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Treaty of Lisbon (No. 6)

I am not going to give way, because we are very short of time, and it would be unfair on the Minister if he had no time to speak. Crucially, with the removal of the reference to the most disadvantaged, the revised treaty will shift the EU's priorities away from the least developed countries. In our view, that marks a step backwards in the provision of aid and support for the developing world. I shall start, however, with the positives. Compared with other aspects of the treaty, it is fortunate that there is at least some consensus across the House on the subject of humanitarian development, as has been demonstrated by the contributions today. The hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley) made a passionate speech about poverty alleviation, the principles of which are, I am sure, shared across the House. The hon. Gentleman will forgive me, however, for saying that the only flaw in his argument was his assertion that we needed a treaty to deliver that aim, or indeed any other of the aims highlighted by hon. Members—a point underlined, perhaps inadvertently, in the earlier intervention of the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Thomas). The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore) made an informed first contribution in his new role on the Front Bench and, having said that he felt unable to support our amendment, he proceeded to support many of our concerns on the nature of the treaty. He might not thank me for reminding him that he even managed to find a degree of consensus with my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr. Cash). The hon. Member for Amber Valley (Judy Mallaber) made a thoughtful speech, arguing for the need for better co-ordination and greater efficiency in the delivery of aid. I agree with those points wholeheartedly, but she failed to outline which elements of the treaty would help to deliver those goals. My hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter) made an excellent speech, based on a long-standing interest in aid and development—an interest underlined by the fact that it is now nearly 10 years since I first met him in Pristina, when I was Captain Lancaster and he was the shadow Secretary of State for International Development. He also rightly highlighted the concerns about the effectiveness of the delivery of EU aid, a point to which I will return shortly. The hon. Member for Elmet (Colin Burgon) made an interesting speech, in which he focused on trade liberalisation. I confess, however, that I was slightly surprised at his attack on his own former Minister, now the EU Trade Commissioner, Mr. Mandelson. I feel that it would be tactful to allow the Under-Secretary of State for International Development to adjudicate on this particular internal Labour dispute. As we have come to expect, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made an incisive speech that went to the heart of the issues that we are debating, namely, the fact that the Government are being forced to defend some of the very issues that they opposed during the negotiations. I shall return to that point in a moment. My right hon. Friend the Member for Wells (Mr. Heathcoat-Amory) highlighted the shortcomings of the EU in delivering aid, and outlined his concerns about the politicisation of aid. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone has a long-standing interest in these matters, and it shone through tonight in a passionate contribution that highlighted many of the shortcomings of the treaty. The hon. Member for Portsmouth, South (Mr. Hancock) spoke with considerable experience, and echoed earlier speakers' concerns that there was little in the treaty that would improve efficiency in the delivery of aid. The hon. Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) spoke with passion about the role of multilaterals in development. I hope that she will forgive me, however, if I do not quite share her confidence in the EU as a means to deliver those goals. There are, as hon. Members have highlighted in their speeches, many areas of concern with the treaty. Indeed, in his opening speech, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) highlighted no fewer than five areas in which the Government sought amendments during the negotiations. Those concerns were expressed to my hon. Friend during his meetings with the Presidents of Sierra Leone and Ghana last week. I am sure that my hon. Friend is flattered that the Secretary of State seems to be following in his footsteps around the world at the moment. In the brief time that I have remaining, I want to focus on just two of those concerns. The first is the impact of the provisions for shared competency on the effectiveness of the delivery of aid; the second is the politicisation of aid. As has been said, the EU is one of the major players in the development world, directly attributable for 57 per cent. of the world's official development assistance, and literally making the difference between life and death for hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of people. The fact remains, however, that the European Union and many of its member states are not good at delivering aid and development. Reference has been made to the description by