Sir Andrew Mitchell
MP for Sutton Coldfield · Conservative · United Kingdom
“I urge Labour Members to rise up now and say that the historical interest and support of the Labour party have been for international development. People might expect the beastly Tories to cut aid and development, but they do not expect the Labour party to do that. Now is a chance to have a real reset, which should include three things.”
“As we get older, we tend to look back at the past through rose-tinted spectacles, but I acknowledge at the outset that British development policy is at its best by far when it is conducted on an all-party basis. It is not a Labour, Conservative or Liberal policy; it is a British policy. That was one of its great glories in the past.”
“Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale about the importance of saving the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, but we have to accept that we will not get a major boost in public support unless it comes from the top. We had an era of huge support, led by Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron and Theresa May.”
“The Government are the 100% shareholder in BII and are therefore able to set out very clearly what its priorities should be, but they should then leave an organisation like BII to get on with following that mandate. I argue that there have been three great losses from the Johnson and Starmer premierships.”
“I argue that, since the Suez crisis, international development has been the only area of indisputable British international leadership—and we have lost that.”
“I do not really agree with that because, while the hon. Gentleman cites a number of areas where Britain makes a big contribution, there is a big black hole where we have cut off our legs in respect to international development. I will say a word or two about that in a moment.”
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“I am very pleased to hear what my hon. Friend says about the absolute importance of ICAI. He talks about the spending being in the national interest. May I make it clear that many of us believe that every single penny of the international development budget is spent in Britain’s national interest?”
“With that, the 0.7% will go up in smoke as the stronger interests plunder the budget and Britain’s development effectiveness dissolves, and with it our international reputation as a world leader in the field.”
“Churches, faith communities and hundreds—thousands—of supporters up and down the country of Oxfam, Save the Children, Christian Aid and CAFOD are dismayed, as are our many friends around the world, who are shaking their heads in disbelief at this extraordinary act. Both the Foreign Office and DFID work ceaselessly in Britain’s national interest, but foreign affairs and development, while totally complementary, are not the same thing. I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment to the 0.7%, but that involves both the money and the OECD rules on what constitutes legitimate aid and official development assistance, and I fear that we will shortly hear that the rules are not quite right for the United Kingdom and we need our own rules.”
“I draw the attention of the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I start by making it absolutely clear that I regard the decision to dismantle DFID as a quite extraordinary mistake. First, it will destroy one of the most effective and respected engines of international development in the world. Secondly, many of the senior figures who are key to Britain’s role as a development superpower are likely to leave and work elsewhere in the international system, destroying at a stroke a key aspect of global Britain. Thirdly, it is completely unnecessary, as the Prime Minister exercises full control and line of sight over DFID’s strategy and priorities through the National Security Council.”
“ICAI was set up in the teeth of opposition from the development sector, but it is extremely important for holding to account the quality of spending. It is the taxpayers’ friend, and we must drive up the quality of ODA spend across Government.”
“First, it is important to ensure a whole-of-Government approach to the spending of development money. Different Departments spend it, but not consistently, and most of the spend that attracts hostile comment in the press—the spend in China, for example, or the Newton fund—is not spent by DFID. In my first hour as Secretary of State, I stopped all spending to China, unless it was legally incurred. There is a danger that mis-spending by other Departments brings the budget into disrepute with our constituents, and I urge the Government to focus on that point. Secondly, to ensure an emphasis on the quality of the spend, ICAI looks at all spending. Its annual report comes out tomorrow, and I urge colleagues to read it.”
“The House will understand why I am grateful to my hon. Friend for giving me an extra minute, but I have learned during my 30 years in Parliament that, in politics, there is limited point in spending one’s time howling at the moon. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the decision, it has been made, so I will turn now to how best it can be implemented, with the least damage to Britain’s brilliant work and reputation. I draw the Minister’s attention to the excellent paper produced by Stefan Dercon, who was the chief economist in the Department when I was Secretary of State. I know the Foreign Secretary has had a chance to look at it. I hope the Foreign Office will bear in mind the constructive comments made in that wise and thoughtful paper on how to make the merger work.”
