International Development Bill

Public Bill Committee, 13 March 2001.

Standing Committee B

International Development Bill

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I beg to move,

That—

(1) during proceedings on the International Development Bill the Standing Committee do meet on Tuesdays at half-past Ten o'clock and half-past Four o'clock and on Thursdays at five minutes to Ten o'clock and between half-past Two o'clock and Five o'clock.

(2) 4 sittings in all shall be allotted to the consideration of the Bill by the Committee;

(3) the proceedings on the Bill shall be taken in the following order, namely Clauses 1 and 2, Schedule 1, Clauses 3 to 9, Schedule 2, Clauses 10 to 13, Schedule 3, Clauses 14 to 19, Schedules 4 and 5, Clause 20, Schedule 6, new Clauses, new Schedules.

(4) the proceedings on the Bill shall be brought to a conclusion at the 4th sitting at Five o'clock.

I look forward, Mr. Butterfill, to serving under your wise stewardship. I am a veteran in Committee, but this is the first time that I have had sole responsibility for steering a Bill through Committee. Last year, from mid-January until the end of June, I was continuously in Committee; at one point I was on three Committees simultaneously, each of them dealing with a major Bill. I could have walked down the Committee Corridor, and been made welcome in almost any Room. I thought that those days were past when I came to the Department for International Development, but again I find myself introducing a Bill in Committee.

This is a small but important Bill that entrenches in law the principles that underlie the Government's development programme. Its main purpose, set out in clause 1, is to provide a new core power to ensure that all future United Kingdom development assistance is used to reduce poverty and to enable sustainable development. We believe that the Bill will prevent a future Administration using development funds to serve short-term political or commercial ends, and, in particular, that it will prevent the tying of aid.

I am glad to say that the Bill appears to be uncontroversial, and I am grateful for the support that was expressed by both sides on Second Reading. It is also widely welcomed by those outside Parliament who take an interest in development issues. I therefore believe that the four sittings that were agreed upon after discussion through the usual channels will be more than adequate. I look forward to a constructive, civilised debate.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The Minister said how busy he was in his former life, and spoke about the importance of the Bill. I am not sure that we particularly need the Bill, but I agree that it deals with an important issue. The Department has been extremely supportive about another important issue—that of HIV-AIDS.

Four members of the Select Committee on International Development are also members of this Committee. The Select Committee is no longer able to clear its report for publication because it is now inquorate; the four members here today are unable to attend the Select Committee. Is it helpful to rush the Bill through when other important matters need to be discussed?

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

That is a matter for the usual channels. They have discussed the matter. We are here today as a result of that discussion. I cannot assist the Committee further on that point.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I associate myself with the Minister's remarks, Mr. Butterfill. I am sure that it will be a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, and I shall try not to give you and your co-Chairman too much trouble.

The Minister rightly said that the Opposition support the general thrust of the Bill. It is surprising, therefore, that the Government should have chosen to act as they did over the Bill's progress. The Bill was not included in the Queen's Speech; it was not considered sufficiently important. I am bitterly disappointed about that. The Bill is very much an afterthought because it was printed, a few months after the Queen's Speech, on 15 February 2001, and it received its Second Reading on Tuesday 6 March. That is indecent haste by any standards. I hope that the Minister will enlighten us about why it was left out of the Queen's Speech, why it was printed in such indecent haste and introduced so quickly.

In the good old days, even when there was an enormous Conservative majority in the House, there was a convention that two weekends would pass between Second Reading and Committee stage. I believe that all members of the Committee would recognise the advantages in that, except perhaps those who became Members of Parliament at the last general election. The pattern of scrutiny has changed dramatically under this Government. Those two weekends gave both Government and Opposition the opportunity to muster their forces and do their homework, something which is even more essential when a Bill is printed so late. My hon. Friend the Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) pointed out that the International Development Committee is currently sitting but has become inquorate because some of its members are required to serve on this Standing Committee. That is alarming because I believe that the Select Committee was supposed to be scrutinising its major report on AIDS, which I mentioned in the House on Second Reading.

Oona King (Labour, Bethnal Green and Bow)

It is only fair to point out that the International Development Committee requires only three members to be quorate, yet it has 11 members, so if it is inquorate, we have only ourselves to blame.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

That makes it even more dreadful because it means that the Labour Members of the Select Committee have not turned up.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

As my colleague on the International Development Committee, the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King), said, the Select Committee has 11 members. However, two Conservative Members of that Committee are here and the other Conservative Member chairs the Select Committee. There are two Labour Members of the Select Committee here and one other Labour Member there. Unfortunately, the Liberal Democrat Member and four Labour Members seem to be absent at the moment.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for enlightening the Cttee on that. My point is made—more in sorrow than in anger, because I am not trying to be acrimonious.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

On a point of order, Mr. Butterfill. Is it really necessary for us to discuss the workings of the International Development Committee? I suggest that those are matters for the Select Committee, not for us. Hon. Members who are present in this Committee are anxious to get on and discuss the Bill.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

That is a matter for my discretion, in so far as it might be relevant to the motion before the Committee. My patience was being tried severely, and I hope that we will now return to the programming resolution.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I would not want to raise your temperature so early in our proceedings, Mr. Butterfill. I had intended to make less of the point until I was courteous enough to give way to the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow. The point was taken further in that intervention than I would have gone in making my argument. As I have said, I did not raise the point in a spirit of acrimony, but it is as well to put on record what has happened. I believe that the legislation will suffer as a result of the undue haste with which we have been catapulted into Standing Committee.

As will be seen from the pattern of voting throughout our proceedings, I do not intend to press Divisions on the main substance of the Bill. However, we have tabled amendments in a spirit of co-operation either to improve the legislation or to ensure that certain subjects are aired and put on the record. After all, we have not had a debate on international development since 1997. That is regretted by the Secretary of State, as well as by me and by Labour Members. I do not doubt that the Minister, although new to his post—where I am sure that he will do an admirable job—also regrets the absence of an opportunity to air matters where there is a spirit of commonality across the House. The House operates at its best when there is such agreement.

The amendments have, therefore, been prepared in haste—with great help from the Clerk of the Committee, whose role in framing them I should like to acknowledge—to get discussion going on important issues and to see whether the legislation can be improved. However arrogant the Government become—they have become particularly arrogant in the past 24 hours; I do not know why we are here as, under the motion that was passed last night, we could be deemed to have scrutinised this Bill, and it would not be necessary for us to be here at all—we genuinely hope that our suggestions will improve the legislation.

There is a further aspect to the legislation that the Minister may not fully appreciate, as he is new to the post. In the area of development there is a tradition of consultation, particularly with non-governmental organisations. The speed with which the Bill is being rushed through—especially the speed with which it has come to Standing Committee—has prevented many organisations from scrutinising what is, albeit small, an important piece of legislation. Size is not everything. When something is small, the devil is likely to be in the detail and in its interpretation.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

My hon. Friend makes a good point. The Bill is intended to be important; it is the first such Bill for more than 20 years and it is intended, as the Minister has said, to tie the hands of succeeding Governments. It seems extraordinary that the huge group of NGOs on which so much of the delivery of our overseas development aid depends have had no time in which to comment upon a Bill that might restrict or constrain their behaviour during the next 20 years.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I could not have put it better. My hon. Friend makes my point for me, and I hope that the Minister will respond in kind. He might have had the opportunity to consult, as might his colleagues, his predecessor, or the Secretary of State. However, it was a great surprise to us when the Bill was printed in February, having not been in the Queen's Speech. Whenever anyone gets hot under the collar in Westminster Hall, I am reminded that that is meant to be a venue where there is agreement across the Benches. If, as they often claim, the Government seek co-operation and agreement to parts of their programme, they could have handled this matter better.

To make matters worse, there is a David and Goliath situation in this Committee. There are serried ranks on the Government Benches, whereas on the Opposition Benches there are four redoubtable Conservatives and a Liberal Democrat. I think that there is a Liberal Democrat absentee, but that does not surprise me.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. The hon. Lady is straying rather wide of the matter.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I accept your admonition, Mr. Butterfill.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

Look who won.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

My hon. Friend takes up my point from a sedentary position—we should always remember who won in the David and Goliath story.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

I hope that we shall leave David and Goliath.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am sure that there is a lesson there for us all.

The Bill has been introduced as a fig leaf to cover the Government's embarrassment because there has not even been a debate on international development since 1997. They want to be able to say that, for the first time for 20 years, they have proposed legislation, which will cover a catalogue of examples of the Secretary of State being ignored by Cabinet colleagues. She has not had a look in; she has been brushed aside. She tried really hard to get an annual debate, but failed. The two White Papers have been a sop to the Secretary of State; we have not debated them on the Floor of the House. She can publish, publish, publish; she can publish and be damned; she will not get time on the Floor of the House.

The Programming Sub-Committee for the Bill, which was my first experience of such a Committee, can only be described as a constitutional farce. We turned up in a Room, without the advantage of our extremely valiant Hansard reporters who report the proceedings of Committees; we were kept waiting by the Minister, who was late; I believe that I am right in saying that the Chairman had not even received a copy of the Government programming motion; and we sat down and rubber-stamped what the Government wanted. That is not right, and, in his previous incarnations, the Minister would not have thought that that was right either. He was always a great champion of freedom in his days on the Opposition Benches and Government Back Benches, and I look to him for slightly better behaviour than that.

I shall not move an amendment to the motion, because I am using the time allotted for this debate to put our perspective on the record, but I want the Minister to think hard about what he is participating in. Given the Government's majority and the Opposition's attitude to the Bill, the Government have a prime opportunity to behave in a grown up and mature fashion in relation to an important piece of legislation, which, after all, is about people's lives. The Minister has missed that opportunity, and the whole process of scrutiny of the Bill will be much poorer as a result. My hon. Friends may want to add to what I have said, but at least I have had the opportunity to put on the record my disappointment in the Government's behaviour.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

I apologise, Mr. Butterfill, for the absence of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Mr. Oaten), but because of the vagaries of the electoral system, unlike the other two parties, we have only 47 Members of Parliament to cover the work of the House.

It was interesting to hear the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham talk about not having had an opportunity to debate the Bill. As usual, the official Opposition have wasted time complaining about not having time properly to debate a Bill. I appeal to them. This is an important issue and we are anxious to do something about development. We want to help; we do not want to waste time continually listening to such idiotic filibustering from the official Opposition. That has made me feel a lot better.

The Bill is excellent. One remarkable thing about it is that we have not had the usual paper storm from the NGOs suggesting various amendments from all directions. They are pretty good at scrutinising legislation, so it is a tribute to the Bill that we have not received such a storm of paper from them. I have little to add. I still feel strongly about some issues. I feel strongly about the position of the overseas territories, and question whether it is appropriate for the Department for International Development to deal with them, because in my understanding, they are part of the United Kingdom and should be dealt with by the appropriate UK Department. We shall come to that matter later.

We must consider how much the Treasury contributes to humanitarian aid. It is a sore point with me and, I suspect, DFID, that sometimes disasters created by NATO or the Ministry of Defence have to be mopped up by DFID. That deprives the third world and poor people of valuable resources. I hope that we shall debate that.

There are worries about tied aid, which is a mysterious subject that always seems to be avoided. I was pleased to hear the Minister say that the Bill is intended to eliminate tied aid for ever. I doubt that it will, but we must try.

I welcome the Bill. I hope that it has the co-operation of all Departments. I shall stress the importance of such co-operation as long as I am in the House, because other Departments have so often undermined the work of DFID. I hope that we can now move the debate on in a spirit of co-operation. The issue is huge and emotive. Whenever we think that we are coming to grips with development and poverty, something, such as the AIDS epidemic, which was mentioned by the hon. Member for Blaby, throws all the predictions awry. I hope that the official Opposition will take our debate completely seriously.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I shall be brief, because we should move on to the substance of the Bill. I am glad that the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge) now feels better.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

Only temporarily.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Lady accuses people of idiotic filibustering, but I am sure that you would not allow that, Mr. Butterfill.

The Bill is small but important, which makes it all the more curious that the Government should wish to programme and restrict the time given to discussing it. Most hon. Members in the Committee spoke on Second Reading, which is not always the case. Committee members, especially Back Benchers, are often—[Interruption.] I could comment on what the hon. Member for Harrow, East (Mr. McNulty) should do about his gut, but never mind.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will not be provoked into comments of that nature.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

My apologies, Mr. Butterfill, but I do not feel that I need any lessons in sartorial elegance from the hon. Member for Harrow, East.

Hon. Members on the Committee are generally those who take an interest in international development. We all want the Bill to be enacted as a good piece of legislation, which makes it all the more surprising that the Government should want to restrict debate and inflame passions by rushing the Bill through. The Minister has probably made speeches against programme motions—

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

No.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The Minister says not, but many of his colleagues have done. If we want the Bill to be enacted as good legislation, hon. Members from all parties should have the opportunity to scrutinise it carefully.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

One of the features of the debate on Second Reading was that hon. Members from all parties raised serious issues on matters such as definitions and the sense of the sector-wide approach. The Bill is essentially non-controversial, as it is not a party matter, but a range of issues of extraordinary importance to international development was raised during that debate.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Indeed. Hon. Members sometimes make cheap party political points on such matters, but our point is not party political. On Second Reading, there was general agreement, but some different and important points were raised, yet five and a half days afterwards, we have entered upon a rushed Committee stage. That is not the way to achieve good legislation. I shall not oppose the programme resolution, but the Minister should say why it has been necessary to deal with the Bill at such speed.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I think that I can assist with inquiries. Hon. Members should regard the Bill as a bonus. It is true that it was not in the Queen's Speech, but we seized an unexpected window of opportunity. I expect most people who take a serious interest in such matters to welcome that decision.

There is no need for people to be surprised by the Bill. It had a lengthy gestation. The 1997 White Paper committed the Government to consider the case for a new development Bill. The issue was debated in regional policy forums over two years and there was strong support for a Bill to place poverty reduction at the heart of United Kingdom development assistance. Extensive consultation has taken place with civil society and the development community. Officials have met representatives of the major NGOs to discuss the Bill and its implications for our development effort.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park, for whose contribution I am grateful, was right. We have not encountered a storm of paper from NGOs, demanding all sorts of changes, because all those with a serious interest have known for a long time what would happen. They knew that the Bill was on the cards and have been pressing for such a measure. They are happy that it has come to pass.

The reason we have not received many suggestions is probably general happiness about, and good will towards, the Bill, which I hope the official Opposition will share.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I hope that the Minister will not become a tad complacent about the general welcome for the Bill. Several small organisations and consultancies, and some university departments, are deeply exercised about the effect of a move to a sector-wide approach on the operation of forward-looking or innovative small projects. That is just one aspect of the matter about which there is unease.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I look forward to discussing that issue at the appropriate point in the Bill. The hon. Gentleman is right; there are serious issues to discuss. However, the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham underestimates her ability, and that of her colleagues, if she thinks that the time available is not enough for proper scrutiny of the Bill. I repeat that it was agreed through the usual channels.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The Minister seems to want to have his cake and eat it. It has been four years since the Government promised legislation. They could have presented the Bill at any time in those four years and at a much more suitable point in the legislative programme, when it would not have been rushed through with indecent haste.

The Minister has given himself away by saying that the Government grabbed a window of opportunity.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I did not use the word ``grabbed''.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

They seized a window of opportunity. They plucked it out of the ether. What he said meant that, finally, the Secretary of State's Cabinet colleagues and the Government Whips woke up to the fact that little besides a publishing exercise had been accomplished with respect to international development, and the Bill is the result. At the 11th hour an important Bill is being presented, and its scrutiny is being rushed through in three days. That is regrettable. It is a great shame that something as significant as the Bill should have been introduced in the dying embers of a Parliament.

Tom Clarke (Labour, Coatbridge and Chryston)

The hon. Lady spoke very well on Second Reading, but I hope that she will forgive me for saying that, like many others who have been involved for a long time in international development, I have never heard such appalling sourness in a debate as I have this morning. I ask the hon. Lady in all candour whether she is preparing the Committee for the kind of undignified ambush that happened last week, which the House had to rectify this morning.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I shall not dignify that intervention with a response. I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. He has much more experience than I do of the subject. I hope very much to hear from Labour Members in Committee. They include people who have done work that I admire, with respect to international development. The Labour Benches will, sadly, probably remain silent, or make transitory comments, but, of course the Whip—

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. The time for discussion of the programming resolution has now expired.

Question put and agreed to.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

I remind the Committee that there is a financial resolution connected to the Bill, copies of which are available in the Room. I should also remind the Committee that I and my co-Chairman will not normally accept starred amendments. Clause 1 Development Assistance

Clause 1 - Development Assistance

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I beg to move amendment No. 1, in page 1, line 10, after `contribute', insert `directly or indirectly'.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this, it may be convenient to consider the following amendments: No. 2, in page 1, line 16, at end insert

`or—

(c) promoting good governance in one or more such countries'.

