House of Commons Hansard Debates for 13 Dec 1989

Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and Devon, West) : I must declare an interest in this sad project. I was director of fund raising for the Save the Children Fund in the last major famine in 1984-85. My brother-in-law is the overseas director of Oxfam, and my father-in-law is generally credited with having founded the Overseas Development Administration.

The Government have given generously so far in this latest Ethiopian crisis, but whether the amount is £2 million or £13 million, more is needed. Of that £2 million, £800,000 went to Oxfam and I think that a bit more went to the Save the Children Fund. However, in the next three months Oxfam has budgeted to spend £5 million and the Save the Children Fund budgets to spend approximately the same. Those are the largest United Kingdom agencies in Ethiopia at the moment, but of course there is also Christian Aid, the Catholic Fund for Overseas Development and the Co-operative for American Relief Everywhere. Other tiny agencies are also putting in the largest amounts that they can. That, of course, is linked to the enormous expenditure of the World Food Programme and the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations.

The public response in Britain to the latest appeal is fascinating. It is the most generous response ever to the Disasters Emergency Committee. In the first seven days of

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the appeal, £1.3 million has been counted and that is the largest amount ever raised by the committee. Much of that came by way of credit card donations. The Save the Children Fund is the co-ordinator and there are sacks of cash waiting to be counted. That means that the total for the first seven days will be much larger than £1.3 million.

The generosity of the public is amazing, especially in the light of the huge response to the recent BBC Children in Need appeal and, of course, the phrase, "Charity begins at home" is very compelling. In addition, there are all the normal Christmas appeals that occur in mid and late December. It is worth remembering that British people are the second or third most generous individual donors in the world, beaten only by people in the Netherlands and the United States of America.

Raising money always seems difficult at the beginning, but the generosity of the British people makes it relatively easy. However, spending it is a truly difficult task. In the 1984-85 famine 60 per cent. of the European Community grain donation rotted on the docks in Djibouti. Food aid is notorious for devastating local farming. That is why our simple method of teaching Ethiopian farmers how to alter the plough to use one ox instead of two, which was a British innovation, may mean more in the long run than any great tonnage of food.

Food aid is also notorious for encouraging people to flee from their homes to where the food is being distributed. At present people are not in camps in northern Ethiopia, but they certainly were during the previous famine and a cholera epidemic started as a result. Afterwards they do not return home or they return to untilled land. It is worth remembering that two thirds of the fertile land in Ethiopia is not farmed at all due to the political problems. Also food aid irrevocably alters people's dietary tastes. Ethiopians have gained a taste for wheat which is far more nutritious than the grain that they previously ate. Wheat is contra- indicated in high, wet areas such as Ethiopia, which is mountainous, too. That is why the Israelis and the Weissmann institute have developed a grain which will grow in those climatic conditions.

Food aid is difficult to manage in a way that is helpful to the people at whom it is aimed. A country at war offers irrevocable logistical difficulties.

It was said earlier that the British people had been generous in giving to Band Aid, but Band Aid expenditure--and that is what matters--was immensely difficult to organise. Hon. Members will recall the pictures of rusting trucks. Where did that money go? Was it honestly well spent as the Ethiopian people would see it? Hon. Members will recall that even non- governmental organisations have not been effective spenders. Why is War on Want no longer a member of the Disasters Emergency Committee? The answer is that it, too, had massive difficulties in managing good expenditure of Disasters Emergency Committee funds.

The political difficulties are seemingly impassable. I suggest that unless the Soviet glasnost effort is extended to eradicating Mr. Mengistu from the Ethiopian Government, there will be no open road. It will remain as mythical as the golden road to Samarkand. Between 40 and 60 Save the Children and Oxfam trucks waiting to use those open roads will still be waiting.

Nothing that the Ethiopian Government have done since the first famine of 1973-74 has helped. Each time the effect of the famine on people worsens. This time the

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famine is worse than in 1987 but not as bad as 1984. It enters a country that has suffered centuries of land neglect and where the drought is worse each time against a particularly impoverished environmental backdrop. People's resistance is lower each time and their response to starvation is more feeble. All that is in the context of a gross national product for all black African countries south of the Sahara which is identical to that of Belgium. Spending wisely in that context of total poverty is not easy.

The Government are to be congratulated on their intelligent application of funds. It has started well. The Overseas Development Administration is an extremely efficient, world-renowned organisation. We are most fortunate in the tremendous service that is given by that part of the Government.

The Government must now adopt a Morton's fork approach. On the political front they must pursue an open-roads policy by all the means available. I suggest that they get in touch with the Soviet Government as fast as possible. However, on the practical side they must recognise that it is unlikely that the open-roads policy will come about. The cross-border tactics that NGOs have had to use so often in these recent miserable years will once more be the only way to get food to Ethiopia. The Sudan offers a poor, dangerous, expensive and inappropriate route for the Government to use. That must mean more funding of agency work through the large voluntary organisations in the United Kingdom which can achieve it and less bilateral aid. The British Government cannot spend through the Ethiopian Government in their current political circumstances. It is easy to stir consciences. Britain has a great history of generosity. But it is difficult to walk the tight rope of combining our outpourings of comparative wealth with care and appropriate expenditure, and with personal sensitivity to the great suffering that we continually witness in Ethiopia. We must allow these unfortunate people, who are crippled by warfare, to keep their dignity. Do not let us become vultures of compassion, peering at poverty on the small screen from comfortable armchairs. That is the challenge.

