§ 37. Mr. Hooleyasked the Minister of Overseas Development how much of the bilateral aid programme is being made available to projects of commercial importance; and what balance will be maintained between commercial criteria and aid criteria.
§ Mrs. HartWe decided last year that about 5 per cent. of the bilateral aid programme should be available to give higher priority to the commercial or industrial importance of developmentally sound projects. Commercial criteria are, of course, taken into account in the rest of the bilateral programme, but developmental objectives must come first.
§ Mr. HooleyRecognising that the development of the economy is the essential purpose of aid, may I ask why there was a specific earmarking of this 5 per cent.?
§ Mrs. HartOn the whole, it was to prevent a lot of hassle. There can be a lot of detailed arguments about how much developmental content and how much commercial content particular projects have. My hon. Friend will not be unaware that certain other countries have found ways of practising similar strategies. The 5 per cent. of the aid programme devoted to this matter could not be allocated to anything that did not have some genuine developmental purpose. However, provided that the project has a developmental purpose, the 5 per cent. is all about considering how far one might stretch the corners a little to accommodate considerable British industrial and commercial and export interests.
§ Mr. FormanIn order to maximise the effectiveness of our bilateral aid programme, it not there a case for looking again at the number of recipient countries, which has risen to 128, and considering whether the Government can concentrate their efforts on slightly fewer countries to better advantage?
§ Mrs. HartThat question relates very much to the CPRS review. The hon. Gentleman has been asking me some questions about the details of bilateral aid. He will find from my answers that a great many of the countries receiving aid are receiving only small amounts of 769 aid, which is basically English language teaching administered through the British Council.
Therefore, the precise long list is not entirely indicative of the priorities. There are about 20 countries receiving the predominant amount of our bilateral aid. I do not want to cut that. Nor do I want to cut the tiny bits of aid that go to other countries. Sometimes such aid goes to a country in which aid is declining and we are phasing it out. Sometimes it goes to a country in which we are beginning and phasing in aid. One has to consider this matter extremely carefully.