No. 3, in page 1, line 16, at end insert

`or—

(d) reducing conflict or the potential for conflict in one or more such countries'.

No. 4, in page 1, line 16, at end insert

`or—

(e) putting in place the framework necessary to attract private and foreign direct investment in one or more such countries'.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The four amendments go to the heart of the Bill, which is substantially contained in clause 1, do I hope that the Committee will bear with me while I comment on each amendment in turn.

Our reason for tabling amendment No. 1 is to allow the Secretary of State to provide development assistance to a country or countries provided that he or she is satisfied that the action will lead ``directly or indirectly'' to a reduction in poverty. Inserting those words would enable the Secretary of State to provide assistance to organisations, projects or others who seek to lay the foundations for poverty reduction. In other words, assistance could be provided for economic development, governance or other matters that I will discuss in relation to the other amendments. We think that such matters cannot be described as directly contributing to a reduction in poverty, but we all know that they will form part of the total effort to reduce poverty. The desire to reduce poverty is not at issue between us; the aim of clause 1 is one to which we all subscribe.

The ``Oxford English Dictionary'' provides a definition of poverty, which is crucial to a reading of the Bill. It describes poverty as

``the state of being poor ... want of necessities''

of life. There is no definition of poverty in the Bill—I hope that the Minister will tell us the reasoning behind the omission of such a definition; even though I can probably guess what he will say, it would be nice to have explained the thinking behind the Bill's drafting. There is a danger that the term ``poverty reduction'' will be used to mean a small number of policies to alleviate poverty in the short term, rather than the broad multi-sectoral approach that is needed to change systems of government, establish political stability and so create an environment in which poverty can be driven.

The Minister will know that the United Nations Development Programme highlighted the fact that some agencies used a narrow definition of poverty in their programmes. The UNDP ``Poverty Report 2000'' stated that some anti-poverty plans continue to treat poverty as though it were a sectoral issue. I hope that the Minister will comment on that and explain the Government's reasons for wanting to legislate. If clause 1 does not formally recognise indirect ways of reducing poverty, the Government could be constrained to a narrow set of policies that would treat the effects of poverty rather than attack its causes. The UNDP explains in its report that poverty is a multi-dimensional problem that requires comprehensive multi-sectoral programmes. That is why the Bill should mention that many policies will be directly and indirectly necessary to reduce global poverty.

The Government's programmes would have to satisfy a want in poor and developing countries of the necessities of life, as defined in the ``Oxford English Dictionary'', and generally make their people more wealthy. However, it is difficult to imagine that all Government aid programmes, particularly programmes on governance and other more technical matters, would be able to do that beyond a shadow of doubt. That is why the Bill should state that some of the Government's work in trying to reduce poverty might be done far away from the lives of the poor themselves.

It is vital that all the programmes meant to lay the foundations for a reduction in poverty should be mentioned in the Bill. It should include all the Government's programmes that are intended to strengthen government institutions and the rule of law, which should lead indirectly to better government, better policies and a participation in the democratic process—and consequently to political stability and economic growth.

The UNDP ``Poverty Report 2000'' states that a study of aid donors undertaken by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development found that the overriding goal of the UNDP, the World Bank and such bilateral donors as Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands, Sweden and the UK was poverty reduction. That report was published on 3 April 2000, so I must ask whether the Bill is absolutely necessary. Are we not over-egging the pudding? If the UNDP believes that poverty reduction is the overriding goal, is it not a piece of gratuitous legislation? Is not the Secretary of State unnecessarily binding her hands behind her back by legislation when, according to an outside auditor, she is already acting within that framework? What difference the Bill will make to the Government's work and how, if at all, will it change the nature of poverty reduction?

Amendment No. 1 is coupled with our questions about the definition of poverty. Second Reading was well attended—indeed, I believe that more hon. Members than could be fitted in wanted to speak on Second Reading—and hon. Members on both sides of the House mentioned the absence of a definition in the Bill. If the definition applies to the poverty of a country, do we base our judgment on gross national product per head of population? Do we consider the country's potential? Will the Minister and the Secretary of State be able to draw a line in the sand and if so, where? What is the Department's understanding of the meaning of poverty, and how do we judge it? Do we consider individuals' poverty or the country's poverty?

In the Budget a few days ago, the Chancellor boasted that he had lifted X number of children in this country out of poverty, which provides another example of the use in the House of the word ``poverty''. In the absence of a definition of poverty in the Bill, how do we judge whether the Department's focus will be on specific individuals, groups, countries or organisations? I hope that the Minister will reflect on that and tell us about the arguments deployed within the Department, as that will be of great interest to all members of the Committee.

We tabled amendment No. 2 for the same reason as we did all the amendments in the group, which is to introduce more certainty into the Bill. The amendment is not intended to do anything other than what it says. If the Minister were gracious enough to accept the sense of any of our amendments, we would allow their wording to be altered slightly. If he thought that any of our suggestions were helpful and wanted to act on them, I should be delighted to hear it and would follow whatever procedures were necessary to enable Government amendments to be made.

The amendment stresses the importance of good governance in developing countries as a key to poverty reduction. It would allow the Secretary of State to provide assistance to projects or programmes that could not be described as contributing to a reduction of poverty, but focus on good governance or are designed to lay its foundations. It is not outwith anyone's imagination that the Government will sometimes want to take such action.

The encouragement of good governance is an indispensable part of our aid programmes and those of many other countries. Several agencies have stressed the major impact of good governance on poverty reduction. I went to Indonesia with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to see in action a project relating to that country's elections. We tried to shape improvements in Indonesia's democratic system and thus to lay the foundations for the general economic health, well-being and stability of the area. We spent time in discussion with members of the Australian aid agency, which, unsurprisingly, put considerably greater funds into that part of the world than we did. The Australians emphasised the importance of political stability and good governance in raising people's quality of life. The UN Development Programme has stated:

``Effective governance is often the ``missing link'' between national anti-poverty efforts and poverty reduction''—

and thus it makes the point that anti-poverty efforts are useless without responsible and effective governance.

The executive summary of ``Overcoming Human Poverty: the UNDP Poverty Report 2000'', stated:

``For many countries it is in improving governance that external assistance is needed''.

That is fundamentally right. Good governance needs to be at the heart of the Government's aid and development policy. I do not mean that a poverty focus is worse, and a good governance focus is better; rather, I mean that the poverty-reduction focus is not possible without good governance, which should, therefore, be at the foundation of all our work in this sphere.

The World Bank World development report 2000 states that poorly functioning public sector institutions and weak Governments were major constraints on growth and equitable development in many developing countries. On page 11, which refers to reforming public institutions and strengthening Governments, the importance of good governance to poverty reduction is stated. We receive constant and continuing endorsement from organisations at the forefront of development of the necessity for good governance as the foundation stone on which effective development projects are built.

The Government have already said in the 1997 White Paper, ``Eliminating World Poverty: A Challenge for the 21st Century'':

``Some countries will make more rapid progress towards the international development targets than others. Those most likely to succeed will have effective government, enlightened legislation, prudent budgeting and an efficient administration''.

The Secretary of State has said:

World Bank research shows that if aid is focused where the poor are and where the national Governments are committed to reform, the effectiveness of the US $50 billion or so in the international development system is increased by 50 per cent.'' —[Official Report, 6 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 159.]

If the Government truly believe that good governance is a key element in the battle against poverty, they should make that explicit in the Bill. If countries that have good governance make the most rapid progress towards poverty elimination, surely Government resources need to be ploughed into good governance?

The focus on the importance of good governance should be reflected in the Bill. That would give great comfort to many people and improve the Bill without detracting from it at all. What I propose is among our key amendments, and I hope that the Minister will seriously consider it. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) focused on that issue on Second Reading. Even in the White Paper ''Eliminating World Poverty: Making Globalisation Work for the Poor'', the Government said that effective Governments are essential if developing countries are to reap the benefits of globalisation and to make that process work for poor people.

I offer the Minister a chance to reflect in the Bill aims that we share in a way that should improve the legislation. There is nothing new about it. In the course of research, I saw work that had been done by the former Minister of State for Overseas Development, now Baroness Chalker. Back in 1991, she was speaking powerfully about good governance and practical ways to promote good government. On 25 March 1991, she said that promoting good government was a critical part of the Government's foreign policy agenda. They had made it clear that they would use all the levers available to encourage respect for human rights, free markets, sensible economic policies and efficient public administration. She asserted that millions of people remained trapped in a dismal cycle of poverty, hunger and depression, not knowing where to turn, but that the collapse of communism and the failure of many brands of socialism had given us more opportunities to help them.

I do not think that there has ever been a quarrel about this issue. It would, therefore, be wise to incorporate in the Bill the amendment or, if the Government do not like the wording, a variation on the theme. In that way, we would enshrine the key elements of good government in legislation. We would be able to manoeuvre around mechanisms to encourage competence, sound economic policies, the effective use of resources, the stamping out of corruption and the avoidance of excessive military expenditure. We could examine legitimacy and accountability, freedom of expression, political pluralism, broad participation in the development process and, lastly, the key issues of human rights and the rule of law.

Good government is essential in any country, because it allows economic growth and leads to sustainable development—which we all welcome—and the effective use of resources, whether domestic or provided by aid donors. In addition, it encourages enterprise and allows benefits to be widely shared. The poor must not be excluded from the process. By including it in the Bill, we demonstrate the mood of realism in discussions about international development.

There is increasing recognition that good government attracts donors and inward investment. It lays the foundations for countries that have been on an downward path to regain their momentum onwards and upwards. Conservative Members believe that real change can only come about in a developing country when there is political stability. There needs to be a framework of competent and responsible government, accountable institutions and a strong civil society.

It is crucial that developing countries establish a strong rule of law and an effective and honest legal system. Our aid programme should empower them to do that. We have written into our international development policy that we will increase the focus on strengthening the democratic framework in those countries that we help. There should be prioritising of resources and technical expertise toward that objective, which I am not entirely sure can be achieved within the parameters of the Bill as drafted.

We need to find new ways to make specific areas of British expertise available to developing countries. For example, we must build on the success of the know-how fund. When I used to do what I laughingly describe as a proper job before entering the House of Commons, I was privileged to work for one of our major companies, Ernst and Young, on developing contacts and offices, taking its clients into the former Soviet Union. I saw at first hand how aid going to former Soviet satellites brought about extremely beneficial changes in those countries—so beneficial that many of them are now reaching the economic standards that will allow them to join the family of the European Union. Finding new ways to build on the successes of such programmes might not be excluded by the Bill as drafted, but it should be explicitly acknowledged in it.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

Is my hon. Friend aware that there would be widespread support—especially, as I understand it, from certain elements in the Foreign Office—for the export of Elizabeth Filkin to provide advice overseas?

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that ingenious intervention; he will forgive me if I choose not to comment on it, but we all know what he meant. [Interruption.] If you do not know what he meant, you do not deserve to be in the Whips' Office.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. I am not in the Whips' Office.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I apologise, Mr. Butterfill, no disrespect was intended.

I think that it is now clear to all members of the Committee—it is certainly our firm belief—that when developing countries make a commitment to good governance, aid money is better spent and foreign direct investment is encouraged. Foreign aid alone will never be sufficient to lift a country out of poverty; it is by encouraging the private sector and foreign investment that economies will grow and living standards will increase. Our development policy would help to lay the foundations of stability on which developing nations can build.

We want to empower developing countries that are committed to change to be able to govern responsibly for all their citizens. If I thought for one moment that the Minister did not think the same, I would not be labouring that point with amendment No. 2, but I know that there is a glimmer of hope. I know that he is surrounded by an able team of officials and I appeal through him to those responsible for drafting the Bill that if any amendment to the Bill is to be accepted, it should be amendment No. 2.

Including that provision in the Bill would mean that we had contributed to improving the Secretary of State's position, manoeuvrability and the way in which her actions on aid would be viewed. When my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon becomes the new Secretary of State following the election, he will be most happy that the provision has been included in the Bill to frame his actions.

I shall not move on from amendment No. 2 without saying a word about the British Council—as the Minister knows, I have a bit of a bee in my bonnet about the British Council—because, especially in the context of good governance, the British Council's contribution to stability in countries around the world has been invaluable. The Labour party manifesto ``A Fresh Start for Britain: Labour's Strategy for Britain in the Modern World'' stated that, in the global context outlined, the BBC World Service and the British Council would not be marginal instruments but the spearhead of Labour's policy. The document stated that, in office, Labour would work to maintain and build up the success of the front-line services of those organisations. That has not happened, but I am not sure that that is the Minister's fault, as he is new to the Department.

One factor contributing to the decline of the British Council is the shift in DFID's use of it to deliver contracts, on which I have still not received satisfactory replies. At the same time as the British Council is forced to close offices, the Department is increasing its stand in some areas, especially Africa, and also its staffing and presence.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. We all share the hon. Lady's enthusiasm for the work of the British Council, but she is going wide of the amendment.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am so sorry. I shall drag my speech back to the amendment. It is in the promotion of good governance in other countries that the work of the British Council has been so exemplary on the world stage, so far as development practice and procedure is concerned. If use the of the British Council as a delivery mechanism for aid contracts has been dramatically withdrawn—indeed, slashed—that will have a knock-on effect on its other programmes, such as the delivery of good governance.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. The amendment clearly relates to the promotion of good governance, but we cannot use it to debate the work of the British Council.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I hear what you say, Mr. Butterfill. Please accept my unreserved apologies, but I could never forgive myself if I did not mention the British Council in this context.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

The hon. Lady has made her point.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Amendment No. 3 seeks to put into the Bill a provision on which there will not be a cigarette paper between members of the Committee, and my hon. Friend the Member for Blaby will want to speak to it as he has special expertise on the matter. The amendment seeks to give the Secretary of State the power to provide financial or technical assistance in an attempt to reduce ``the potential for conflict'' in developing countries. That could include the provision of assistance to countries in central and eastern Europe, to assist with controlling the supply of small arms from them to areas of conflict. We are all concerned about that, on which action has not been taken in the lifetime of this Government.

The amendment would also bolster the Secretary of State's position, and allow her to provide assistance for holding a consultation exercise for setting up, for example, a register to monitor the activities of UK arms brokers, or to take any other action to reduce the potential for conflict. We are trying to strengthen the Secretary of State's arm, so I hope that the Minister will not dismiss the amendment out of hand.

It is vital that no measure to prevent the potential for violent conflict in developing countries is made illegal by the narrow terms of poverty reduction in the Bill. We believe that the Bill should make explicit reference to conflict, as it is often the root cause of poverty and political instability. I know that the Government agree with that. Indeed, in the globalisation White Paper, they said that the promotion of peace and stability is indispensable if countries are to attract investment and trade and promote ``pro-poor'' development. Violent conflict is one of the biggest barriers to development in many of the world's poorest countries. We have it from the horse's mouth—the Government wrote it into the White Paper—but the amendment would give a little more power to their elbow by putting it in the Bill.

On that matter, the Secretary of State has an ally. She does not have many in the Cabinet; she is a valiant and doughty fighter—I take my hat off to her—but she is sometimes very isolated and out on her own. I see the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-East (Mr. Turner) nodding, so he does not think that she is a doughty fighter.

Dennis Turner (Labour/Co-operative, Wolverhampton South East)

Oh no, we are all great supporters of her.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

So the right hon. Lady's parliamentary private secretary and I agree; we could not fit a cigarette paper between us. She is a doughty fighter, but she needs allies in the Cabinet—as we all do.

I pray in aid the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was quoted in the Glasgow Herald last year as saying that countries will struggle to make the necessary commitments to poverty reduction and economic growth if they are affected by conflict. There we have it: Gordon Brown agrees with the Secretary of State. That another senior and powerful member of the Cabinet agrees is an even more powerful reason to include the amendment in the Bill.

It is important also to recognise that action taken to prevent the proliferation of small arms in developing countries could legitimately mean British aid money being used to strengthen Customs and Excise or to help economic diversification in the countries from which those arms originate. As the Minister knows, such arms often come from the countries of central and eastern Europe. We are worried that the Bill's poverty focus may render such assistance illegal. If the Minister will not accept the amendment, will he at least reassure us that such a poverty focus would not render such assistance beyond the pale and outwith the scope of the Secretary of State?

The nature of conflict in the 21st century has changed dramatically. Conflict is now largely within states rather than between them. That presents unique difficulties when trying to broker international peace settlements. We in the United Kingdom always play our part in preventing and resolving violent conflict. The amendment would help by giving a voice to those policies. The Opposition are keen to initiate concerted international action to crack down on the proliferation of small arms, which undoubtedly perpetuates conflict in developing countries.

The matter is routinely a subject of debate in our Back-Bench committees when considering such conflicts. Indeed, some Committee members have been present at meetings where it has been acknowledged that the inflow of small arms has been directly responsible for some of the worst conflicts, especially in Africa. Most light arms used in such conflicts originate from eastern Europe. They are trafficked via arms brokers operating from western countries. Conservative Members believe, and I am sure that the Minister would agree, that we should consult widely and introduce a new scheme to control the activities of British arms brokers overseas. That may fall within the scope of the legislation if the amendment were accepted.