9.24 pm

Mr. Tom Clarke (Monklands, West) : Comfortable armchairs and the opinions expressed from them may not always be acceptable, but the same is true of comfortable debates in this Chamber. When the reality of famine in Ethiopia faces us, it is absolutely right for my right hon. and hon. Friends to table motions such as this one. I proudly support it.

Christian Aid, not a politically motivated body, recently published a pamphlet in which it said :

"For the last ten years official aid has been consistently lower in real terms than the level achieved in 1979."

What loyal Opposition could possibly accept that, pretend that there is consensus and do nothing? Problems of infrastructure undoubtedly exist, the war in Ethiopia is undoubtedly a great scar and the problems of food distribution undoubtedly exist, but we cannot allow the Government to get away with a fairly miserable contribution. We cannot endorse that.

I am sorry that the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr. Raison) is no longer in his place. I was more than surprised by his intervention. After all, it was he who argued in his famous open letter that time after time his Department was in opposition to the Treasury which, he

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gave the impression, was mean-minded and at one with the Prime Minister. I should have thought that he would welcome this opportunity to criticise constructively the limited contribution that the Government are making.

Obviously, there have been harvest failures, droughts and war. Alas, they are not new. They were both predictable and predicted. Although I do not expect my hon. Friend the Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) to remember my speech, he will recall that in 1984 he and many other hon. Members drew attention to the appalling problems which then existed in Ethiopia. Since then the problems have scarcely changed. People, including those who were so generous and who will continue to be generous, must be asking why they are seeing on their television screens in 1989 the pictures which besmirched the international community in 1984. I was delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway) repeated the need for a successful appeal.

We in the Labour party cannot go along with the Government's attitude. Spending cuts in the Department, reflecting Government policy, have been even more severe than elsewhere. We cannot pretend that the Prime Minister's attitude, popularly known as Thatcherism, is being applied to every Department except overseas aid, especially when the reality suggests that that is not the case.

The narrow political approach--which I regret is the attitude, although we would all wish otherwise--is evidenced by, for example, the figures that show that we give 40p per head to the people of Bangladesh as against £2,000 per head to people who happen to live in the Falklands. How can the Opposition accept those priorities? The Minister said that the gross national product was small under the Labour Government. We are entitled to argue that as the wealth of the nation grows, and as the GNP increases the national cake--and no one would dispute the fact that the standard of living has, on average, increased since 1984--it is reasonable in a caring society that a larger amount of that cake should be given to the millions of people in need.

The Henley Centre says such is the thrust of Government leadership in these matters that in its recent survey only 10 per cent. of people viewed world poverty as one of the major issues being faced today. Many view green environmental issues, important and profound as they are, as transcending other issues. Surely it is possible for all hon. Members, on both sides of the House, to have a well-based concern for the future of the planet while also being concerned to show commitment to the millions of people already living on this planet who are suffering from malnutrition, poverty and disease to an unacceptable extent in the modern world.

Some 750 million people experience absolute poverty, illiteracy, disease and malnutrition to an extent well beyond any standards of human decency acceptable to the British public. Therein lie the seeds of hatred and wars that could contaminate the future and which I believe could be so easily avoided. We are seeing on television the starving Eritreans, the ghost of Christmas present, but that need not be the case. It could be avoided and it represents a challenge to the consciences of all those in this modern world. It has been predicted ; it can be dealt with.

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I do not believe that apathy need always triumph. Starvation in Ethiopia represents the sort of lifestyle that, sadly, so many of our fellow citizens in this universe are now experiencing. We know of the unspeakable misery in the south China seas. We know that by 1992 the number of infants infected by AIDS in the sub-Saharan region will rise to 250,000. We know that now ; there are things that we can do now. We should reflect the spirit and the generosity that I believe is shared by the British people.

Because I am passionately convinced that the Government, in their rather squalid approach to these matters, do not reflect the views of the people in this country or those of the international community towards international poverty, I shall vote against their amendment and, with pride, support the motion in the name of my right hon. and hon. Friends.

9.34 pm

Mr. Donald Anderson (Swansea, East) : My hon. Friend the Member for Monklands, West (Mr. Clarke) has struck the right sombre and challenging note, as so many other hon. Members have done today. The debate has been based on the deep concern at the scale of the mounting tragedy in the Horn of Africa and Ethiopia in particular, with some poignant speeches, particularly from the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley), the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), and my hon. Friends the Members for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway) and for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett). There has been frustration at the lack of progress and at the fact that after the awful experiences of 1984 and 1985 yet another famine is looming in that sad part of the world. My hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) expressed so well the anger felt at the human reasons for the tragedy--the scale of the armed conflict, the civil wars that seem to go among elites over the great mass of the people, the victims of the tragedy in the area. There has also been perplexity at the way forward because of the multiplicity of problems in the area, natural and man-made.

