§ Q4. Sir Ian Orr-Ewingasked the Prime Minister if he will place a copy of his public speech on Government performance at Polesden Lacey on 14th September 1969 in the Library.
§ The Prime MinisterThe speech was placed in the Library on 29th September.
I agologise for the length of the rest of this Answer, but, as I informed the House on 30th October, I undertook to look fully into this matter.
As my right hon. Friend the former Minister of Overseas Development told the House last Thursday, the facts which I gave were correct. I was referring to "the' aid programme ', as it is called". This has been maintained at £205 million since it was established at that figure in 1966, and announced in an Answer given by the then Minister of Overseas Development to a Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Portsmouth, West (Mr. Judd) on 12th December, 1966.
In contrast to the estimates, there are variations in outturn from year to year, mainly related to the capacity of receiving countries to make their development plans effective. Extra items have been added to the basic programme from time to time so that the outturn each year has always exceeded £205 million. Both estimates and outturn in the latest available year are higher than in 1964–65 in terms of the official aid programme to which my speech clearly referred.
These figures are of course in sterling at current prices, and as my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Duchy said in the House last Thursday, it has never been in question that the aid programme has declined as a percentage of G.N.P. But the House should also be aware that the latest O.E.C.D. statistics show that our official development assistance in 1968, as a percentage of G.N.P., was equal to that of Germany and higher than that of the United States. Of the large donors, only France had a higher percentage.
The House should also be aware[HoN. MEMBERS "Too long."] I was much pressed on this last week by the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home). I undertook to make a statement at the 830 earliest opportunity, and it arises on this Question.
Right hon. and hon. Members opposite may not want to know this, but the House should also be aware that in terms of the O.E.C.D. measure of generosity in aid—i.e. taking account of the proportion of grant and of the subsidy element in the interest on loans—Britain was in 1968 the first of all major donors, in that—
§ Sir S. McAddenOn a point of order. In the very limited time which is available to hon. Members for questioning the Prime Minister, is it in order, Mr. Speaker, for that time to be utilised by the right hon. Gentleman to explain a speech that he made elsewhere, when he could easily do that by a personal statement at the end of Questions?
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. The Prime Minister was asked the Question. He is answering the Question—[Interruption.]Order. Questions requiring lengthy answers as a rule ought to be answered after Questions.
§ The Prime MinisterThis is the second statistical smear that we have had from right hon. and hon. Gentleman opposite in two days. As with yesterday, these are better dealt with not in the give-and-take of questions, and I was about to finish my answer, Mr. Speaker, if you wish to hear it.
What is known in O.E.C.D. as the "total concessional element" in our aid was 82 per cent., compared with 80 per cent. for France, 75 per cent. for the United States and 63 per cent. for Germany. These figures are given in Table 9 of the O.E.C.D. Press Release of 17th July. I would also draw attention to the footnote to that Table which shows that, even if the 1969 Supplementary Recommendation on Terms had applied in 1968, we would have been second only to the United States, among major donors.
Our proposals for further aid expenditure will appear at the proper time; the White Paper on Public Expenditure will be published a few weeks from now.
§ Sir Ian Orr-EwingIs the Prime Minister aware that, in that speech, he said of overseas aid:
It has not been cut, even in the most difficult days",831 whereas Parliamentary Answers reveal that, in terms of dollars, in terms of percentage of the gross national product, and in the United Nations terms, it has been cut very substantially Would it not be shorter if he set an example and apologised to this House, and might not that example be followed by the Minister of Defence, who fiddled the numbers of Service men in Germany, and the habit might spread to the selection of candidates in cases like Islington? It is up to him to set an example.
§ The Prime MinisterThe apology for which the House is waiting is that from the right hon. Member for Altrincham and Sale (Mr. Barber). But in an intervention in the speech of the right hon. Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Sir Alec Douglas-Home), I undertook at the first opportunity to give the result of my investigations into his allegations. I also said that the basic aid programme has not been cut. However, it is true—and I think that this is his point—that the outturn has varied from year to year. Taking the financial year 1968–69, it fell compared with the previous year. That was due to the fact that certain things which we were expecting that year did not occur—[Laughter.] —things outside the control of this country. Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen opposite can laugh again. The second replenishment of I.D.A. did not occur. That was not due to this Government. [Laughter.] Right hon. and hon. Gentlemen can laugh again at that. Special aid to Malaysia and Singapore was only begun during the year and therefore was less than had been expected. Also our official aid to India was changed by agreement with the Indian Government and put on a different basis, and it led to a fall in what they were able to absorb in that year. That is why the outturn last year was less than in the previous year. But it was still above the official aid programme which we announced.
