The proposed amendment to the Advanced Research Agency Bill designed to restore the 0.7% overseas aid target was not selected for debate by the Speaker and consequently there was no vote on it. It would be better if this issue did not have to be shoe-horned into a Bill like this, but it did not seem that Parliament would have another timely opportunity to vote on the matter. That being so, I would have voted for the amendment if there had been a vote, in the absence of hearing clarity from the Government on two things. First that, if the target must be missed this year due to the exceptional circumstances of the pandemic, then this does not justify the target being changed, as the 2015 Act which puts the target into law allows for the possibility of missing the target in a given year for exceptional reasons. Second, in order to confirm Ministers’ intentions to return to the 0.7% target ‘when circumstances allow’, Parliament must be given greater clarity about what will constitute such circumstances. I remain of the view that the 0.7% target is good policy and both in the interests of the poorest of the world and in our own national interest.
