HL Deb 02 November 1983 vol 444 cc610-20

6.34 p.m.

Lord Oram rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what reductions in finance and manpower have been implemented or are contemplated is pursuance of the policies announced in the White Paper (Cmnd. 9003) in respect of the Scientific and Special Units of the Overseas Development Administration.

The noble Lord said: My Lords, I have put down this Question on the Order Paper in order to provide an opportunity for the Minister, which I hope he welcomes, to bring the House up to date about the fate of the units to which the Question refers, and in particular to bring us up to date about any developments that have taken place during the recess. There was certainly no opportunity to deal with the matter properly before the recess, because the White Paper—whether by accident or design, I do not know—was published at the very last moment. So neither House had the opportunity to raise questions about it. Indeed, the Minister for Overseas Development, Mr. Raison, seems to have hoped that a press conference could be a substitute for parliamentary examination, but he had to cancel the press conference when he was advised that that procedure would be an affront to Parliament. My honourable friend in another place, Mr. Guy Barnett, made a valiant attempt at the very last moment to raise the matter there, but procedure was against him. So we went into recess without any comment or question.

I hope that in replying to my Question this evening the Minister will be able to tell us more exactly than has so far been revealed the extent to which the ODA scientific units are being deprived of necessary resources. But whatever facts and figures and arguments he can produce, I believe it to be unlikely that he can meet the basic criticisms which had been variously voiced about the Government's policies before the recess.

We now have the White Paper—the reply by the Government to the report by the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place. In my view the arguments brought forward in the White Paper in reply to the points made by the Foreign Affairs Committee are remarkably thin. I suppose that one can easily put oneself in the position of the unfortunate officials who had to draft it, but everyone knows, and it becomes clear as one reads the White Paper, that the real reason for the reduction in resources of manpower and finance for the scientific units was simple and straightforward.

The truth is that the Government are hell-bent on reducing their public expenditure. Therefore, in their view every department has to take its share of the cuts, and every unit within every department has to shoulder its share of the burden. That is the simple logic and the simple reason for what has been brought about. It is little more than sheer arithmetic, applying the rules of division and subtraction. That is what has been happening in the Treasury and in other departments.

But the authors of the White Paper had to be more sophisticated than that. They had to deploy, as best they could, arguments relating to the work of the units themselves, and they have tried painfully, but in my view unsuccessfully, to do that on the basis of two arguments that the Government try to sustain. The first argument is that demand for the services of the units will diminish; and, secondly, alternatives for supplying the services can be justified on grounds of cost effectiveness. Less demand for services, and alternative means of meeting the reduced demands—those are the two parts of the argument. But in my view the Paper fails to make a sufficient case on either of those two points.

To start with, the White Paper cannot avoid paying tribute at various points to the value of the work that the units carry out. Many witnesses have given testimony to its great value. For example, in paragraph 7 of the White Paper it says: The … units enjoy and deserve an extremely high international reputation for the valuable work they do.". However, when it comes to evidence on the question of future demand for their services, it is interesting to study rather carefully the actual phrases that are used. Indeed, that is what I have done because I believe that there is no clear evidence that demand is falling off. Some of the phrases that are used are as follows: "effective demand will be somewhat less"; "demands fluctuate"; "fluctuations in demand"; "changing and uncertain demands; "much difficulty in making confident estimates of demand". That is the type of language that is used. Those are not phrases used by someone confident of his case; I believe that they are phrases used to make the most of a bad case. I particularly emphasise and call attention to the use of the word "fluctuate". Surely, if something fluctuates it can go up as well as down. Yet these savage cuts are made on the basis of an expectation, or a supposed expectation, that the demands will in fact go down.

Let me mention some of the cuts which are being applied. There will be a 25 per cent. cut in the staff of the TDRI by 1986. In the case of the LRDC there will be a cut from 78 staff to 45 by 1985. Worst of all, there will be a 60 per cent. reduction for the Directorate of Overseas Services. As I have said, these cuts are being made simply on the proposition that demand in the future will fluctuate, which presumably means down and sometimes up. Indeed, is it not a complete nonsense to suggest that the type of services provided by these units is likely to be less in demand? The services of all these units relate primarily to the rural sectors of the economies of developing countries. We know from discussions in this House on the general matter that the prime need of these developing countries is to develop their agriculture. Far from having less need of the type of services which the scientific units provide, I suggest that they are desperate for the expert knowledge that can enable them to develop their agriculture.

