To conclude, the fight to tackle climate change, increase climate resilience and protect vulnerable communities from climate risk must be a central part of DFID’s work, and the importance of that work is one reason why I speak today in support of enshrining the 0.7% target in law. As a first step, we need to make progress on climate finance, on the commitments made by Heads of State at Copenhagen and the creation of the Green Climate Fund, and on mobilising $100 billion a year of climate finance by 2020. UK NGOs, led by Oxfam, are asking that the UK Government pledge $1 billion as a “fair” contribution to the Green Climate Fund, spread

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over three years. That should be possible because the UK has about £1.8 billion left to play with in the international climate fund, which is where the contribution would come from.

As we approach Ban Ki-moon’s summit in New York in September, it is up to the UK to show international leadership, as we have done on international development issues across the board, by being one of the first countries to state how much it is pledging to the green climate fund. We should show leadership on this issue; it is too important to leave to others.

12.5 pm

Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and recall the visit that she and I made to Uganda. I welcome the positive news now that most of those people have been able to return to their homes, after an appalling period as refugees. I also follow the shadow Secretary of State, who is not in his place, in his tribute to Jim Dobbin, with whom I visited Bangladesh a couple of years ago when he was looking at the cold chain for a vaccination against pneumonia. He was dedicated to his work and a thoroughly decent man, and I think the House will miss the further contributions he could have made.

I am pleased to support the Bill introduced by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore). I am glad he has been able to bring it forward, generate support across the House and fulfil the promises that all three main parties and the coalition agreement made. I think the Bill is timely. Some might say, “If you’ve already met the 0.7% target, why bother to put it in law”. It is precisely because we have achieved it that people need to know that the commitment will continue, not least because, contrary to what people might think, there is a rising need for development assistance.

The crisis in the middle east has led to a substantial demand for humanitarian relief, of which the UK has been one of the most important sponsors: £600 million of our funding has gone to support refugees in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, and of course continues to go to Israel and Palestine. It is unfortunate that other countries with a similar interest to ours in that region—France, in particular—have come nowhere near our level of commitment. It is important that we continue to pressurise these countries to accept their share of the responsibility. Being the first G7 country to deliver 0.7% and then enshrine it in law would be a clear statement to our allies that we expect more of them. We should continue to pressure them to rise to the challenge. Unfortunately, however, as the humanitarian demand increases so some of our bilateral programmes are having to be cut. If we can maintain a rising aid budget, we should be able to maintain the bilateral programmes and deliver the humanitarian relief, and not have to choose between the two, as is currently the case—a concern expressed by the International Development Committee, which I chair.

As the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) said, our commitment helps to draw out further commitments from our development partners. My Committee today published a report on

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health systems strengthening, which DFID does well within our bilateral programmes, but which others are not so good at. The problem is that many of the countries in which we are operating with bilateral development programmes are not matching their own commitments on health. Under an international agreement, they are supposed to be spending 15% of their Government budgets on health, but only about two countries in sub-Saharan Africa are doing that. We can use our leverage to say, “We will put money in, provided you match it, and between us we can help to deliver sustainable health systems.” DFID has not done that everywhere, I am afraid, but it has the power to do it where nobody else can, and this kind of commitment will enable us to do so.

That brings me to another point. Our meeting the 0.7% target is not just about showing the country’s macho commitment to compassion; it enables us to deliver real leadership in the world. I have had the privilege of being Chair of the International Development Committee for more than nine years, and I have made nearly 30 visits to developing countries. I know what the UK looks like from the other end of the telescope. It is treated with much greater respect and regard than we often recognise ourselves, and that is because—I give credit to Labour, actually—our aid is untied and focused on poverty, which gives it a much cleaner edge: people see that it is not about the UK’s short-term commercial interests, but about a genuine desire to eradicate poverty, improve living standards and deal with humanitarian crises. Yes, as my hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North West (Greg Mulholland) said, it is in our national interest to do this in the long run, but it is a long-term objective, not one we measure in the short term. It is based on recognising that the development of these poorer countries helps our development, which helps their development—and so the cycle continues.

I have no compunction whatever about defending our commitment. I have been challenged on it on many occasions. People frequently say how much they would like the money to be spent on something else. During the floods in Somerset, for example, people were saying we should divert the aid budget to deal with that. On a live programme when I was standing next to a woman standing up to her thighs in water in her home, a politician—of a party not represented by any currently elected Member—said, “We should take the aid money and give it to this lady”. I said, “I would rather take this lady to some place in sub-Saharan Africa to meet a woman who has had three children who did not live to their fifth birthday and invite her to tell me that she would rather have the money than let that family have it.” I am glad to say that the woman said, “Of course I wouldn’t”. We know where the difference is. Poverty in these countries does not compare to poverty here; we should make no such comparison.

In passing, it is worth saying that DFID delivers what it does with a remarkably small staff and low administrative costs from offices around the world and its shared headquarters in London and East Kilbride. I have visited both centres on a number of occasions. I think the system works extremely well. It is sad that many people in Scotland do not realise how much activity on the development front is delivered by 600 people in East Kilbride, or appreciate its quality.

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If Scotland were to vote to leave the UK next week—I hope it will not, and I do not believe it will—it would have an immediate disruptive effect on DFID. For a start, DFID would lose £1 billion of its budget—the Scottish share, effectively—and would have to redesign its programmes, readjust and, over time, relocate its headquarters. That would be a distraction from delivering poverty reduction where it is most needed. Much more to the point, it would weaken what I think is the transformational capacity that the UK has in development, of which Scotland is an integral part. I would personally hate to see Scotland breaking away and setting up another agency, which would take years and would weaken the one we have got, by no means delivering one as comparably good in any short order. People need to understand what would be lost if we did that. It is just one other aspect of what breaking up the UK would do, which, to my mind, it is not in the interests of the people of Scotland or of the people in the rest of world that we are seeking to help.

Mr Weir: I am sorry to hear the right hon. Gentleman going down this road, as I agreed with him up to that point. Does he not understand and accept that the Scottish Government are committed to writing in the 0.7% figure and that Scotland’s international development would add to overall international development? There is absolutely no reason why this should lead to a reduction; it would lead to an increase. Does the right hon. Gentleman not accept my earlier point that small, north European, independent countries have always been in the lead with this?

Sir Malcolm Bruce: I am sorry I gave way, because the hon. Gentleman had already made that point. I thought I had made the point that we would be breaking up a world-class organisation, damaging and distracting it. I do not think Scotland will be able to come up with anything comparable any time soon.

Mr Tom Clarke: I think that the House should calm down and examine exactly what the right hon. Gentleman is saying; it is factual. Judith Hart believed in the dispersal of civil service jobs. She headed what was then the Department for Overseas Development. East Kilbride became the headquarters for the United Kingdom, working in tandem with Victoria. It stands to reason that if Scotland is foolish enough—I do not believe it will be—to vote for independence, those jobs will simply be lost because they are serving a much bigger united—

Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle): Order. We must have shorter interventions. There are many Members still to speak, and it is helpful to all if we can have short interventions, quick answers and Members carrying on with their speeches.

Sir Malcolm Bruce: All I will say is that a Scottish agency of similar efficiency would require only a fifth of the jobs that are currently based in East Kilbride.

I want to conclude by saying two things. The first is about the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which reports to the Select Committee that I have the honour to chair. I believe that ICAI has become an established and useful body that holds DFID to account—I know that Ministers find it uncomfortable. Although it is appointed by Ministers, it is accountable through the Select Committee to Parliament. I believe that that

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arrangement could usefully be enshrined in law. I say in passing that there are some concerns that, as ICAI moves to its second phase and has been reassessed, there may be some compromise of its independence, albeit not intentionally.

Putting ICAI’s independence in statute and ensuring that it operated as an independent body, reporting through Parliament to DFID, would be an essential component of ensuring not only that we delivered the 0.7% and that justifications for any variations could be independently examined, but also—to make the former Secretary of State’s point—that the quality of what we delivered was continually assessed, so that we did what was best and made it work better. That would be beneficial to all of us. I hope the Government will consider that proposal—maybe my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk can come to an arrangement about it—because it would be valuable.

One privilege of being the Chair of a Committee such as mine is that I have had many opportunities to visit other countries. I think I have made more than 30 such visits to sub-Saharan Africa, south Asia and other parts of the world to see the work we do, on our own and in partnership with other international organisations, bilateral donors and NGOs. It is transformational and world-class work and something of which this country can be proud. We lead the world in what we do and the effectiveness with which we do it, and that is understood and appreciated wherever we go. We have fantastic, dedicated staff working in those places, sometimes in extremely difficult and challenging conditions. As a country, we have every reason to be proud of what they do. This Bill stands up, as people have said, as a great British totem of a country that has engaged in what poverty reduction really means, is committed to it and is absolutely clear that we will go on delivering on our obligations in future, regardless of what anybody else does, but also as a beacon to others, so that they are a little ashamed of what they have done and perhaps respond to our challenge.

12.17 pm

Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op): It is a privilege to speak in the debate, following so many distinguished and committed speakers. I add my tributes to the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), not only for introducing the Bill, but because he has long been a passionate campaigner committed to these issues, as I have seen over many years, both when I worked as a campaigner and in this House.

As many Members will be aware, I have had the privilege of working on these issues for many years with agencies that are in receipt of our aid and support, whether it was Oxfam or World Vision. I also had the deep privilege to work at the Department for International Development. As many Members have said, including the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), DFID—the staff and all who work there, and indeed Ministers from all parties who have served there—is an absolute credit to the country.

I also pay tribute to the last Labour Government. I was lucky to work in a team that drafted an earlier version of this Bill and started some of this debate. That is why it is great to see the consensus in much of

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the House today that we should put this matter to bed—that we should put this commitment down in law and that it should ultimately be a matter that goes beyond party politics, to show what Britain is about in the world and what we intend to do. I also add my tribute to all the campaigners who have spoken with so many of us, not only in the last weeks but over so many years, making clear the passion for this issue across the country, and to all those who save lives today. I pay tribute to their campaigning work, their influence and their effort.

I want to go back almost a decade, to 2005, to two instances in my experience of campaigning and working on these issues. The first was from a visit I paid to Malawi with World Vision, which I was working with at the time. If anything has stuck with me over these years, it is the experiences I had on that visit, which show why what we do on this issue is so crucial. I travelled to areas that were suffering the worst effects of a serious drought and water shortage, with food shortages apparent in the south of the country. I saw the contrast between the leafy plantations producing tobacco, tea and other products, and the people living in absolute squalor and poverty a few miles down the road, queuing for sacks of rice and grain from World Food Programme feeding stations, which were working with World Vision, with support from the UK Government. That contrast—between the absolute rich at the one end and the privileges we enjoy in this country, and the people, many of them suffering diseases, including HIV/AIDS, queuing up for food in the hot sun—has stuck with me for the rest of my life.

Mrs Spelman: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the significance of the UK aid programme to Malawi is demonstrated by the fact that there has not been another famine there since it began? Sacks of grain were given, particularly to women in the community, in return for the construction of roads, so that lives could be saved by shorter journey times to hospitals. That is a prime example of making that country more sustainable through aid.

Stephen Doughty: I wholeheartedly agree. As many Members will be aware, Malawi has gone through many challenges since then, but that is a story of success and, indeed, there are many other success stories as a result of the support from aid.

Also that summer I spent a number of days and months in the fine city of Edinburgh in advance of the Gleneagles summit, and I was privileged to march with, and stand alongside, 250,000 people from all over this country—including many from across Scotland—who took advantage of that unique opportunity and our role in the G8 and on the world stage to put the pressure on to do the things that my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) talked about, and to cancel that debt, to treble the aid, and to argue for fairer trade rules. That shows how passionate people up and down this country are about this issue, despite the siren voices we hear from the other end of the spectrum of opinion. There were people from churches, from mosques, from all faiths and none, and from communities up and down this country. The rich and the poor and young families

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marched alongside each other, making clear that no matter what challenges we face in this country—and we face many—they want to stand alongside those who live in abject poverty and injustice in this world. I shall return to that point.

