Extracts from Lords proceedings - Feb 9

Extracts from second reading (Lords) of the Commonwealth Development Corporation Bill

Baroness Northover (LD): My Lords, I, too, thank the Minister for introducing this Bill. It is a privilege, as ever, to follow the noble Lord, Lord Judd, with his long commitment to development and huge experience in this area. The CDC has, of course, played an important part in our development efforts in recent years, particularly since its remit was redrawn in the early days of the coalition and under the stewardship of its current CEO, Diana Noble. It is vital that we promote economic development. That is what will transform societies and pull people out of poverty. We have seen that around the world. Investment in the green revolution in agriculture in India was later to underpin India’s growth in other parts of its economy. The CDC, refocused on poorer countries and frontier markets, has helped in that regard.

Even before that refocusing, it has been a significant contributor. A key investment, of course, was that in M-Pesa in Kenya, to which the Minister referred, kick-starting a transformative method of ensuring that the un-banked were brought within the financial sector. I know that the CDC later regretted that it had no equity stake in the project given the profits now flowing in Kenya and elsewhere, which is a shame. When it is criticised for supporting some developments, it is important to look behind that work and see what skills are being imparted or jobs created. I have seen what it looked to do in Nepal and northern Nigeria in very difficult markets, but finding markets elsewhere easier. Where the CDC leads, it is often then easier to secure other private investment, which is especially important where it is operating in the truly difficult frontier markets.

But we are looking at the CDC as it is now, and even here there have been criticisms as to whether it is sufficiently poverty-focused, for example. I recall the concern in the 2000s about where its focus was. Was it any different, it was asked, from other private equity businesses as it invested in the growing markets of China and India? Andrew Mitchell and Alan Duncan, with their experience in both development and banking, did much to refocus what the CDC did. Diana Noble, as its chief executive, has transformed the organisation most impressively and there is a constant check on how transformative it is in some of the most challenging places. But, of course, she is standing down...

Lord Flight (Con):...The CDC has also become very capable of investing and managing third-party funds in Africa and India. I hope that that may develop as a new part of its business. As I understand it, it operates in three separate parts. There has been private equity investment, largely in east Asia and Africa, amounting to some $3 billion. A professional fee of, I think, 0.25% is paid for the management of those assets. The Bill will significantly increase the scope here. The second area has been direct equity investment, again in south Asia and Africa, of the order of $1.2 billion, and thirdly debt investment of some $400 million. As has been pointed out, the increase in the size of those investments over the last five years has arisen from their success rather than from additional funding...

Lord Bruce of Bennachie (LD):...There is a clear synergy between the role of development and the role of private sector investment. Clearly investors, whether they are indigenous to a country or outside it or in partnership, benefit from having an educated, healthy workforce and decent infrastructure investment. The two things fit together. Indeed, one of the reasons that many enterprises are reluctant to invest in developing countries is a lack of those things, coupled with problems of governance and corruption that make them difficult places to do business. If the CDC and development can work together to make that environment more conducive, the private sector will be able to take more of the burden on itself and help to address the development needs. We can look to countries such as China, India and Vietnam that have demonstrated how that kind of partnership can lift millions of people out of poverty over a relatively short period of time...

The Earl of Sandwich (CB):...Finally, there is also a problem of public information. Far too little is known about the CDC programme, while DfID projects are much more visible, and this creates discrepancies. ICAI last year pointed out the anomaly that the CDC is moving DfID back to BRICs and middle-income countries. While DfID has scaled down its aid programme in India, the CDC’s investment there amounts to one-quarter of its portfolio. Is the tail wagging the dog? Does this mean that India suddenly again becomes a developing country and not a middle-income country? Should not the public be aware of this, because many people have argued that the poorest in India should always be a priority? I also believe that the CDC should arrange visits, perhaps through the CPA as well as the IDC, so that more MPs and others can go out to see the work it is doing because it is so important...

Baroness Flather (CB):...Rainbow Children’s Hospitals is a corporate hospital chain in India that provides mother-and-baby care and fertility treatment. The question was asked whether India is a middle-income country or a poor country. India has more poor people than many other countries, but there is so much money that Christine Lagarde said in her lecture two years ago that the Indian billionaires could remove poverty overnight. I do not see why the CDC has to invest in the corporate sector in India. There is a lot of money for money-making in India. People do not give money for the poor or for poverty reduction, but they are very happy to invest in the corporate sector.

Finally—and the worst of all—there is Narayana Health, a corporate multi-speciality hospital chainI have made some enquiries about Narayana. It is not just a hospital chain but one of the biggest conglomerates, and does all sorts of things. Its hub is in southern India and is almost like a small town. Why are we giving it money? I do not understand why we are giving money to Narayana Health, which is one of the richest organisations. I do not want my tax money—if it is my tax money—to go to Narayana Health. It has been given $48 million. It does not need money. It has more money than it can spend...