The second proposition upon which the Government hope to rest their case is cost-effectiveness. Here, too, in my view, their case is extremely thin. They start off quite acceptably in paragraph 8 of the White Paper by saying: The ODA has been forced to re-examine all activities within the aid programme to ensure that they meet the needs of developing countries in the most cost-effective way".

No one can argue or disagree with that. But what do we find whenever the question of cost-effectiveness is touched upon in the White Paper? What type of evidence is there? Paragraph 12 says: No significant cost difference was found between similar work done in the Centre or contracted out".

In paragraph 13 it says: no conclusive evidence that the units were more or less expensive".

Thirdly, in paragraph 14 it says: The Government agrees that COPR and TPI were very effective and their funds generally well spent". Those are sentences from the Government about the cost-effectiveness of these units which are being slashed.

The Government seem to be claiming that the units can continue to meet demands quite successfully at a much lower level of manpower. I do not believe that to be so. It is surely not possible for these cuts to be made, as they are now being made, without them having a devastating effect upon the morale of the staff who remain. Indeed, I understand that some are resigning through the frustration that is being brought about by the Government's policies. I suggest that that is not the way to efficiency; that kind of policy and cuts of that kind create inefficiency.

It is, therefore, in my submission, clear that the Government have not been able to produce any real evidence to support their decision to apply these cuts to the scientific units. Indeed, as I have illustrated, the very language of the White Paper itself belies the claim put forward in its concluding section. Paragraph 29, despite the hesitation in the rest of the paper, comes out boldly and says: These decisions were taken … as a result of detailed examination of the likely levels of demand for the services of each of the units and of the most cost-effective way of providing those services". That, I suggest, is evidently not true.

In reading the paper my attention was particularly caught by paragraph 10, because that paragraph called in aid—in aid of the Government's case—the evidence by Professor Bunting of Reading University. I remember him very well indeed as a very great expert from the days when I myself was a Minister at the ODM. It struck me as not in keeping with the Professor Bunting that I remembered that he should be on that side of the argument. So I referred to the Foreign Affairs Committee's report and read Professor Bunting's memorandum. As I would expect, his submission was entirely favourable to the scientific units. Frankly, paragraph 10 struck me as bordering on sharp practice in that it was so selective of one particular item of Professor Bunting's views and did not attempt to convey the essence of his views.

It may be helpful to the House if I give his views in the summary paragraph at the end of his paper. He says: But an even more urgent need for ODA is to halt the decline of the home-based units and to enable them to play an even fuller part in the national and international overseas development effort. They are a valuable resource which must not be frittered away". The Government are intent on frittering them away. The case that I wish to be answered tonight could not be better expressed than in those words of Professor Bunting.

6.50 p.m.

Lord Beaumont of Whitley

My Lords, it is the job of those Members of your Lordships' House who wish to change the Government's mind on what seems to be some of the minor matters of their responsibilities, sometimes to go in for a bit of overkill. How else, we sometimes think, are we to alert a Minister or a Permanent Secretary to what seems to them possibly not the most important matter among all the major problems which beset them day by day, except by a bit of exaggeration? It is for that reason that when briefs come on to our desks some of us—certainly I include myself—are apt to treat them with a measure of scepticism, and when we have translated that scepticism into the enthusiasm needed to convince the powers-that-be, a certain amount of it remains. But the more I look at this particular matter—and it is thanks to the wholly admirable assiduity of the noble Lord, Lord Oram, that we are given this opportunity of doing so again—the more I am convinced that this is in no way a matter of detail; that it goes to the very heart of the whole of our aid programme.