There are two fundamental arguments, and many Members have touched on them. The first is our moral duty. I have always fervently believed this, influenced by my own faith and upbringing, and I know many Members share that view. It is based on the idea that the character of poverty is similar wherever we see it, whether in this country or abroad. Obviously, it is experienced in extreme forms in a number of the countries we have been talking about, and there is the same lack of hope, of aspiration and of opportunity. Ultimately, we are all born equal, but unfortunately some of us do not have the opportunities that others have, and I believe we fundamentally have a duty to serve those who have less than we do.

The other argument that has always been absolutely clear to me is that this is in our common interest. It is clearly in our national interest, but it is in our common interest, too, to care about these matters. I spoke in my very first speech in this House about the impact of conflict, instability and poverty on communities in my own constituency—the links of many people from places such as Somalia, Somaliland, Yemen, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and the concern they have for their fellow brothers and sisters in the countries from where their families originally came—but also the impact that poverty and instability in a number of those countries is having on our own streets. Poverty, injustice and oppression go hand in hand with conflict and instability, and we must act. We must give a solid commitment in this House and stop this zero-sum game of trying to separate off defence, diplomacy and development and what we do in our own country. We try to separate them all off from each other, rather than look at them as a holistic whole, and in doing so we are making a huge mistake.

Mr Nuttall: Does the hon. Gentleman not agree that the passage of this Bill will not result in a single extra pound being spent on this country’s international aid budget?

Stephen Doughty: If the economy grows, it will do, of course. The crucial thing is that we are tying this to the state of our overall economy, but it is also setting a worldwide standard, and it is meeting a promise we made in the 1970s, and which, indeed, all parties in this House committed to.

We could give many examples. The right hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman) mentioned one from Malawi, and I have seen for myself the impact of effective aid led by the expertise in DFID, whether in Sierra Leone in tackling maternal mortality and the deaths of young children, and the impact we were able to make with a very small contribution and removing user fees for basic health care services; in our action to tackle malaria, on which the right hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien) did excellent work in his time as Minister in the Department; or through the education programmes we have funded, which my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, the former Prime Minister, spoke about. There is also our work on HIV and AIDS, which I know many Members are very passionate about, and, indeed, our humanitarian work.

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It was also a privilege to be able to serve alongside people from DFID, the Ministry of Defence, the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Service and the Foreign Office, who worked on our response to the terrible Haiti earthquake many years ago. Disasters such as Haiti demonstrate exactly what is at stake. In addition to providing the immediate humanitarian response, we also need to address the underlying causes of vulnerability in those situations. That requires long-term, predictable and assured assistance from countries such as ours.

The argument about predictability has been put forward a number of times. Members have asked why we need the Bill, and why we need to firm up this commitment and put it into law. The reason is that the predictable assurance of effective aid in the long term creates an ability to move away from aid. If we can support countries in building up strong health and education systems and good governance, we will ultimately be able to move them away from needing development assistance.

This activity also helps to create a social contract in countries where people should be able to expect services such as health and education to be provided by their Government. Our assistance can get them over that hump. That is what happened in this country. Let us not forget that, many years ago, health care and education services were provided voluntarily, as charity, here before we moved to nationally funded systems. We can have a debate about how those systems should be handled in the future, but we have moved to those national systems with national standards and predictable, secure funding. That creates an expectation among the population and helps to further democracy and the overall quality of life in a country. We should never forget that. This is a fundamental point to be made to those who ask why we need this commitment.

Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con): Does the hon. Gentleman agree that another important consequence of predictable funding is that, through DFID, we are able to support long-term programmes of research, particularly agricultural research and health research into much needed vaccines and medicines? Does he agree that those are global public goods?

Stephen Doughty: I thoroughly agree with the hon. Gentleman. I have seen many of those programmes at work, and we should pay tribute to those in DFID who work on them. DFID is a world leader in research on many of these issues, and we need to see long-term funding going into those programmes to enable us to come up with solutions for agriculture, for vaccinations and for other crucial areas. In the end, such solutions will remove the need for further support. We need the assurance for that funding, however, because if it is simply left to the whims and the day-to-day politics of this place and of other countries around the world, it could easily fall victim to the siren voices, which would ultimately do long-term damage as we would not be able to achieve the scale and effectiveness that we require.

Many right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned the importance of Scotland. It is exemplified by the fact that the Bill is being promoted by the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk and by the presence today of the Chairman of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Gordon. We must remember the impact that Scotland has had on these debates, not only here in the House but globally. I mentioned the

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impact of the Make Poverty History march in Scotland before the Gleneagles summit. That summit would not have taken place there if Scotland had not been part of the United Kingdom. The people of Scotland who feel passionately about these issues would not have been able to have that impact on cancelling debt, trebling aid and arguing for fairer trade rules had that summit not taken place in Scotland and had we not had leaders including our Prime Minister and Chancellor who were willing to stand up for those issues and respond to those campaigners.

Some of the most excellent DFID staff are to be found in Scotland, in East Kilbride. I have had the pleasure of visiting their offices. The right hon. Member for Gordon and my right hon. Friend the Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) have rightly said that it would be a huge tragedy to lose them. In response to the hon. Member for Angus (Mr Weir), I would say that, yes, Scotland could have an aid programme—it already gives support to Malawi and other countries, and that is fantastic—but effective aid depends on scale. It depends on doing things together and working with institutions such as the European Union and the United Nations and with successful, long-established development agencies such as DFID. Breaking that up in order to set up a separate scheme and badge it in a different way would be foolish. It would be a sad ending for the hundreds of thousands of people who stood on the streets of Edinburgh in 2005.

The Bill is about investing in the future of some of the world’s poorest people. It is also about investing in our own common future. This is the right thing to do. It is about justice, not charity. It is about putting Britain on the world stage and doing the right thing.

12.29 pm

Mr Stephen O’Brien (Eddisbury) (Con): I draw the House’s attention to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests relating to some of the subjects covered in the Bill.

I warmly welcome the Bill and congratulate its promoter and sponsors on bringing it forward. Having introduced a couple of private Members’ Bills in the past, I know how much work has preceded my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) bringing it to the Chamber today.

I also congratulate all the previous speakers, because their contributions highlighted, in their various ways, what this subject is really about; they showed that it goes across the House and it is above party politics. We have a deep commitment, as part of our values as a nation in the relatively richer part of the planet, and we are able to find what our role is as global citizens in an increasingly globalised world. Therefore, I also welcome the appropriate scrutiny and challenge provided by those who are focused on the essence of what we are dealing with today, which is not so much whether or not we should have good international development and a humanitarian capacity but, above all, whether it is appropriate to enshrine it in law as a matter of our politics, our choice and our accountability to the people we represent.

The Bill is notably well drafted, although I take the same issue as others have with one aspect. I had some share of the responsibility for introducing the Independent

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Commission for Aid Impact, and we have seen how it works as an accountable mechanism to the Select Committee, not to Ministers, and has caused some discomfort to Ministers, both past, such as me, and current. When this Bill progresses into Committee, as I hope it does, It will be interesting to see whether clause 5 can be amended to bring this mechanism in line with what is already established, and without duplication.

Equally, it will be important to understand what we mean by introducing declaratory legislation. I share the grave discomfiture of other Members about this House passing such legislation, so I have had to ask myself about this today and when I was defending this policy as a Minister. The policy was promoted in all three main parties’ manifestos and survived the coalition agreement in explicit terms, which means that we are all here in this Session of Parliament standing on that promise. None the less it is declaratory legislation, so what is the true meaning of why we do it? It is not as though this is about a criminal sanction, an offence or a civil requirement to make up money if it is not spent; it is about this House having the chance to receive, at an authoritative level, a statement from the Secretary of State and if we have failed to live up to the promises we have all made, we will see the ultimate expression of political embarrassment. So we are talking about one of our greatest abilities to put the feet of Ministers and any Government, of any stripe, to the fire.

Mr Lansley: I find it ironic that in so far as there is opposition to this target being put into legislation, it often comes from those who, in other circumstances, are most zealous in saying that Parliament is separate from Government and that it is the job of Parliament to say what its view is, as distinct from relying on the Government to deliver things. Does my right hon. Friend share that feeling? In truth, as we know, if Parliament wishes something to happen and wishes to require the Government to do it, it has to set it in statute. This Bill allows Parliament to do exactly that, in a relationship with the Government; the relationship is not with the courts, but just between Parliament and the Government.

Mr O'Brien: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that, and for his expertise in understanding the procedures of this House and its relationship with the representational accountability we have as constituency Members. He is right to say that the pressure involved here is on not allowing the courts to intervene on targets—we have seen that going wrong in other circumstances. Having too many targets encompassed by these methods would devalue them. But isolating and choosing particular key targets on which there is accountability to this House, where we have the political power to hold people to account on them, is precisely what underpins the Bill, and that is why this proposed statute is absolutely the right way to go.

I do not wish to detain the House longer than is necessary, because we have heard a lot of powerful contributions on the true justification for the Bill. I believe we all feel passionately that we have an obligation to find a way to support the most vulnerable on our planet, and most see things in terms of a combination. Some may see this just as a moral imperative, and that is

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great, but in a way that view is not shared. This is a fundamental, hard-nosed, pragmatic expression of our British self-interest: not only is this approach better for the potential trade we can have with more stable countries whose economic growth and human development indices can be improved, but we cannot have security in this ever more doubtful and very frightening world unless we first tackle the nursery bed upon which insecurity breeds, which is poverty, particularly in places where there are avoidable deaths. That is why, for one reason or another, I have devoted at least 30 years to trying to tackle tropical diseases.

I do not wish to be accused of being a soft touch on these matters; I am someone who believes passionately in the defence of the realm. Although it is best to leave things when they are seen as personal issues, I take a particularly keen interest in the matter, not because I enjoyed my service in the armed forces parliamentary scheme and am about to join the Royal College of Defence Studies course, but because I have a son who is an officer cadet at Sandhurst. These things are interrelated with security, governance and democratic accountability. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), whose work in this area has been well acknowledged and rightly so, said that the greatest undermining issue for all of us involved in this world is the sense that this issue is either wasted or corrupted. The best antiseptic or antidote to that is transparency, and enormous progress is being made in that area, not least by the ICAI, which reports not to Ministers but to the objective Select Committee.

This debate is not about the merits of international development, modalities or even re-emphasising why performing such work is as much in our British interest as it is in our rightful role as global citizens. We should not necessarily be focused only on impacts and the potential for graduation from aid and economic development to trade. South Korea, Vietnam and Angola have made such a graduation; how many more such examples can we look forward to in the coming years? This is not about defining the post-2015 goals, but about fulfilling our promises. That is fundamental for all of us who are committed to democracy. When we stand on platforms and make promises, we need to have the means by which we can deliver on those promises.

Questions remain. In addition to the scale of our work, we need to look at the technical excellence of DFID. The Department has become a world leader in its delivery capability, research capacity and ability to forge partnerships. Our current Secretary of State and the ministerial team show leadership and ensure that there is integration in their work. It is a Department of State delivering on broad Government objectives and policies and not some semi-detached part of Government working on a separate agenda. It is integral to our desire for a secure world, which can deliver the best benefits for all citizens.

Above all, we are talking about the capacity of DFID to build sustainable partnerships, increase the domestic mobilisation of resources as economies develop, work with non-governmental organisations, philanthropists, companies and businesses, and be explicit that this is not a public versus private sector battle. This is a joint enterprise in which we are all trying to reach the same

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objective, which is to prevent avoidable deaths and improve the conditions, lives and opportunities of those who, with a bit of help, can certainly have that chance.