“I am sorry, but I cannot. Thirdly, DFID’s skill is money. With the best will in the world, the Foreign Office is not that; although it is populated by the most brilliant diplomats, they are not very good with money and it is not fair to expect Foreign Office officials to take responsibility for running multimillion-pound projects. The final example I will give is that, to his credit, the Prime Minister has made getting girls into school a priority. I strongly agree. To change our world, educate girls. That is why I set up the girls’ education challenge fund, which was designed to get 1 million girls into school, but looking at the right structures to deliver that is a DFID skill.”
“Many of us on the Back and Front Benches, especially my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, have been working for some time on the Magnitsky measures, and I congratulate him on this important announcement today. I just ask two questions. First, may we please see strong transparency and openness in how these measures are brought to bear? Secondly, and in particular, does he agree that Parliament should have real input into how the measures are put into effect?”
“I very much welcome what my right hon. Friend has said about the Magnitsky proposals, on which he and I have worked together in the past, and I also very much welcome what he said about the new rights for BNOs. In dealing with China, we should always champion our values and never trim on that. Will he make it clear to the Chinese regime and reinforce this with them that, wherever possible, we seek co-operation, not confrontation?”
“While that is progress of a sort, it does not really help developing countries, for obvious reasons to do with cost and with complexity. Clearly, it would be better, as with open registers, for all the data simply to be placed in the public domain so that there is a level playing field and public accountability for the tax conduct of multinational enterprises worldwide.”
“In Sutton Coldfield, we are struggling to make a success of our town centre and high street, to renew it and reinvigorate it, but Amazon undercuts bookshops in our high streets and stores such as John Lewis in our shopping centres because it can avoid paying its fair share of tax. Thirdly—this is of particular importance to developing countries—credible research shows that developing countries lose three times as much each year from tax avoidance as they gain from development aid. The OECD has been pressing for international reform in tax rules for decades. Those countries with the most to lose have been most resistant, so the OECD compromise was that information should be provided confidentially to the tax authorities.”
“The public and the public finances cry out for fairness and equity, particularly at a time like this, when some companies have benefited from taxpayer-funded rescue packages organised by the Government while not contributing equitably to the public purse. Public expenditure is now at an all-time high. This borrowing will have to be paid for and it is simply not right or fair that while most taxpayers will have to pay more tax—85% of us pay taxation through PAYE—some multinational companies deliberately create financial structures to avoid paying tax. I also point out to right hon. and hon. Members that those same multinationals are undermining British business by undercutting them on price. They can do that because they do not pay tax at anything like the same rate.”
“Such progress is a huge advance in tackling money laundering and financial corruption, and it bears down heavily on tax evasion as well. It also makes it more difficult for bent politicians and corrupt businesspeople to steal money from poor countries and their citizens. The new clause builds on that whole approach. Secondly, at this dreadful time in our country, when our constituents are suffering financially so severely and our Government are rightly seeking to help every family as we combat the economic effects of this crisis, it is frankly obscene and very offensive that some major corporations who rely on UK customers and make huge profits in our country should not pay their fair share of tax.”
“In my submission, there are three reasons why the new clause really matters. The first is that its logic sits four-square behind the priorities of the Conservative-led coalition—I thought the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South could perhaps have given a little more attention and, indeed, support in this respect—who wanted to inject greater transparency and openness into the financial system, in the first instance by championing open registers of beneficial ownership, which were introduced in the UK in 2016. The open-registers process has been enhanced over the past two years, during which the right hon. Member for Barking and I persuaded the House that open registers should be embraced by the overseas territories and subsequently secured agreement that the Crown dependencies would also implement them.”