On the subject of aid, I find myself in an uncomfortable position along, I suspect, with a growing number of other people. I find myself more and more convinced of the importance of aid, and less and less in favour of most of the aid which we infact give. I am more and more convinced of the importance, because it seems to me that both morality and expedience point to the need for us to help the poor of this world. I am in no doubt that they need help, none that we should give it, none that in the long run it would be for the benefit of this country that we give it—although, even if it was not, we still should. On the other hand, most of the aid we give is designed to benefit ourselves as much as, and in some cases even more than, the country it is going to, and when it does benefit other countries, as often as not it aids their rich elites at the expense of their people, and, because of our appalling tax system, at the expense of our poor people too.

However, the technical aid, such as that which flows from the units about which we are talking today, does not fall into this category. It helps the countries concerned to help themselves and—and this is extremely important in view of the arguments which have been produced in the White Paper—it has no commercial axe to grind. Of a lot of our aid it could be said, as it was once said of an eminent Member of your Lordships' House, that, He gave all assistance short of actual help". It seems to me that these units are in the real business of giving actual help.

It is for this reason that it is tremendously important that the Government cut through the jungle of inhibitions which surrounds this particular sleeping princess and re-awaken her with a kiss before she wastes away. I realise only to well the strength of the inhibitions which are working. The noble Lord, Lord Oram, has already pointed out one of them—the pressure to apply cuts evenly across the board wherever you may find it possible. In addition, with this paticular Government there is also the disinclination to make an exception of anything which has to do with bureaucracy. Neither of these are evil things in themselves. But what I can do is to urge on the Government that there are other of their preoccupations which are on the side of the argument which the noble Lord, Lord Oram, and I are putting forward.

The first of these is the pursuit of excellence. Nowhere in the discussions that we have had, nowhere in the White Paper, nowhere at all, is there a suggestion that the job that is being done is anything but of the highest quality and produces that feeling which is dear to the heart of all Conservatives—and Liberals —which is customer satisfaction. The second suggestion at which I think the Conservative Government as a Conservative Government should look is the dislike of not being bound by bureaucratic attitudes. Nothing could be more bureaucratic than the search for unity of sacrifice as between the valuable and the less valuable. We must discriminate; surely that is at the heart of Tory philosophy. That is something which one would have expected to see applied strongly in this particular case.

I suggested at the beginning that sometimes in these cases we, in Opposition, are tempted to overstate our case. A favourite governmental counter-attack is to say, "If this it so important, where then would you make cuts?". I welcome such a question, which is, of course, why I have posed it myself. I can categorically state that I regard this particular matter as the top priority within the field of aid. It seems to me that there is no other part of the aid programme which goes so deeply to the heart of what is really needed, and therefore there is nothing which I would not, if necessary, sacrifice to it. Although it may merely be the fairly humble day-to-day work of a minor governmental department, it is in fact the jewel in our aid crown. Before it is too late the Government should recognise it as such and repent of their decisions.

6.57 p.m.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, the cuts in these organisations are yet another example of the complete absence of imagination in the minds of this Administration. From this I exempt entirely the noble Lord, Lord Trefgarne, who has debated with me on a number of occasions on the subject of aid and whom I have always found to have a most sympathetic attitude towards it, largely, I imagine, inherited from his father. But this is a mean-minded measure. It is rather like—and I think that this is apposite—the owner of a supermarket who cuts the number of cash tills, thus making the work of his employees more difficult and the life of his customers more uncomfortable.

What, really, are we talking about? We are talking about a sum of £6.7 million for 1982–83—1 per cent. of the total aid budget. Yet, as we have heard from my noble friend Lord Oram, these organisations redound to the credit of Britain all over the world; they are internationally famous. As my noble friend Lord Oram has pointed out, the excuse given for the cuts is that the demand is falling.

In the first place I should add that this £6.7 million, of course, does not just leave this country. It is not just foreign exchange. Much of it is spent in Britain and a good proportion is also spent on British people abroad. So the foreign exchange cost is even less. But, even if we accept that as a bald figure, what demand is falling? The Centre for Overseas Pest Research— COPR—is researching on bilharzia. Eight hundred and fifty million people in the world suffer from bilharzia. In Egypt it is calculated that one in every two of the inhabitants suffer from that disease. Have your Lordships ever seen bilharzia? Have you seen the effect of bilharzia on people, the debilitating effect that it has? Some people talk about the lazy African, or the lazy West Indian, or the lazy Asian. They do not realise that the majority of these people have been suffering for generations from diseases like bilharzia, and particularly from bilharzia.