Why are we talking about declaratory legislation? It would be interesting to introduce a Bill in which we promise never to spend less than 2% of our gross national income on defence. Instinctively, I am sympathetic to that idea. This is different, important and has to happen. It is not like defence, which is of course a proper choice of this Parliament and of Governments. It is right that they should decide how much to put into defence and where they sit in the world. This has to happen because we made a promise that was measured by the Development Assistance Committee and the OECD against a completely objective international set of criteria. That means that in order to enshrine our assistance as a percentage—therefore fluctuating with our own GNI and prosperity—we have an objective test to meet. For the Secretary of State to come to this House to report that we have fulfilled that objective promise is important not only as a useful encouragement to others to step up to the plate as well, but because it gives us a sense that we can look our constituents in the eye and say that when we made that promise we meant it. On their behalf, we have used taxpayers’ money. It is not just money from their pockets, which would be better described as charity rather than assistance for development purposes. That gives us the chance to make the scale differences.

I support this Bill. The 0.7% of GNI measured by an international test needs that objective reporting accountability within the best political sphere we can find, which is this Parliament under the tests imposed by clause 3. I hope that although there will always be examples that can easily be produced to try to undermine the whole agenda, such as a bit of waste or a bit of corruption here and there, that will not take away from our commitment—a commitment made by us, who have the privilege of access to greater funds than many countries whose people’s lives we wish to improve, and a commitment that will outlast most of us in this Chamber—to help the stability of the world and to reduce the opportunities for opportunist insecurity enacted by people who do not share our values and do not want chances for their own people. The Bill is the best way of enshrining the feet-to-the-fire approach that will give us greater impetus and, above all, confidence and predictability as it would make it very difficult for any future Government or set of politicians to undermine it. That will give us all confidence that we have an opportunity to build a better future.

12.40 pm

Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab): When someone comes second in the ballot for private Members’ Bills they are inundated with requests for different types of Bills, so I heartily congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) on choosing this particular topic, which is vital. I must express my disappointment that although this was a commitment from all the major parties for the 2010 election, in four and a half years we have not had a Government Bill on the subject. I was pleased to hear the Minister’s speech today and I hope he will do everything he can to facilitate the Bill’s passage before the next general election.

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I want also to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) for the immense amount of work he did as Chancellor and as Prime Minister, from the setting up of DFID to his work on the home front and in the international sphere. In our time in government we increased our spending on overseas aid from 0.26% of GDP to 0.56% and made a commitment to bring that up to 0.7% by 2013. I also pay tribute to his excellent work on the international stage, such as his work with G7 nations to convince them to cancel the debts of some of the poorest countries.

Of course we have serious problems of inequality in our own country and we must continue to tackle them, but they are problems of inequality and redistribution and we remain a very rich country—the 20th wealthiest in the world and the sixth biggest economy. We are not only a wealthy country; we are still a very influential country. That is why this Bill is important. In the same way as we had a world first with our Climate Change Act 2008, this is an opportunity to make a public commitment and to use the fact that we have made that commitment to give reassurance to those to whom we are giving aid and set an example to the many other countries that we would like to follow suit.

The Bill enjoys enormous public support and I pay tribute to the many people up and down the country, both young and old, who are very generous with their own money and are involved in a great deal of work fundraising or campaigning to raise the profile of overseas development. The point about the commitment, however, is the stability it offers. Our commitment will enable people to invest in longer-term projects as they will know that the funding will not suddenly be cut from year to year, so that will help significantly in many instances.

Other Members have mentioned the benefits to us of overseas aid, as it increases the trading ability of poorer nations so that they become good trading partners and can lead to money from that budget being spent on equipment manufactured in the UK, but those are not the most important considerations. The most important considerations for most of us are the moral considerations, which mean that this is the right thing to do. That is the will of the British people. The British people want to see this done.

Of course we are right to be concerned about waste and corruption and it is very important that we continue to scrutinise and evaluate how money is spent to ensure that we are spending it in the most effective ways. I know that this is an area that DFID has been working on and I know that we, as Members of Parliament, will continue to keep it under scrutiny.

I pay tribute to the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), for his work on population and family planning. We know how important that is in poorer countries and we would like every family to have the confidence that their children will grow up and survive until adulthood, as that can be powerful in their choosing to have smaller families.

I turn briefly to climate change, which is absolutely crucial, without wanting to open up a whole debate on who is to blame. We have to take responsibility; we are the people who have benefited through our industrial heritage. Given our current consumption patterns, we

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produce many carbon emissions so have responsibility for climate change. Yet, of course, some of the very poorest countries are most badly affected—whether we think of the floods in Bangladesh or the fact that some sub-Saharan countries are increasingly prone to drought. We need to make every effort to take our responsibilities seriously and help such countries to build resilience with the adaptation and mitigation measures that they need.

Stability was mentioned by several hon. Members. This week I was with the European Scrutiny Committee in Italy, speaking to the Ministers and teams who will be prominent in the Italian presidency of the EU. The Italian Ministers who deal with migrants who come across the Mediterranean were telling us that, in recent years, 80% of them have come from countries with very difficult political and war-torn situations. Our work in stabilising those countries and helping those refugees nearer to their countries of origin is absolutely vital in preventing lives being lost as people struggle to cross the Mediterranean to reach the shores of Italy and the European Union. That forms an important part of the work resulting from overseas development aid.

I want to make a brief reference to the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, in the hope that other Members will realise its importance and take up the debate at a more appropriate moment. I am very concerned that the treaty leaves the door open for large corporations to sue Governments for introducing measures to protect their citizens, such as when Philip Morris sued the Australian Government on the plain packaging of cigarettes. Such moves could have a significant impact on poor Governments who struggle to introduce health measures in their countries. We need to be aware of that and take the issue up at a more opportune moment.

I look forward to the Bill’s successful passage through all its stages and to seeing it on the statute book before next May.

12.47 pm

Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con): I add my congratulations to the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) on bringing forward this Bill. He and I served in the Cabinet that made the unanimous decision to protect spending not only on overseas aid but on health. I am proud of the fact that, when we came into government in 2010—a very difficult time for this country, when significant savings had to be made in public expenditure—there was a unanimous Cabinet decision to protect expenditure on the world’s poorest people.

I want to draw on that experience to underline the importance of the Bill. The UK is the first ever G8 country to reach the 0.7% target, joining other, smaller countries such as Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Luxembourg and the United Arab Emirates. It is significant that we are providing that leadership among the G8 countries.

I want to help some hon. Members understand the long history behind the figure of 0.7%. I have had one or two conversations this week in which hon. Members seemed to think that the 0.7% figure was plucked out of thin air; some have asked why it should not be 0.8%. Interestingly, the United Kingdom played a significant

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role in selecting the target. As long ago as 1958, the Churches in the United Kingdom first made the recommendation for the 0.7% target. It took until 1970 for the United Nations General Assembly to embrace the target unanimously. As a former Secretary of State who tried, successfully, to secure two United Nations agreements, which not every Member of this House has the opportunity to do, I would like to explain how difficult it is to get 193 nations to agree to do something unanimously. After all, how diverse is our world? It is significant that this unanimity exists on the development assistance agenda.

So it was that a resolution was passed that each economically advanced country would work towards 0.7% of its gross national income. It might sound like an arbitrary figure, but it is not, and it is agreed to by the United Nations. The target has seen some minor changes since it was first established, but the basic principle and the global commitment to it has remained consistent. As a 2010 OECD article states, it

“has been repeatedly re-endorsed at international conferences on aid and development down to the present day”.

It is also significant that development assistance is seen globally as something really special. There is not, for example, a United Nations agreement on what the target for expenditure on defence should be, and it is difficult to imagine that that could be achieved. There was a recent attempt to secure United Nations agreement on what percentage of GNI should be spent on health, but it has not proved possible to secure a unanimous agreement on that expenditure. I invite hon. Members to consider this: development assistance remains quite exceptional as the subject of a unanimous view of all nations on what we should seek to spend to help the world’s poorest people.

Philip Davies: The idea that this is not an arbitrary figure is just a load of old drivel. It started off as 0.7% of GDP and now it is 0.7% of GNI, which is completely different. In fact, the definition of GNI is going to be revised in autumn 2014, which will produce a completely new calculation altogether. Which does my right hon. Friend think it should be—current GNI, future GNI, or the original GDP?

Mrs Spelman: I do not believe that the figure is arbitrary. I am not a qualified statistician, but I know that gross national income is an accepted, more accurate measure of how much money a country has coming in. That is internationally accepted as well.

As we have seen, the UK is leading the way by reaching this target. That is a cause to be celebrated, which this Bill does in practical terms by enshrining it in statute. Although we have already reached the target this year, there remain strong arguments for enshrining these principles in law. First, the Bill recognises the significance of the achievements that have been made while simultaneously protecting the principles that underpin it.

Secondly, having the target in law limits the scope for political wrangling over the aid budget in future. That has a number of benefits. As Concern Worldwide has said,

“we won’t have to waste time quibbling over precisely how much to spend any more, and can instead focus on what’s really important: doing the most good with the money.”

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Making a similar argument, the coalition of campaigners in the Turn Up Save Lives campaign, which focuses specifically on this Bill, has noted that

“putting our promises to the poorest beyond the day to day debates of party politics means policy-makers can focus on how we continue to improve the quality of aid, instead of having an annual debate on whether or not we intend to stick to our commitments.”

Opponents of aid targets in general sometimes argue that they are problematic because they encourage a focus on the level of aid rather than its effectiveness. That is a very important point, but focusing on the effectiveness of aid rather than its level is precisely what this Bill seeks to enable future Governments to be free to do. With the level of aid safeguarded in law, future Governments would be in a position to focus on getting value for money and using the aid in the most effective way possible. A further benefit of an aid target is that it gives a degree of predictability to the recipient countries. That enables them to plan more effectively for the long term, which, in turn, is likely to increase the effectiveness of any assistance. It encourages aid recipients to plan ahead far more effectively, which has led the poverty charity Results to comment:

“Having 0.7% fixed in legislation…means increasing the predictability of UK aid…bringing forward the day when those countries will become self-reliant”,

which is what we all want to see. The benefit is not restrictive, meaning that the aid budget is still responsive to our domestic fortunes. That is a really important point. The aid budget would be fixed at a percentage, but not at an absolute amount, allowing for adjustments in accordance with how the British economy is doing.

As the hon. Member for Llanelli (Nia Griffith) asserted, there is significant public support for this Bill and that must be taken into account.

Philip Davies: They need to get out more.

Mrs Spelman: I hear a challenge from beside me about where that is substantiated. For the record, according to the 2012 ComRes survey, 61% of adults supported the increases in overseas development assistance spending that enabled the Government to meet their 0.7%. Indeed, a third of those thought that 0.7% was too low. It is clear that the Bill has widespread support among the public and the third sector. The Turn Up Save Lives campaign is backed by 40 groups, including Oxfam, UNICEF, Tearfund, Christian Aid and Islamic Relief, to name but a few. I join the former Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), in applauding the work of those aid agencies working in some of the most difficult circumstances, particularly where their own lives are threatened, as we have seen this summer with hostage taking in centres of conflict.

Some would ask: why should we give aid at all? Some Members will undoubtedly question giving 0.7% of our GNI, but DFID’s budget for this financial year is about £13 billion, which equates to about 1.6p in every pound in the United Kingdom. According to Tearfund, of which I remind the House I am a vice-president, that figure is also less than the amount we spend on takeaway food in this country every year. It sometimes helps to bring percentages of GNI down to an incredibly practical

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level, so next time hon. Members order a takeaway, I ask them please to remember that our average spend on takeaways is more than we spend on overseas aid.

There is also an absolute moral argument that I do not think we can get away from. Given the recovery of our economy, there is some dispute about whether we are the world’s seventh richest nation or whether we are rising up to be the sixth richest nation. Sixth or seventh, we are among the richest nations in the world and I believe that means there is an absolute moral requirement on us to help the world’s poorest. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, critics of aid all too frequently

“ignore the transformative impact that aid can and does have in fragile countries struggling to meet basic human needs”.

The Turn Up Save Lives campaign points to the recent example of the civil war in Syria, where the combination of Government aid and contributions from the British public have enabled more than 1 million children to be reached with blankets and other supplies. Such figures provide a mere insight into some of the ways in which aid is having a transformative effect on people’s lives.

