Concentrate on matters at home

Whilst acknowledging Mr White’s recognition that what is being spent is taxpayers’ money (not government money), I’m afraid that he misses the point. No one can get “full value” of money that is taken from them by force, or the threat of force. A person can only get “full value” when they voluntarily pay for something on terms acceptable to both parties involved in the transaction.

Equally worrying is Mr White’s revelation that more taxpayers’ money is being wasted on meetings, committees and foreign travel by people who are trying to divine an answer that is already known in relation to the question of progress in international development aid.

In the interests of making savings to the public purse I can offer Mr White the following publicly known information in relation to state sponsored international development aid: it has failed.

Africa has absorbed $2.3 trillion in foreign aid over the past 50 years.

Many of the countries who received that aid actually have lower per capita GDP now, than before the aid started to flow. Internationally, the countries that have pulled themselves out of grinding poverty have done so not by harnessing foreign aid but by liberalising their economies, think China, Brazil and India. There is strong evidence that foreign aid fosters a dependence on it, thus countries in receipt will never be able to ween themselves off it.

The biggest single problem that impoverished countries face when trying to escape their lowly position is foreign politicians not understanding that they are part of the problem, not the solution.

I understand that Mr White believes that the state has become too big in this country, he would do well to understand that this state and other Western ones have become too big in impoverished countries. Our interventions, be it of the monetary or military type, seldom work out well to the unfortunate beneficiaries of our largesses.

Humanitarian aid is best supplied on a principled and moral voluntary basis. Government aid to impoverished countries, be it bombs or bucks, has been unambiguously shown to be futile. Mr White could better serve his constituency by concentrating on matters that he can actually influence, such as the provision of local services. - Adrian Shaw, Grange Road, Leamington.