And yet this organisation, the COPR, has been developing and testing a safe molluscicide which is designed expressly to remove the original cause of bilharzia, which is to be found in the snails. This work is comparatively well advanced. What is going to happen? It has been stopped. It has been stopped because of these cuts. Is that because there are fewer people in the world suffering from bilharzia, or because bilharzia has been eliminated? Is that not a totally dishonest argument in the White Paper? Where is the demand for relief from bilharzia falling? Let the House be told by the Government where they find the demand for the relief of the disease of bilharzia falling, or likely to fall, in the near future.

Bilharzia is only one of the diseases and pests which are being attacked by these organisations. There are a number which are outlined in the evidence given in the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee. There are the plant hoppers. There are even bees which bring valuable food to many poor people. On every single occasion, in every single instance of the work done by these organisations, it is the poorest of people who have benefited from it. Where is it that the demand is falling? Is it amongst those who have been suffering the pest of the grasshoppers? Again this has been attacked, and successful research done on them by these organisations. Is it the cultivation of cassava? This is a staple diet for 500 million of the poorest people in the world. Research has been done by the Tropical Products Institute.

What kind of sums are we talking about saving? On the bee project, what was the saving? Over two and a half years, £12,000. Are we really talking about stopping for a mere £12,000 over two and a half years' research which, as my noble friend has pointed out, is assisting the rural areas in particular, assisting farmers in eliminating pests from their crops, and assisting farmers' families to eat better and suffer from less disease?

So one could go on. There is sorghum in the arid areas, which is equal in importance to cassava. There is the charcoal that brings warmth to people living out in the open, which the Tropical Products Institute has discovered can be processed much more efficiently, with much greater warmth as a result. Is it the work on pesticides that have endangered health on the one hand and on the other hand been inefficiently used in so far as the crops are concerned? When one looks at the whole variety of benefits which these organisations have brought to the poorest of people in the rural areas, to the assistance they are giving towards self-sufficiency in food production, to health preservation, I suggest that this is one of the smallest-minded, most mean of measures taken to satisfy the dogma of "everything must be cut".

7.6 p.m.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Armed Forces (Lord Trefgarne)

My Lords, your Lordships will be grateful to the noble Lord, Lord Oram, for his interest in the scientific units of our Overseas Development Administration, the ODA. They indeed play an important role within the aid programme and have earned a distinguished reputation around the world. Scientific research and development are areas where this country can and does make an important contribution to development in tropical countries. The purpose of recent scrutinies and reviews was to help us identify changes that will increase the efficiency of the units and ensure that their work accords more closely with the priorities of the aid programme, which are of course set in the closest consultation with the recipient countries themselves. The Government considered very carefully the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee in another place, and those observations were published, as the noble Lord, Lord Oram, said, as a White Paper on 27th July.

In order to be so effective the ODA units are highly specialised. In some fields their expertise is unsurpassed. However, the needs of developing countries are changing, science is changing and scientific units set up to serve development goals must be subject to review and change also. The changes proposed for the ODA units are less than one might suppose from the welter of criticism that these ideas have provoked, and the bulk of the units' work will continue as before. Some reduction has been necessary because the Rayner Scrutinies and other reviews have shown that we should expect some reduction in demand for the units' services. I quote from the White Paper: The ODA has been forced to re-examine all activities within the aid programme to ensure that they meet the needs of developing countries in the most cost-effective way and many economies have been made. Within the bilateral programme the priorities of developing country Governments vary: not all at present give the highest priority to British aid in the development of natural resources or survey and mapping services. Their demands fluctuate and it is necessary to offer a flexible response. This can be done by supplementing, as necessary, the work of somewhat smaller staffs in the units by expertise available in Government departments, universities. research institutions and the private sector". The reviews were also concerned with cost-effectiveness and efficiency. I quote again from the White Paper: The Government has made good management and the efficient use of resources policies in their own right and has sought to reduce manpower levels generally in the Civil Service". There were four scientific and special units within the Overseas Development Administration. Following the recent reviews it was decided that the Tropical Products Institute and the Centre for Overseas Pest Research should he maintained within ODA, but combined into a single Tropical Development and Research Institute.