On a visit to Bangladesh earlier this year, I saw flood resilience that had been built through the capacity building of an aid agency, which gave me the idea that some of our own flood-affected communities at home could have done with such simple capacity building. I shall never forget visiting the huts of women in rural Bangladesh who were not able to read or write, but who, as a result of capacity building, had been taught how to generate an income for their village. As a result, they had built latrines in the village and had enough money to put solar panels on the roofs of the huts to provide internal lighting. As those women told me, with a real sense of empowerment in their eyes, “Maybe we can’t read and write, but some of our daughters are now able to go to university because they are able to study, even in the hours of darkness.”

If anybody in the House is still in doubt about the transformative nature of development assistance and about the way in which it creates not dependency but sustainability, I for one would be somewhat surprised. In the words of the former managing director of the World Bank, the current Finance Minister of Nigeria:

“Aid can be a facilitator. That is all aid can be. Aid cannot solve our problems. I’m firmly convinced about that. But it can be catalytic.”

I agree that the Bill will be a catalyst.

Mark Durkan (Foyle) (SDLP): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I ask whether it is appropriate for the House to reflect on the sad news of the death of Lord Bannside, who served in this House for so many years, with such character and colour, as the Rev. Ian Paisley? Hon. Members will know that, belonging to a different party, I had many differences over the years with Ian Paisley and with his views and stances. However, in all the dealings I and everybody else had with him, he was a man of considerable personal grace. He was also someone who, in spite of the fact that he opposed agreements and institutions, actually came to a position where he helped to ensure that we have a settled process, and even more agreement on those arrangements and institutions. I know that the members of his own party—the party he founded—are, unfortunately, not able to be here today. I want to

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express my condolences to them. Because the House is going into recess, we will not have the normal opportunity that may have arisen for hon. Members to pay their respects. I do not wish to interrupt or impede the important debate on the Bill of the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), and if there is one thing I know about Ian Paisley, in terms of his sympathetic world view, it is that he would not wish the Bill to be impeded by how the House responds to this sad news.

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the point of order and for bringing this very sad news to the House. The death of Lord Bannside—known in this House for many years as the hon. Member for North Antrim, the Rev. Ian Paisley—will be a great loss to Parliament and to the political body as a whole. He was a man of great principle: a big parliamentary personality in every way. He was always kind, and always ready with a witty and amusing word to lighten a dark hour. He will be greatly missed in this House, in the other place and generally. I am sure that the House will wish to give its sympathy and thoughts to his son, the current hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and the rest of the Paisley family.

Mr Swayne: Further to that point of order. May I briefly put on the record Her Majesty’s Government’s tribute to the reverend doctor? He was absolutely critical to the peace process in Northern Ireland, and the House and the nation will be grateful to him for the role that he played in it. Our thoughts will undoubtedly be with the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) on the loss that his family have suffered. The doctor was a big personality, with a formidable public persona, but as you have said, Madam Deputy Speaker, those who knew him in the House, will have known a very different man, who was kind and gentle. I am confident that there will be many in the House who will kneel down this evening and will say, “Lord Jesus Christ, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom, remember Thy servant Ian. Amen.”

Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab): Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Opposition are saddened by the loss of Lord Bannside, the former Member of Parliament for North Antrim. My colleagues and I support most deeply the words of the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and the Minister. Our thoughts are with Lord Bannside’s family. We send them our deepest sympathies, most particularly his son, the current hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley).

Sir Malcolm Bruce: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. May I join in the tributes and recognition? Ian Paisley was one of those larger-than-life characters that this House has been proud to embrace. He never had any difficulty making his voice heard. Before the microphones came in, he showed that he did not even need one. The hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) is right that he will be remembered as a different man in private from the one he appeared in public. He was a man with a great sense of humour and great

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charm, which I think will surprise many people. He also had his principles. In the end, he was able to stand his ground and yet to reach across and help deliver a peace settlement in Ireland, which many thought he would not do. I think that that is the finest tribute to him.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I thank right hon. and hon. Members for their points of order. It is right that we should spontaneously remember our former colleague Lord Bannside and send our very best wishes and great sympathy to his family.

1.6 pm

Philip Davies (Shipley) (Con): If I may, I would like to start by paying my tribute to Ian Paisley. It was a great privilege that when I made my maiden speech in Parliament, it came after a speech by the great man himself. I have always thought that that was a great honour. I was also very honoured to be invited to Speaker’s House for his 80th birthday celebration. I will always be grateful to him for inviting me. One of my favourite moments was going to his church in Ulster to listen to him giving a sermon. The verve with which he gave a sermon was even greater than that with which he made speeches in this House, if that is possible. I am extremely sorry to hear the news. In the short time that we were both in Parliament, he became a very good friend, along with many of his party colleagues. I send my sympathies to people in Northern Ireland and, in particular, to the current hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and his family. When we say that people will be very deeply missed, it is sometimes an exaggeration, but it certainly is not when we talk about Ian Paisley. As far as I am concerned, he was one of the finest parliamentarians this House has ever seen.

To return to the Bill—thank you for indulging me, Madam Deputy Speaker—this debate has been going for roughly three hours and there has been what might be called one-way traffic, with speeches on the merits of the Bill and the merits of aid more generally. It is only right, given that we are supposed to debate things in this House, that we spend some time listening to the other side of the argument. I hope that those who claim to believe in Parliament and parliamentary debate will not rush to vote for a closure motion to stop the other side of the argument being heard. That would rather demean them and their view of democracy and debate. I just say that in passing.

The Bill raises a number of questions. Does aid actually work? That is a legitimate area for debate. Should we spend 0.7% of gross national income on aid? That is another area of debate. Finally, should that spending be put into law? This Bill is gesture politics of the worst kind. Everybody here is saying why it is so important to spend 0.7% of GNI on aid, although they do not seem to care which definition of GNI is used. We are spending 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid. In fact, we are spending 0.72% of GNI on it. We therefore do not need to put it into law. Even the people who are saying that it is such a wonderful thing must recognise, by the fact that it is already happening, that we do not need a law in order to do it. If Parliament wants to do it, it can quite easily do so, as we have proved in this Parliament.

Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con): Does my hon. Friend share my concern about the constitutional propriety of trying to bind our successors?

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Philip Davies: I agree with my hon. Friend, and that is in effect what the Bill is trying to do.

Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD) rose—

Philip Davies: I am not going to give way. We have heard so much from people in favour of the Bill, and now we are going to hear from people who have a more sensible opinion. The hon. Gentleman can keep raising his hand, but I am not going to give way.

Martin Horwood: I am trying to tell you why we are binding the hands of our successors.

Philip Davies: We heard that in an intervention from one of the hon. Gentleman’s colleagues, who said that his whole intention in supporting the Bill was to ensure that future Parliaments did not change the law. The cat has already been let out of the bag.

It was rather galling to see the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) lecture the House on how we should not be breaking our promises. The man who promised a referendum on the Lisbon treaty and who shamefully and shamelessly avoided that promise has absolutely no right to come here and lecture the rest of us. [Interruption.] As my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg) says from a sedentary position, the right hon. Gentleman promised us that he had ended boom and bust. He made that solemn promise on many occasions to the House.

Mr Tom Clarke: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is the custom of this House when a Member intends to mention another Member that they give notice. May I ask you, Madam Deputy Speaker, whether the hon. Gentleman has given such notice to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown)?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that point of order. I am sure that the hon. Gentleman who currently has the Floor, Mr Philip Davies, will make it clear that he has.

Philip Davies: What I will make clear is that unlike the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, who started the debate and then cleared off, I have been sitting here for the whole debate, so I am not sure how on earth you, Madam Deputy Speaker, or the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), would expect me to have given him notice.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker, I understand that the purpose of that rule is to deal with a premeditated intention to embarrass a Member, not if the point under consideration is something that has arisen in the course of the debate.

Madam Deputy Speaker: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for pre-empting what I was about to say. I am sure that the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) will apologise if he has inadvertently made a mistake, or if he wishes to explain why he has made those points.

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Philip Davies: I assure you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I am apologising for nothing.

Madam Deputy Speaker: Order. If I suggest that it might be in order for the hon. Gentleman to apologise, that is to keep good order in this place and to observe courtesies between Members. There should never be a situation where Members feel that a discourtesy has been made. I am certain that the hon. Gentleman meant no discourtesy, and I am sure he will say so.

Philip Davies: I confirm that I certainly meant no discourtesy, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I stand by everything I said. I think I agreed with about 0.7% of what the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said in his speech.

At some point, when you allow, Madam Deputy Speaker, Members on the Government Benches will no doubt be invited to support the closure of this debate. I want them to know exactly what they will be doing. Ultimately, they will be answerable to voters in their constituencies in the not-too-distant future. By allowing this Bill to go into Committee and to make progress, Members are basically signalling the death knell of the EU (Referendum) Bill promoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). At some point, all my hon. Friends will have to explain to their electorate, and to other candidates in that election, why they feel that this Bill is more important than that Bill. I do not believe it is, particularly given that the spending on aid is being achieved at the moment anyway. They will have to explain that, and I hope they feel relaxed about doing so. Many of my hon. Friends present—virtually all of them—are in safe seats, which seems to me probably no coincidence. However, I hope they will explain their actions to colleagues in less favourable circumstances, and I hope they know that that is what they will be doing when they go into the Lobby later today.

I am not surprised that the Liberal Democrats or the Labour party support the Bill. They are perfectly entitled to do so as it matches their philosophy. In a socialist philosophy, which Labour and the Liberal Democrats share, what is important is not outputs, but inputs.

Pamela Nash (Airdrie and Shotts) (Lab): Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Davies: I will not give way. We have heard so much drivel from people with a different opinion from me. I am trying to get some balance into the debate.

When Labour Members argue that we should be judged only on how much money we spend, it does not come as a great surprise, because that is what Labour and Liberal Democrat politicians have always argued for. I remember in the last Parliament asking why truancy under the then Labour Government was so terrible, and the Minister’s answer was: “We’ve spent £1 billion extra tackling truancy”, as if that was fine. Truancy had got worse, but that did not matter because they had spent £1 billion extra on tackling it. It struck me then as even more criminal than ever. They had spent £1 billion and truancy had still got worse. If they had said, “We’ve saved a bit of money and it’s got a bit worse”, that might have been some justification, but for it to get worse and to proudly boast, “That’s all right

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because we spent £1 billion extra”, is complete nonsense. So of course Labour and the Liberal Democrats believe in the Bill.

What I cannot understand in my heart is how any self-respecting person who wants to call themselves a Conservative can possibly subscribe to the view that we should be judged simply on a piece of legislation that sets out only how much we are to spend, and that it is irrelevant what we do with the money or whether we can afford it. Those should be the things a Conservative thinks about, but many of my colleagues seem to want to abandon their Conservative principles. I should perhaps be reassured that had the Government taken my view, most of my hon. Friends would be arguing the opposite of what they have been arguing today. They might be supporting this policy not through sincere belief but because of their desire for advancement. I do not know whether they believe in the Bill. In many respects, I hope they support it because they think it will help their advancement, because if they genuinely believe in it, I do not see how they can call themselves Conservatives in any shape or form.

There seems to be a view—a politically correct attack to close down debate—that runs simply: either a person is for international aid and therefore in favour of the Bill, or they are against international aid and therefore oppose the Bill. It is an all-or-nothing argument. If someone criticises Britain’s huge, often mismanaged aid budget, they are accused of not wanting to help the neediest in the world. It is designed to cover up mistakes in the overseas aid budget and ignore shortfalls. This politically correct campaign has allowed international aid to linger as such an inefficient part of Government spending, without sufficient checks or proper rigour.

I believe that humanitarian aid is very important. It provides relief for people who suffer from acute distress following conflict, famine, natural disasters and other emergencies. That work is vital. This country has always stepped up to its responsibilities, and I have no doubt it will always do so, when it sees images around the world of tragedies taking place. However, I am sceptical about the aid that dominates more than nine tenths of official aid spending—development aid. It is the predominance of this aid spending that we are mainly focusing on here. This aid offers continuous support to recipient countries in the areas of education, health, water and sanitation, government and civil society, economic infrastructure, economic production, debt relief and other things across many different Departments.

