To repeat the basic point: At the end of 1998, developing countries owed $2.1 trillion dollars. In the next six years, they paid exactly that amount to their creditors. Yet at the end of the six years the debt had increased to $2.4 trillion. Campaigners argue that the debt has already been repaid many times over.

This has been going on for 25 years. In the 1970s, international banks were desperate to make loans and they urged poor countries to borrow more money than they needed by offering very low interest rates – less than the rate of inflation, which meant that real interest rates were negative. But with the second oil price increase of 1979, the rich north suddenly needed money, so interest rates were pushed up dramatically, reaching 12 per cent. Poor countries could not afford to pay, so they borrowed more and more to simply pay the interest. And they had to pay interest on the money they borrowed to pay the interest – and so on, as the debt mountain grew ever larger.

It is often said that repaying debt is a moral responsibility. But the creditors also have a moral responsibility. Even today, after two debt cancellations, many children cannot go to school in Mozambique because the government cannot afford to hire enough teachers. Of course Mozambique needs more aid. But would it not make sense to simply cancel Mozambique's debt and let it use that $1 million per week to pay teachers and nurses instead?

At home, we would never give loans to very poor people and expect them to repay; instead we give them a job or give them money. Britain's Consumer Credit Act 1974 defines what it calls "extortionate" debt and which can be cancelled by the courts. This includes cases where a debtor must make payments "which are grossly exorbitant" or if the loan contract "contravenes ordinary principles of fair dealing." This definition is extremely broad, and the courts have wide powers to cancel the debts or change the terms. British courts have ruled that a loan could be considered "extortionate" when the borrower had no choice in their financial circumstances but to accept the terms of the loan, and have also found that failing to assess the credit-worthiness of the potential debtor contravenes ordinary principles of fair dealing. Yet countries like the Congo have no choice to accept loans and they are clearly not credit-worthy because they are too poor to repay.

'These loans would be unacceptable under British Consumer Credit law'

The Consumer Credit Act 1974 stresses lender responsibility and liability, and this needs to be extended to international lending. Britain has a director of both the World Bank and the IMF, yet these organisations are making loans which would be totally unacceptable under British law. If we want to really help very poor countries, we should give them grants instead of improper loans which they have no hope of repaying.

Many believe that it is also immoral to ask the people of the DRC to pay the cost of oppressing and impoverishing them. Indeed, that it is backwards. We should pay them damages for the harm we did during decades of backing Mobutu. More than one quarter of all international debt was given by the West to prop up tyrants, and we now demand their victims repay.

Similarly, large amounts of money were lent by the World Bank and governments to support failed policies such as structural adjustment or failed agricultural and dam projects. The projects were unprofitable, but the borrowers still have to repay.

There is no question that it would help the poorest people if the rich countries increased their aid. But aid can only do so much. For example, Comic Relief has given more than £6 million to Ethiopia (about $10 million) since 1997, but during this same period Ethiopia made $800 million in debt service payments. Six years of Comic Relief's money came back in just one month. For Zambia, six years of Comic Relief money covers just 15 days of debt service payments.

More aid is essential. But it would help the poorest people more if developing countries were able to reduce the $7 million an hour in aid they give to the rich countries.

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