Short: ambitious target

Short Wants More Money to End Global Poverty

Opening a Commons debate on the Government's review of international development policies, Ms Short got cheers from Labour backbenchers as she reaffirmed ministers' commitment to dedicating 0.7% of the UK's gross national product to aid "and to reversing the decline in the aid budget".

This had fallen from 0.51% of GNP when Labour left office in 1979 to 0.27%, Ms Short said.

"I am currently reviewing all the expenditure within my department. I want to be certain that all our spending contributes towards a sharply focused poverty-eradication agenda.

Short: "we haven't done enough"

"I plan to redirect any spending that does not contribute towards our key objective of promoting sustainable development. I will then be in a strong position to ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer for additional resources at the end of next year."

Ms Short said she wanted to eliminate poverty, which she described as "the single greatest challenge the world faces".

"I know this seems outrageously ambitious - cynics will say naive, but they are wrong. It is both an affordable and achievable aim, and it is essential that we face up to the challenge if the 10 billion or so human beings who will then exist are to live in anything approaching peace and harmony in the second half of the next century."

Kevin Bocquet talks to Jamie Hartson of the World Development Organisation, and Peter Young of the Adam Smith Institute on BBC Radio [3'34"]

For the Opposition, Alastair Goodlad said Britain was already the second largest provider of money in the world to help alleviate suffering, and the largest donor of aid by volume.

Labour's Denis MacShane intervened to raise the row over the Pergau Dam, in which an aid deal with Malaysia was alleged to be linked with possible arms exports.

He said it "did immense damage to the reputation of Britain, shamed and exposed the squalid link with private gain of Conservative ministers involved in that area".

Mr Goodlad replied: "I don't think you will find many echoes of your remarks in Asia or anywhere else. This House debated at great length the Pergau matter and I think the (previous) government has everything to be proud of and you have everything to be ashamed of."

He said: "The previous Government attached great importance to the United Nations' target of a net transfer of 1% of GNP of public and private funds to developing countries. At the time of the general election the UK exceeded this target by more than a third. We are the second largest provider of money for development as a proportion of national income."

For the Liberal Democrats, Dr Jenny Tonge said she felt ashamed of Britain's record on overseas aid. She wanted ministers to set a timetable for achieving the UN target.

"Extending aid today means less emergency aid tomorrow," she said. "Today's recipients of aid are tomorrow's markets. We can all win."

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