I am asking for some comfort from the Minister because, in the absence of such a provision, we need to know what will happen to other programmes. For example, what will happen to funding for something like Patrol Task (North), the West Indies guard ship in the Caribbean, which is fighting the drugs trade that, in turn, is helping the violent conflict in Colombia? Would funding of such an operation be deemed to be poverty reduction within the terms of the Bill or would it fall outwith the legislation and therefore not be allowed?

What about sending in military trainers or observers for elections? What about education programmes on building democracy? What about peace projects such as the one in Zimbabwe? What will happen if no Government Department is willing or able to spend on such projects? I am especially exercised about what will happen to organisations such as the HALO Trust and to action on land mines. There is no doubt that there has been an increase in spending on de-mining. I was reading in the report ``Turning words into action'' by the UK working group on land mines that, between 1991 and 1998, we spent about £35 million on humanitarian de-mining. We are now spending as much as £10 million a year. What is the position regarding de-mining?

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

Is not one of the key issues whether de-mining is helping the poor or the rich? There have been disturbing stories that a great deal of de-mining expertise is diverted away from helping the poor by corruption. For example, people who want to build a hotel will pay to have that part of the land cleared of mines by experts who should be clearing the land of poor peasants.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

My hon. Friend makes a point about which I have no substantive knowledge, but it does not take much to extrapolate from what he says that there are two ways of looking at the issue. It must be a good thing if, by clearing the land, building a hotel and encouraging tourism, the economy is lifted and people are provided with gainful employment and taken out of poverty. However, it certainly would not be a good thing if it meant that an area of hardship was abandoned. We have all seen pictures of what happens as a result of the indiscriminate laying of mines. Indeed, when I was last in the Falkland Islands, I was moved to see that vast areas that are still covered in mines have merely been fenced off and abandoned because it is impossible to remove the mines.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I hesitate to interrupt my hon. Friend again, but I do not want her to miss my obscure point. It seems to me that transparency is required. No one minds if a transparent decision is taken that, in the longer term, the poor will benefit more from the employment possibilities provided by a hotel than they will from de-mining a small peasant farming area. What is worrying is when that decision is not transparent and it is perfectly clear that somebody in the de-mining organisation is taking a back-hander in order to distort the priorities.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Yes, that point was so subtle that I had missed it; my hon. Friend makes it clear. I thank him for providing more detail.

I am conscious that I have been on my feet for some time, but, as I said at the start, a substantial part of the Bill is encompassed by clause 1 and the four amendments, which are of great importance. I move swiftly to amendment No. 4, which is intended to allow the Secretary of State to provide assistance for measures designed to attract foreign direct investment. That is based on the assumption that attracting foreign direct investment and private investment is a major purpose of development aid, because it helps to provide more tax revenue for Government to boost the local economy, to create jobs and to bear the risk if projects fail.

All experience shows that attracting foreign direct investment into developing countries is an essential element of poverty reduction. In chapter 1, page 18, the globalisation White Paper states:

``over the last few decades in reducing the proportion of people living in poverty has been largely the result of economic growth: raising incomes generally, including those of poor people. Economic growth is an indispensable requirement for poverty reduction.''

Taking those words at face value, we suggest that we add that objective to clause 1, to give voice to the Secretary of State's aspirations in the White Paper.

Foreign direct investment by multinational companies in developing countries boosts the local economy, creates jobs and helps to alleviate poverty. Foreign direct investment is far more important in the long term to developing countries than small increases in development aid. Foreign direct investment helps to remove some of the financial risks that Governments of developing countries face when they borrow from banks; companies bear the risk if their investments fail. If investment is successful, the host Government benefits from increased tax revenues and the investor benefits from the resulting profits.

I have seen that process at first hand. I referred to my experience of the former Soviet Union. It is a great pleasure to see how former satellite countries of that state have attracted foreign direct investment, boosted their economies and raised their standards of living. I am sure that we will hear anecdotes from many members of the Committee today, because many are well travelled and will have seen that process for themselves. That is not mind-blowingly new; it is received wisdom shared by all members of the Committee, so I encourage the Minister to consider including it in the Bill.

The Government themselves stress the importance of foreign investment in the globalisation White Paper. It states:

``The attraction of capital inflows is an essential element of a strategy to speed up sustainable development and poverty reduction.''

The document also states:

``A central feature of globalisation has been the substantial increase in movement of capital around the world. Foreign direct investment...to developing countries increased from US$36 billion in 1992 to US$155 billion in 1999, more than three times the level of development aid.''

Think of the contribution that that has made. Attracting foreign direct investment is vital to development.

If the Government have seized a window of opportunity to introduce the Bill, it would be foolish of them not to seize the opportunity to add this provision to it. It would send a signal to private investors that the Government and a future Conservative Government would positively welcome foreign direct investment and private investment in the countries to which we deliver development assistance.

I have taken some time and pains to speak to the four amendments. Notwithstanding the comments of some Labour Members, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon—he has devoted great time and effort to his brief—my hon. Friends in Committee and I genuinely want to boost the Bill. I ask the Minister, in some way, to accept the amendments or acknowledge the issues that I have raised. I do not believe that he dissents from my point of view. I do not ask him to perform a difficult task, and it is not outwith the realms of possibility. The Opposition would bend over backwards to allow him to accede to our requests. In the spirit of co-operation, I ask him to accept our suggestions.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

I was interested to hear the hon. Lady talk about definitions of poverty. I suppose that it is difficult for those of us who have been to developing countries to compare poverty there with poverty in this country. I do not know why she is so puzzled, however. The international financial institutions were clear about which countries to class as highly indebted poor countries, and suggested clear guidelines to define a poor country. The United Nations did the same job for income per head per day. It was a little irrelevant to spend 20 minutes of debate trying to decide what poverty was. What we are talking about is perfectly obvious, even to those of us who, like me, have spent only four years on international development matters.

The Bill is necessary to prevent aid from being used for purposes other than alleviating poverty. We know that the previous Conservative Government were extremely good at diverting aid to other purposes, especially to promote the United Kingdom's trade and manufacturing industry. It is obvious to most hon. Members in my party what the Bill is for, and we welcome it.

The hon. Lady said that the causes of poverty were, to use her word, multifactoral. That goes without saying, so why single out three factors? It is extremely dangerous to do that.

We all want good governance, but it is not difficult to define. Does Uganda have good governance? Some of us who have been there think that Uganda is doing a pretty good job for its people, by alleviating poverty and bringing them into the modern world.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Lady and I visited Uganda together and we both took the view that Uganda was doing a good job. It now appears that good governance is becoming more of an issue in Uganda. Perhaps the Bill should be saying that good governance will always be at the top of the issues that we address. If it starts impacting adversely on development, as appears to be the case, Uganda, which is the example chosen by the hon. Lady, will suffer as a result.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

Uganda is beginning to consider whether it wants to carry on as a no-party state. The reason why it has been so stable for so many years is because political parties have been banned, which may have been a good thing for Uganda for a while. I am uneasy when I think of how many years it has taken us in western Europe to have a semblance of good governance, and how long it has taken to work out what parliamentary democracy means. Some of us still believe that we have not yet worked it out correctly.

We have taken a long time, but we dictate to developing countries, having abandoned them after colonial rule, how they should govern themselves. We should be a little more humble in the face of other methods of governance. It is difficult to say who is doing a good job.

Financial corruption is always mentioned when considering how much aid money and the money earned by a poor country goes towards alleviating poverty and how much goes into the back pockets of dictators. Western politicians could really teach them a thing or two about financial corruption. We know all about it. Organisations such as Transparency International, which the Select Committee met in Bangladesh, try to prevent financial corruption. However, we should be careful when dictating the system of governance of a country. The system has to evolve and it has to suit the specific country. It is extremely difficult to define.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am not sure what the hon. Lady meant when she said that we in the west can teach other countries all about corruption. Notwithstanding current events, this country is relatively corruption-free by anybody's standards. Is the hon. Lady saying that my amendments prescribe a system of governance? That is not the point of them at all. They would give the Secretary of State the liberty to put a system of good governance at the forefront. Without such a system, it would be almost impossible for the general population to lift itself out of poverty and to drive out the forces of corruption. A system of good governance would also lead to the development of the rule of law.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

I was about to say that good governance depends on many other factors that the hon. Lady has not mentioned, such as education, for example. There cannot be good governance without education, so why has no amendment on education been tabled? There cannot be a high level of education in a country unless there is good health care, and that cannot happen unless there is clean water. Where are those amendments?

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Will the hon. Lady give way?

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

No. I shall not give way again. To single out only three factors from all those that contribute to poverty is na—ve in the extreme.

It is a bit rich for the Conservative party to talk about conflict prevention when we consider what went on under the previous Government. Selling arms to Saddam Hussein springs to mind. Was that preventing conflict? What about mines in the Falkland Islands? I remember trouble there during the previous Government's term of office.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Will the hon. Lady give way on that point?

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

No. I get tired of the hypocrisy of the official Opposition. We had 18 years of Conservative Government, and it is now someone else's turn. Let them have a go to see whether they can do better. The Conservative Government made an abysmal mess of the world.

The causes of poverty are multifactoral. Where is an amendment to cover the AIDS epidemic, which is the scourge of developing countries at present, and which will spread to the west if we are not careful? Where is an amendment calling for money to be ploughed into a vaccine for AIDS? What about saying that education is more important than ever in the AIDS epidemic? What about promoting the position of women? We know that educating women does more for the economic progress of a country than any other factor, so where is an amendment to cover that? What about the trade agreements that are skewed against developing countries all the time? I could go on.

Let us not single out three factors that contribute to poverty. If we do that, it looks as if the others are not as important, which is an extremely dangerous thing to do.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I rise to support the amendments, and shall start with amendment No. 1. It is vital that we do not, either intentionally or inadvertently, create problems. For example, a country may make considerable progress, and be within discernible distance of becoming independent of development systems. It would, by definition, not be among the poorest of the poor, so it would be extraordinary to withdraw international assistance just at the point when it was likely to become a success. I hope that the Minister will reassure me that there is nothing in the Bill that will prevent the continuation of a programme of assistance to make a country self-sustaining when it ceases to be among the poorest of the poor.

It is not clear whose poverty we are talking about. Let me give an extreme example of a scholarship for one young man or woman. That would ensure the training required to become immensely successful, thereby reducing the person's poverty, but it might do nothing for the country from which the person came.

I know how the Secretary of State feels about that situation. I think that she goes too far and undermines higher education in countries that desperately need it by her insistence that it is only for the elite. I have seen the university in Rwanda, and believe that it is a mistake that it should be allowed to continue in that state because it is believed that only the elite enjoy such services in a corrupt society. Students are desperate to learn agricultural and other skills. Nevertheless, we need to look carefully at whose poverty we are talking about.

Some of my colleagues on the Select Committee and I went to a Cambodian village. We were taken there by an NGO, which was operating an excellent project, the main thrust of which was to help peasant families with very poor land and too little land to sustain a family to make more of what they had. It came as a rude shock to discover that about 44 per cent. of those living in that village had no land at all. The development assistance was well targeted and effectively implemented not to the poorest of the poor, but to the stratum above. That is an important issue.

We must make it clear that under amendment No. 1, which would insert the words ``directly or indirectly'', indirect assistance would include helping NGOs, but we should be much tougher and insist that they provide evidence that they are giving senior positions to people from the countries concerned. Some NGOs are good at that, but some are not. Some of the countries that shame us with the amount of assistance that they give--for example, some of the Scandinavian countries--are poor at involving indigenous people, and a huge proportion of the aid provided by northern countries to southern countries is returned to their nationals in salaries, and so on. That is an improper use of money and long out of date.

A colleague on a project in Zimbabwe, who was once an ex-pat in Ethiopia, told me that when he was working on a Scandinavian project--it could have been a British project--in Ethiopia, an ex-pat specialist would fly in for a fortnight to provide the benefit of his advice. The Scandinavian ex-pat treated my colleague as if he too were an Ethiopian illiterate who required assistance, when he was an ex-pat working for an NGO because of his own expertise.We must give serious consideration to channelling our aid through people who live in the countries concerned and not just through ex-pats.

I said on Second Reading that we should have an effective accounting mechanism to examine progress. I have no doubt that there is an accounting mechanism. DFID has been good at monitoring whether money is being wasted, so I am sure that that is well accounted for, but how do we determine whether the money is effectively spent? Some client countries of DFID have made nugatory progress over the years. They may be good reasons for that, but is it wise to pump money into countries where very little progress can be demonstrated when the same amount of money given to another country might achieve a great reduction in poverty? Those are difficult issues.

The Bill implies that money should not be ineffectively spent, but should be spent in places where poverty can be reduced. That raises questions, to which I am sure the Minister will refer when he responds, concerning the other pressures on development assistance. In addition to the poor, there is also the question of political and humanitarian pressures. Should one continue to pour money into, say, Nepal, where there is little evidence of serious success, or should one invest in a country for which the statistics are improving sharply, even though to do so would be difficult politically?

Good government is central to, among other things, the new sector-wide approach. As the International Development Committee Chairman powerfully argued, if we do not take care we shall swiftly return to the bad old days of giving money to Governments. Such a newcomer am I to this field that it was not until I visited the World Bank with the Select Committee that I understood the remarkable concept of fungibility, which I now feel as if I have known for my entire life. The idea is simple: if one provides a Government with money to buy, say, a brand new hospital, money is freed up to buy machine guns or fast cars for Cabinet Ministers. In other words, although UK taxpayers' money in theory buys a hospital, it can be argued that in practice it buys six Alfa Romeos.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

While my hon. Friend was temporarily absent from the Room, the hon. Member for Richmond Park said that the Government should not dictate the rating of good governance in countries to which we give aid. However, we must ensure that aid is directed in a manner of which we approve—indeed, that is surely the point of the Bill. We must therefore have some say not in the structure of government in a particular country, but in the way in which the money is spent through good governance. The case of Malawi, to which my hon. Friend alludes, is particularly pertinent, but it is replicated in a dozen different countries.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

There is a balance to be struck. It is vital that we do not try to tell Governments how to run their affairs, but it is reasonable to tell them that British taxpayers expect transparency in the handling of their money.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

The trouble with singling out good governance—which I did not in fact mention—is that it implies that aid should not be distributed to a country that is not governed well. That is a very dangerous concept. In many cases, aid is for the alleviation of poverty, regardless of the Government in question.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

That goes to the heart of the new sector-wide approach. Until now, the programme has by and large been project-based. When implementing such a programme, it is easy to believe that one is directly affecting the lives of those for whom the project was developed, that that is a good thing to do, and that it does not matter terribly what the Government in question are doing while one is providing, say, drinking water or irrigation for a particular cluster of villages. Indeed, that has proved a reassuring way in which to deliver aid. However, as I understand it, the new approach adopted by DFID and the Secretary of State is to say that that is all very well, but at the end of the day it only puts sticking plaster over the situation. They argue that we must engage the Government in the expenditure of our assistance so that their practice improves and they begin to see the leverage that our money can effect on their central programmes.

When that stage is reached there is the serious philosophical problem whether one can continue to deliver aid to a Government who are manifestly non-transparent, incompetent, corrupt and showing few signs of improvement. That is one paradox of moving to a sector-wide approach. During the next 20 years we shall find ourselves soldiering on with a project-based approach in countries where we shall be frightened of abandoning some of the poorest people on earth because their leaders are corrupt.

We must ensure that good governance is delivered from the bottom up and the top down—everybody believes and repeats that like a mantra, but it does not always happen. It is important to assist countries to improve their customs and excise services, to increase their capacity to collect taxes and to stamp out corruption. However, that takes a long time and is vulnerable to shifts in the political climate. In country after country, organisations such as Transparency International have demonstrated that the poor are the main victims of corruption and they want to get rid of it. When we discuss good government, we must ensure that we work with such organisations to strengthen the eradication of corruption at the commune level, which is the bottom level of society.

When I visited a village in Cambodia, I was distressed to find that many peasants had sold their land for ridiculous sums such as $200. A Chinese entrepreneur, who was wondering whether to build a factory, had bought the land. The peasants would have been better off if he had built a factory, but he showed no signs of doing any such thing. I discovered that the head man of the village had probably taken his cut. Good government starts at that level as well as at the top.