“The new clause would allow Parliament, journalists, campaigners and civil society to see clearly whether these businesses are paying their fair share of taxation. If the Government accept the new clause, that would, as the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South suggested, make the UK a world leader in financial transparency. It would give a major boost to country-by-country reporting for all corporations, so that everyone can see that tax is paid on profits in the locations where those profits are earned. Let me be clear at the outset that it is not our intention to divide the House on the new clause today—subject to the Minister, who is a very clever fellow, showing due respect for advancing this agenda and for the importance of making progress on this issue in due course.”
“Friend the Member for Amber Valley (Nigel Mills), who is unavoidably locked down with his two adorable new children and who has great expertise in this policy area, has also signed it New clause 33 makes a number of points. The first is that any company that is subject to the new digital services tax, which came into force this April, must publish transparently and publicly a country-by-country report. Although as it stands in the amendment paper the new clause does not include a starting date, that was rectified this morning and the starting date would be April 2021. The new clause is targeted at international technology giants—that is Google, Facebook and Amazon. These huge businesses are well known for using corporate structures deliberately designed to shield them from the payment of tax.”
“I draw the House’s attention to my interests, which are set out clearly in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I rise to speak to new clause 33, which was tabled by the right hon. Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) who, alas, for the reasons set out by the hon. Member for Houghton and Sunderland South (Bridget Phillipson) from the Opposition Front Bench, cannot be here today. The House may rest assured that she will be watching every word of this debate from where she is. The House will notice that not one but three former and current Chairs of the Public Accounts Committee—the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) and my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis), as well as the right hon. Member for Barking—have signed the new clause. In addition, my hon.”
“Yes, the extractive industry transparency initiative, which has been led by a former Member of this House, Clare Short, for some time, did a huge amount of good as, of course, have open registers, because open registers have continued that agenda of transparency. As I said at the outset, this agenda was championed and driven forward internationally through the British at the G8.”
“Let global Britain lead by example, to the huge benefit of our domestic taxpayers and taxes, and for those in the poorest countries, whose mineral wealth is so often developed without their citizens reaping the benefits they should receive and that they deserve. This reform would be in the finest traditions of Britain’s past international development leadership, and I commend the new clause to the House.”
“Friend the Financial Secretary will no doubt rely on the prayer of St Augustine, “O Lord, make me chaste, but not yet,” and argue that the UK would not want to implement this reform unilaterally, and he has already acknowledged, in a letter to the right hon. Member for Barking dated 27 February this year, that a multinational agreement to do country-by-country reporting would be a good achievement, but I put it to him that that is too timid an approach. As we contemplate Britain’s role post Brexit and we set out what we mean by global Britain, let my right hon. Friend stand tall, show leadership internationally, and follow the proud, confident example of David Cameron and George Osborne.”
“There is an important principle: while commercial confidentiality should not be compromised, we should move to greater transparency to tackle the problems that lie behind what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. I agree with that and I think that there is common cause across the House that that is what we want to do. Clearly, getting a multinational standard will be the right result, but these things have to be led. In summary, the new clause is part of the noble campaign that is supported across the House, to shine a light on the profit shifting, transfer pricing and tax haven abuse that is used to minimise tax liabilities. The House has already voted in favour of public country-by-country reporting through an amendment to the Finance Bill in 2016, which gave the Treasury the power to make the information public. My right hon.”
“The hon. Member is absolutely right. I think two very good examples are Pakistan, where British techniques and expertise have helped the Pakistan authorities to raise more tax from their citizens, and Rwanda, where Britain helped the Rwandan Government set up a fair and equitable system of taxation that has worked and succeeded in helping that country to fund its expenditure. Back in 2007, the Rwandan Government raised only about 20% of their annual expenditure, and today they raise over 80%.”
“The Minister is getting to the meat of the matter in what he is saying now, but while he rightly extols the virtues of some very good companies that he has named, which voluntarily publish whereabouts in the world their activity is taking place, where their profits are declared and where they are paying tax, by definition, if it is voluntary, those who are up to no good probably will not comply. That is one of the reasons why publishing that information in the way I set out in my earlier remarks is so important, because there is greater pressure on them if they do not comply, including the sanction of the law.”
