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This Bill passed its Third Reading in the House of Commons on Friday 16th June. If passed into law, the Bill would require the Government to produce an annual report for Parliament outlining international development assistance. The requisite information is in relation to the eight Millennium Development Goals (MDG), the first seven of which relate to the progress made on poverty, education, the environment, health and gender equality within developing nations. Therefore the report should include improvements attained as a result of British financial support in terms of such indicators as child mortality and HIV/AIDS cases. The eighth MDG refers to the action required by developed countries to ensure that the developing world achieves the first seven goals.

The Government would also be required to publish the latest five year figures on spending for international development and an assessment for when it would expect to achieve the UN target of 0.7% of GDP. Tom Clarke MP has called for a single report in order to collate information together from the variety of sources within which it is currently published.

I certainly support the objectives of this Bill and am pleased that the Government has supported its passage through Parliament. As with the recent Climate Change and Sustainable Energy Bill, another Private Members Bill which I support, I believe that it is important for the Government to be annually held to account on issues of such importance as International Development and Greenhouse Gas emissions. Last year the Labour Government was at the forefront of the efforts to secure debt cancellation for the world’s poorest countries and the expansion of aid agreed at the G8 conference. Nevertheless more remains to be done and this Bill would help to ensure that progress is regularly and appropriately monitored.

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