Tom Clarke (Labour, Coatbridge and Chryston)

Will the hon. Gentleman develop his thinking on transparency in light of his various visits? When, for example, I visited Uganda with the former leader of the Liberal party, David Steel, we found that the Government were working hard to balance their budget, but 50 per cent. of their revenue was spent servicing debt. They were dealing with the World Bank, which they did not consider to be as transparent as they would have liked. They had several questions about structural adjustment, but as they sought to make progress they felt that they were obtaining less transparency than they wanted from it. Its impositions on structural adjustment made their objectives on issues such as women's education and health more difficult to attain.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I have considerable sympathy with that point. Under Jim Wolfensohn the World Bank has taken great strides towards being more transparent, but it must go further. One benefit of the new World Trade Organisation is that, because it has so many members, it is potentially much more transparent than the Group of Eight, which used to take such decisions on behalf of the rest of the world. The big international organisations should be profoundly transparent. I have great sympathy with the view that Governments, especially if they have reached a level of sophistication whereby they can recognise an organisation's failings, should be listened to when that organisation is restructured. There is still a danger of rich countries taking the de haut en bas attitude that they are responsible for restructuring international organisations. That is not so. There should be an equal partnership between the recipients of the organisation's money and the people who put the money in.

It is tremendously important to remember that good governance cuts both ways. Why are we so backward in this country at controlling international crime? I know that the Government are taking the matter seriously, but we still have not seen the results of that. Money laundering has been in the newspapers again this week. Why is the UK apparently the only developed country that is capable of absorbing the Abacha millions and incapable of freezing the account? That is an important question for the Government to answer.

Democracy worldwide is being undermined by the cost of elections—a phenomenon that is as important in developed countries as it is in developing countries. The other day, I heard that it costs a minimum of $25 million to become an American senator. There is no doubt that that is highly corrupting. The extent of that corruption was well demonstrated during the banana war, when the evidence suggests that one of the driving forces in upsetting the quota arrangements that had protected the Caribbean producers was the large donations that the American banana companies gave to both the main political parties.

In this country, in Germany and in many other countries, the cost of elections is undermining democracy. Yesterday, when I met a group of Members of Parliament at a meeting of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, I explained to them that I had won a CPA fellowship to consider elements of the problem. With one accord, those people from all over the world said that it was an enormously important issue, and several told me that they would like to help. I had thought that I would have difficulty in persuading them to give me any information. Far from it—they were keen to do so. When we say things like, ``It's disgraceful for a Member of Parliament to receive money from a constituent'', they say, ``Get real: we're talking about our having to find election costs that no-one else will bear and none of us can afford—how are we ever going to pay for them? Somebody has to give us the money.''

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Like my hon. Friend, I have been involved in some of the Commonwealth events that are taking place around Commonwealth day, which was yesterday. A huge Commonwealth seminar is taking place in London. On Saturday, in Colchester, I was asked by a parliamentarian from Africa, ``How do you deal with the problem of the constant demands on your purse?'' When I asked him what he meant, he said, ``People come to me and say that they need money to buy a house or for treatment for their sick child, and I have to give it to them because that is how I retain my position as an elected Member.'' The problem cuts both ways. Good governance encompasses major issues in terms of helping countries to move on from appalling situations.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I thank my hon. Friend. She is right. It is important that clause 1 should cover good governance because it is such a central issue. Corruption affects the poor more than the rich. In many countries, land distribution is dominated by a corrupt system. Whatever the rules may be, most countries have no land registration system; even in this country our system is not complete. In other countries, people are constantly made homeless by the rich who pay them a bribe and evict them from the land.

My colleagues on the Select Committee on International Development and I were shocked by evidence from some UK companies that suggested insouciance about paying ``hastening money'' if the climate of the country in which they were operating made that appear to be a sensible approach. I am glad to report that one witness turned on the others and said that he thought that that behaviour was ridiculous: his organisation believed that corruption was corruption. None the less, the situation is worrying. The idea that developed countries are somehow different from developing countries in that respect is nonsense. The rules in developed countries are often effective, but that does not mean that the behaviour of individuals is any better.

The reduction of conflict is essential to sustainable development. It is no coincidence that a high proportion of the poorest nations are either in conflict or emerging therefrom. It may be difficult, but we must give high priority to the rehabilitation of former members of armed forces through a comprehensive programme. It is no good paying off guerrillas or soldiers with a lump sum, thanking them for their services and telling them to go away if they have no job to go to nor land to farm and all they have is the rifle in their hand, because they will revert to terrorising their neighbours so that they can live.

We underestimate the enormously destabilising effect of using children in inappropriate roles—we all need to think hard about that. I was appalled when I visited the genocide museum in Cambodia and was told that it was Pol Pot's policy to use eight to 12-year-olds to torture of adults. The variety, ingenuity and sheer horror of the ways in which children tortured adults makes the work of Hieronymous Bosch look like a kindergarten illustration. It was awful and depressing. When I asked some Cambodians where those now 35-year-olds are today, I was told that they are in the villages. They have never had a chance to think about what they did or talk it through, except in the in the privacy of their own lives. Apparently, violence in the villages is very high, partly as a result of those damaged individuals returning to the countryside.

We have been told about children in Sierra Leone that 10-year-olds who had been cheerfully shooting people cannot now think of anything else to do. NGOs that work with handfuls of those children have stories to tell that would dismay anyone; I am sure that the same is true of the Army of God in Sudan. Within those damaged people lie the seeds of the next conflict. As an international community we need to think hard about how we deal with that appalling, large-scale problem. It will not be easy.

Does the Bill allow the Secretary of State to support mediation efforts by Governments or NGOs? There has been an interesting growth in mediation efforts and projects among NGOs. I have no idea whether those are good, bad or indifferent, but it must, prima facie, be a good thing to get people into a room to talk about their problems, conflicts and difficulties. I am sure that some NGOs are good at that, yet some tell me that it is extraordinarily difficult to obtain financial support for the work. I am somewhat sceptical of the colossal growth of the counselling industry in the UK, which I think might be slightly out of kilter, but to learn that people who give up a great deal of time, effort and resource in trying to broker a peace in Sudan—assuming that they are doing a good job—cannot obtain support for their next conference disturbs me. That is another issue that the amendment raises.

Private and foreign direct investment are important and should be included in the Bill. We should direct attention to not allowing foreign countries and firms to choke the growth of indigenous activity. There is disturbing evidence that if a local entrepreneur, either with the support of development assistance or by some other means, manages to form a successful company, some of the NGOs in the same field behave as they might towards a competitor in the developed world and do quite a lot to squeeze the enterprise out of business. That disgraceful phenomenon must be dealt with.

It is important to give as fair a wind as we can to the welcome growth in this and many other countries of fair trade initiatives. The ability of local producers, manufacturers or small-scale craftsmen to achieve a realistic price for what they make is indispensable to progress. With our well known propensity for buying food as cheaply as possible and allowing the real cost of that policy to be borne by the general taxation budget when we are struck by foot and mouth or some other affliction, we are only too ready—I am as guilty as anyone—to go round the supermarket and, if we spot a cheap jar of coffee, buy it, even though that deprives people whose coffee crop is their only means of sustaining a proper living.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

It will not have escaped anyone's notice that my name is not appended to the amendments. I claim no ownership of them, but I think that they are good amendments which would improve the Bill.

The hon. Member for Richmond Park made an extraordinary speech. Instead of trying to improve the Bill she devoted her speech to attacking the Conservative party. If that is how she feels, perhaps she should be sitting on the other side of the Committee. My question is, where are the Liberal Democrat amendments?

Tom Clarke (Labour, Coatbridge and Chryston)

Will the hon. Gentleman answer a simple question? Does he believe that good governance and pluralism go together?

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Of course they go together, although the circumstances of each country may vary from time to time. The hon. Member for Richmond Park mentioned Uganda, where there is currently no pluralism. In general, we agree that pluralism is important in politics, as it allows for differences. However, the purpose of the Committee is to examine the Bill, not to say ``Gosh, everything in it is marvellous,'' when it is a mere five and a half days since Second Reading and the Bill was printed only recently. The right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke) has a good record on international development. In his heart, he must be slightly embarrassed by the way in which this Bill has been rushed through and by the silence of his fellow Labour Members.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

I have tabled some amendments—

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Very late.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

Indeed, they were, and I apologise for that. However, it is extraordinary that the official Opposition should expect me always to agree with them, especially when they table amendments that do not add to the Bill. In fact, the amendments would detract from the Bill because they highlight matters that should not be given greater importance than others that cause poverty.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

First, the hon. Lady says that she has tabled amendments. However, they were too late, which reinforces my point that the Bill has progressed with unseemly haste. Secondly, she says that our amendments are not perfect, but no Conservative Member would pretend that they are. The purpose of a Committee is to determine how a Bill might be improved. I do not say that the official Opposition are always right; clearly they are not—but nor are the Government.

Mr. Tony McNulty (Harrow, East) indicated dissent.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The Government Whip disagrees, but all Committee members, even those who were elected to Parliament at the last general election, are aware that legislation that is not examined closely and is passed in haste tends to be poor legislation. Surely, that is a reason for discussing the amendments.

May I pick up the hon. Member for Richmond Park on an extraordinary thing that she said about Argentina, or rather the Falkland Islands? I feel involved because I once spent four dull months sitting on the Falkland Islands contemplating the snow. To suggest that the last Conservative Government was responsible for the conflict in the south Atlantic is stretching credulity to astonishing lengths, not least because if one speaks to any honest Argentine, one will find that his countrymen greatly appreciate the fact that the British action in the south Atlantic led to the fall of the extremely corrupt and unpleasant dictatorship of President Galtieri. There is now, for good or ill, a democratic Government in Argentina. Indeed, the whole of southern and Latin America appreciates the fact that the British stood up to a dictatorship. Whether the islands should be called the Falklands or Las Malvinas is another matter. Our action reinforced freedom—

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. The hon. Gentleman is beginning to stray.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

My apologies, Mr. Butterfill. I care deeply about the issue, not least because one of my friends was killed out there, but I shall now address the amendments in detail.

In the debate of 6 March, the Secretary of State said:

``The flexibility of our current arrangements makes the United Kingdom one of the most effective development organisations in the world.'' —[Official Report, 6 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 167.]

I agree with her on that, as on many other issues. Her comment begs the question, if flexibility is so effective, why do we need the Bill? However, I shall not stray on to that because we are discussing amendments, and it is flexibility that the amendments are designed to create. I am sure that the Minister will say that the amendments will make the Bill less flexible rather than more so, but it is important to understand that we must not hamstring the Government or the next Conservative Government. It has been said that the Bill is designed to bind the next Administration, whomsoever they may be, but no Parliament may bind its successors, and there may be further legislation.

My first point, which was also made on Second Reading, relates to judicial review. It is not a simple point. The Secretary of State said that she had had advice that there would be no judicial review, but, regrettably, during the past 15 or 20 years, judicial review has really taken off and the Government are perpetually being judicially reviewed—the previous Government and the current ones have both been subjected to that process. That is a serious matter, but the amendments may give the Government greater flexibility. The words ``directly or indirectly'' which amendment No. 1 would add would allow the Government broader scope.

My second point relates to good governance, which has been discussed at some length. It is ridiculous to suggest that good governance should not be a priority; it must be at the heart of development and of a sector-wide approach, as my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) said. I cannot quote the Secretary of State's words on that subject, but I am almost sure that in evidence to the Select Committee she said that good governance is at the heart of good development.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

As a member of the Select Committee on International Development, can the hon. Gentleman honestly say that good governance is more important than education? Are they not of equal importance?

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

My answer is no. To develop that answer slightly, without good governance, the chances of getting good education diminish.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

I have to take the point a little further. If we do not have education, we have neither people who are equipped to govern, nor people who are capable of sensibly choosing others to govern them.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

As I was trying to explain, the Select Committee is just completing an inquiry into the question of corruption—good governance and corruption are one and the same, to a large extent. We heard evidence on Nigeria, for example. Nigeria, God wot, is a rich country with tremendous resources of oil and the like, but development in Nigeria has gone down the plughole during the past 15 years or thereabouts—I cannot quite remember in which year Abacha came to power—because all the resources of the country, far from being devoted to good education, health, or other worthy ends, went straight into the pockets of the military and Abacha. That is why good governance is so central to good educational and health policy.

When discussing governance, many people have told us that it is the poor who suffer most from corruption: they suffer when they cannot get their child into school, or when they have to buy a place in hospital that should be free; they are the ones who fall into debt, with all the ghastly implications that that has for their families. That is why the Government place such store on public sector reform—a point that the Secretary of State developed at great length when she came before the Select Committee during our inquiry into corruption and gave us some most reassuring evidence. I have to say that I do not have much problem with the Government's international development policy—the Minister and his Parliamentary Private Secretary know that, because we have discussed it.

Public sector reform means that policemen get paid enough, so that they do not put up a road block and fine every poor peasant who goes down the road to market to try to make some money a sum equal to the entire profit that he would have made during the day. That is fundamental and it ties in with security reform, which the Secretary of State mentioned. Security sector reform encompasses police and army and addresses the problem of too many guns on the streets, which my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham mentioned.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I remember immediately after the wall came down that western executives in Moscow who were working to bring new companies into Russia would regularly have their cars stopped by the police. Initially one would have to have 10 roubles ready, and later 100 roubles. The problem escalated to the point where two police cars would move up behind any car that carried foreign number plates. Such practices cause great concern to right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the Committee.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

It is neither here nor there in terms of my long-term life plan if someone comes up to me and suggests that I might like to give him $10, but to someone who earns $20 a month, that suggestion represents half the household's food going down the plughole. The point is that it is the poor who suffer from poor governance.

During its investigations, the International Development Committee met various business people. The Secretary of State spoke on Wednesday, at column 166, of the need to expand economies and attract inward investment. The Select Committee has been told by large companies—some of which, I regret to say, pay so-called facilitating payments, which are small bribes—that the biggest disincentive to inward investment in a developing country is poor rule of law, which is the same as bad governance, because it means paying bribes to get anywhere. Companies do not like paying bribes. Theirs is not merely a moral objection; it is also that the bribes come out of their balance sheets.

I want good governance to be referred to in the Bill because it is at the heart of good development. We hear that message time and again. An organisation called CIET—which seems to change its name depending on where it is operating; some Select Committee colleagues may be able to remind me of its title—is an NGO that asks for the opinion of local people. Instead of asking a country's Government or its so-called opinion formers what they think about an issue, it asks people in villages or the users of services what they think. It is similar to a focus group, which will strike more of a chord with people in this place—a focus group for developing countries, where there are not so many of them. Time and again, CIET finds that when asked what most worries them, local people reply that it is having to pay for services that should be provided free.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

There is an interesting comment to be made on the obverse. When in Vietnam, we asked about the biggest difference that clean irrigation water had made to a village. The unexpected response was that people paid their water dues, which they had not done before. That shows another aspect of good governance: once the way in which things work is transparent and people see a clear benefit, they do not mind paying.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for pointing that out, because it reminds me of what we have seen around the world. The hon. Member for Richmond Park did not come with the Select Committee to Pakistan. While we were there, the electricity system did not work, because no one pays electricity bills. It is cheaper to bribe the electricity company's man so as not to have to pay the bill, than to pay it.

As for grand larceny or grand corruption, I take issue with some of what has been said. Of course it is not for us to dictate a country's Government, or method or structures of government, provided that the people there have the freedom to choose those things. However, if a country wants its development to be supported by us, it is up to us to ensure that that development is transparent, honest and to the good of the poor.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

In speaking about corruption, the hon. Gentleman puts tremendous emphasis on good governance. That is extremely important, but other factors are equally important. Does he believe that we and the international community could take action to prevent corruption? It is not necessarily a matter of the bad governance of the countries concerned, but of our banks' money-laundering and bribery, with laws not being enforced and so on.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Lady and I have agreed about so many things in the past so I am glad to say that I agree with her now about money laundering and the behaviour of the banks, to which my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent also referred. Homing in on grand corruption—perhaps a corrupt Government taking money from the inward investment made by an oil company—I recall a meeting that the Select Committee had in 1998, which my hon. Friend and I attended, with the Finance Minister of Kenya. That country has serious problems regarding good governance, if I can put it that way.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

That is a very reasonable way to put it.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I thought so. The Finance Minister was outspoken, not being an ally of the President. I cannot remember his name, but as he has probably been dismissed, he probably will not mind me quoting him. We were breakfasting with him—in fact, we did not have breakfast, but it was breakfast time. The Finance Minister—Kenya's equivalent to our Chancellor—said, ``Don't give us more money. Ask us what we have done with the money that you have already given us.'' He was an honest and decent politician.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

The hon. Gentleman must agree that the problems were as much the fault of the International Monetary Fund as of the Kenyan Government.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

No, I do not agree that the misspending or pocketing of the money that had been given to that Government was the fault of an international organisation. I accept that the controls might have been lax, but someone was putting the money in his pocket and we should all deprecate that. The cold war provided encouragement to poor governance because both sides in the cold war supported regimes that we would not support now for reasons of geopolitics or realpolitik. I shall not continue in that vein, however; we have been rather distracted by interventions.