“I am most grateful to my right hon. Friend for giving way; he is being very generous. This is an ingenious argument that he is putting to the House about restructuring, and it might be helpful to flesh that out in correspondence. The argument about the unilateral and multilateral approach was clear in relation to open registers of beneficial ownership, when the House obliged the Government to accept that there was a case for going through the unilateral approach in order to get a multilateral approach. I understand what he is saying, but I think it would be helpful to flesh out the point about restructuring.”
“I served on the National Security Council in the first two and a half years after it was set up—with my right hon. Friend, in fact—and it does seem to me that it is clearly sensible to have the National Security Adviser separate from the head of the civil service. Both are very exacting roles: they may fit closely together, but they are very different. I have read digitally my right hon. Friend’s brilliant, and long, speech at the weekend: will he confirm the centrality of the National Security Council—the reform that we introduced in 2010—particularly in its role of wiring together defence, diplomacy and development in our national interest?”
“I completely agree with what my right hon. Friend is saying. Not only is his point correct, but I have found out, as a result of tabling a question to the Home Secretary, that over the past five years the taxpayer has had to pay out in excess of £20 million to people who were unlawfully detained. Is he aware of that?”
“The proposal is not a seismic change, but it would save the country the more than £500 a week per person that is currently spent on detention. That is a significant saving, since 27,331 people entered detention in 2017 alone. In addition, I was surprised to discover, as I indicated to my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden, that over the past five years, £21 million has been paid out in damages for unlawful detention. That figure came from a recent Home Office question. That figure could be vastly reduced, if not eradicated, if a 28-day time limit were in place.”
“Indeed, we should negotiate such deals and procedures as an urgent necessity. In this way, individuals will no longer be left in limbo in immigration detention. The proposal for a 28-day limit applies only to the use of arbitrary indefinite administrative detention. Convicted criminals will serve their sentences and then face removal if they have no right to remain. If the crime is particularly serious and the prisoner presents a risk to public safety, it will be for a criminal parole board to carry out a risk assessment and decide when and if they can be released. In those extreme cases, we should surely expect the immigration service to have removal arrangements in place to coincide with the release date.”
“Many people in immigration removal centres have never been charged with any crime, while some have previously been in prison following conviction for a criminal offence, but have served their time. All are detained purely and simply because they are liable for removal. Some go on to be removed, but more than half are released at an arbitrary later date and are able to remain in the United Kingdom either temporarily or permanently. As other Members have said, we remain the only country in Europe to detain people indefinitely for the purposes of immigration enforcement. If individuals have no right to remain here, our priority should be to strongly encourage other countries to accept the return of their citizens. That is something the coalition Government spent a lot of time trying to do from 2010 to 2015.”
“Like the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) I had the opportunity, courtesy of the Home Office, to visit Brook House. I went there following the “Panorama” programme which led us to believe that the conditions were inhumane. Actually, I thought the conditions were both humane and decent. I will come directly to the point I wish to make about the proposal for a 28-day limit. The problem is that the best regime in the world cannot ameliorate the fundamental injustice of a system that arbitrarily imprisons people without time limit, solely for administrative reasons. This is a matter not of criminal justice, but of the administration of our immigration rules—the distinction is important.”
“I have listened carefully to what has been said by Opposition Members, and I am not persuaded that the Bill is anything other than a good piece of legislation on the whole. The question for the House this afternoon is whether it could be improved, and that is why I put my name to the amendments and new clauses tabled by my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), by my right hon. Friend the Member for Haltemprice and Howden (Mr Davis) and by the Chair of the Home Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Normanton, Ponterfract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper). I will listen carefully to what the Minister says, but he should remember that the Bill has a long journey still ahead of it down to the other end of the Palace, where undoubtedly some of these issues will be prominent in the minds of their lordships.”
“My hon. Friend makes an extremely reasonable point. I am sure that the Minister, who will have listened to the reasonable points that have been made on both sides of the House, but particularly on his own side, will take it on board. The absence of a time limit does nothing to promote speed and efficiency in the administration of justice by the immigration service. I believe that the introduction of one would improve working practices, as well as creating a more humane system of immigration control.”
