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Wednesday Volume 513 7 July 2010 No. 28 HOUSE OF COMMONS OFFICIAL REPORT PARLIAMENTARY DEBATES (HANSARD) Wednesday 7 July 2010 £5·00 © Parliamentary Copyright House of Commons 2010 This publication may be reproduced under the terms of the Parliamentary Click-Use Licence, available online through the Office of Public Sector Information website at www.opsi.gov.uk/click-use/ Enquiries to the Office of Public Sector Information, Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW9 4DU; e-mail: [email protected] 351 7 JULY 2010 352 visit Lahore in January, and I will carefully consider House of Commons what he has said and see whether additional action is required. Wednesday 7 July 2010 Aid Expenditure (Transparency) The House met at half-past Eleven o’clock 2. Nadhim Zahawi (Stratford-on-Avon) (Con): What steps he is taking to ensure transparency of his PRAYERS Department’s expenditure on aid. [6262] The Secretary of State for International Development [MR SPEAKER in the Chair] (Mr Andrew Mitchell): I launched the aid transparency guarantee on 3 June, which will ensure that UK and developing country citizens have full information about Oral Answers to Questions British aid. Nadhim Zahawi: I am sure my right hon. Friend is aware of recent surveys showing that, in these difficult times, public support for international aid is waning. INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT Does he agree that if we are to win the argument for his Department’s budget in the court of public opinion, we have to ensure that the transparency agenda is linked to The Secretary of State was asked— achieving the goals of the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign Office? Pakistan Mr Mitchell: My hon. Friend makes a good point, 1. Andrew Stephenson (Pendle) (Con): What aid his and it is always important to underline that there is Department has provided for economic development strong cross-party commitment to this important budget and good governance in Pakistan in the last 12 months; partly for moral reasons, but also because it is very and if he will make a statement. [6261] much in our national self-interest. My hon. Friend will have heard the words of the Foreign Secretary and The Secretary of State for International Development myself about the importance of wiring more closely (Mr Andrew Mitchell): In the last 12 months, my together defence, diplomacy and development, and he Department has provided aid to Pakistan to help to put has my assurance that we will continue to do that with more children into school, improve macro-economic great care. stability and support the efficient and effective delivery Mr Gareth Thomas (Harrow West) (Lab/Co-op): In of basic services. last Thursday’s debate, the Secretary of State was transparent enough to admit that he did not yet know Andrew Stephenson: I thank my right hon. Friend for how the extra £200 million for Afghanistan announced that answer. Oxfam has said that 1 million Pakistanis by the Prime Minister will be spent. Given the question fleeing from fighting remain in overcrowded camps and asked by the hon. Member for Stratford-on-Avon (Nadhim depend on emergency relief to survive. What is being Zahawi) and the increasing speculation that DFID money done to help internally displaced persons and refugees in Afghanistan will be spent on things over which the in Pakistan? Secretary of State’s Department has no control, can he tell the House whether the Foreign Secretary—or, indeed, Mr Mitchell: My hon. Friend is right to identify that the Defence Secretary—has made any suggestions to particular problem in Pakistan, and it was one of the him as to how that £200 million should be spent? problems I specifically looked at when I was in Pakistan some three weeks ago. My hon. Friend will know from Mr Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman will understand his own very close relationship with members of the that a Government who are properly co-ordinated and Pakistani diaspora in Britain that, as the Oxfam report working together will discuss all these matters to make makes clear, extensive work is being done in all the sure that, as I have said, we wire together in the best affected regions of Pakistan, but we are looking at our possible interests defence, diplomacy and development. whole programme to see whether there is anything more However, as the hon. Gentleman is well aware, as he has we can do. been a junior DFID Minister, the OECD Development Assistance Committee rules are what pertain in the Steve McCabe (Birmingham, Selly Oak) (Lab): Does spending of money on development, and the coalition the Secretary of State agree that, although the aid for Government have confirmed what his Government said: Pakistan is welcome, the Pakistani authorities must those rules will persist. realise that the appalling murder, persecution and torture of the Ahmadiyya Muslims in Lahore, with the complicity Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): I welcome my right of the authorities, must cease? hon. Friend’s initiative in setting up a more effective watchdog for transparency and accountability and to Mr Mitchell: The hon. Gentleman is a Birmingham publish what DFID funds in more detail from January. Member of Parliament, as am I, and, like me, he will That will provide a welcome reinforcement of the value have received representations from the diaspora in of our aid. May I also say that the Select Committees Birmingham on that specific point. I had the chance to are very anxious to start their work and anything he can 353 Oral Answers7 JULY 2010 Oral Answers 354 do to ensure that they are constituted will help to enable DFID offered support to the Government of South the International Development Committee to take evidence Africa for a summit during this World cup, and we have from him next Thursday so we can expand on these received an invitation to that summit this very morning. issues? It will take place this Sunday and we are considering who should attend. Mr Mitchell: I am grateful to the Chair of the International Development Committee for his comments. Luciana Berger: I am grateful to the Minister for his He knows a great deal about these matters. The reply. There have been a great many goals in this World transparency guarantee is enormously important, first cup, but signing up to a road map to deliver education in reassuring British taxpayers by enabling them to see to 72 million children around the world by the next where the money is being spent and that it is being well World cup could be the greatest goal. How will he spent; and secondly, in assisting in the building of civic ensure that the momentum of today’s education campaign society to ensure that people in the countries we are summit is not lost between now and Brazil 2014? trying to help can hold their own political leaders to account. I look forward to discussing next week with Mr O’Brien: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for her his Committee these and other matters, especially to do excellent question. She, like all hon. Members across with independent evaluation. the House and particularly Her Majesty’s Government through DFID, is passionate about the need to boost Media High Council (Rwanda) education, particularly for the millions who have yet to receive the benefit of a primary education. There are 3. Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab): What funding his few bigger prizes to grasp, and she is right to say that we Department plans to allocate to the media high council need to maintain the momentum of the 1GOAL campaign, in Rwanda in 2011-12. [6263] which we have been very pleased to support. The summit that is about to take place should help to boost that The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for momentum and we shall do all we can to help to International Development (Mr Stephen O’Brien): The maintain it. UN-led programme of support to six oversight institutions in Rwanda, including the media high council, comes to Iain Stewart (Milton Keynes South) (Con): Will the an end in this financial year. There are no plans for Minister join me in congratulating the pupils and staff further DFID support. of Eaton Mill primary school in my constituency, who, like those in many schools up and down the country, Mary Creagh: I thank the Minister for that reply, and have made an enormous effort to raise awareness of the I am relieved to hear that we will not be funding the 1GOAL project and the aims of improving education media high council given that it has recently suspended throughout Africa? Rwanda’s two leading independent newspapers, Umuseso and Umuvugizi, and given that a leading Rwandan journalist, Jean-Léonard Rugambage, was murdered in Mr O’Brien: I am delighted to join my hon. Friend in Rwanda in June. Will the Minister make urgent congratulating the school in his constituency that has so representations, through his Department, to the Rwandan eagerly taken part in this campaign. About 8,000 schools authorities and make sure that we fund things that in the United Kingdom have asked for supporter packs promote freedom of speech, particularly in the run-up from the 1GOAL campaign, so it has had a real impact. to the elections? There have also been lesson plans and other activities for schoolchildren and I dare say that many Members Mr O’Brien: I am grateful to the hon. Lady for across the House have had similar experiences to my highlighting these issues. I assure her that when I visited hon. Friend. That is a measure of the impact and Rwanda between 15 and 17 June I raised these very success of the campaign to date.