Amendment No. 3 deals with conflict, another issue on which the Select Committee has published a report. If one were to name a country of grinding poverty, one would almost be able to point to a war, because where there is conflict, there is grinding poverty. When money is spent on arms, people are killed or dispersed. It has happened in southern Sudan, in which the hon. Member for Richmond Park takes an interest; it has happened in the Congo, in which the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow takes an interest; it has happened in Burundi, Rwanda, Uganda and many other places, including Cambodia, which the Select Committee has just visited. Conflict causes enormous problems and grinding poverty follows in its wake. Conflict creates orphans and disabled people; it destroys infrastructure, which leads to an absence of economic growth. We must concentrate on conflict, and I look forward to the Minister's response on whether it should be included in the Bill. I am not the author of the amendments, but it is a fundamental point.

I am a member of the HALO Trust, not because I get paid, but because it is an interest of mine. The Department for International Development, and the Overseas Development Agency before it, have been immensely helpful to the trust in its work of landmine clearance. The landmines that remain have a fundamental effect on the poor people who have to live with them—those who have lost their legs, or the family breadwinners who cannot till their land because they do not want their legs blown off. Conflict has caused that problem, which is why I want the Minister to say what the Bill can do, if anything, to tackle conflict. The Government have an honourable record on the matter and I want to see it continue.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Is it not also important that the Minister reassures us that nothing in the Bill will prevent the Secretary of State or her successor from continuing with programmes that are a vital part of our aid but do not fall directly within the definition of efforts to reduce poverty? That is why we have tabled the amendments, which I hope are helpful: they might protect the Secretary of State from challenges to her authority to continue expenditure on those vital programmes.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. That is exactly what I was about to say. Does one define the clearance of anti-personnel mines as poverty reduction? It is difficult to say that one can in the baldest terms, although it is possible in the broadest terms. I do not think that anyone is especially likely to make the Government subject to judicial review on that issue, but it could happen. The strangest things happen, as we have seen in the courts recently and in the more distant past. I want a Bill that prevents restrictions being placed on the good work of the Department for International Development.

Ian Davidson (Labour/Co-operative, Glasgow Pollok)

Speaking of the reduction of conflict and the potential for conflict, does the hon. Gentleman accept that the amendment, if accepted, could easily be used to justify arms sales? It could be argued that the potential for conflict is often owed to an imbalance in armaments between two sides. To help the side that was less well armed would reduce the potential for conflict, which could result in an escalating arms race. Some countries with which we co-operate, including those in the European Union, are less scrupulous than we are about arms sales to the third world. They could use the provision to justify their actions and argue that some of our money should be used for that purpose as well.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I do not accept that point, although it is serious and needs to be hoist aboard. I do not think that the amendment is perfect, but it raises an important issue. I generally applaud the decision to untie aid from trade, but some of our European partners are less scrupulous than us in that respect. The arms for Iraq scandal sprung up because a company was shipping out the supergun; it was not meant to be done with the then Government's connivance—the whole incident was extremely confused and came to nothing in the end. I agree in part with the hon. Gentleman, as it is important that we do not supply arms in a bid to reduce conflict. I do not think that we can reduce it by doing so, although there is sometimes a good diplomatic reason to assist one side in a struggle, as two sides are not always equal.

In connection with amendment No. 4, I shall again quote the Secretary of State. She said:

``When we say that poverty reduction is our main objective, it should be borne in mind that that means helping countries to create modern and efficient states that will enable their economies to grow and ensure that good-quality services can be provided to all their people.''—[Official Report, 6 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 162.]

The right hon. Lady also spoke of the need for inward investment. I am not sure that provisions in that respect should be in the Bill, but she mentioned the fact that overseas development aid can do only so much. Economic growth will do more for the poor and ODA can help. If we want it to do so, we should say so more explicitly—

It being One o'clock, THE CHAIRMAN adjourned the Committee without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned till this day at half-past Four o'clock.

Standing Committee B

Clause 1 - Development Assistance

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

I remind the Committee that with this we are taking the following amendments: No. 2, in page 1, line 16, at end insert

`or—

(c) promoting good governance in one or more such countries'.

No. 3, in page 1, line 16, at end insert

`or—

(d) reducing conflict or the potential for conflict in one or more such countries'.

No. 4, in page 1, line 16, at end insert

`or—

(e) putting in place the framework necessary to attract private and foreign direct investment in one or more such countries'.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

When we broke for lunch, I was about to conclude my introductory remarks. I had yet to deal with the substance of the amendments, but I shall not speak for much longer.

The amendments are designed with the genuine aim of ensuring that the Department for International Development is able to continue to do the things that it wants to do. This morning, I pointed out that the Secretary of State has said that she has the flexibility to do what she wants to do. My concern is that the Bill might change the rules in such a way as to remove that flexibility. In my view, clause 1 is restrictive. I hope that the Minister will answer the points that I have made.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

Clause 1 sets out the Bill's core provisions, which enable the Secretary of State to give aid if she is satisfied that it is likely to lead to a reduction in poverty. The Government have deliberately left the Secretary of State's discretion as wide as possible, provided that it meets certain purposes.

The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) asked why the Bill is necessary—a point that was answered by the hon. Member for Richmond Park (Dr. Tonge), as well as on Second Reading. The Bill is necessary to prevent a future Government from tying aid without justifying such a change to Parliament. In future, there will be no more Pergau dams, no aid linked to arms sales, no connection between aid and trade. Our aid programme is no longer a tool of foreign policy, still less of trade policy and, in a nutshell, that is how we want matters to remain. Any future Government who want to change that policy will have to justify themselves to Parliament.

Subsection (1) requires that the Secretary of State be satisfied that

``the provision of assistance is likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty.''

Amendment No. 1 is designed to ensure that any such contribution, whether direct or indirect, is capable of satisfying the Secretary of State. That is unnecessary and undesirable. Under the clause as drafted, the Secretary of State can provide development assistance if it is likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty. We do not specify whether that contribution must be direct or indirect, but it is clear that there must be a demonstrable link between the giving of assistance and a contribution to a reduction in poverty. To make a point of saying that a contribution can be indirect would enable the Secretary of State to be satisfied even where the extent of the contribution is accidental or a mere knock-on effect. That would introduce a loophole, and I am sure that that is not the intention of the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham.

On Second Reading, the hon. Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) assured the House that a Conservative Government would not reintroduce the aid for trade scheme, but I am advised that accepting amendment No. 1 would make such schemes lawful. The hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham will correct me if I am wrong, but I do not think that that is her intention. If we are all agreed—as I believed we were—that poverty reduction must be the focus of all future assistance, it makes no sense whatever to compromise a statutory provision that guarantees that focus. I therefore ask that amendment No. 1 be withdrawn.

Amendments Nos. 2 to 4 would add three purposes to development assistance: good governance, conflict reduction and the promotion of private and foreign direct investment. As many hon. Members have noted, those areas are vital to development. Sustainable reduction in poverty requires good government, a lack of corruption, the absence of conflict, private sector growth and foreign direct investment. The Department is heavily engaged in all those areas. The amendments are simply not necessary.

The Bill is drafted to ensure that the Secretary of State can support activities that strengthen governance, reduce corruption, tackle the causes and consequences of conflict and promote private sector growth and foreign investment in developing countries. We are clear that that support is possible within the context of the two purposes of sustainable development and welfare under the overarching poverty reduction requirement.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I am not sure at what stage in the Minister's speech he will reach my point, but I am keen that he addresses it. It is important that aid should not be withdrawn from a country that is no longer a client simply on the basis that it is no longer among the poorest of the poor. I hope that his remarks about the scope of the clause mean that if a serious international effort has been made to assist a country and it is close to taking off on its own, aid will not be withdrawn.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

If the state of a country is improving and poverty is decreasing, it is likely that aid to that country will be withdrawn gradually. I am sure that that is what happens at the moment and that it will continue. There is no question of building a country up and suddenly pulling the plug.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The Minister says that aid will be withdrawn gradually. However, as soon as the Bill is enacted, certain projects that are currently supported by the Department will fall outside its provisions. Can he give us an assurance that every funded project will fall within the parameters of the Bill?

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I assure the hon. Lady that and the Bill is entirely consistent with the Department's philosophy and its work. I cannot speak for every project because to do so would be foolish.

The intention of the Bill is to entrench the change in philosophy that has occurred over the past three or four years, to which we believe that all parties and many non-governmental organisations and others are signed up. The support offered by Opposition Members can continue in harmony with the wording of the Bill as it stands. Further specific purposes are unnecessary and could create confusion when we are aiming for clarity.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

What the Minister has just told me worries me greatly. It is entirely in conflict with what the Secretary of State said on 6 March. When asked by my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon about drugs and drug trafficking, she replied that

``the large amount of money that could be spent on preventing drugs from flowing across the world—desirable as that is—would not come within development budget funding.''—[Official Report, 6 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 173.]

I am worried because there must be projects currently funded by DFID—for example, some Customs and Excise projects—that aim to prevent drugs from flowing across the world. The Secretary of State has distinctly said that those projects will no longer fall within the parameters of her Department when the Bill is enacted. Does not that completely contradict what the Minister just told the Committee?

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

With respect, no it does not. The hon. Lady quoted my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State out of context. The whole paragraph reads:

``When people grow drugs because they have no other livelihood, supporting them so that they can have other livelihoods and a better, legitimate life is a proper part of development assistance spending. However, the large amounts of money that could be spent on preventing drugs from flowing across the world—desirable as that is—would not come within development budget funding.''—[Official Report, 6 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 173.]

My right hon. Friend was saying that if spending is linked to the reduction of poverty and the aims set out at the beginning of the Bill, that is fine, but the Department does not exist to deal with drugs alone—it does so only where doing so meets the wider purposes of reducing poverty and creating sustainable development. I assure the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham that all current DFID-supported drugs projects will be consistent with the Bill. In the extract that she quoted, the Secretary of State was not referring to DFID projects, but to projects that are not funded by DFID. The hon. Lady therefore has no cause to worry. The short answer to her question about whether all the projects will continue after the Bill is enacted is yes.

On Second Reading, several hon. Members made the point that we should not define the boundary between what the Secretary of State can and cannot support. The Bill imposes no constraints on the types of activities that the Secretary of State can support—indeed, it increases the range of instruments that are available to her. Rather, it imposes a constraint on the purposes for which the assistance can be provided. With the exception of assistance to the overseas territories and in cases of disaster or other emergency, assistance can be provided only if it is likely to contribute to the reduction of poverty by furthering sustainable development or promoting the welfare of the people. In other words, the Bill will enable a wider range of activities in pursuit of a more focused purpose. That distinction between activities and purpose is crucial.

Let me offer one example of how the boundaries of the Bill will be defined. After 10 years of civil conflict, Sierra Leone is by some definitions the poorest country in the world. We are all aware of the horrendous situation there. Poverty breeds the discontent that perpetuates the violence. Our current strategy is to end that vicious circle by promoting security, giving substantial support to the police, helping to civilianise and make accountable the country's ministry of defence and helping to reintegrate ex-combatants from all sides who wish to return to civilian life. We provide budgetary support to help to meet the direct costs of running the country and delivering Government services. We also seek to strengthen governance by supporting the newly-created anti-corruption commission, reforming the judiciary and helping the Government to prepare for the elections that are due next year. Under the Bill, the Secretary of State will be able to continue to support all those interventions because they are all aimed at reducing poverty, either by furthering sustainable development, or by promoting the welfare of the people.

The amendments are not only unnecessary, but potentially damaging. On the principle that nothing in legislation should be said if it is unnecessary to say it, every additional purpose stated in the clause would cast doubt on the breadth of the two core purposes. If support for good governance is not, as we believe it is, implicit in action to further sustainable development and to improve welfare, what do the two core purposes cover? As the hon. Member for Richmond Park rightly asked, why stop at good governance?

DIFD is in the process of producing a series of strategy papers identifying action that developing countries and international communities need to take in nine areas to help to achieve development targets. These papers include not only good governance, but the empowerment of women, human rights and the environment. Why should governance be elevated rather than those other issues?

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I wish that I had in front of me some of the evidence that the Secretary of State has given to the Select Committee on International Development. I am sure that the evidence states that from good governance comes the ability better to tackle all those problems. I am making a genuine point.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

It is a perfectly reasonable point, but I have said that nothing in the Bill as drafted will affect our ability to assist good governance.

The amendments would be damaging in another way. The setting up of specific additional purposes for development assistance would be a statement that they do not have to comply with the requirement to further sustainable development or improve the welfare of the people. If we were to admit that such purposes were desirable for their own sake, we would be undermining the principle that underpins the Bill and our policy on development assistance.

For example, amendment No. 3, which relates to conflict reduction, would have an effect that I am sure was not intended. To insert the words

``reducing conflict or the potential for conflict''

as a purpose for development assistance would allow the Secretary of State to support such activities without any consideration for the welfare of the population of the country. That would allow development assistance to be used to shore up undemocratic regimes and possibly to suppress human rights. As drafted, the Bill allows assistance to promote the welfare of the population, which we believe must encompass conflict resolution, but with proper regard for the interests of the people. There is no need and no place for a power of assistance that does not recognise those interests.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

For the first time in all the years that I have listened to the Minister, I have not the faintest idea what he is talking about. [Laughter.] It seems to me that he is saying that the Bill does not need to be amended because everything that the Secretary of State wants is already in the Bill, and that adding any form of explicit example would instantly put her at risk of behaving extremely badly. I do not understand the logic of that argument.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I am not saying that. In my inadequate way, I am trying to make the point that was made so well by the hon. Member for Richmond Park this morning. I do not resile from anything that the hon. Member for Blaby (Mr. Robathan) was saying about the need to deal with conflict resolution and good governance, but one could add to the list indefinitely—the treatment of women and education were mentioned.

The Bill's primary purpose is to deal with the reduction of poverty. It is not about the reduction of conflict: even though that can be related to the reduction of poverty and the sustainable development of the welfare of the people, it cannot be an end in itself. We could become involved in trying to reduce conflicts that would not necessarily help the welfare of the people.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The Minister will not be surprised that I do not share the mutual admiration between his party and the Liberal Democrats. Although I usually get on extremely well with the hon. Member for Richmond Park and agree with her on many issues, I do not think that she made her point well this morning.

To return to the substance of the Minister's argument, which is a perfectly good one, I accept that by adding things we may undermine the Bill, but that is not our intention. His argument is reasonable, but he is spoiling it by suggesting that the Secretary of State will give arms to undemocratic organisations. As we have said, that is exactly what we do not want to happen. The drafting of the amendment might be incorrect because the Opposition do not have hordes of draftsmen available to provide assistance, but the Minister is undermining his argument, which was a good one until he got on to such dubious ground.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

If that is a problem, I shall move on to matters that are not.

The hon. Gentleman said that my argument for not diluting the core purpose of the Bill was a good one. That is the Government's key argument, plus the fact that on several occasions I have been able to give Opposition Members the assurance they wanted that just about all the projects in which we are currently engaged would be permitted under the Bill. I understand why hon. Members have asked that question and I have given an assurance in that respect.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

If ``just about all'' the projects currently receiving support from the Department for International Development would be covered, which ones would not be permitted under the Bill?

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

Okay, let me row the boat out further and say that all the projects currently covered would be permitted. If the hon. Lady can suggest some that might not be covered, we shall consider them, but we are confident that the Bill covers everything that she and I want it to cover.

To conclude, there are risks in adding lots of new purposes and we should not take such risks, so I request that the amendment be withdrawn.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The Minister has made a valiant attempt to read out the brief prepared by his officials. I have great sympathy with my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent because I, too, thought at one stage that the Minister was losing his grip on reality. To suggest we want our amendments to this important and substantial clause to allow our overseas development aid to fall into the wrong hands, such as those of a violent regime, is preposterous.

I am disappointed with the Minister's response, not least because he chose to dismiss a genuine attempt by the Opposition to improve the Bill. He has not seen fit to accept or even to consider the amendments or some other way of incorporating their spirit into the Bill.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

With all due respect, the spirit of what the hon. Lady wants to achieve is incorporated in the Bill. That is my argument.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Perhaps the Minister will let me finish. If he has no intention of changing a word of the Bill because he is satisfied with every part of it--even though we have only just started to discuss the first group of amendments--it seems pointless to continue. It is rather sad that he should suggest that the Opposition want to achieve a specific purpose when it is obvious from our amendments and our speeches that that is not our intention.

I am pleased with the Minister's assurances that he believes that nothing that the Department is currently doing will be outlawed by the Bill, but that begs another question--why is the Bill necessary? If everything that the Department is doing is covered by the Bill, it seems otiose.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The Secretary of State said in the House:

``The flexibility of our current arrangements makes the United Kingdom one of the most effective development organisations in the world.''--[Official Report, 6 March 2001; Vol. 364, c. 167.]

I emphasise the word ``current''.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

That is a helpful intervention, because it reiterates the question why has the Bill been introduced if current policy is already in line with its provisions? Yet another piece of legislation is being hurriedly put on the statute book at this late stage in the parliamentary timetable.