“I am most grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way. May I take him back to his point about Zambia and Tanzania and the Prime Minister’s point about how he would rather spend money in Ukraine? Did it not strike him as rather odd that the Prime Minister—he is, after all, the Prime Minister—needs to abolish the Department for International Development to achieve that? Surely he simply needs to pick up the phone to the Secretary of State for International Development, hold a meeting of the National Security Council and say he has decided that those are to be the priorities.”
“It will do nothing but good for the overall aims that Britain so clearly has in wanting to do something about the appalling discrepancies of opportunity and wealth that disfigure our world today.”
“Finally, I hope that, just as we have with the World Bank, we will be able to see a much greater use within the African Development Bank of the trust fund structure. That would enable Britain to put money into a particular project or meet a particular ask where we want the bank to have a catalytic effect. The trust fund mechanism is now in common use elsewhere, and greater use of it would greatly benefit the African Development Bank and Britain’s desire to drive forward such objectives. Thank you very much, Madam Deputy Speaker, for giving me the opportunity to address these points, to support what those on the Front Benches have said and, most importantly of all, to support this replenishment.”
“We want the African Development Bank, rather than the World Bank, to be seen as the Africa bank that brings everything together. Under the leadership of both Donald Kaberuka and Akin Adesina, we are seeing that before our eyes. I hope the Minister will consider any way in which we might increase our shareholding in the bank, because our influence is much greater than our very small shareholding. It would be helpful to have a continuous presence at the bank in Abidjan, rather than a rotating executive director role. That is not an easy ask, because of the way the bank is set up, but I think the bank would benefit from having the expertise of a British executive director all the time.”
“There has been very strong input from the United Kingdom, with expertise from specialists at DFID made available to help the bank, and a very good relationship exists between DFID and the bank in making all that happen. The work on affirmative action for women in Africa is extremely important, and $3 billion is now available for financing women’s businesses, which is the largest ever such initiative. Publish What You Fund lists the African Development Bank as one of the four most transparent institutions of 45 global institutions. The AFDB has had very strong support from the United Kingdom, as I have tried to set out. DFID has sent some of its cleverest and most effective officials to work in Abidjan to help build up the bank.”
“The Fight Covid-19 bond and the other funds that the bank has managed to bring together will be a huge boost to help private companies—particularly, pharmaceutical companies, which the bank intends to do everything it can to assist, for very obvious reasons—to survive after the crisis is over. I wish to mention two or three other matters. In the last year, the bank has set up the Desert to Power Initiative, which will ensure that there are 10,000 MW of solar power across 11 countries in the Sahel, that belt of middle Africa. That will result in electricity for 250 million of the poorest people in the world, of whom 90 million are off grid. It is a $20 billion investment and will be the world’s largest solar zone.”
“In addition, the bank has shown a strong leadership response to the coronavirus crisis, managing to get together $10 billion to help African countries with support. It has raised $3 billion to fight covid-19, through a social bond on the global capital markets. It is the largest ever US dollar-denominated social bond listed on the London stock exchange, underlining how development links in some of the great British institutions that are not immediately seen as part of international development, and it is now over-subscribed, with orders of $4.6 billion.”
“The Minister’s announcements today will ensure that the UK is able to help with the expanding capital base of the bank to accelerate all its objectives. That is the reason for the 125% increase in its capital. Once the money has landed in the African Development Bank, we will see those five key endeavours continue to be built on: 105 million more people will get access to electricity; 204 million people will be able to benefit from better farming technology; 23 million people will benefit from investments in private sector companies; 252 million people will gain access to improved transport and integration; and 128 million will gain access to improved water and sanitation. Those are very important changes to the quality of life of some of the poorest people in the world. The bank directly helps to support low-income countries.”