Baroness Flather:...I was trying to say, with some of the examples that I gave, that they do not need money: they are already very wealthy and they have jobs that they are giving to people. There has to be something focused on the areas where there is not enough money.

The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con): That is right. The noble Baroness refers specifically to India, which is of course itself a signatory to the sustainable development goals and the eradication of poverty by 2030. That will have to be its focus...

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Extract from Lords debate on Brexit: Financial Services (European Union Committee Report)

The Earl of Caithness (Con):..I turn from the report specifically to a wider view of financial services, because if we are no longer members of the EU, we will have to increase our trade around the world. There is no doubt that there is a new world financial order. Europe, the old aunt to the world, is getting even older and more irrelevant. In a recent report PwC said that by 2014, the E7—Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Russia and Turkey—could be double the size of the G7, which comprises the UK, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the US. That will certainly change the dynamics. PwC went on to predict that, whereas in 2016 five countries in the world top 20 of projected GDP rankings, based on purchasing power parity, were in Europe, by 2050 there will only be three, all at a lower level than now...

Lord Desai (Lab):...As the noble Earl also said, the City has seen both good times and bad times. The 1950s and the 1960s saw an involuntary exit from the sterling area. I do not know whether noble Lords remember the sterling area, but it was not a great thing after India had become independent and various former colonies began to have their own monetary policy. The City was lucky in then having the Eurodollar market—a result of the folly of American taxation policy—and soon after, when the US renounced its dollar-gold link, a huge market in foreign exchange transactions sprang up and the City was ready for that market...

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Extract from Lords debate on Historical Statues and Memorials

Lord Finkelstein (Con):...I want to make a simple proposal. I am proud that we should commemorate outside our Parliament the end of apartheid, the fight for Indian independence and victory in the American civil war. We should pay tribute to the great struggles for freedom and it is an appropriate place to do so. But let us also pay tribute in an appropriate place to our own great struggles for democracy. Of these, surely one of the greatest is the struggle to win votes for women. Let us have a statue in Parliament Square for Dame Millicent Garrett Fawcett. Let us have a statue for the woman who led the peaceful democratic campaign for change; the woman whose leadership of the National Union of Women’s Suffrage Societies changed minds and won votes—its work was the heart of the movement, with 25 times the membership that Mrs Pankhurst boasted. Let us have a statue for the woman who was there from the first petition to the final victory for the cause; who took up campaigns to curb child abuse by raising the age of consent; who fought to criminalise incest, combat cruelty to children within the family, end the practice of excluding women from courtrooms when sexual offences were under consideration and to stamp out the “white slave trade”. How can this country have no proper monument to celebrate the life of one of its greatest pioneers and leaders? How can it be that so many people are unaware of one of our most successful and important political leaders, somebody who produced work of real consequence that has changed the nature of Parliament, and rightly so?

Lord Bilimoria (CB):...Inscribed on the roof of the pavilion next to the Memorial Gates are the names of the VC and GC recipients from the countries that are represented there. Five million people from what was then India, south Asia, Africa and the Caribbean served in the First and Second World Wars. We would not have our freedom today without their service and sacrifice. On that roof are the names of three recipients of the Victoria Cross from my father’s battalion, the 2nd 5th Gorkha Rifles Frontier Force. My father became commander-in-chief of the Central Indian Army. He was president of the Gorkha Brigade and he led his battalion, the 2nd 5th Gorkhas, in the liberation of Bangladesh in 1971. I was proud to have been brought up with two of those Victoria Cross winners, Gaje Ghale and Agansing Rai. The third, Netrabahadur Thapa, was awarded posthumously...

Lord Suri (Con):...After the defeat of the Sikh Empire in 1849, Sikhs were recruited en masse into the British Army and formed its elite fighting forces, becoming heavily represented in the officer class. One early incidence of their extreme valour came when 21 Sikhs of the 36th Sikhs fought 10,000 Afghans at a border post for several hours, fighting till the last man and allowing other troops to regroup and retake the fortress. All troops received the equivalent of the Victoria Cross in India—the Indian Order of Merit—and established the reputation of Sikhs as a fearless martial race. This House and other places rose to pay homage to the fallen—as rare an occurrence then as it is now.

The bravery and sacrifice of Sikh communities continued through the world wars, when they had voluntary conscription rates higher than any other community across the empire. In World War I, Sikhs constituted some 20% of the Indian army, despite being just 1% of the Indian population at the time. Some 83,000 of these men became casualties during the fighting in France and north Africa, with a further 109,000 being seriously wounded. Earl Mountbatten of Burma, who commanded Sikh regiments, said, “In a fight, a Sikh will go on to his last breath, and die laughing at the thought of Paradise, with the battle-cry of ‘Khalsa ji ki jai’ as he falls”....

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