It was decided also that the Land Resources Development Centre should remain within ODA, but on a reduced scale, and that the Directorate of Overseas Surveys should he amalgamated with the Ordnance Survey. The proportionately greater reduction in staff numbers for Land Resources Development and Overseas Surveys, compared with the reductions in the Tropical Development and Research Institute, reflect the expectation that the fall in demand will be different for different types of work. To explain the reasons for these decisions we need to look more closely at how the units differ from each other and what they have in common.

All three units are integral parts of the ODA. Their staff are civil servants but their budgets, including staff salaries, are charged to the aid programme. Pressures on the aid programme, and in particular the need to allocate resources for multilateral aid, have made it necessary to reduce the British bilateral aid programme to other countries, and it was inevitable that we should consider whether the work of the units ought to share in this general reduction.

I turn first to the Tropical Development and Research Institute, which was formed in April this year. One of the new Institute's constituent parts was the Centre for Overseas Pest Research, a research unit seeking ways to control pests that damage crops in developing countries, especially food crops, Its early work on locusts was a conspicuous success, and the attentions of the unit have been directed more recently to other pests.

The new Tropical Development and Research Institute incorporates the former Tropical Products Institute, concerned with post-harvest technology for the storage, processing and marketability of a wide range of tropical crops. Work on post-harvest technology, like research on pests, is doing much to increase supplies of food in developing countries. Let me list the main decisions affecting the Tropical Development and Research Institute.

The first is that it should be formed by merging two former units, with expected economies from shared library and workshop facilities, et cetera, and a proposed relocation. The two units co-operated already in some areas, such as work on pheromone attractants for insects, and pests attacking stored grains. Secondly, its work should be commissioned more directly by spending departments in ODA to ensure that its efforts were concentrated on work given highest priority by developing country Governments. Thirdly, the staff should be reduced to allow for the reduced demand for their services which could be financed from the aid programme.

The staff cuts made so far in the Tropical Development and Research Institute (and the bodies from which it was formed) have involved a reduction of some 100 since 1979. Another 30 posts are due to be surrendered between now and April 1986; a reduction in staff of about 27 per cent. over a seven-year period, representing a smaller proportion than cuts in the bilateral aid programme from which they are financed.

The reductions in the number of staff and other economies have produced financial savings of approximately £1.2 million a year at today's prices since 1979. The alternative options proposed in the report of the Foreign Affairs Committee had all been considered within ODA. Most have some merit and some may provide longer term future models. None provides as good an answer as the one adopted in the immediate situation, in terms of cost effectiveness.

I come now to the Land Resources Development Centre, which provides scientific staff for overseas assignments, especially to meet the need for a multidisciplinary approach to specific problems of land resource development. In addition to providing staff, the centre provides professional management and a number of technical supporting services (for example in specialised information, cartography, and soils analysis). Its viability is, and always has been, dependent upon there being a sufficient number of requests from overseas Governments which can utilise the diverse skills of the centre's operational staff and a sufficiency of uncommitted funds available in bilateral country programme allocations to match these requests.

The constraints on bilateral aid funds and monitoring of the preferences expressed by developing country Governments for the use of aid available to them has indicated quite plainly that the number of overseas assignments which the centre's staff might be called upon to fill is falling. The right course to take must clearly be one which retains an essential nucleus of skilled operational and back-up staff with a reliance on alternative sources of expertise to meet any temporary increase in the amount of work which can be funded. This is the course which has been taken. The objective here is not specifically to make savings in staff or costs. It is to avoid a situation in which a staff of its present size might be under-employed while its costs in salaries or overheads continue to be met. The reduction decided upon was one of 33 staff, over a period of two and a half years, most of whom are expected to leave in 1984–85. Annual savings of £0.4 million at today's prices are expected by 1985.

