It's time to enshrine overseas aid pledge in law

Phew, thought Oxfam and co. After all, despite his intemperate language towards the boys in blue, nobody doubted Andrew Mitchell's determination to bump up the aid budget to 0.7% of GDP by 2013, finally achieving a goal first set in 1970. But when Mr Mitchell was moved from the Department for International Development (DfID) in the reshuffle and replaced by the seemingly reluctant Justine Greening, there were fears about backsliding. Ms Greening, a former accountant, says she wants "to do more with less". Why not? Nobody likes wasting taxpayers' money. The problem is that talk of value for money carries with it the idea of a quick-fix solution. Yet the true value of sending little girls to school in Tanzania or preventing toddlers succumbing to malaria in Kenya may not be obvious until they are healthy literate adults. Development aid is a long game.

I'd be a lot happier if the Coalition was prepared to fulfil the cast-iron guarantee in both the Tory and LibDem manifestos (repeated in the Coalition agreement), to enshrine the 0.7% promise in law. That would mean a future Government would need a majority vote to repeal it. When it didn't appear in the Queen's Speech, we were assured it was "in the queue". Why? This is a simple bill of a few clauses. It carries opposition support. Mr Mitchell said we should judge the Government by its actions not "declaratory legislation".

But without it the UK may stick to 0.7% (currently about £11.5 billion) for only two years before it gets reviewed or devalued. Forgive my cynicism but the Tories halved foreign aid when they were last in power. We've seen Italy renege on its Gleneagles G8 undertaking and Australia break its foreign aid pledge.

Despite Mr Cameron's declarations, there is plenty of Tory backbench muttering about overseas aid. Yesterday former Defence Minister Gerald Howarth broke cover to claim he has "yet to meet a Conservative who thinks we should be spending more on overseas aid and slashing our armed forces". Former party deputy chairman Lord Ashcroft says ministers should "turn off the golden taps and stop flooding the developing world with money".

There's another problem. We're beginning to hear voices from the Left concerned that DfID is getting too close to corporate interests and that value for money is being measured in terms of benefit to Britain, with all the unsavoury echoes of the Pergau Dam. That was the 1994 project that was of no humanitarian or economic benefit to Malaysia, but was built with British aid to secure a British construction contract and an arms deal. (Mitt Romney proposes something similar for the US.) Of course, capitalism has helped millions out of poverty but now there are still one billion people going to bed hungry and millions dying each year of preventable disease. Development aid is still desperately needed, especially in primary education and child health. It has conquered smallpox and controlled HIV/Aids in six million of the world's poor. If we keep our promises, we can ensure no child dies of diarrhoea. Even malaria could be conquered.

There is some waste, as the National Audit Office discovered, but DfID still sets the gold standard for international development and that soft power brings Britain global influence too. It sets an example we can be proud of but we need to show that our commitment is a lasting one. DfID's budget is chicken feed compared with spending on welfare, pensions, the NHS and defence. Scrapping overseas aid entirely would not alter the big public spending choices, let alone sort the deficit. In the spirit of the Make Poverty History movement, let's commit to helping the poorest stand on their own two feet and remember the words of Desmond Tutu: "A promise made to the poor is a sacred thing."

Anne Johnstone is a member of the Oxfam Scotland Advisory Board.