We have to consider the country’s financial position. Thanks to considerable overspends over many years by the Labour party, we have a huge debt mountain, and scandalously our debt payments are still as big as the budget of one of the biggest Departments. I hope that the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill will allow me to say that, because of the disastrous way in which the former Chancellor and previous Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, ran this country, it seems that he was determined to make us a recipient of international aid rather than a contributor to it.

At a time of national austerity, it seems to me sensible that we would want to reduce the aid spending given to other countries. It would not have been a bad thing even

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to have frozen aid spending to other countries, but to increase it massively, as we have done, at the same time as we are making the case that we have no money and have to cut spending everywhere and cut our cloth accordingly, is completely and utterly ridiculous.

Mr Stewart Jackson (Peterborough) (Con): Would our constituents be right in asking this pertinent question: why is it appropriate for the Government to seek to hypothecate into the future for future Parliaments on this area of expenditure when in every other domestic area, including important areas such as literacy, social care and cancer, they set their face against such hypothecation? Is that not a reasonable question?

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I personally think that if my constituents were asked for what area it was more important to guarantee a certain level of expenditure—the NHS or overseas aid; the defence budget or overseas aid; the police budget or overseas aid; the education budget or overseas aid?—the overseas aid budget would come off second best in any head-to-head contest. Lord only knows why on earth people in this place think that the public believe uniquely that this particular Government Department should have its funding increased massively and then protected at that level. To be perfectly honest, I think they all need to get out more.

Pamela Nash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Davies: I am not giving way to the hon. Lady.

We are not even spending taxpayers’ money. We keep on talking about how important it is to spend taxpayers’ money wisely, but we are not spending that money. We do not have any money. When will people understand that even now we are borrowing? Even after the Chancellor’s welcome measures, we are still borrowing £100 billion a year. We are not in a position to spend 0.7% of our GNI on overseas aid, because it is actually much more than that. What we are doing is borrowing money from other countries, paying interest on it to then hand it over to other countries. At the start of this Parliament, we were in the ludicrous situation of borrowing huge sums of money from China in order to give China overseas aid to help that country to get along. It could hardly be made up. No wonder most of my constituents think that the people here are round the bend.

Jacob Rees-Mogg: We are, in effect, spending the money of taxpayers as yet unborn.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Are we going to take into account the debt interest that we will have to incur on the money we are spending on overseas aid? Is that going to be taken into account as part of the 0.7%, or is that on top of the 0.7% that we are actually handing over? As I made clear in my intervention on my right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden (Mrs Spelman), the idea that we even know what we are spending is a complete nonsense as well, because the goalposts are always moving. It was first supposed to be 0.7% of GDP; now we are told it is 0.7% of GNI; and in the autumn of this year, apparently, how GNI is calculated is going to be changed, which

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will mean an upward revision to GNI, making our aid as a proportion of GNI lower so that we will have to spend even more on overseas aid to hit our 0.7% target.

Pamela Nash: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Davies: No, I will not.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden provided some of the history. I recommend the 6th report of the Lords Select Committee on Economic Affairs for the Session 2010 to 2012, which was a marvellous report on the effectiveness of overseas aid. This all dates back to the UN General Assembly of 1970. The idea that this target is somehow well thought through and relevant to today’s needs and environment is complete and utter nonsense. The target was first plucked out of the air 44 years ago. The idea that it is likely to be the right one to use now is for the birds. It is completely nonsensical to think that the right target in 1970 automatically must be the right target in 2014, when the world is so different.

Mr Nuttall: Will my hon. Friend confirm that when that motion was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly, the aim was for countries to exert their best efforts to achieve the 0.7% target by the middle of the 1970s, not by the middle of the 2010s?

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The original target is completely out of date. Indeed, I note in passing that if this matter is so important for the Labour party and vital for the future of the world, it is interesting that the attendance on their Benches is a bit thin. I think I have seen about 20 Labour Members come in the Chamber to support the measure. Perhaps they might want to explain why that is.

Sir Edward Leigh: Is not the most important point that if we fix a Department’s budget as a proportion of the nation’s income, we grossly distort the actions of that Department? Departments should spend what they can afford on what they want to do within the limits of what is in the national interest. This measure would be grossly distorting and un-Conservative.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Let us just imagine what would happen if the Government intended to support a particular project somewhere, but found towards the end of the financial year that it was rife with corruption and therefore thought it best not to spend money on it. They would not be able to do that. The Government would not be allowed to say, “We’ll keep the money and not spend it,” but would be forced, at the last minute, to spend it, because Parliament had insisted that it had to be spent, come what may. How on earth is that a sensible way to ask a Department to act?

We heard the idea that if we did this and set the lead, all other countries would follow. We hear it time and again in different contexts. CND started this in the 1980s—“If we get rid of all our nuclear weapons, every other country in the world will follow.” We all knew—even the Labour party came to realise—that that was a load of old nonsense. Then we started hearing it on climate change—“If we hit our climate change targets and do all this, every other country in the world will follow”—but that has been proved to be a load of cobblers as well. All the big people churning out all the carbon emissions

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1230

are doing absolutely nothing to curb them, apart from welcoming our industry to their countries, but still we hear it, even though it has been proved wrong time after time—“If we do this, every other country will follow.”

What has actually happened in practice? While we have been ramping up the proportion that we spend on overseas aid, similar countries in the developed world have been reducing the amount they spend as a percentage of their GNI. Why have they done that? There are two possible explanations. The first is that they actually have some sense and realise that if they cannot afford to spend the money, they would have to spend less on something that is a discretionary spend—something that we might consider doing at some point.

Alison McGovern: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Davies: I will not.

Those countries have probably also thought, “Well, this is marvellous. We don’t need to worry about spending a bit less, because the United Kingdom is taking the strain. They can do all the heavy lifting. They’re spending so much more, so we can reduce our spending.”

Sir Gerald Howarth: My hon. Friend is making a powerful speech—[Interruption]—in which I can see hon. and right hon. Members are most interested. As the Select Committee on International Development has pointed out, because there were not the projects in which the British taxpayer could invest, one of the consequences of ramping up overseas aid by £4 billion over four years was that much of the money went to international aid agencies, which then administered it on behalf of the British taxpayer. However, as the Committee found, they were not as rigorous in ensuring value for money as our Department was.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is absolutely right.

Stephen Doughty: On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. I wonder whether you could provide some guidance. Is it not the practice and the courtesy of the House for Members to give way to Front Benchers who wish to intervene? The hon. Gentleman does not seem to want to let anybody on the Opposition Benches intervene and there is a Front Bencher indicating—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): Order. I do not need to be told whether it is a point of order, thank you very much. The hon. Gentleman is making a reasonable point, but I will answer him by saying that it is up to the person who has the floor whether he wishes to take an intervention and from where. It is up to each Member to decide the extent to which they wish to engage in debate.

Philip Davies: Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. As I said at the start, we have had three hours of speeches from Members in favour of this Bill and I think the public and this House deserve to hear the viewpoint of people who do not support it. They have had plenty of time to make their case; it was just a pretty poor one.

Alison McGovern: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1231

Philip Davies: No, I will not.

The other point I want to make is that we ought to bear in mind the money that is spent versus gifts in kind. We as a country should be encouraging people to give money privately. Private money that is spent, where people raise money for particular causes, should be taken off the amount that is spent by the Government. There are lots of people who raise money for very good causes around the world.

Stephen Doughty: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Davies: No, I will not.

I can mention two organisations in my constituency in that regard: Mpika Relief Fund does a fantastic amount of work helping people in Africa, and there is one in Burley-in-Wharfedale that does a similar job. They raise money for very worthwhile causes. I very much support what they do; I have even made donations to them in the past. What they spend their money on is much more worthwhile than these grandiose schemes that the Government come up with, where Ministers like to go out and say how wonderful they are because they are indulging their largesse everywhere. I prefer the smaller schemes that are run bottom-up from organisations like the ones in my constituency.

It might even be a good idea for the Government to offer tax relief for people who want to go out to other countries to help with particular projects. I would welcome that.

Jeremy Lefroy: It might help my hon. Friend to know that, actually, the gift aid from those kinds of donations is included within the 0.7% we are talking about, so that is happening at the moment.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend is missing my point. I am not talking about gift aid on donations. I am talking about tax relief to help assist people who want to go out and do something practical themselves—who want to give up their job for a while to do something worthwhile. That would be a much more valuable and worthwhile thing for the Government to do than simply flex their muscles on how much they spend.

Because I am feeling in a generous mood, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will give way to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), seeing as she is so excitable about intervening.

Alison McGovern: That must be one of the more curious attempts I have made to intervene on the hon. Gentleman. I cannot quite work out why he has allowed me to intervene now, but as he has, perhaps I might ask him, first, if he will congratulate the last Labour Government on their actions on gift aid and recognise the impact it has had, as has been pointed out. Also, is his argument really that there is no place at all for leadership on this issue from the UK Government, never mind what other countries do? Is it correct that he believes we have no moral leadership role at all?

Philip Davies: Clearly the hon. Lady has not listened to a word I said. At the very start I said that I support the Government’s humanitarian aid, and I am in favour of tax relief—I am always in favour of anything that reduces the burden of taxation on people.

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Stephen Doughty: Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

Philip Davies: No, I am not giving way again. The last intervention was so poor that I do not think it justifies another one.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Meriden mentioned opinion polls and public support for these things. A YouGov-Cambridge poll in 2011 made clear the public’s opinion. The following question was asked:

“Along with spending on the NHS, the international aid budget is the only area of government spending that is not facing cuts. The government has promised to increase this budget by one third to 0.7% of Gross National Income (GNI) in line with international agreements signed previously. Generally speaking, how favourable or unfavourable are you towards this policy?”

Some 56% of those asked were unfavourable, and only 9% considered themselves to be very favourable to it.

When asked if they would support or oppose a freeze on spending on international development—at the level as it was then in 2011—69% of people said they supported a freeze. Also, 69% of respondents said international aid fails to reach ordinary people in the developing world and is wasted by corrupt Governments; 49% believed international aid enhances the power of bad Governments in developing countries; and 55% thought it discourages Governments in developing countries from spending money on their own people.

Those statistics mirror the feedback that I get from my constituents when we talk about spending on overseas aid. They understand the fact that this country has no money, that we are borrowing and spending way beyond our means and that we have to tighten our belts. They therefore find it extraordinary that we are spending about £4 billion a year more on overseas aid than we were in 2010. That is completely nonsensical and unjustifiable.

The Bill proves that overseas aid does not work. I remember going to see my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) to discuss these issues a few years ago. I told him that I would have more sympathy for overseas aid if he adopted a policy in which we considered the situation in every country individually and decided how we could help it to better itself by establishing a programme that would last for a certain number of years, after which we would expect it to have sorted out its governance and corruption. After that point, our assistance would eventually tail off and the country would stand on its own two feet and head off into the future.

If that were the Government’s policy on overseas aid, I would have some sympathy for it. I would want to scrutinise it, of course, but it seems pretty reasonable. However, the Bill does not propose that we do that; it proposes the exact opposite. It says that we are going to spend the same amount of money every single year in perpetuity. That is basically an acceptance that our assistance will fail, that it will not turn around a country’s fortunes or deal with the causes of poverty, and that it will just be a hand-out to make a few middle-class, Guardian-reading, sandal-wearing, lentil-eating do-gooders with a misguided guilt complex feel better about themselves. It will do nothing to alleviate the real causes of poverty in those countries.

We know that the current system does not work. We have been pouring tens of billions of pounds a year into Africa, year in, year out. How much further forward is

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Africa today, compared with when we started pouring in those tens of billions of pounds? It is barely any further forward at all—

Pamela Nash: Rubbish!

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): Order. The hon. Lady will not shout across the Chamber, no matter how much noise the hon. Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) is making.

Philip Davies: I am grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker. I always feel that I must be doing something right if I manage to wind up Opposition Members who hold idiotic views. It will be time for people on my side to worry when the Opposition start to agree with what they are saying. That should tell them that they are on the wrong side of the argument.

