§ John BarrettTo ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer what plans there are to publish the minutes of the(a) World bank and (b) International Monetary Fund, and if he will make a statement. [80949]
§ John HealeyEnhancing the transparency of the IMF and World bank is a critical part of our work on strengthening crisis prevention, improving economic cooperation and promoting global stability and growth. Greater transparency can help strengthen policy frameworks, ensure that vulnerabilities are addressed at an early stage, and strengthen effectiveness and accountability.
(a) There are currently no plans for the minutes of World Bank Board Meetings to be published. However, since April 2001 the bank has been moving towards making the Executive Board more transparent, and we fully support these efforts. Most important decisions, including those relating to selected policy, strategy and topical issues, are announced through press releases or at press conferences of senior bank officials. Chairman's Concluding Remarks (and Summings Up) on discussions of Country Assistance Strategies, Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers/Interim Poverty Reduction Strategy Papers, Sector Strategy Papers and Heavily Indebted Poor Country documents are publicly available. Chairman's Concluding Remarks on discussions of other policy, strategy and topical issues can also be made publicly available—though this requires the agreement of the Executive Board. Approvals of individual lending operations are announced through issue of press releases and fact sheets providing summary data on the project.
(b) The IMF has also made real progress in its publication policy in recent years. There has been a significant increase in the publication of Public Information Notices summarizing the surveillance (Article IV) discussions of the Board, of Article IV reports themselves, and of Chairman's statements, news briefs and press releases following Board discussions on the use of Fund resources and on policy issues. Nevertheless, the UK believes that the IMF can build on this progress and that there is considerable scope for further reform. The IMF's Transparency policy was discussed by the Executive Board in June 2002. At this 193W discussion the UK supported the proposal that access to Executive Board minutes should be accelerated from 20 years to five years and pressed for even further acceleration. Unfortunately, this view was not shared by others on the Board and access to Board minutes was only reduced to 10 years.
To promote greater transparency in the UK about our role in the IMF, we publish an Annual Report to Parliament on the UK and the IMF. This includes the voting record of the UK Governor and Executive Director, and provides an indication of the position we take at Board discussions. Only in the case of highly market sensitive information would we not provide this information. In our experience this is already strengthening public and parliamentary understanding of and support for the work of the IMF.