My Lords, I shall focus my very brief remarks on Amendment 16 in this group—mainly because, when I saw Amendment 25, I had no idea what it was about. I have now heard what the noble Lord has said and I am sure that my noble friend the Minister will respond in due course. When I looked at Amendment 16, I really could not see what kind of problem it was trying to solve; not only is it unnecessary for a statute to repeat commitments that have been made but the environment for aid is now governed by the 2002 Act, which is pretty clear about where aid can and cannot be given.
The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, may have concerns about what the Foreign Secretary may or may not have said, but for something to change the law may have to change and the noble Lord would
have plenty of opportunity to engage with that issue as and when such a change was made. The noble Lord was good enough to say that the UK has an extremely good record on tied aid and has had so for a very long time; this is not a new commitment needing to be made. I repeat what I always say: it is unnecessary to put in legislation things that noble Lords are worried about—things that might be changed in the future or commitments that might not be kept up. However, if the noble Lord is merely tabling a probing amendment, looking for my noble friend the Minister to reiterate where the Government currently stand on tied aid, obviously there is no real issue. Apart from that, I just say to the noble Lord that the amendment is pretty unnecessary.