We know that the present policy is not working because the countries in question have not developed as much as they should have done. The question that I would pose to everyone is this: what do they think are the root causes of poverty in some of those countries in Africa? Is it that those countries are not getting enough aid? Does anybody really think that that would get to the root cause of the problem? Or is it perhaps that those countries have terrible governance and that the rule of law means nothing there? Could it be that outside companies will not invest in those countries, even though such investment would create wealth and prosperity, because they could have all their assets confiscated within a few weeks or months? We need to sort out all those factors if we want to sort out the problems in Africa, rather than simply handing over an ever-larger cheque every year and thinking that that will sort out all the problems of the developing world. It is idiotic and simplistic to think that that will work. Let us deal with the root causes and tell those countries that they need to get themselves sorted out—

Margot James (Stourbridge) (Con): Will my hon. Friend give way?

Philip Davies: I will not give way.

The reason that people want to invest in this country is that the rule of law is important to us. That is what we need to export to those other countries. We do not need to export cheques; that really does not work.

Mr George Howarth (Knowsley) (Lab): As someone who rarely wears sandals and never reads The Guardian, but who nevertheless believes it possible to multi-task, may I suggest that it is possible to feed people, educate people and deal with governance problems all at the same time? They are not sequential.

Philip Davies: Well, it appears to have been beyond us. While we have been handing over all these cheques, in an increasing amount, year in, year out, those governance issues are still there. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman can explain how well the £138 million or thereabouts—I am quoting from memory, so I may not be exactly right about the figure—that went to Zimbabwe last year is going in terms of governance? It does not seem to me to be hitting the mark in improving the future of that country.

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Margot James: If I had had time to make a speech—I now will not—I would have pointed out that I observed many examples in Africa in the 10 years I was involved in development before I came to this place where the money spent by this country and other donor countries has made a remarkable difference. Such examples can be found in Uganda, Nigeria and Botswana—there are many of these places. May I conclude my intervention by saying that some of these countries are so vulnerable, having had to deal with the Ebola virus, terrorism and so on, and they do not have the infrastructure that we are so lucky to have in the west? Could my hon. Friend not give some consideration to those points in his speech?

Philip Davies: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her intervention. I do not doubt that she is taken to all the successful programmes there have been, but I wonder whether she was taken to the following one. I wonder whether she was taken to Kenya. Forget about poverty and all this kind of thing, because apparently the most important priority in Kenya is graffiti. We gave to a £6.7 million aid project called Making All Voices Count, which pays for political graffiti in Nairobi. The spray murals are said to be useful as they

“engage with artists to spread data-based information in slums in order to empower citizens to make data-driven arguments”.

They are, apparently, also justified because they target police corruption through awareness. You couldn’t make it up: we are literally spraying money away. With £16.5 million of aid allegedly being stolen by Kenyan Ministers and officials in the past few years, it is nonsensical to suggest that all of this aid budget is going round doing all this good. A load of old nonsense is going on.

Let me talk about a project in Ethiopia. It is not about creating life opportunities through work or educating people. It empowers women through music, and we gave money to the so-called “Ethiopian Spice Girls”, a five-strong girl group called Yegna. That may bring a smile to people’s faces, until we realise that this is part of a bigger programme called the Girl Hub, to which DFID handed over £3.8 million. As a justification for that excessive expenditure the point was made that Ethiopian girls

“faced challenges such as forced marriage, violence, teen pregnancy, and dropping out of school”.

Of course they do—we all agree with that—but I think I must be out of touch because I thought the best way of tackling those things was to target those issues; I did not realise that the way to tackle them was to finance a girl group to sing about those problems. You could not make this up, but it is true.

It all goes to show that DFID has so much money that it does not know what to do with it, so it is scratting around for any kind of nonsensical, politically correct project to throw its money away on. But it is not throwing away its own money—this is our money. It is our constituents’ money that DFID is throwing away with gay abandon. It might make DFID feel good, but it does not do a great deal for my constituents who are seeing their money go up in smoke. What I want to know is who in DFID actually sits around a table and says, “I know, I think we should fund the ‘Ethiopian Spice Girls’. I think that is a good use of public money.” We can just imagine the discussion in the Department, where everyone around the table says, “I think that is a

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1235

marvellous idea.” Does nobody in these Departments say, “Do you not think that’s a crass way to spend taxpayers’ money?” Is nobody there speaking up for taxpayers? I do not believe anybody is. This is just being done to satisfy the egos of politicians; it is not about doing anything to alleviate poverty.

Mr Gray: I have been listening carefully to my hon. Friend’s speech. I am concerned that he is conflating those who are opposed to the Bill, as I am, because they think it is bad from a constitutional standpoint with the people who are genuinely opposed to aid. I am strongly in favour of the 0.7% target, but I just do not believe the Bill is the right way to achieve it. I am concerned that he is mixing up being opposed to aid in general with being opposed to the Bill.

Philip Davies: My hon. Friend has a perfectly legitimate point of view, and I agree with much of it. As he has rightly identified, someone can support 0.7% of the budget going in overseas aid without supporting this Bill, because it already happens. We are supposed to pass laws here because we actually need a law to help something or prevent something that is very bad. He has rightly identified that the Bill is a solution looking for a problem, but I do not agree with him that we should be spending 0.7% of our budget on it. [Hon. Members: “Ah!”] I do not agree with that. I would like to think that I have made that abundantly clear. We cannot afford to spend that. There is no evidence that it is being well spent, so I agree with him.

This Government have made such an effort to stop welfare dependency at home, and I support everything that the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions has done to try to stop a culture of welfare dependency in this country. People cannot expect to sit and wait for their next handout from the state. How on earth can a Government who have done so much on welfare dependency—[Interruption.]

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): Order. The hon. Gentleman is speaking and is in order. I appreciate that he has a great deal to say and that there is a vibrant argument going on, but I point out to him that he has now spoken for 40 minutes, which is twice as long as anyone else in this debate. He has the Floor and has every right to go on speaking, but one must balance rights with responsibilities. He might like to consider courtesy and consideration for his fellow Members who also wish to speak, and have valid points to make this afternoon.

Philip Davies: I am, as always, grateful to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for your guidance. As I said at the start, we have had three hours of speeches from Members who are in favour of this Bill. As you have rightly said, I have spoken for 40 minutes in opposition. But I am a generous man, and I always seek to please you in particular. If it will please you, I will seek to draw my remarks to a close, but if you could indulge me for a couple more—[Interruption.] I could speak for a couple more hours. There is so much wrong with this Bill, we could go on for most of the day and most of the night as well.

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1236

I just want to make this point about welfare dependency. We have been doing so much to say to people here, “You cannot expect to sit back and wait for money to come to you without doing anything yourself.” In the same breath, DFID is entrenching welfare dependency abroad. Basically, it is saying to countries, “It doesn’t matter what you do with your governance or what you spend your money on; we will keep handing over the cheques come what may.”

Let us take India as an example. Why on earth are we still giving aid to India?

Alison McGovern rose—

Philip Davies: I will not give way; I am drawing my remarks to a close. India spends $35 billion a year on defence. It is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year on a space programme. It is even developing its own overseas aid programme, yet we are still giving £200 million to it in overseas aid. It is grotesque. I could go on and on about the waste of money that we see in DFID and the fact that it is unjustifiable to keep spending so much money. But I will take your guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker, and draw my remarks to a close.

I just want to remind Members that as Conservatives we should be judging ourselves not on how much we spend, but on how effectively we spend the money and, crucially, on whether or not we can afford to spend the money that we are handing over. We cannot afford to spend all of this money at this moment in time, but that may well change.

I reiterate the point that I made at the beginning—that anybody here today who votes for a closure motion and for this Bill to go into Committee is basically saying that this Bill is more important to them than an EU referendum Bill. They will have to answer to their constituents on that point. I will be able to look my constituents in the eye and say that I did what I thought was right. This Bill is unnecessary. What we need is an EU referendum Bill, which is why I will vote against any closure motion and against this Bill. My colleagues are in danger of falling into the trap set by the Liberal Democrats and the Labour party.

Stephen Pound (Ealing North) (Lab): On a point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. Neither my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) nor I were able to be present in the House when the sad news of the death of Lord Bannside was announced. Is there a mechanism whereby I and my colleague can express our deepest sympathy and sincere condolence to Baroness Paisley of St George’s and to the present hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) and record our appreciation for a great parliamentarian who moved from initial controversy to become an absolute colossus of modern politics, one of the most important architects of the peace process and a man who will be greatly missed throughout these islands?

Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing): The hon. Gentleman has found the mechanism whereby he can rightly pay tribute to a great man. The House has already paid tribute and I reiterate the great sympathy

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1237

and condolences that the House sends to Baroness Paisley of St George’s and the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley).

1.50 pm

Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con): Britain should rightly be proud of being the first G8 country to reach the internationally agreed target of 0.7% of GNI expenditure on development support for the poorest countries on earth. In one respect—perhaps only one, in this debate—my hon. Friend the Member for Shipley (Philip Davies) and I are not that far apart. It is not reaching the target that counts, nor even legislating for it, although I am proud to be a sponsor of this Bill, supported across the parties as it is. What is achieved with UK taxpayers’ money to transform the lives of the poorest people on earth is what really counts.

The point on which I would take issue with my hon. Friend concerns the transformation that our DFID programme is making. It is securing schooling for 11 million children, more than we educate in this country, at 2.5% of the cost. It is providing 43 million with safe drinking water and improved sanitation and vaccinating more children against preventable diseases than there are people in the whole of the UK. Every one of the people helped is an individual: a mother, a father or a child with loved ones and with hopes and dreams just like ours. That was brought home to me many years ago in Tanzania, as was how comparatively rich we are in one of the richest countries on earth. In this country, we spend more on uneaten food that we throw away than our entire aid budget: does that not put into context the words of this debate’s detractors?

On that trip to Tanzania many years ago it was brought home to me that these people are not just statistics but individuals. I was invited to the home of the headmaster of the school that British people are supporting and I was shocked that he, his wife and his five children did not live in a house. They lived in a container, their meagre belongings hung up in plastic bags from hooks on the ceiling. Their furniture was merely a few mattresses, stacked up against the wall during the day to make space, and one chair. They had no bathroom or kitchen; their toilet was a communal latrine and their kitchen a charcoal fire on the edge of the road. He was the headmaster of a school.

I will never forget the lovely smiling face of their 15-year-old son, Sam. My son Sam—my oldest son, as this was their oldest boy—was with me, and he was not quite 15. The difference between that 15-year-old boy and my son is that a short time later that boy was dead. He had died of malaria. There was no treatment available. Addressing such needs—need is the basis of UK aid provision—is, quite simply, morally and compassionately the right thing to do. In an era of huge inequalities across the world and global communication, we cannot say that we do not know of the acute deprivation other people suffer. We cannot pass by on the other side and that is why legislating in this regard is so important.

I believe that as we promote the Bill the majority of UK taxpayers are with us. Younger people certainly are. We need only to consider how generously they respond to disaster relief requests. A child is vaccinated every two seconds through the work of this nation and a child’s life saved every—[Interruption.]

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Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD): I mean no discourtesy to the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who is making an excellent speech, but I should like to move the closure.

Martin Horwood claimed to move the closure(Standing Order No. 36).

Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.

The House divided:

Ayes 166, Noes 7.

