development aid in any way as an instrument of British policy in India. Was it of any real value? Wright (Chair): What I regret is the arrangement whereby first of all the Minister for the ODA, Lynda Chalker,44 was actually a Foreign Office Minister. This is not to say that the Foreign Office had a control over the ODA or that we tried all the time to influence what the ODA was doing, but there was a very close relationship between the Foreign Secretary and the Minister responsible for overseas aid. I held my morning meeting every morning, but once a week my ODA colleague—a Permanent Under-Secretary who, like me, reported to the Foreign Secretary—attended my meeting. He and I both reported together, but separately. I regret very much that, as far as I know, that relationship does not exist any longer; perhaps it does—I am 20 years retired. What I regret—this is partly a matter of words—is that, although I do not think that aid should be a tool of foreign policy, I think they should work together, because they are both trying to do the same thing. That is probably what I would say. Goodall: If the implication of the question was that development aid should be independent of foreign policy, I would like to dissent. I was unreconstructed enough to think that governmental aid was meant to be a tool of foreign policy, and certainly in relation to India. Not that I did not think that aid should be directed where it was needed—to the relief of poverty, the improvement of the infrastructure and all the other things—but I thought it was a very important tool of foreign policy and of policy towards India. It was one of the things by which Indians tended to judge whether we were serious about our interests in India or not. I have no bad conscience, I am afraid, about that. I think that separating it off, as though it was indecent to suggest that governmental aid should have any connection with foreign policy or the promotion of British interests, is just cant in my opinion. Wright (Chair): I will give you the last question. Dr Judith Rowbotham: The point that was just made that the Americans and the Indians have never got on—never have, never will—makes me wonder just how much, in your understanding of your work in India, you were influenced by the very long history of contact? There has been a brief mention of the Raj, so there is clearly a consciousness that it existed. How much was that both an asset and an obstacle to your roles as High Commissioners and Deputies? Wade-Gery: It was a tremendous asset. You had to be very tactful about it, but it was. There was no doubt that being British Ambassador in India was more fun than being any other kind of ambassador in India, if you see what I mean. Wright (Chair): You are not making any comparisons with my jobs? Wade-Gery: No, absolutely not. I think one’s colleagues tended to recognise that there was a sort of inside track with the British High Commission. Of course, it had its downside: like all close family relationships, when you quarrelled, you quarrelled really badly. When they got cross, they got much 44
Lynda Chalker (Baroness Chalker of Wallasey), Minister for Overseas Development, 1989–97.
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