The Minister's remarks about amendment No. 1 are inaccurate. The amendment is an attempt to ensure that if an activity were perceived objectively to be peripheral to poverty reduction but would in fact reduce poverty, the wording of the legislation would safeguard the Secretary of State.

Amendment No. 2 relates to good governance, which is one of the key planks of our policy. I had thought that it was also one of the key planks of the Government's policy. It is clearly necessary to establish a commitment to good governance on the face of the Bill. Why does the focus on the reduction of poverty make it unnecessary to put good governance on the face of the Bill? The Government have adopted a pick-and-mix attitude and their rhetoric does not match the reality of the Bill. I am disappointed that there has been no give or take on that point.

I know that I am not isolated in my view because the Minister referred to non-governmental organisations and other interested parties which have contributed to the development of aid policy not only under this Government, but under the previous Government. There is a strong feeling that good governance should be on the face of the Bill.

The Minister disingenuously suggested that amendment No. 3 would enable the propping up of regimes. If the amendment has unintended consequences, I should be happy if he were to reconsider its drafting. As we explained, it is only thanks to the good offices of the Clerk of the Committee that we have been able to draft our amendments.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I did not suggest that the hon. Lady had tabled the amendment to prop up unsavoury regimes. I merely suggested that that was a possible outcome if the amendment were accepted. I did not impugn the motives of Opposition Members.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification. I did not think that he meant that; none the less, his comments implied a lack of forethought on our part.

I would like some assurances from the Minister. Can he assure me that funding for something like the Patrol Task (North) guard ship, which I mentioned earlier, would be included? I want assurances that military trainers, election observers, education programmes on democracy building and police projects all fall within the ambit of the Bill. What would happen if such projects were deemed not to contribute to poverty reduction in a certain country and other Departments were unwilling to spend money on them even though they complimented other direct programmes to reduce poverty?

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

The matters that the hon. Lady lists would have to be matched against the core purposes of the Bill and judged on whether they were likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty, whether they would further sustainable development and whether they would help to improve the welfare of the population. As I have said, the criteria can and would be interpreted fairly broadly. I gave the example of Sierra Leone, where some of the interventions that she wants have been justified. However, any suggestions for current and future aid would have to be matched against the core principles.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I understand that. I thank the Minister for that clarification, but I am seeking clarification so that organisations have some point of reference on matters of interpretation, which are largely subjective. Under the Bill as drafted, that is entirely within the gift of the Secretary of State. One Secretary of State may think that a project is apposite; another may not. By trying to tease out an interpretation from the Minister in Committee, I am hoping to clarify the situation for outside organisations that want to know what is in the Secretary of State's mind and what is behind the Bill. I am afraid that I will not have received such comfort, unless the Minister goes into further detail about the sort of projects that may or may not be covered by the Bill.

I was pleased to hear the Minister's outline of which projects in Sierra Leone that are currently being funded by the Secretary of State and the Department he feels will fall within the Bill's ambit. However, would those same projects apply to Zimbabwe, for example? Is Zimbabwe a country where the people are poor? Is there a reduction in poverty criterion that would fit all those projects? Can the projects listed by the Minister be applied to whatever country? What is the difference between Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe? For example, there is a huge disparity in life expectancy between the two countries. People in Zimbabwe can expect to live much longer than people in Sierra Leone. Where do we draw the line? How do we compare country with country, like with like, individual with individual? That is what I have been trying to get at, and I am not getting the response that I seek from the Minister.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

There are varying degrees of prosperity and poverty in various countries. Although, I am glad to say, the situation in Zimbabwe is nowhere near as dire as that in Sierra Leone, there are certainly plenty of poor and desperate people in Zimbabwe who would benefit from our assistance. Of course, that presumes that the Government are interested in having our assistance, and having received it are willing to make proper use of it. Those criteria must also be taken into account. The key will always be that set out in clause 1. When anyone suggests a project—sending a gunboat or whatever the hon. Lady was suggesting—we would have to see whether it would meet those criteria. They may meet other criteria, in which another Department called the Ministry of Defence would have to foot the bill.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am grateful.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

My hon. Friend happened to use Zimbabwe as an example. It may be of interest to her and to the Minister to know that at least one project in Zimbabwe is effectively being destroyed by the action of Zimbabwe's Government. They are allowing war veterans to destroy the local infrastructure in parts of the country that do not happen to vote for the ruling party. That sort of example raises all sorts of difficulties? How can we continue to provide assistance to a country that is undermining projects, regardless of how badly the poorest people in that country need those projects?

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

My hon. Friend takes the words out of my mouth. I shall give way to the Minister if he has a response to that intervention.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

That is a perfectly sensible, reasonable point, and one of the judgments that we must make is whether, in the projects that we fund in countries such as Zimbabwe—there are other examples in which regimes suddenly turn extremely nasty—we can achieve our objectives despite the Government. Some projects are what we might call people-to-people projects that bypass the Government somehow, in which case they can probably still be justified; but where they depend on the good will of the Government and that is clearly missing, we must consider withdrawing. That must be done on a case-by-case basis, exercising common sense, as well as taking into account the criteria in the Bill. I do not think that there is any difference between us on that.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am grateful to the Minister for that, but we will have to return to the matter. We will be able to consider the impact of the Bill on specific current situations when we debate other amendments.

We have had a lengthy but valuable debate. It worried me that the Minister failed to comment on amendment No. 4, which relates to attracting private and foreign direct investment in one or more countries.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I mentioned it.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The Minister mentioned it briefly in passing, but that was a derisory recognition of the purpose of amendment No. 4.

The Minister asked me to withdraw the amendments, but they deal with a lacuna in the Bill. With some effort and co-operation from the Government, we could have reached a better position and included in the Bill some protection for good governance and certain projects. We could also have secured some protection for the Secretary of State, who, in many ways, is restricting her own powers, albeit for the best possible purposes. Therefore, I cannot accede to the Minister's request to withdraw amendment No. 1 and must press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 13.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I beg to move amendment No. 5, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

`(4) The Secretary of State shall publish an annual report on the performance of the development assistance programme against stated poverty reduction targets, and shall lay a copy of the report before Parliament.'.

The Secretary of State and the Minister should be thrilled to pieces that we have tabled amendment No. 5. I hope that it will do everything that they desire. The purpose of the amendment—

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Is to be helpful.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Indeed. As my hon. Friend says, we mean to be helpful. I hope that the amendment will not be rejected out of hand as was the first group of amendments. The purpose of the amendment is to link more closely the activities of the Government with clearly defined and measurable targets. The Government currently publish their public service agreement and progress towards achievement, but that is often too vague, with not enough evidence to back the claims. The projections have sometimes lacked accuracy. I also hope that it will give the Secretary of State a platform for the annual debate that she wishes to have on development matters. Indeed, we all wish for such a debate, although the usual channels and the Minister's and the Secretary of State's friends in Government obviously do not wish for an annual debate on that topic.

To find out exactly what had been promised before the election, I turned to the ``Road to the Manifesto'' document, ``A fresh start for Britain: Labour's strategy for Britain in the modern world''. It stated:

``Labour will introduce regular reporting to Parliament on the role of the UK in the World Bank and the IMF (including the voting record of the Executive Directors); a statement of the Government's objectives for the forthcoming year; regular debates in Parliament on these reports''.

To me, ``regular debates'' certainly means more than one debate every four years, as I think it does to the Secretary of State. I hope that she and the Minister will use the amendment to secure an annual debate.

The World Bank, in its paper ``Understanding and Responding to Poverty'', said:

``To know what helps to alleviate poverty, what works and what does not, what changes over time, poverty has to be defined, measured, and studied''.

I can see nothing in the Bill to define poverty or to demonstrate how progress will be reported or measured. That is a significant omission.

On western donors, the United Nations Development Programme document, ``Poverty Report 2000'', states that

``the great majority of the agencies lack monitoring assistance to hold themselves accountable to their declared poverty objectives. They can present no convincing evidence on how their interventions have benefited the poor.''

That is an extremely important statement, which I hope the Minister understands. We are concerned that there is nothing in the Bill requiring the Government to outline their progress towards meeting those targets, or for the effective measurement of such progress.

If there is little evidence and accountability on the use of aid money, and no effective measure of its success, the Bill's poverty reduction focus could prove to be little more than a paper tiger. For instance, DFID's public service agreement targets for 1999-2002, set out by the Government in the annual report of 2000, appeared to be a way to hold DFID accountable through some clearly defined and measurable targets. Unfortunately, they have not been successful. For example, sufficient data on primary school enrolment could not be found, and targets for reducing maternal mortality were not met. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon referred to much of that information on Second Reading.

The globalisation White Paper showed that not enough progress was made on any of the key 2015 international development targets. According to the document, the Department's primary school enrolment figures

``have not risen fast enough'',

and that, in relation to the elimination of gender disparity by 2005,

``girls' enrolments remain persistently behind those of boys''.

On the reduction of infant mortality, it states that

``the fall is not enough to meet the target''.

Also, progress towards reducing maternal mortality is well off course.

I know that the matter concerns the hon. Member for Richmond Park. We have not yet been able to find common cause on the Bill, but I hope that I shall find common cause with her on this issue, because she feels strongly about it, as we all should.

Those descriptions are different from DFID's description of its PSA targets, which were: for primary enrolment, ``no new data''; eliminating gender disparity, ``on course''; reducing infant mortality, ``on course''; and maternal mortality, ``only modest progress''. There is a lack of honesty about the aid targets, and a lack of fair and accurate measures of the results. What we are calling for, which we hope to facilitate by the amendment, is an annual report to measure progress towards those aims. That is not something with which the Minister can quarrel.

If the wording of our amendment is not up to the Minister's high standards, we are willing to withdraw it on the basis that it can be redrafted as a Government amendment, which we shall be pleased to support. There are many examples of core targets, although there is inadequate evidence of them. DIFD has set the target that 70 per cent. of projects should meet the Department's objectives. However, the small print says that few of the projects have been completed. Current targets do not seem to take sustainable development into account. Projects rated as officially successful by the Department can turn out to be unsuccessful. For example, in a written answer on 20 June 2000, the Secretary of State said:

``A formal review of the Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) Organisational Development Project in October 1999 showed that it was successful in contributing to DFID's objectives as set out in the Public Service Agreement.''

Fine so far, but she continued:

``The review concluded that the project was enabling organisational change to take place in ZRP to the benefit of the people of Zimbabwe, including the poorest.''

However—this is not dissimilar to the point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent—she said:

``Since February the ZRP has not enforced the law or upheld their own charter in relation to the attacks on the opposition and the land invasions.''—[Official Report, 20 June 2000; Vol. 352, c. 123W.]

So, if a project does not ultimately satisfy the twin tracks of sustainable development and poverty reduction—the core of the Bill, as it has been described by the Minister—what are we to do? What will be the outcome? If a project does not satisfy the Bill's objectives, what sanctions are there? Is the Secretary of State to be clapped in irons? I think not.

The Bill calls for sustainable development to be one of the major focuses of the aid budget. Surely the only way in which one can tell whether a project or programme has been sustainable is to measure it not once, but several times, and several years after completion. That can be the only true measure of sustainability as we understand it. I hope that the Minister is now starting to see the reason behind the amendment, and beginning to feel that he may be able to accept it.

Tom Clarke (Labour, Coatbridge and Chryston)

I am sorry if I anticipate the hon. Lady, but the amendment proposes the publication of a report. No doubt she has costed the printing and publication of it, and perhaps she will tell us what costs will be involved.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for attributing to me the ability to cost the incredible work that would be necessary to prepare, design, cost and print the report. To be fair, that is not a problem, as we are debating the principle of the matter. That is especially so as the Department has spent more than £2 million of taxpayers' money since 1997 on its own publications; indeed, this year it will spend £55,000 on direct mail promotion of its publications. I feel sure that the cost of the sort of report that would result from the amendment being accepted would pale into obscurity compared with the vast amount of publishing that the Department has already carried out—I believe to little avail.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his inquiry. It is rather pleasing to find that Labour Members are awake. It is sad that, during debates on such an important Bill, Labour Members should remain silent except for the occasional intervention. As we have so few opportunities to debate the international development during the past four years, I should have expected hon. Members to take this opportunity to do so.

Tom Clarke (Labour, Coatbridge and Chryston)

Not only am I fully awake, I do not even take exception to the nomenclature that hon. Lady attributes to me, which occasionally gives me the impression that the hon. Lady herself is asleep. Would she not agree that the answer is simply that she does not know?

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am quite willing to admit to the right hon. Gentleman that I do not know. I used to be a marketing director and I was good at costing the distribution and design of publications and coming up with the various items to promote organisations. With a little time, I could probably make some costings.

I apologise for not according the right hon. Gentleman his Privy Council status. I know that he has achieved those giddy heights. No discourtesy was intended, and I hope that he will forgive me. I shall try to correct myself; it was an inadvertent mistake. Of course, some of us were up into the small hours of the morning defending democracy. Unlike the Minister, who went home to bed and whose vote is not recorded, I voted last night with my party

Tom Clarke (Labour, Coatbridge and Chryston)

As did I.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

As did the right hon. Gentleman. I hope that he will forgive me for my slight error in nomenclature.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

Unless I have been asleep for the past four years, it seems that the Department already produces a departmental report. It would therefore cost little to add such a provision. The right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston (Mr. Clarke), who as a Privy Councillor is the most senior member of the Committee, labours the point on extra costs. It cannot be beyond the wit of the Department's excellent civil servants to add a few paragraphs.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that intervention. At least the right hon. Gentleman has given me the opportunity as a politician to admit that there is something that I do not know.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

My hon. Friend will, of course, be able to confirm that the Minister knows exactly how much his Department's annual report costs.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

I have a killer fact that will floor you all in a moment.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The Minister says that he has a killer fact. I am delighted. I stand by to be assassinated. I am not a difficult target.

I return to amendment No. 5. The Opposition believe that Government targets should be achievable and measurable. Sector-wide programmes cannot fully account for the impact of British aid money. The Department's researchers said that, when using sector-wide aid programmes, individual donor programmes are difficult to disaggregate from other donor programmes. I hope that the Minister will smile on me benevolently and give me hope that he will accept the amendment in some way, shape or form. Certainly, we need to know at what point the Bill recognises aid quality. Perhaps such a reference is included and I simply cannot find it; if so, I look to the Minister for guidance.

Do the Government intend to publish detailed performance indicators for the sector-wide programmes, so that the public and the House can have confidence in the way in which aid is spent? What scope is there for measuring projects' contribution to sustainable development several times and several years after completion? Those are reasonable questions to ask of the Minister at this stage in our proceedings.

I reiterate that I am looking for fulfilment of the promise, which was made in a manifesto document before the last general election, of a regular debate on reports in Parliament. People expect such commitments to be met. Indeed, I hope that more power will be given to the Secretary of State, who assured the Chamber on Second Reading that she wanted an annual debate. However, it is clear either that the usual channels have not been fighting on her behalf, or that she has failed to convince her colleagues that parliamentary time should be given to the matter. We can give time to issues such as foxhunting, but it seems that we cannot spend a day debating the lives of the poorest people in the world, to which we hope to make a difference by distributing money through aid programmes.

I have probably gone on for long enough about the amendment, but this is a matter about which I feel strongly, and the Minister should note that the amendment could be used to the Department's own advantage, even if it were accepted in a different form. I know that my hon. Friends also want to speak to the amendment, but they will agree that we are willing to withdraw it if the Minister is prepared to come up with a similar provision that he finds acceptable.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

I hope that the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan) is sitting comfortably and has some cold water to hand in case she feels faint, because I must say that I am minded to support the amendment. Indeed, she makes a very good case. In the past, the Select Committee on International Development and the Government have castigated the European Union for failing to give sufficient feedback on the progress of projects and the difference that aid is making in developing countries. If we are to place such requirements on other agencies, we should also place them on ourselves. We need greater feedback on our aid's effectiveness and the way in which it is dispersed.

I commend DFID on its literature, which is not a waste of money. Indeed, it is very good, and through it DFID has done a tremendous job in promoting the cause of development. I accept that it is difficult to find in the report what we really want to know: whether we are making a big difference and whether maternal mortality is declining significantly. The problem is probably one of presentation, in that it is rather difficult to get at the facts that we need. A simple appendix would suffice—there is no need for an entirely different publication. Alternatively, a section could be included explaining how the poverty targets are progressing.

I told the hon. Lady that I am minded to support the amendment, but before I decide I shall listen to what the Minister has to say.

Tony Worthington (Labour, Clydebank and Milngavie)

I hope that the Minister will not accept the amendment, because if he does I will feel fairly stupid. I think that it was wrongly worded by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham—it says that she wants a report, but what she really wants is debate and accountability, which it would not provide.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I have stressed that the wording of the amendment may be imperfect owing to the limited time available to us, and the difficulties that there may have been in explaining our intentions to the Clerk who assisted us. If so, we are willing for the Government to redraft it, but I hope that I have explained its spirit in terms of the way in which it is currently expressed.