§ Sir Alec Douglas-HomeIt is true that the Prime Minister said that he would look into this matter. I hope that he will not pursue the matter of statistical smear—[HON. MEMBERS: "Why?"] Because it is true, is it not, that the Pearson Commission has printed in its Report the fact that the percentage of gross national product applied to aid 832 in this country is falling, and has fallen. That was the point that I was on and that was valid.
§ The Prime MinisterThe right hon. Gentleman went further to throw doubt on the facts that I stated at Polesdon Lacey, and so did the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition the day before. It is true that the right hon. Gentleman, having a sheet of figures in his hand, read from that particular line. But he did not read from the line relevant to my speech, which was that the total amount of official aid has not been cut. The right hon. Gentleman was trying to suggest that it had been cut.
The percentage of G.N.P.—and I think that the right hon. Gentleman was wrong in his speech to the House about his own performance in this matter—has fallen, as I have said many times. But it is still very high compared with most other countries in the world.
§ Mr. John LeeWhile I think that most hon. Members on this side of the House appreciate and are proud of the work done by this country, surely the important point is not the remarks made by right hon. and hon. Members opposite, but that we should do all that we can to increase the aid that we can provide?
§ The Prime MinisterYes. My hon. Friend is quite right. This is the desire of Her Majesty's Government, and that was the basis of what I said at Polesdon Lacey. This year on the official economic aid programme, excluding military aid, we are now spending at a rate of about 6 per cent. or more above last year. I am glad about that. It is not as much as many of us in this House, on either side, would like. But when we have finished arguing about figures, we are talking of aid for people in great need of it. That is what we are all talking about. In the concluding words of my original Answer I said that we shall be able to announce the Government's new decision on this in the course of the next few weeks showing how far we feel we can go in present circumstances to reach our objective, which I understand is the objective of both sides, because the right hon. Gentleman was very forthcoming in answers to the Home Secretary's questions last week.
§ Sir D. RentonThe Prime Minister said that aid has not been cut, even in the most difficult days. Will he indicate what effect devaluation had on the actual value of the aid received by overseas countries?
§ The Prime MinisterI said, when I announced the aid programme in January 1968, that it would have some effect. But the right hon. and learned Gentleman must recognise that a large number of the countries where our aid is spent were not affected by devaluation. The aid is in sterling, and there is much less effect from devaluation. That is why it is wrong to measure it in dollar terms.
§ Mr. ShinwellIs not my right hon. Friend somewhat surprised at the anxiety of the Opposition about aid to underdeveloped and backward countries? Is he aware that, during a long time in this House, I have never found them so concerned? Indeed, on an occasion when I made a speech from the Opposition benches when a Tory Government were in office, they disregarded it entirely. They were not in the least interested.
§ The Prime MinisterI do not go as far as my right hon. Friend, because on the benches opposite there are a number of right hon. and hon. Gentlemen who have gone a very long way—[An HON. MEMBER: "How many?"]— and have committed themselves, both in Government and in Opposition, to doing all that they can concerning aid.
I was pleased last week that the right hon. Gentleman the Leader of the Opposition, although he raised this question in his speech only to try to prove some inconsistency in my figures, nevertheless, when asked by my right hon. Friend, committed himself to an increase in the aid programme, which I welcome and which I am sure the whole House will welcome. I took that as a rebuke to Tory canvassers who last week were trying to make capital out of what we are spending on aid.
§ Mr. HeathIs not the answer to the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and his colleagues on the back benches that, either in percentage of national income, which is what we discussed at U.N.C.T.A.D. in 1964, or in percentage of gross national product, the Conservative Government maintained a 834 higher percentage than the present Administration has been able to achieve?
§ The Prime MinisterYes, Sir—[Interruption.] But, as I said last week, the statement—[Interruption.]
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We must hear each other.
§ The Prime Minister—that aid had been cut was a false statement. That is the point with which I was concerned.
Referring to the right hon. Gentleman's figure for 1964, quoted last week, that was also at a time of an £800 million trade deficit—[Interruption.] Oh yes, it was. The 1964 figure was at a time of an £800 million balance-of-payments deficit. I accept the Monday Club's correction.
§ Mr. SpeakerOrder. We cannot discuss this matter against shouting.
§ The Prime MinisterI remind the right hon. Gentleman also that not only would he have had to cut the programme if he had taken over the deficit that he left to us, as he would, but it would be impossible for him to maintain any aid programme at all on his proposals for advanced military expenditure east of Suez.