“If we take them all together, we see that 18 million more people have access to electricity; 141 million more people have access to better farming techniques, food security and advice; 13 million people have access to finance from private sector investment programmes; 101 million people have had access to better transport, partly for the reasons I described; and 60 million people have access to water and sanitation—in our world today, nearly 2 billion people do not have access to clean water, and that has dire effects. The direct impact of the bank on the lives of a third of a billion Africans over that period is clear: there has been a higher rate of progress than at any time since the bank was established in 1964. The bank has retained its triple A status from all five global rating agencies, thus maintaining financial probity as well.”
“I wish to add a little colour to the comments that have been made and to explain why this is such good expenditure and why the UK is absolutely right to focus on building up the African Development Bank and helping it to be ever more effective. The Minister mentioned the basic programme of the bank, which is encapsulated in the High 5s, which are: first, lighting up Africa; secondly, feeding Africa; thirdly, industrialising Africa; fourthly, integrating Africa, on which the Department for International Development has been extremely good at advising across the continent, where time spent at borders massively disrupts trade—Britain has been good at addressing that; and fifthly, improving the quality of life of African people. The results over the past five years of President Adesina’s time in office have been spectacular.”
“I draw the attention of the House to my interests, which are laid out in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, including that I am a strategic adviser to the African Development Bank—something that I do for the sum of £1 a year in order that there should be a contract. The House will no doubt have differing views on whether the bank gets value for money for that sum. In recent years, the bank has been massively reformed, first by Donald Kaberuka, the highly respected former Finance Minister from Rwanda and, I think, the first elected president of the bank. Those reforms have been continued by his successor, Dr Akin Adesina, whom I advise and who I think will shortly be elected for a second term. During that time, the bank has made huge progress, as set out by both Front-Bench speakers.”
“On that point, as we are not allowed to have points of order at this time, may I just say that there has been a statement and an urgent question in the last week on the dismantling of DFID, neither of which, for slightly different reasons, I was able to contribute to under the current rules of the House? Let me say through you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I would hope Mr Speaker might keep those rules under strict review and perhaps introduce some discretion if they are to persist in their current form for very much longer. Having said that, I thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, for allowing me to contribute to this debate.”
“Does my hon. Friend agree that the prime way of ensuring that there is really good value for money, apart from all the structures that have been put in place, is the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which was set up by the coalition Government in 2010? It is the taxpayer’s friend. It is independent of government; it reports not to the Executive or to the Department but to Parliament and, at the moment, to a Sub-Committee of the International Development Committee. Does he agree that it is very important, for precisely the purpose he set out, that ICAI should be retained in full?”
“Thanks to the miracle of modern technology, I have managed to elicit a direct response from the fabulous Mayor of the West Midlands to the suggestion that there is a black hole in his budget. Rather than test your patience with a long intervention, Madam Deputy Speaker, I shall reserve his comments for the House if I catch your eye on Third Reading.”
“Yes, we are still short of funds for some investments, but they are steadily closing as further new investment comes in.” Those are the other words of Andy Street, delivered through me to the House on this important point this afternoon.”
“Gentleman earlier about the so-called black hole in the budget. I have said to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, that I have, through the miracles of modern technology, been able to elicit a response from the Mayor. He said this: “There is no black hole. Every year, the West Midlands Combined Authority has lived within its budget—both in-year finances and also within investment ceilings. It has been well managed and for example at last week’s board the annual finance review was fully accepted. Citizens of the west midlands have not paid a penny for a Tory mayor, but over £2 billion of new Government cash has been brought into the region since Andy Street was elected.”
“I will leave others to underline the importance of the council’s role and local government, if I may. Instead, I want to refer to the role of the Mayor and the West Midlands Combined Authority, which is absolutely crucial both for the games and for the legacy. I have seen what the London Olympics have done for the east end of London. In particular, through the legacy that went on afterwards, including with the International Inspiration programme chaired by Lord Coe, I saw the huge ability of sport not only to energise children and improve education, also to help health, education and vaccination in the developing world. There is a huge importance to focusing on the legacy that will follow in all its many forms. I salute the efforts of Andy Street, our Mayor. He was teased, I think, by the right hon.”