The fact that the Bill
alludes to the previous Act in itself is not enough, as far as
you are concerned?
Mr Lawson: No, there could be
an element where you get to scrutinise it in line with the spirit
of that Bill, so it is basically focusing on poverty reduction
and the commitment of all UK ODA spending in that regard, not
just talking about DFID but looking at these other departments.
As Patrick says, finding out what they are actually spending the
money on.
Ms Mpepo: I think the fact that
it is referring to the 2002 Act, in the definition of where the
ODA will be spent, is in itself a positive thing. I think by bringing
the report to the Committee on an annual basis, there is an element
of scrutiny that can be provided to ensure that it remains in
line with poverty reduction spending. I am not sure whether unpackaging
the Bill fully to outline what issues should or should not be
considered as ODA spending would complicate the Bill to the extent
that it would compromise the current cross-party support for the
0.7%.
Q57 John Battle: It is cross-party
support but I can recall conversations over the past years where
not a single penny, for example, would have gone from ODA money
on policing, yet the debate on fragile states suggests differently;
that we should fund policing in fragile states to help them build
a police force where there have been conflicts or civil war. So
sometimes we change the view of what we want to include as development,
and the question is how much that flexibility remains in without
tying every penny down. In one sense it is that balance, is it
not? The intention ought to be not to let other government departments
raid it, particularly defence and climate change.
Mr Watt: Yes, I think we need
to be realistic. Given the current squeeze on public spending,
which will become very intense after 2011, the incentives for
other government departments who do not have similar spending
increases locked in to raid the DFID kitty for their purposes
is going to increase. It just seems like a prudent measure to
introduce some tighter reporting against individual departmental
spend.
Q58 Andrew Stunell: Can we just deal
with the various definitions that there are? You have said that
you want better reporting of any changes but you have been rather
neutral in your presentation about whether these changes would
be in themselves a good or a bad thing. To what extent do you
see the wider OECD definitions as worse than the UK ones? Which
of those elements would you be more relaxed about seeing included?
Which are the ones which you would reject? Are there things in
the UK current definition that you think could be tightened up?
These are all issues where, as my colleague said in an earlier
session, there is a grey area and people can pull in whatever
they choose and push out whatever they choose. Could you tell
us from your organisations' point of view what opinion you would
want to give us about that debate?
Mr Watt: I think, in particular,
it is important for any government to report on actual cash spending
on programmes in low-income countries. The OECD DAC uses the definition
of Country Programmable Aid (CPA). The public perception is that
where aid figures are talked about this is money being spent on
poor people in poor countries, but we know that actually that
only accounts for, globally, roughly half of all ODA; so an awful
lot of ODA is accounted for by other types of expenditure. So
I think it is extremely important, as a kind of proxy for the
poverty focus of UK aid, to have a clear picture about how much
money is actually being spent on DFID programmes in low-income
countries. I think that would be one thing. There is a difference
between what is covered by the 2002 Act and what is classifiable
as ODA. In my understanding of the 2002 Act it covers DFID-voted
aid in Parliament, which is a subset of what could be counted
as ODA. So already there are things that are being counted as
ODA that are not covered by the requirements of the Act about
the aid being poverty-focused. I think that is one reason why
any increase in non-DFID ODA vehicles could potentially cause
concern. I think there are specific items that are currently being
counted against the UK aid spendCDC investment outflows,
for examplewhere I think, at least, it is questionable
how poverty-focused that spending really is. I do not know how
much detail you want to go into that now.
Ms Mpepo: More broadly, the OECD
looks at aid going towards economic development and welfare, and
that in itself can be very broad and can be interpreted by governments
in various ways. I think what the UK has done in narrowing it
down to poverty reduction has been a very positive thing. Looking
at some of the specifics, maybe you would look at not counting
things such as scholarships; it also depends on the extent of
military spendingI know it is a controversial issue. Debt
cancellation is something that the UK Aid Network, for instance,
has been calling on to not be counted as ODA spending. There is
a whole outline of issues that we would recommend should not be
counted as ODA.
Mr Lawson: I think it is fair
to say I would answer your question that we think that the British
definition is better than the OECD one, broadly, but it could
be better still. That is the simple answer. 70% of German aid
to education is spent in Germany on scholarships. That does not
happen in Britain, and that is a good thing; we need money for
primary schools in Africa, not scholarships to Cologne. I think
keeping that out and keeping refugees expenditure outkeeping
away from lending; people do not realise how much of Japan and
France's foreign aid is still loans, so it is still racking up
debts for the countries that they are supposedly giving aid to.
I think that is also a very important point about British aid.
As Besinati said, we have had lots of spats with the Government
over the last few years on the issue of debt relief. I think it
is a really important point. It is like the policing point. We
can do things in developing countries that are very, very beneficial
that do not have to be counted as aidthat is the point
we are making. So debt relief is a wonderful thing; it has made
a massive difference. I saw it myself when I lived in Malawi for
a number of yearsit is a really amazing thingbut
I think the public sees it as an additional thing that is done
over and above aid, so we think, quite clearly, that these should
be two separate things. Similarly, the next battle happening at
the moment is over climate change spending, so it is not to say
that DFID will not channel a lot of the money for climate change
but we think it is a new and present problem which should be over
and above the ODA definition. Could the UK definition be better?
Definitely.
Q59 Chairman: Would you want a Schedule
attached to the Bill which is a UK definition of what constitutes
aid? The point of that is it may make it harder to pass the Bill
because it defines it in a limited sense, but if you do not have
such a Schedule the Bill is so loosely defined that it is almost
meaningless.
Mr Watt: I suppose, ideally, you
would have a Schedule that provides some kind of rigour to the
Bill but not such a tight Schedule that it significantly reduces
the likelihood of it being passed. It is a delicate balancing
act and a judgment to be made by the IDC as to what it recommends
there.
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