Division No. 51]

[

1.54 pm

AYES

Abrahams, Debbie

Alexander, Heidi

Ali, Rushanara

Barker, rh Gregory

Barwell, Gavin

Benn, rh Hilary

Bingham, Andrew

Blackwood, Nicola

Bottomley, Sir Peter

Bradley, Karen

Brake, rh Tom

Brokenshire, James

Brooke, rh Annette

Brown, rh Mr Gordon

Brown, Lyn

Bruce, Fiona

Bruce, rh Sir Malcolm

Bryant, Chris

Buck, Ms Karen

Burt, rh Alistair

Burt, Lorely

Byles, Dan

Cairns, Alun

Campbell, rh Mr Alan

Carmichael, Neil

Caton, Martin

Clarke, rh Mr Tom

Collins, Damian

Connarty, Michael

Corbyn, Jeremy

Crabb, rh Stephen

Creasy, Stella

Crockart, Mike

Crouch, Tracey

Cunningham, Alex

Dakin, Nic

Davey, rh Mr Edward

Dobson, rh Frank

Doughty, Stephen

Dowd, Jim

Duddridge, James

Dugher, Michael

Dunne, Mr Philip

Durkan, Mark

Eagle, Maria

Efford, Clive

Featherstone, rh Lynne

Foster, rh Mr Don

Gapes, Mike

Gauke, Mr David

George, Andrew

Gilbert, Stephen

Goodman, Helen

Goodwill, Mr Robert

Gove, rh Michael

Green, Kate

Greening, rh Justine

Greenwood, Lilian

Griffith, Nia

Griffiths, Andrew

Hames, Duncan

Hancock, Mr Mike

Hands, rh Greg

Harris, Rebecca

Heald, Sir Oliver

Heath, Mr David

Hoey, Kate

Hopkins, Kelvin

Horwood, Martin

Howarth, rh Mr George

Hughes, rh Simon

Hunt, Tristram

Huppert, Dr Julian

Jackson, Glenda

James, Margot

Jarvis, Dan

Jones, Andrew

Jones, Susan Elan

Joyce, Eric

Khan, rh Sadiq

Lamb, rh Norman

Lancaster, Mark

Lansley, rh Mr Andrew

Latham, Pauline

Laws, rh Mr David

Lazarowicz, Mark

Leech, Mr John

Lefroy, Jeremy

Letwin, rh Mr Oliver

Lewis, Mr Ivan

Lidington, rh Mr David

Long, Naomi

Lopresti, Jack

Loughton, Tim

Lucas, Caroline

Macleod, Mary

Malhotra, Seema

McCarthy, Kerry

McDonnell, John

McGovern, Alison

McGuire, rh Mrs Anne

McIntosh, Miss Anne

Miller, Andrew

Mitchell, rh Mr Andrew

Moore, rh Michael

Mudie, Mr George

Mulholland, Greg

Munt, Tessa

Murphy, rh Mr Jim

Nandy, Lisa

Nash, Pamela

Newmark, Mr Brooks

Newton, Sarah

O'Brien, rh Mr Stephen

Opperman, Guy

Owen, Albert

Phillipson, Bridget

Pound, Stephen

Pritchard, Mark

Pugh, John

Randall, rh Sir John

Reed, Mr Jamie

Ritchie, Ms Margaret

Robinson, Mr Geoffrey

Rogerson, Dan

Rudd, Amber

Sandys, Laura

Sharma, Mr Virendra

Sheerman, Mr Barry

Shuker, Gavin

Skinner, Mr Dennis

Slaughter, Mr Andy

Smith, rh Mr Andrew

Smith, Julian

Smith, Nick

Smith, Sir Robert

Spellar, rh Mr John

Spelman, rh Mrs Caroline

Stewart, Bob

Stride, Mel

Stunell, rh Sir Andrew

Swayne, rh Mr Desmond

Thomas, Mr Gareth

Thornton, Mike

Timms, rh Stephen

Timpson, Mr Edward

Turner, Karl

Twigg, Stephen

Vaizey, Mr Edward

Vara, Mr Shailesh

Vaz, Valerie

Walker, Mr Robin

Wallace, Mr Ben

Walley, Joan

Weatherley, Mike

Webb, rh Steve

Weir, Mr Mike

Wheeler, Heather

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Williams, Roger

Williams, Stephen

Wilson, Phil

Winnick, Mr David

Wright, Simon

Yeo, Mr Tim

Zahawi, Nadhim

Tellers for the Ayes:

Harriett Baldwin

and

Paul Burstow

NOES

Gray, Mr James

Hollobone, Mr Philip

Holloway, Mr Adam

Howarth, Sir Gerald

Jackson, Mr Stewart

Leigh, Sir Edward

Rees-Mogg, Jacob

Tellers for the Noes:

Philip Davies

and

Mr David Nuttall

Question accordingly agreed to.

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1239

Question put accordingly, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

The House divided:

Ayes 164, Noes 6.

Division No. 52]

[

2.6 pm

AYES

Abrahams, Debbie

Alexander, Heidi

Ali, Rushanara

Barker, rh Gregory

Barwell, Gavin

Benn, rh Hilary

Bingham, Andrew

Blackwood, Nicola

Bottomley, Sir Peter

Bradley, Karen

Brake, rh Tom

Brokenshire, James

Brooke, rh Annette

Brown, rh Mr Gordon

Brown, Lyn

Bruce, Fiona

Bruce, rh Sir Malcolm

Bryant, Chris

Buck, Ms Karen

Burt, rh Alistair

Burt, Lorely

Byles, Dan

Cairns, Alun

Campbell, rh Mr Alan

Carmichael, Neil

Caton, Martin

Clarke, rh Mr Tom

Collins, Damian

Connarty, Michael

Corbyn, Jeremy

Crabb, rh Stephen

Creasy, Stella

Crockart, Mike

Cunningham, Alex

Dakin, Nic

Davey, rh Mr Edward

Dobson, rh Frank

Doughty, Stephen

Dowd, Jim

Duddridge, James

Dugher, Michael

Dunne, Mr Philip

Durkan, Mark

Eagle, Maria

Efford, Clive

Featherstone, rh Lynne

Foster, rh Mr Don

Gapes, Mike

Gauke, Mr David

George, Andrew

Gilbert, Stephen

Goodman, Helen

Goodwill, Mr Robert

Gove, rh Michael

Green, Kate

Greening, rh Justine

Greenwood, Lilian

Griffith, Nia

Griffiths, Andrew

Hames, Duncan

Hancock, Mr Mike

Hands, rh Greg

Heald, Sir Oliver

Heath, Mr David

Hoey, Kate

Hopkins, Kelvin

Horwood, Martin

Howarth, rh Mr George

Hughes, rh Simon

Hunt, Tristram

Huppert, Dr Julian

Jackson, Glenda

James, Margot

Jarvis, Dan

Jones, Andrew

Jones, Susan Elan

Joyce, Eric

Khan, rh Sadiq

Lamb, rh Norman

Lancaster, Mark

Lansley, rh Mr Andrew

Latham, Pauline

Laws, rh Mr David

Lazarowicz, Mark

Leech, Mr John

Lefroy, Jeremy

Letwin, rh Mr Oliver

Lewis, Mr Ivan

Lidington, rh Mr David

Long, Naomi

Lopresti, Jack

Loughton, Tim

Lucas, Caroline

Macleod, Mary

Malhotra, Seema

McCarthy, Kerry

McDonnell, John

McGovern, Alison

McGuire, rh Mrs Anne

McIntosh, Miss Anne

Miller, Andrew

Mitchell, rh Mr Andrew

Moore, rh Michael

Mudie, Mr George

Mulholland, Greg

Munt, Tessa

Murphy, rh Mr Jim

Nandy, Lisa

Nash, Pamela

Newmark, Mr Brooks

Newton, Sarah

O'Brien, rh Mr Stephen

Opperman, Guy

Owen, Albert

Phillipson, Bridget

Pound, Stephen

Pritchard, Mark

Pugh, John

Randall, rh Sir John

Reed, Mr Jamie

Reed, Mr Steve

Ritchie, Ms Margaret

Robinson, Mr Geoffrey

Rogerson, Dan

Rudd, Amber

Sandys, Laura

Sharma, Mr Virendra

Sheerman, Mr Barry

Shuker, Gavin

Skinner, Mr Dennis

Slaughter, Mr Andy

Smith, rh Mr Andrew

Smith, Julian

Smith, Nick

Smith, Sir Robert

Spellar, rh Mr John

Spelman, rh Mrs Caroline

Stewart, Bob

Stride, Mel

Stunell, rh Sir Andrew

Swayne, rh Mr Desmond

Thomas, Mr Gareth

Thornton, Mike

Timms, rh Stephen

Timpson, Mr Edward

Turner, Karl

Twigg, Stephen

Vaizey, Mr Edward

Vara, Mr Shailesh

Vaz, Valerie

Walker, Mr Robin

Wallace, Mr Ben

Weatherley, Mike

Webb, rh Steve

Weir, Mr Mike

Wheeler, Heather

Whitehead, Dr Alan

Williams, Roger

Williams, Stephen

Wilson, Phil

Winnick, Mr David

Wright, Simon

Yeo, Mr Tim

Zahawi, Nadhim

Tellers for the Ayes:

Harriett Baldwin

and

Paul Burstow

NOES

Gray, Mr James

Hollobone, Mr Philip

Holloway, Mr Adam

Howarth, Sir Gerald

Leigh, Sir Edward

Rees-Mogg, Jacob

Tellers for the Noes:

Philip Davies

and

Mr David Nuttall

Question accordingly agreed to.

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1240

Bill read a Second time; to stand committed to a Public Bill Committee (Standing Order No. 63).

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1241

Household Safety (Carbon Monoxide Detectors) Bill

Second Reading

2.17 pm

Andrew Bingham (High Peak) (Con): I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

I am used to emptying rooms, and today is no different. I was not sure how much time I would get to deliver this speech, given the other business of the House, especially after an urgent question was tabled earlier today. I realise that there is little chance of the Bill making it on to the statute book or even gaining a Second Reading. However, I want to use the time that I have to raise the profile of the issue of carbon monoxide and the detection of it in properties.

When my name was drawn out of the ballot for private Members’ Bills earlier this year, I decided to put the matter to my constituents. I came up with five subjects and my constituents voted on which one they wanted me to take forward. This is the Bill that they chose, so I can genuinely say that I am speaking on behalf of my constituents.

Carbon monoxide is a killer—there is no other way of describing it. It is colourless, tasteless and odourless. People inhale it in complete ignorance and are slowly but surely poisoned. The symptoms include headaches, tiredness, dizziness and nausea. Those are common symptoms that are easily attributable to other things. Consequently, people have no idea that they are being slowly poisoned. That can go on for many weeks and years. As next week is gas safety week, today is an opportune time to raise this issue.

I am naturally against regulation. I therefore resisted including in the Bill a provision to make carbon monoxide detectors compulsory in all residences across the country. Although that would be desirable, I am conscious of the bureaucratic burden that would be placed on whoever had to enforce such a law. Similarly, while I think that every household should fit one anyway, I think that it would be inappropriate for the state to force it on them. Although it is a small expense, it would be wrong for us to burden people with it.

The Bill would harmonise legislation across the UK because the Housing (Scotland) Act 2014, which was passed by the Scottish Parliament, made the installation of carbon monoxide detectors mandatory in private rented properties in Scotland. I know that Scotland is on all our minds, although admittedly not because of Scottish housing law, but as we move forward as a United Kingdom, as I sincerely hope we will, some continuity across the two nations would be eminently sensible.

Although the focus of the Bill is tight, it is worth raising the issue of where carbon monoxide can come from and in what circumstances it can occur, even though they may not be completely encompassed within the range of the Bill. Where does carbon monoxide come from? It emanates from many sources and is caused when carbon fuels do not burn properly. Despite a perception that the problem is restricted to gas fires, it can be wider than that, and any fuel-burning appliance that is not properly maintained has the potential to be a source of carbon monoxide. Cookers, AGAs and hot

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1242

water heaters all have the capacity to emit carbon monoxide. Indeed, someone may be at risk of carbon monoxide poisoning if they share a wall with a house that has a carbon monoxide leak, even if they do not have one.

Let me share a piece of evidence from my constituent Tony Meheran. He returned home one day to find his family all sitting drowsily by the gas fire. On investigation, they found that a crow’s nest had blocked their chimney. Added to the fact that they had an incorrectly fitted chimney cowling, it meant that carbon monoxide was seeping into the house and creating a potentially fatal hazard. It is that easy. It could happen to anyone in their own home, and as I said, they would not know it was happening.