the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) of EC aid as an ““outrage and a disgrace”” during her time as Secretary of State for International Development. Positive steps have been taken since then, and the present Secretary of State rightly alluded to them in his speech, but those steps have been too little and too slow, and the EU still has a long way to go before it can truly be considered as an effective deliverer of aid. To be fair, this is something that the Commission itself recognised when it accepted that 40 per cent. of delays to aid projects were the result of the administrative processes of the EU. NGOs agree. A survey by Oxfam found, that about a fifth of EU aid arrives more than a year late—something I experienced first hand and, I must say, with great frustration, during my own time delivering development in Afghanistan—but apart from the poor distribution of aid, the EU also suffers from fraud within its aid programme, which accounts for 21 per cent. of all fraud investigations conducted by the European anti-fraud office. While there is always room for improvement, the Department for International Development by contrast is generally well regarded as a deliverer of aid—perhaps the Secretary of State should sit up with pride at this moment. A report from the Canadian Government said of DFID:"““Today it is generally considered to be the best in the World.””" The Economist said that DFID was"““a model for other rich countries””." It is a source of pride for this House that DFID is clearly seen by many as a world leader, while EU aid is widely viewed as inefficient, fraudulent, directionless and governed by an over-bureaucratic mechanism. Conservative Members are therefore concerned that the Government seem determined to support a treaty that may, through the proposed entrenching of shared competence, undermine DFID's role and make it more impotent in the international development arena through effectively limiting what it can and cannot do. Let me be specific. Article 118(d) of the treaty states that EU and national policy in this area shall"““complement and reinforce each other””." More worrying is Article 214(6), which says;"““The Commission may take any useful initiative to promote coordination between actions of the Union and of the Member States.””" What exactly does that mean—that DFID aid and development programmes must reinforce those of the EU and that the EU can overrule Britain's decisions on aid policy? Perhaps when the Minister winds up the debate, he will explain exactly how, given the relative efficiency of the UK compared to the EU in delivering aid, such a course of action would be in the interests of Britain, and perhaps even more importantly, in the interests of the developing world. Another principal concern of Conservative Members is the treaty's politicisation of aid and the Minister will be aware that we have tabled amendments on this issue—as, indeed, did the right hon. Member for Neath (Mr. Hain), who seemed rightly to share our concerns, during the treaty negotiations. Presumably he, like us, believed that for true development to occur in some of the harshest environments in the world, long-term development plans need to be effectively implemented and regularly scrutinised. Our concern is that that will not be allowed to happen while aid is used as a diplomatic tool by the EU and its high representative. To be clear, article 214 says:"““The Union's operations in the field of humanitarian aid shall be conducted within the framework of the principles and objectives of the external action of the Union””." Other articles are similar, but all highlight that humanitarian aid and development shall be subsumed under the principles of the EU External Action Service—a point made eloquently by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury and by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wells. But what are those principles? The Secretary of State outlined some of the principles covered by article 224 in his opening remarks, but the role of the European External Action Service is outlined in article 13 and at no point is humanitarian aid mentioned. Why not? Let me be clear that in the view of many, including NGOs, that amounts to a clear politicisation of aid, which flies in the face of everything that previous Labour Governments have stood for. On four separate occasions in 1947,1964, 1974 and 1997, the Labour Party moved the role of overseas development away from the Foreign Office—on each occasion to resist the politicisation of aid—so why the sudden change of heart? Why, after 50 years of doing the opposite and having opposed it in the treaty negotiations, are the Government now suddenly supporting the move to subsume the EU's humanitarian aid into the EEAS? The proposals do nothing to improve the efficiency of EU aid; what they do is represent a retrograde move towards the politicisation of aid, marking a further nail in the coffin for the freedom of action for member states. We want the EU to work in partnership with DFID, not to dictate to it. These treaty provisions are a move in the wrong direction—for Britain, for the EU and for developing nations. Crucially, as previous debates have highlighted, the Government are once again going back on their word, supporting bureaucracy over democracy by denying the people the referendum they deserve.