Thirdly, I turn to the Directorate of Overseas Surveys. The most significant recommendation resulting from the Rayner Scrutiny of the directorate was that the separate block vote funding through the aid programme for overseas survey and mapping work should end. This has been accepted and acted upon and this type of service to developing countries now competes for bilateral aid funds with other priority requests from overseas Governments.

As expected, there has as a consequence been some reduction in demand for this type of aid. The arrangements made for the merger of a reduced complement in the directorate with the Ordnance Survey and for an increased use of private sector firms appear to the Government to be the appropriate way of dealing with a smaller and fluctuating demand. The only practical way to relate needs to resources is to take note primarily of the priorities which Governments indicate and to let particular services compete on equal terms. It is contrary to good management to retain a larger standing capacity than one can expect to keep fully employed, especially where there is a prospect of using outside capacity for some tasks.

This is the reason for the decisions taken on the directorate. My right honourable friend the Prime Minister said in another place on 16th November last year that the merger of the Directorate of Overseas Surveys with the Ordnance Survey would take place next April and implementation would be completed by March 1985. The staff will be reduced by some 60 per cent. over the period from 1979 to 1986 leading to annual savings of £2.1 million at today's prices.

Your Lordships may be wondering how changes in the Ordnance Survey may affect the decisions taken for the Directorate of Overseas Surveys. The answer, in brief, is: not at all. The Overseas Development Administration will commission work from the Ordnance Survey, including experts for advice and training as well as survey and mapping projects. The ODA will pay a fair price for the work that is done. Many of the staff engaged on this work will be those taken into the Ordnance Survey from the present Directorate of Overseas Surveys and there will be a continuity in the programme.

The noble Lord, Lord Oram, drew special attention to the question of demand. We are interested primarily in demand which can be paid for. With a reduced bilateral aid programme we can clearly pay for less. The noble Lord emphasised the use by the Govern ment in the White Paper of the description of demand as "fluctuating". He questioned the desire for cost effectiveness. But the facts are these: although future demand is difficult to predict, demand has fallen, and we expect it to fall further. Demand does, indeed, fluctuate and it is not cost effective, as I have already said, to keep standing capacity in the Civil Service to meet peaks of demand, especially if the work can be done elsewhere.

I agree with very much of with the noble Lord, Lord Beaumont of Whitley, said. The units were seen by the noble Lord as jewels in our aid crown: but the best jewels have to be cut for their brilliance to be seen. We We hope that, after the modest cuts that we have made to this jewel, our units will shine even more brightly. The changes that have been made in the ODA scientific units will give us better value for money in our aid programme. The reduction in size gives us more flexibility to meet the changing need and demands.

Of course the Government recognise the need for the units not to fall below a certain minimum size. That was made clear in the White Paper. But it is important not to exaggerate the reductions that have been made or that are intended. Staff reductions at the largest of the units, the Tropical Development and Research Institute, are proportionally less than the reduction in the bilateral aid programme as a whole and are being achieved by increasing efficiency rather than by reducing the scientific programme. We are not in the business of imposing priorities upon the recipient countries. But noble Lords will appreciate that in that context our aid budget as a whole must nonetheless be finite and. with those two considerations, I hope that your Lordships will agree that we have taken the right decision.

Lord Hatch of Lusby

My Lords, before the noble Lord sits down, will he answer the question that I put to him specifically? When he talks about a reduction in demand, does he see a reduction or a projected reduction in the necessity for dealing with a disease like bilharzia which I quoted? If not, on what criteria have the cuts been made? Is it simply British economy or have the interests of the recipients been taken into account?

Lord Trefgarne

My Lords, our aid budget as a whole is finite. In the light of that consideration, we ask the recipient countries to declare the priorities, as they see them, in the aid programme that we can make available to them. It is for them to decide to which particular areas they attach the greatest importance and, in the case that the noble Lord has indicated, not all the countries have shown that preference.

House adjourned at twenty-three minutes past seven o'clock.