Carbon monoxide is completely indiscriminate, but some people are at more risk than others. Young children, the elderly, people with heart and lung disease are especially vulnerable, and pregnant women risk damage to their unborn child. I do not wish to be alarmist or for anyone to panic that we are all being poisoned by carbon monoxide, but we should be aware of and concerned about the issue as it is easy to detect and even prevent. Regular servicing of appliances will ensure that the problem does not arise, but there is also an easy way to detect the problem: a simple carbon monoxide detector, properly placed with an audible alarm will alert someone when carbon monoxide is present. Those small, inexpensive items can literally save someone’s life.

I represent High Peak, which is a rural constituency with lots of tourists. We get a lot of camping, and even when camping people are not immune from carbon monoxide. As people sit outside their tent, caravan or motor home on a summer evening, watching the sun go down with the barbecue slowly smouldering in close proximity, they should be aware that that smouldering barbecue is emitting carbon monoxide. Portable barbecues and heaters can be and have been responsible for tragic deaths in camper vans, caravans and mobile homes across the country, and in Cornwall, Shropshire and other areas there have been tragedies as a result of carbon monoxide from such appliances. Many think that carbon monoxide—the silent killer—is associated with the winter months and caused by appliances that are used extensively in winter. Again, that is not right and deaths can occur in the summer.

As the Bill states, I wish to ensure the installation of carbon monoxide detectors in new build and rental properties. With new build properties, I think that it is a completely fair requirement for house builders. It is not over-burdensome and does not involve too much regulation. I hear arguments about burdening developers with extra regulation and cost, but to me those arguments do not wash. If a developer’s margins when building houses are that tight, and the difference between profit and loss is a CO2 detector, somewhere they have got their sums badly wrong. CO2 detectors are not expensive, and given the amount of house building going on, if they are bought in bulk the price will come down. If the Bill becomes law, there would be an increased use of such detectors and—just as we have seen with many devices—the more that are sold, the lower the price becomes.

Rental properties are another area affected, and particularly student accommodation where a landlord has not taken proper precautions. There have been

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1243

several tragic stories up and down the country of people in rental accommodation who have suffered from carbon monoxide poisoning. I think any landlord would and should want proper protection for their tenants, and the Bill would ensure that.

Hilary Benn (Leeds Central) (Lab): The hon. Gentleman is making an extremely powerful case. Given the time, I might not have the opportunity to contribute later, so on behalf of the Opposition may I say that we strongly support his Bill? The small cost and the simple measure that he advocates will help to save those 40 lives that are lost and those who are injured. Does he agree that just as there is a strong case for the measure before the House, there is also a strong argument for doing something about smoke detectors, given the lives they can save?

Andrew Bingham: The right hon. Gentleman makes a fair point. In fact, I was going to mention smoke detectors. I am not technically minded, but it cannot be beyond the wit of man to make a combined smoke and carbon monoxide detector—and one day every home should have one, as they say. I appreciate his support, though. Instinctively, I am for light-touch regulation, and the regulation the Bill imposes would not be great. On rental properties, my aim could be easily achieved with secondary legislation through an amendment to the Energy Act 2013, but the Bill would send a clear message and take care of both areas, which is what I want. Smoke alarms are everywhere—quite rightly—and carbon monoxide detectors are just as easy and cheap to obtain. I recommend that every house have one.

I realise that we are running out of time, but I hope that by raising this matter today, I have put it at the forefront of people’s minds. Someone might watch this and think, “I should have a carbon monoxide detector in my home”. As I said, they are easy and cheap to obtain, and I advocate that everyone have one. I was going to talk at much greater length, but I am conscious of the time and that other Members might wish to speak, so I will be brief. I understand parliamentary procedure: I know that the Bill we discussed before was important, so I understand why it was allowed to run, and I was glad to see it pass. Obviously, we also had the urgent question, which was equally important, and then there was the loss of our former colleague who sadly died today. I understand why so little time is left, therefore, and I realise that other hon. Members might like to contribute.

I hope that the Government will note the contents of the Bill. I have had a lot of support from various organisations and bodies and, on some occasions, from house builders and developers.

Heather Wheeler (South Derbyshire) (Con): I congratulate my hon. Friend on reaching such a high place in the list of private Members’ Bills. If the Bill gets a Second Reading or goes into Committee—or even gets nodded through today, which would be brilliant—should we perhaps talk about carbon monoxide indicators in mobile homes and campervans? We heard a lot about that following this summer’s tragic events.

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1244

Andrew Bingham: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When I was scoping out the Bill, I looked at how far I could go with it, but I did not want to impose too much regulation. I spoke earlier about the great outdoors. As those who know the area will confirm, High Peak is a fabulous area. I have visited caravan sites and seen people with caravans, motor homes and so on, and on a summer’s evening, overlooking the beautiful scenery, what does everybody do? They have a barbecue. On a summer’s evening in Glossop, looking across to Shirebrook, one will see almost a haze from the barbecue fumes. At home, no one brings their barbecue inside after they have had it, but there have been examples where people have been camping and brought the barbecue in to warm the tent. It strikes me as a strange thing to do, but it has had tragic results.

The same has happened with motor homes and caravans. There are awnings that clip on the outside and people pull a barbecue underneath. I cannot stress enough: you cannot taste, smell or see carbon monoxide, but it might be enveloping you. I have friends who noticed they were beginning to feel a bit drowsy, but they thought nothing of it. A chap came along to look at the flue and chimney and said, “Have you been feeling tired recently or suffering from headaches?” They said, “Funnily enough, we have. We just thought we’d been working a bit harder.” He said, “No, you haven’t. There’s a crack in your chimney, and the carbon monoxide has been seeping into the house.” As I said, it might be someone else’s house, and it could be seeping through an adjoining wall.

I do not want to scaremonger and send the world and his wife down to B&Q to buy carbon monoxide alarms, although I am sure that Mr B and Mr Q would be delighted at such an outcome.

Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con): Other stores are available.

Andrew Bingham: Yes, they are available at other stores.

This is a problem. Carbon monoxide cannot be seen. My hon. Friend the Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) mentioned people on holiday. On holiday, we all tend to be a bit more relaxed about things. I remember a campaign last summer to make people aware of the dangers of carbon monoxide poisoning when they are camping and caravanning. We could look at putting these detectors in motor homes and making them compulsory in all houses. I was slightly concerned about the burden of regulation. My feeling was that, having received representations for other areas to be included, if we could get this Bill into Committee— unlikely now, I admit—we could look at possible amendments at that stage. Given the hour of the day, however, it is—

2.30 pm

The debate stood adjourned (Standing Order No. 11(2)).

Ordered, That the debate be resumed on Friday 5 December.

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1245

Business without Debate

pavement parking bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Hon. Members: Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 9 January 2015.

Energy (buildings and reduction of fuel use) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Hon. Members: Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 16 January 2015.

houses in multiple occupation (energy performance certificates and minimum energy efficiency standards) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Hon. Members: Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 16 January 2015.

civil partnership Act 2004 (amendment) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Hon. Members: Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 17 October.

specialist printing equipment and materials (offences) bill

Motion made, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

Hon. Members: Object.

Bill to be read a Second time on Friday 17 October.

regulatory reform

Ordered,

That James Duddridge be discharged from the Regulatory Reform Committee and Mr Lee Scott be added.—(Greg Hands.)

treasury

Ordered,

That Mr Brooks Newmark be discharged from the Treasury Committee and Alok Sharma be added.—(Greg Hands.)

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1246

Primary School Places (Bromley)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—(Harriett Baldwin.)

2.32 pm

Jim Dowd (Lewisham West and Penge) (Lab): As ever, I am indebted to the Speaker for allowing me this opportunity to raise an issue the like of which, in all my years as a Member and in the 20 years before that when I was a member of Lewisham borough council, I have never come across before. I have never encountered such a ham-fisted and poorly executed policy as the one I am about to describe.

The title seems quite broad, but I am going to be quite specific. I have given the Minister’s office an indication that I will be talking about the Harris primary academy/free school in Beckenham, which is located in the constituency of the hon. and gallant Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), who I see in his place, but the school serves a large area in the north-west of Bromley, which both he and I represent.

I am not going to debate the merits or otherwise of free schools or academies; I am simply going to ask why such a colossal mistake was made in this case. There has been a huge increase in demand for places at both primary and secondary school level. That is certainly true in our part of south-east London and I think it is more broadly true across London generally and probably across the whole country. The pressure is considerable; finding places for all our children is no mean feat.

My principal complaint is how we can have a system in which parents who have been offered places at a school for their children and have bought the uniforms ready for their children to start, can then be told, six weeks before the school is due to open, not only that they do not have the place, but that the school will not be opening? As the Daily Mail had it on 24 July, taking its normally calm and balanced approach:

“Almost 60 families have been left without school places for their children after a council scrapped a new primary school just six weeks before it was due to open.

Furious families blasted ‘shambolic’ Bromley Council after offering them places at the brand new Harris Primary Academy in Beckenham, south-east London, in April—only for councillors to block the school from opening last week.

The school, which was hoped to meet the strong demand for primary places in the area, was due to be built on the site of an existing senior school in an exclusive residential street where the average house price is nearly £2 million”—

obviously the Daily Mail’s priorities came out in that last sentence. That report was not quite right, because it was not 60 families, but something fewer than 40. None the less, for those affected by the decision—the parents and their children—it was a huge and devastating blow.

Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con): I thank the hon. Gentleman, who I will call my friend—he is a very good friend of mine—regardless of House protocol. I totally agree with the thrust of what he is saying; the only thing I would point out is that most of the children have been found school places. However, I agree with him: it was a mistake of mega-proportions.

Jim Dowd: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I was going to come to that. The issue has been resolved in the short term, but its impact persists and it has exposed a severe flaw in the system by which the Department for Education, the Education

12 Sep 2014 : Column 1247

Funding Agency, local education authorities and local providers procure additional places.

Let me detail the chronology of this case. I am indebted to Doug Patterson, the chief executive of Bromley council, who I asked for a full briefing on the background to this issue. In order that I do not traduce or misrepresent anybody, I will read out significant parts of it. From May 2012 onwards,

“Bromley…changed its approach to school place planning, realising the benefit of securing of school places in line with the Government’s free school and academies agenda.

Based on local school place planning data, a shortfall of primary school places was identified across the local authority planning areas 1-4,”

in particular in Shortlands and Beckenham, which are in the constituency of the hon. Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart), and in Penge and Anerley, which are in my constituency. The briefing continues:

“Bromley therefore sought discussions with Harris”—

that is, the Harris Federation—

“given Harris’s strong track record in Bromley and other London Boroughs. We were confident that they would be able to deliver within a relatively tight deadline in order to satisfy the shortage of primary school places.

Towards the end of 2012, two primary free schools were proposed: Harris Beckenham Primary (to be located on the already established Harris Beckenham secondary school site) and Harris Shortlands”—

again, in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency—

“(to be located on a new site provided by the Council). Harris undertook local consultation with groups of parents who identified specific areas where it was difficult to secure access either to their nearest school or the one of their choice. This was a necessary component of the DfE approval process.”

In May last year, the DFE

“announced their support for the two Harris Free Schools to open in September 2014…The new Harris Beckenham Primary Free School was planned to open on the existing Harris Beckenham Secondary site and Harris were responsible for securing all planning and other consents in a timely manner. The Education Funding Agency (EFA) were overseeing this development along with Harris; with the EFA responsible for the delivery of the capital scheme and the submission of the planning application. The Local Authority had minimal involvement.”

In June last year, the local authority

“were invited to give some comments on the proposed admission arrangements for the Free Schools prior to an open evening on 18 June 2013 where Harris were promoting the new Harris Beckenham Primary Free School. Harris had previously indicated a willingness to participate in the Co-ordinated Admissions Process, and this was included in the consultation document. It was felt that this would be easier for parents to understand, avoiding the need to make a separate application for the Harris free schools, and to demonstrate they were part of the Bromley primary offer…The Council had indicated willingness to work with Harris in this regard.