Tony Worthington (Labour, Clydebank and Milngavie)

I accept that. However, the Department already produces an annual report, which includes a statement by the Secretary of State along the lines that the amendment suggests, a statement of purpose and a statement of the public service agreements. What is missing is the opportunity to examine those statements.

I have some sympathy for the amendment. I tabled an amendment calling for an annual debate—which you, in your wisdom, Mr. Butterfill, did not select because it was based on the wrong part of the Bill and was incorrectly worded for this purpose. An annual debate may not be exactly what we are looking for, but we must have something that raises the profile of the Department. It is unsatisfactory for the House to have a general debate on international development only every four years. Departments that do not regularly produce legislation get a raw deal in this place; their work is important, but it is not examined by the House. The continuing work of the Department is more important than its unusual work. For example, every now and then when there is a disaster, such as that which occurred in Mozambique, there will be a statement and a chance to consider the Government's response—but that is not the Department's central purpose.

It is odd that the House can debate certain statutory instruments, which we usually think of as minor pieces of legislation, but is not given the chance to have an annual debate on the work of an increasingly significant Department. The Ministry of Defence—rightly—has the privilege of an annual debate on the Army, the Navy and the Air Force, and there are annual debates on Wales and on estimates, but there is no such debate on the work of DFID. If there was, it might help to raise the profile of the Secretary of State. It might even help to end the stock question that they ask in quiz shows when they are trying to stop the contestant getting the money and to which nobody ever knows the answer—``Who is the Secretary of State for International Development?''

It would be churlish not to acknowledge that there have been some steps forward, the biggest of which is Westminster Hall, where hon. Members can initiate Adjournment debates on reports by the International Development Committee. The existence of the Committee itself is a major step forwards, although it is inadequate in that it has places for only 11 members.

I sense that the Secretary of State and the Minister have some sympathy for what we seek to achieve, and I am sure that we can collectively consider the exact form in which to do so. We need to lift the profile of the Department and allow what it does to be scrutinised. The amendment would not achieve that; it merely asks for a report. It is what one does with the report that matters, not the fact that it exists.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I agree to a large extent. We accept that the amendment is not of the best, but our aim is to make it a statutory requirement to have the report—which is already published anyway—and to bolster that report, which, as the hon. Member for Richmond Park pointed out, will make examination easier.

In debate, there is no difference between members of the Select Committee on International Development. The Department's work is worthy of exposure to the public gaze on the Floor of the House. Occasional debates in Westminster Hall—

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

Order. We are in danger of slipping into a debate about amendment No. 17, which I ruled out of order. The reason for my ruling is that we cannot in Committee bind the House in respect of the subjects of future debates. Perhaps we could now return to the amendment under discussion.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

I apologise for being out of order, Mr. Butterfill. My enthusiasm carried me away.

If a copy of the report is laid before the House, the Government and the usual channels—God bless them—might wish to introduce an annual debate on the Floor of the House in which the report can be exposed. That is important and not controversial. I hoped that the Minister would say that he might table an amendment along those lines. He may find our amendment deficient, but I think it is perfectly good as far as it goes. Ensuring that the Department's received greater exposure would be better than the occasional debate on a Select Committee report in Westminster Hall, as such debates are widely ignored rather than widely reported.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

It is important that we continue to have an annual report. I hope that the International Development Committee of the next Parliament—of which I, sadly, will not be a member—will do as it does now and produce that report, as the exercise has to date been mutually beneficial.

I am ambivalent about the criteria that should be laid down. A sensible part of the amendment tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham was to suggest that if the Department declares that its principal objective is the reduction of poverty, we should be able to measure its success in meeting it. There is much to be said for calling the Secretary of State to account for the expenditure of public money. I feel strongly that those involved in international development should not allow themselves to become pessimistic: optimism is a sine qua non of effective work.

In future, it is unlikely that the Department—which is concentrating on the poorest countries in the world—will be able to demonstrate that it has relieved poverty over the piece. For example, we know that by 2005 or thereabouts, infant mortality in South Africa will be 60 per cent. higher than it would have been if not for HIV-AIDS. The statistics are horrendous. We already know that life expectancy in Tanzania has fallen by 10 years and that it is set to fall further. To measure the success of the Secretary of State and her Department against the criteria suggested in our amendments or other such criteria is almost to ask the Department to set itself a hurdle that it might fail to clear. I am worried that the choice of criteria will be a central issue in how we call the Secretary of State to account in the future. Enormous importance attaches to the choice.

Let me give an absurd example. The measurement of poverty in this country changed out of all recognition when Peter Townsend's formula became generally accepted. The idea of relative poverty being the way in which to measure poverty has changed the nature of the debate in this country. I shall not argue today about whether that is a sensible or foolish way of proceeding. To apply the Townsend formula to some of the countries to which we are actively providing development assistance would be a travesty. We are talking about people who do not know where their next bowl of rice is coming from, so the concept of relative poverty is unhelpful in those circumstances.

If we are not careful, we will face the paradox that the greater a country's failure to run its affairs properly, the stronger the argument for UK development assistance. That makes the hope of a sector-wide approach more difficult to realise. That is another element in the importance of the criteria to measure the success of the Department.

There is a danger of this country letting Zimbabwe fall by the wayside because of the perceived difficulty arising from Mugabe using its former colonial status as an excuse for his behaviour. We have allowed ourselves to become paralysed, even though black Zimbabweans are now suffering even more than most white Zimbabweans. The project of which I have direct knowledge has become almost impossible to carry on because of the destruction of local government, which has been closed down in one of the provinces of Zimbabwe.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

My hon. Friend will know that I was in Zimbabwe a mere two weeks ago. I saw at first hand many of the black people who have been put out of their homes and deprived of their livelihoods by the activities of ZANU-PF. Until as recently as a year ago, those people were thriving, their children were going to school and they lived in houses attached to the farms, but they now live almost like animals. The tractors have not been used for a year and they have been unable to plant a seed. They are having difficulty continuing a normal life, even though they are being paid by the farm owners. Their slide into poverty has been inevitable and frightening.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I share that perception, but I am not talking only about people working on farms. I am referring to people working in the education service in Zimbabwe who, because they come from a district that voted overwhelmingly for the Movement for Democratic Change, have been closed down. The suggestion that the Zimbabwe Government is targeting only the white population and that we must keep our mouths shut is demonstrably untrue.

We must ask ourselves how future Secretaries of State will deal with such a paradox. I am uncertain that definition under the Bill does not create a bottomless pit: the worse the Government, the greater the need for United Kingdom aid. I am worried about how that would be reported and how such a report would be evaluated. The measure of success will be central to any new report based on the Bill and I suspect that in many cases it will be claimed that decline has simply been slowed.

The other criterion that should be included in an annual report is the extent to which the control of development assistance is in the hands of local people. I referred to that crucial point this morning. We must find a way to measure the extent to which our development assistance is being administered by local people rather than by ex-patriots.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

We have had a long debate on a simple amendment. I detected nothing in the contribution made by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham to suggest that she was aware that the Department already publishes an annual report and that the next one is due on 26 March. I hope that she will accept as good news that she does not have long to wait. The report will include a summary of progress on international development targets broken down by region, as well as a detailed report on the Department's performance in respect of the public service agreement.

That is not all. The Department for International Development complements its annual report with publication of each and every evaluation study. Later this year, it will publish a synthesis of the findings from project completion reports for the period 1986 to 1999. That will consist of a detailed assessment of the effect of projects over a long period, so I hope that the hon. Lady accepts that we are already on the case and that an amendment about annual reports is unnecessary.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I share the Minister's view that detailed evaluation reports of projects are essential in assessing the Department's success. As we move from project work to a sector-wide approach and partnerships with Government, it will become harder to provide them.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

We may have to change the way in which we evaluate the usefulness of projects; that may become more difficult in some cases, but detailed assessments are already possible on the basis of material that is published regularly by the Department. The report is scrutinised by the International Development Committee and the format of the report is informed by its recommendations. The Treasury requires annual departmental reports from all Government Departments and it is neither sensible nor necessary to enshrine that practice in legislation for one Department.

I have a lot of sympathy with the points raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie, which covered the burden of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham. We could do with more scrutiny on the Floor of the House of our Department's work, and I am sympathetic to the amendment tabled in that respect, but as you explained, Mr. Butterfill, it is not a matter on which we can legislate. There is the mechanism supplied by the usual channels, which is a two-way street.

The Opposition have not pressured us to debate the issues, but my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I would welcome such an opportunity. Indeed, we are keen to have a regular debate on our Department's work because we have a good story that we are anxious to tell. Many hon. Members would have important contributions to make to such a debate, which would provide them with a suitable platform. However, that is another matter. We are dealing with amendment No. 5, which is unnecessary, and I request that the hon. Lady withdraws it.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I have poured myself a glass of water and I have not fallen off my chair.

I thank the hon. Member for Richmond Park for having the grace to support the intention behind the amendment, despite its imperfect drafting. I also thank the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie because we intended not only to link the Government's activities to clear, measurable targets, but to give the Department a boost in the bear pit of demand for days for debate in the House.

I was unable to state baldly my intention in the amendment, but that is why I suggested that

``The Secretary of State...shall lay a copy of the report before Parliament.''

I am sad that the Minister has failed to grasp with both hands the opportunity to take the amendment away and refashion it. It is imperfect, but his vast team of officials could have worked on it and we could have created something that would have been acceptable to both Government and Opposition Members.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

Will the hon. Lady be content if progress towards the poverty targets were addressed within the existing annual report, or does she require a separate document?

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Having heard the Minister's response, I shall develop my argument and pick up on the hon. Lady's point later.

When I went through the manifesto document ``A Fresh Start for Britain: Labour's Strategy for Britain in the Modern World'', which the Labour party produced before the last general election, I came across a specific promise:

``In Government Labour will audit all aid programmes for their impact on the poor...as well as on women, children and the environment.''

The Minister has used the argument that he is on the case already as his prime fly swat to squash the amendment, but if that is the case why do we need the Bill? According to outside observers, the Department is on the case already. If the amendment is otiose, the Bill is otiose.

I am alarmed that the Minister should use such a simple argument to remove a tool that could benefit him, the Secretary of State and the Department. I appreciate that there is an annual report; I have no problem with that. However, putting the report on the face of the Bill would provide assistance similar to that provided by including the focuses of poverty and sustainable development.

I do not accept the Minister's arguments. He wants to have his cake and eat it. He is happy to deploy one argument on one point and another argument on another point, but that is not satisfactory. I reiterate that I would like more information about the publishing of detailed performance indicators on sector-wide programmes so that we can have confidence in spending on AIDS, for example. The Minister has not replied to that point other than to say that he hopes that a new report will be laid before Parliament on 26 March. I welcome that new, but would it not have been better to make that report available to Members of Parliament before the Bill was scrutinised? Had it been available to us, we might not have found it necessary to table the amendment, but how can we judge? Do we have to trust what the Minister says, or will he provide proofs of the annual report?

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

Although the hon. Lady will probably deny it, I strongly suspect that when she tabled the amendment, she was unaware that the Department publishes an annual report containing much of the information that she has requested. I certainly heard nothing in the lengthy contribution that she made at the beginning of our debate to suggest that she was aware of that fact. One or two other Committee members made it clear in their speeches that they were aware of it, including my hon. Friend the Member for Clydebank and Milngavie and the hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I have a copy of it here.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

Why, then, did the hon. Lady not refer to it?

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I was trying to save time. I have watched the faces of Labour Members who are sitting firmly on their backsides making no contribution to the debate. At least Conservative Members are trying, in a spirit of co-operation, to improve the legislation. To refer to the report is otiose when we all have a copy of it—I see the hon. Member for Clydebank and Milngavie holding up his copy. Not only do I have the report in my possession, but I was able to quote the costings to the right hon. Member for Coatbridge and Chryston when he challenged me on how much the Department had spent on publications, including promotional publications.

Instead of the Minister telling us that the new report is expected on 26 March—long after the guillotine on scrutiny of the Bill—it would have been preferable to have had that report before us now, as that would have enabled us to judge the quality and see what improvements the Minister has made.

I asked the Minister what recognition of aid quality there is in the Bill but, again, he chose to ignore my question. I will give way to the Minister if he would like to tell us the answer now. No, it appears that the Minister cannot answer that question, which is a shame.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

The Minister is getting very weary of this.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The Minister has not been up all night, as I have, so he will just have to stay awake a little longer.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

The support that I felt for the amendment is draining out through my feet by the minute. It might not concern the hon. Lady, but if she goes on for much longer, it will have drained away altogether.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

Good things never last for long. I did not expect that support from the Liberal Democrats would last even until the end of the debate on an amendment. [Interruption.] Despite the mockery from Labour Members and the lack of patience exhibited by the hon. Member for Richmond Park, the amendment was intended to strengthen the Bill. It was an attempt to move the Department into a more pivotal position and help the Government to fulfil their manifesto promises.

In their election manifesto, the Government said that they would bring development issues back into the mainstream of Government decision making. I believe that failing to have a debate and failing to have the annual report laid before Parliament and fully debated is a big gap both in the promises that the Government made to the electorate and in their good intentions for the Department. I emphasise that we wholly support the Minister's intentions; obviously, he will not accept our honest offer.

In conclusion, I am sad to say that I cannot let the matter drop. We feel strongly about it, so I am unable to withdraw the amendment.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 9.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I beg to move amendment No. 6, in page 1, line 20, at end insert—

`(5) Notwithstanding subsection (1), the Secretary of State may fund public awareness campaigns in developing countries with the aim of reducing economic migration.'.

It is with great trepidation that I rise to speak to amendment No. 6, as I appear to be hogging the limelight on the Committee. It is such a shame that so many Labour Members who have valuable contributions to make to our debate and who should not be afraid of making them just because the Committee must end at 5 o'clock on Thursday evening have felt constrained to sit on their hands. That will not go unnoticed.

The Minister will be pleased to know that amendment No. 6 is merely a probing amendment. It has been tabled to reflect some of the concerns expressed on Second Reading and would allow the Secretary of State to fund public information campaigns in developing countries to reduce economic migration. The Bill will allow such programmes to be funded from the aid budget, which is an important issue that needs discussing within the context of the clause.

I was going to make a comment for the sake of all members of the Committee, including the Minister and the usual channel, but I see that the Government Whip is not in his place—he is in and out of the Room like a yo-yo. I shall keep my remark to myself until he returns.

We tabled the probing amendment in part to reflect the concerns expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells), who is the Chairman of the International Development Committee. I am sad to say that he was not able to serve on this Committee, because it was set against an extremely important meeting of the International Development Committee on a major report on HIV-AIDS.

On Second Reading, my hon. Friend pointed out that we could not turn a blind eye to people who come to Britain for economic reasons. He talked about the moral duty and practical and common-sense reasons to help people. He said that something was badly wrong when tens of thousands of people crossed the length of the continent of Europe, travelling through safe countries, to reach Britain. Trafficking in such people concerns us all.

Part of the Second Reading debate focused on the role of aid in helping to stem the tide of migration. We believe that public information campaigns in developing countries have a key role to play in deterring those who might be tricked into agreeing to be trafficked. That does not fall strictly into the definition of a reduction of poverty, but we must remember that 700,000 women and children are trafficked across borders every year and that the European Union estimates that 500,000 illegal immigrants arrived last year alone, up from an estimated 40,000 as recently as 1993.

Recently, several high-profile incidents involving the trafficking of people have appalled everyone in this country, no matter what their political persuasion. Migrant trafficking and smuggling has become a global business that generates huge profits for traffickers and organised crime syndicates. A recent study by the institute of migration shows that at any time there are an estimated 15 million to 30 million irregular migrants worldwide.

We saw the results of the pernicious trade in July 2000 when the bodies of 58 Chinese immigrants were found inside a tomato truck in Dover. What a waste of lives. As recently as January, a Georgian cargo ship carrying on board an estimated 80 illegal immigrants split in two off the Mediterranean coast of Turkey; about 50 people are believed to have died. In May 2000, a rubber dinghy containing 29 illegal immigrants from north Africa sank close to Spain; six were drowned. I could go on, but it is not my intention to list such disastrous events. I cite them merely to discover the Minister's and the Government's attitude, in the context of the Bill, to the sort of public awareness campaigns that I believe are needed in developing countries to reduce economic migration and trafficking in human misery.

The institute of migration claims that although reliable statistics are kept on apprehensions of unauthorised migrants at borders and on arrests of traffickers, those figures account for only a small fraction of the overall problem. Criminal gangs are often responsible for migrant trafficking, and migrants often travel without full knowledge of the potential risks. Once they have arrived at their destination, trafficked migrants are almost entirely dependent on those criminal gangs and are vulnerable to serious human rights abuses. One way in which we might deter potential victims would be to mount sustained education programmes in their home countries. Many people who pay to be trafficked do so in ignorance of the risks of extortion, human rights abuses and, ultimately, death.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

It occurs to me that that would be an admirable role for the British Council—[Interruption.]

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

The Minister says from a sedentary position that my hon. Friend is pulling my leg.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

As if I would.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

My hon. Friend knows that I have no sense of humour—[Laughter.]—and he tempts me to sing the praises of the British Council, but I shall resist. I know that he wants to speak, so I shall bring my remarks to a conclusion.

Amendment No. 6 is a probing amendment that is designed to reveal the Minister's thinking. It needs to be emphasised that the traffickers profit from potential migrants' lack of awareness of the dangers. Many victims of traffickers are misled about what awaits them, so potential migrants need to be warned of the risks. The International Organisation for Migration has shown that public awareness campaigns in countries of origin can do much to prevent traffickers from exploiting the limited knowledge of potential migrants.

The Minister knows that information can be transmitted in many ways, so I shall not list them. However, once I have heard his reply, I might want to explore the matter further. The activities proposed in the amendment are not directly poverty reduction, but are life-saving measures. As the amendment has not been accepted directly or indirectly, I must press the Minister on the subject because funding for such activities could be ruled out. Trafficking can have a pernicious effect: for instance, if those who are attracted to migration are from the middle classes or are educated people, their country of origin could be denied an opportunity to regenerate or to make progress.

I reiterate that amendment No. 6 is a probing amendment that will enable us to discover whether such expenditure will continue, or whether it falls outwith the parameters of the Bill.

Andrew Rowe (Conservative, Faversham and Mid Kent)

I am slightly ambivalent about the amendment. The Opposition have tabled many useful and important amendments, but I have slightly less enthusiasm for amendment No. 6. To tell people in developing countries about the conditions of schools in Hackney or about the incidence of methicillin resistant staphylococcus aureus in British hospitals might help to anchor them there. Indeed, many of the teachers who are immorally recruited from countries that need them much more than we do can be discovered hurrying home again once they find out what it is like to teach in a British school. An education programme might therefore be useful. However, that raises two serious questions. The first concerns the colonising of the professions in countries that need them more than we do.

The Minister knows that I have raised that subject with his colleagues in the Department of Health and the Department for Education and Employment more than once. The Government are trying to behave scrupulously in the matter, but they are being totally undermined by the fact that no health trust in this country would, in extremis, turn first to the national health service registers; they would turn instantly to a private agency to provide them with weekend cover or emergency support. Those private agencies are not inhibited by Government guidelines. They go round the world, recruiting professionals who are sucked into the public system in a rather indirect way.

That is a lamentable outcome when we consider that the number of teachers dying in Malawi each year is greater than the number being trained. The idea that we should further remove some of them to teach in our schools is shocking and runs against our development philosophy and intentions. We need to have an education campaign not merely in developing countries, but in our own country, where we should be discussing development issues on a wider scale than we currently do. There is much to be said for increasing public understanding of development issues, including whether it is proper to recruit from overseas.

I am ambivalent about the amendment for another reason. If we could create the kind of conditions in the countries that need our help in which professionals could study and exercise their skills, and we could provide them with economic and military stability that would enable them to live in peace, their desire to stay where they are would be enormously increased. None of us would want to leave our friends and family, customs and culture and fly overseas—unless we are members of the International Development Committee—to live elsewhere, unless we really felt that the gains would be so much greater. It is not a matter of encouraging people from overseas; it is more a matter of putting our resources into education and other issues. If, in the process, people realise that life in this country is not entirely a bed of roses, that is fine. I am not sure that I am entirely in favour of the Bill creating a demand for an education programme that is designed to show people that it is not worth coming to live here.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

When I first saw the amendment, I was shocked and horrified. The official Opposition should be wary, lest it be misconstrued. Perhaps they wanted it to be misconstrued. On the face of it, it looks as if they are up to their old tricks— this is fortress Great Britain; we must not let people come in, as they are bogus asylum seekers, and so on. All that language comes to mind. I warn Opposition Members that that is what they are risking by supporting this amendment.

After hearing the arguments of the official Opposition, I am prepared to believe that that is not their intention. I am extremely concerned about trafficking in people. I have been talking to one of the inspectors of the Metropolitan police about the sex slave trade in Britain, which is growing rapidly. Young women and girls from eastern Europe and elsewhere are being used as sex slaves. That is not a matter for the Department for International Development, but for Customs and Excise, the Home Office and the Foreign Office. We must do something about it. DFID's budget is for the relief of poverty, and we must stick to our guns.

In any case, if the Opposition are to be believed, we are to say to developing countries, ``Instead of spending this money on aid we will spend it on big posters and radio broadcasts explaining that, in fact, we are poor''. Try telling the people of southern Sudan that we are poor. Alternatively, we are supposed to say, ``Don't come to Britain, we are overcrowded,'' but it is the people of Rwanda and Burundi who understand the true meaning of overcrowding .

The amendment is a complete nonsense. We are the fourth biggest economy in the world, and the number of asylum seekers and economic migrants whom we have so far accepted constitutes a tiny proportion of our population. I shall repeat what I have said many times: the fuss that we are making about unfortunate people who are merely seeking a better life for their families is pathetic. Generations of British people did the same, and so would I in their position.

John McFall (Labour/Co-operative, Dumbarton)

The hon. Lady is perhaps being a little too charitable. I listened carefully to what the hon. Member for Chesham and Amersham said and I can find no charitable interpretation of the Opposition's intentions. Is there not a consistency in what the Opposition have been saying for many weeks, which was demonstrated not least in the Leader of the Opposition's recent ``foreigners'' speech in Harrogate? The amendment is simply an extension of that point of view.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

I agree absolutely with the hon. Gentleman. I was indeed trying to be charitable, but in fact ``disgraceful'' was the first word that I wrote on my notepaper. The Opposition should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for continuing to push out that message. When I go abroad, I am ashamed to call myself British because I know that such attitudes and messages are getting across.

The answer lies in making the countries from which people migrate as prosperous as we are, and the only way to do that is to consider all the factors that contribute to poverty. I shall not rehearse this morning's debate, but there is a very long list of issues that we must address. As I have said in the House, I can remember when people in this country used to deplore the Irish economic migrants to this country who rightly wanted a better life for their families. Yet as a result of aid, development and the backing of the European Union the reverse is now true and people are migrating to Ireland because life there is good. I shall not begin a debate on Europe because that would upset the official Opposition and keep them here till well past midnight.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

It would upset me too.

Jenny Tonge (Liberal Democrat, Richmond Park)

That is a good example of how the right policies and the right help can turn a country round.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The hon. Lady should perhaps read the amendment, rather than getting excited about matters that she described as disgraceful. She can let one or two things make her ashamed of being British if she likes—perhaps she should say as much to her constituents—but in fact she was referring to a matter with which a large part of the EU programme in north Africa is concerned. We discussed precisely that issue in our submissions on the EU aid programme, and neither this Government nor previous Governments have taken account of it.

The points made by my hon. Friends the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent and for Chesham and Amersham are entirely correct, but I should like put a slightly different interpretation—I nearly said ``spin'', which would have been something of a mistake—on matters. There has been, and will always be, economic migration, which can be of tremendous benefit to the individuals and countries concerned. For example, countries that are over-populated need part of their population to move on.

However, we are discussing the exploitation of economic migration by others, and although DFID should not be forced to contribute to preventing exploitation, it seems entirely fair that it should be able to do so. For some reason, the hon. Member for Richmond Park referred constantly to Britain, but in Vietnam and Cambodia, which the Select Committee visited recently, there is a lot of economic trafficking and migration. It usually involves children and young girls who think that they are heading for a better life somewhere else, but who end up as prostitutes. That has been particularly prevalent in and around Thailand. It is organised crime perpetuated by organised gangs. Those who run and work in those ghastly brothels are not necessarily poor, but they are hardly rich either.

This is an important issue that is not just about poor people who, understandably, see a way to better themselves by coming to the United Kingdom or other European countries. Throughout the world, gangs are trafficking in people's economic aspirations and thereby damaging them dramatically. Given his personal knowledge of the region, the Minister will know that the problem is particularly bad in Cambodia and Vietnam. The people there are so grindingly poor that they sell or give their children in the hope that they will have a better future in some glorified role as, say, a maid. We hear that many leave to work in bars, but the work turns out to be prostitution. DFID should be able to contribute to efforts to stop the ghastly trade of prostitution, and the amendment attempts to achieve no more than that.

To come closer to home, last week a report was published on Nigerian children—again, it is children—whose arrival in this country as asylum seekers proves in fact to have been organised by a gang that makes a great deal of money out of them. They are subsequently taken to Italy, where they work as prostitutes. I have driven around Italy and seen young African women standing in laybys. They leave their country for economic reasons, but I bet that they would rather be well off at home.

The Bill as it stands will not reduce poverty, which is why we have tabled the amendment. We are talking about a crime that is as organised as drug running; indeed, the same people are often involved. We should consider the potential impact of DFID money on a problem that in no way constitutes a benign trafficking. Be they illegal immigrants, child labourers or prostitutes, such people are often dumped in the sea, abused, murdered, or have their throats slit. It is a truly ghastly trade.

To the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent I want to add one about the morality of the western world's taking qualified professional personnel from the developing world. Although that certainly is an issue, I am not quite sure how one comes to grips with it. Of course, such people want the money that comes with a job in the western world. I am thinking not of the teachers to whom my hon. Friend referred, but those who work in silicon valley, in California, which is ``where it's at'' in terms of rapid development. Such development is valuable in India, but I understand that about half the young professionals in silicon valley—I will doubtless be corrected if my figure is wrong—are Indian. California does not have a poverty problem, but India does. This issue, which is a difficult one to address, reflects a selfishness on the part of the west, which does not contribute to the development of poorer countries.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

Amendment No. 6 would add a new spending power that is not constrained by the poverty reduction requirement, the furthering of sustainable development or improving welfare. That power would allow the Secretary of State to spend money to persuade people of other countries not to migrate to the United Kingdom.

The hon. Member for Faversham and Mid-Kent, who is no longer in the Room, said that he was ambivalent about the amendment, and he is right to be so. The Government will strongly resist it because it would drive a coach and horses through the Bill's core principle—the reduction of poverty.

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

The Minister has just said that the amendment is about stopping economic migration to the United Kingdom, but that is not what it says at all.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

Amendment No. 6 refers to

``the aim of reducing economic migration.''

Andrew Robathan (Conservative, Blaby)

There is no mention of the UK.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

As I was saying before I was interrupted, there are only two exceptions—the dedicated power to provide assistance to the overseas territories, which reflects our special relationship with and continuing obligations to them, and assistance that is provided in response to disasters and emergencies. The hon. Member for Blaby touched on the one circumstance in which the Bill could support public awareness campaigns about economic migration: that is, if they sought to contribute to the reduction of poverty—for example, by preventing young girls from being sold into slavery. However, it would not be acceptable to use the Bill purely and simply to prevent economic migrants from seeking to find a better life and to tackle their own personal poverty.

There is no case for making any further exceptions, and certainly not the one that is proposed in the amendment. That runs directly counter to the Bill's basic argument—which the Opposition supported on Second Reading—that UK development assistance should be used only for reducing poverty. Economic migration is a serious problem, but the development budget should not be raided to support programmes to reduce it. I must ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

We have had a short and useful debate. The amendment was a probing amendment, and I do not intend to press it to a vote. However, I am disappointed by the Minister's response. He has virtually ruled out the Department spending any money on trying to discourage people from coming to this country and taking the words of the traffickers over any information that may be disseminated by the Government. I hope that he will reflect on his response, because some people will be disappointed by it. However, I am grateful to him for allowing us to explore the Government's thinking on these issues, and I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

The Chairman, being of the opinion that the principle of the clause and any matters arising thereon had been adequately discussed in the course of debate on the amendments proposed thereto, forthwith put the Question, pursuant to Standing Orders Nos. 68 and 89, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

Question accordingly agreed to.

Clause 1 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 2 - Development Assistance for UK Overseas Territories

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I beg to move amendment No. 7, in page 1, line 24, at end insert

`(and, for the avoidance of doubt, such assistance may include support for communications systems)'.

We tabled this probing amendment to determine the parameters of the Government's attitude toward the overseas territories. When I asked the Minister about that earlier with reference to the Secretary of State's answer about preventing drugs from flowing across the world and large amounts of money being outwith development budget funding, he tried to set my mind at rest. However, I have a number of other concerns, some of which were raised on Second Reading.

I am worried that some overseas territories remain unsure about the Department's spending priorities in respect of their countries; Montserrat springs to mind. In the House on 10 January, my hon. Friend the Member for Buckingham (Mr. Bercow) put the following question to the Minister's predecessor:

``Given that Montserrat was listed as a tax haven by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, what representations on that point has the hon. Gentleman made, or alternatively what assistance does his Department envisage providing for the territory, bearing in mind that if its financial services sector is damaged or destroyed, the country is much more likely to be prey to the commission of serious crime, including drug trafficking?''

The reply was:

``We are of course aware that were any overseas territory to lose any resources as a result of the pressure that the hon. Gentleman describes, our Department would need to make available additional resources.''—[Official Report, 10 January 2001; Vol. 360, c. 1062.]

I seek an assurance from the Minister that those additional resources would be forthcoming for any overseas territories. I also seek assurances about the infrastructure project on St Helena, the landmine clearance programme in the Falklands and communications projects on the Pitcairn Islands.

Opposition Members have rightly asked questions about overseas territories, but the Minister will have anticipated them because they were flagged up. Therefore, rather than making a meal out of the amendment, which was tabled to probe the Government's policy towards the overseas territories, I shall keep my remarks brief and allow him to respond.

Chris Mullin (Labour, Sunderland South)

Clause 2 provides a modified form of the power taken in clause 1 to allow the United Kingdom to continue to provide support to the overseas territories, which reflects our continuing responsibilities in relation to them. It allows the Secretary of State to offer development assistance without needing to be satisfied that the provision is likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty, which is the overriding requirement of clause 1. However, assistance provided must meet the purposes set out in clause 2, which are furthering sustainable development or promoting the welfare of the people. The effect of the amendment would be to ensure that the Secretary of State could help overseas territories to establish communications systems. However, it would not place her under a duty to do so, although its mention might raise an inference that such a use of her powers would be reasonable and would therefore make doing so harder to resist.

The Government must resist the amendment. There is no question that the Bill would allow the Secretary of State to support the establishment of communications systems where such support would either further sustainable development or improve the welfare of the people of an overseas territory. The Department for International Development has funded many communications projects in overseas territories in recent years, so there is no doubt to alleviate and the amendment is unnecessary. To single out such support for specific mention serves only to call into question what other developments could be assisted.

The forthcoming departmental report will show that resources will be made available to the Pitcairn Islands for essential infrastructure. The Falkland Islands have not been in receipt of UK development assistance since 1997 as a result of the exceptional progress that the area has made in achieving self-sufficiency.

The Bill will not adversely affect the Government's existing support to overseas territories because clause 2 will ensure that that is allowed. I must therefore ask the hon. Lady to withdraw the amendment.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I am unsure whether the probing amendment has achieved the effect that I wanted, but I appreciate the spirit in which the Minister has responded. Perhaps there will be another opportunity to raise the interests of the overseas territories. However, the Minister has assured me that they will continue to be a priority for Government aid. I included the Falkland Islands as an example in case they should need aid from us in future—God forbid. As the Minister knows, the islands have a fragile economy. The point I made was a belt and braces measure.

Amendment No. 5 is probing and I am not so curmudgeonly as to press it to a vote. I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I beg to move amendment No. 8, in clause 2, page 2, line 5, at end insert—

`(4) No order shall be made under subsection (3) unless a draft of it has been laid before and approved by both Houses of Parliament.'.

John Butterfill (Conservative, Bournemouth West)

With this it will be convenient to discuss amendment No. 15, in clause 18, page 8, line 17, after `section', insert `2(3),'.

Dame Cheryl Gillan (Conservative, Chesham and Amersham)

I seem to be hogging the Committee—[Hon. Members: ``No!'']—so I rise to my feet again with great trepidation. The amendments have been linked to probe the Minister's intentions. They are designed to ensure that Parliament is fully consulted on changes to the UK overseas territories list and that the Secretary of State would be required to seek Parliament's approval for any additions or deletions to the list. We do not want that list to be subject to an executive order because if a country such as Montserrat were removed, it would cease to be covered by its preferential position and move into a category covered by the focus on poverty. Removing countries from the list subjects them exclusively to the focus on poverty and removes them from the latitude of expenditure that can be given to overseas territories.

I should like the Minister to state the conditions under which an overseas territory could be removed from the list, tell the Committee whether an annual statement of the assistance that has been given to territories will be published, and make sure that they have a voice if and when they face removal from the list. They are a prime example of domains that are subject to our legislation without representation. The amendments seek assurances that the House and the overseas territories will be consulted about removals from the list.

The rest of the debate is in Hansard.