If we are tempted to switch off and say that we are fed up with the fact that the tragedy is likely to recur, how much more reason do the victims of that tragedy have to be fed up with the fact that famine is with them yet again?

We cannot discount the fact that the problems in Ethiopia are now taking place in a harsher international context, with some evidence of compassion fatigue, despite what was said by the hon. Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson) about her experience and the evidence of the generosity of the British public in their response to the current appeal. I think not only of the recent UNICEF report mentioned by some hon. Members but also of the World Bank report with Mr. Conable's speech, not just drawing attention to the collective breast beating of the western community, saying that it is all our fault as a result of past colonialism, but pointing out factors relating to the countries themselves such as the vast expenditure on arms. For example, Ethiopia owes the Soviet Union in excess of $3 billion for arms purchases. In addition, there were rumours in the press on Sunday that, because of a deal on the Falashas, Israel may well be ready to replace the Soviet Union as a major arms supplier of that sad country. I hope that the Minister will say whether that rumour has any basis.

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The World Bank report in September criticised what it elegantly called the "governance" of the countries of the Third world. But who can doubt that in Ethiopia, in addition to the natural problems of drought, so much blames lies at the door of Mr. Mengistu--a point made so graphically by my hon. Friend the Member for Falkirk, West? Equally, my hon. Friend the Member for Hillhead pointed out that the leaders of the TPLF are no great exemplars of human rights and the wish for democracy.

The basic facts are well known. They include the climatic factors, the erratic rainfall in the area, the increasing population, which adds to the pressure on land, the increase in soil degradation and the deforestation which has gathered pace since the turn of the century so that now Ethiopia's forest cover has been reduced from 40 per cent. at the turn of the century to 14 per cent. in 1970 and to but 4 per cent. today. In addition, there are the great sociological factors--the danger of community disintegration as people go to the food centres and farmers are unable to plant for the next year. There is an ever-increasing frequency of famine to the point where famine is not a cyclical problem but part of the chronic condition of that sad country.

We have heard the World Food Programme's estimate that 4 million people are threatened with famine by the end of January. I understand that the Minister suggested that there might be a large time scale, but if anything like that is threatened by the end of January, when we work back from January and look at the lead times in terms of procurement and delivery, we must surely recognise that the problem is with us now. If we are to make a serious impact on that problem, we must make the relevant decisions now.

The World Bank figures for 1987 show that Ethiopia is possibly the poorest country in the world. Clearly, long-term work needs to be done and that was shown in the Select Committee report last year. It is well known that work needs to be done on food security and storage, an improved distribution system, reforestation and water conservation. The key factors of time scale and transport were highlighted by the Minister. Knowing that people are facing almost immediate famine, how are we to get the necessary foodstuffs to them in the relevant time scale?

Will the Minister comment on the rumours over the past 24 hours or so about the open routes and the alleged speech by President Moi of Kenya? If President Moi is confident that there has been a substantial change by the Mengistu Government, it is puzzling that in the 24 hours that have elapsed the Government have not used the available communications to Nairobi to obtain further particulars for today's debate. Did President Moi make that speech, and what, if anything, was said about the small print and conditions? Given the track record of President Mengistu and the leaders of the rebels, can we believe that this is not just a stalling tactic in the civil war programme? I hope that the Minister who replies will tell us a little more about the speech of President Moi as it is fundamental to the possibility of getting food speedily to those in need.

We accept that as a country our leverage is relatively limited in that area. However, there is a widespread feeling that in this conflict, as in others in the Horn of Africa, the Government are being too traditional and are working only through the Governments of the day and in this instance through Addis Ababa. Surely, if the aim is to help those in dire need now, we have to use less orthodox

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methods and be prepared to take all the risks that the Minister pointed out. We have to be prepared to work through the Relief Society for Tigray and the Eritrean Relief Association--the agencies on the spot with a good track record. We have to be prepared to work through the British agencies--the non-governmental organisations-- which have such a good record on reaching those in need.

Hon. Members have already pointed out the difference historically and in terms of need of Eritrea, Tigray and to a lesser extent Wollo. They have pointed out that Eritrea can be reached through cross-border routes and that Tigray needs a more adventurous policy and the co-operation of the Governments concerned. The question is whether the food will get to those areas on time.

We have no doubt about the Minister's commitment and we regret that because of flu she is unable to be here today. We know that she is working within a cage imposed on her by the Prime Minister's policies over the past decade. Ministers for Overseas Development may have pressed at the bars, but the bars have been set by the Government's policies.

My hon. Friend the Member for Cynon Valley (Mrs. Clwyd) pointed out that the figures on the reduction of aid over the decade are well documented. They were given by my hon. Friend and speak for themselves as a measure of the reduction in the Government's commitment. The aid budget has been consistently sidelined at a time when the Government have been indulging in economic triumphalism and talking about economic miracles. Perhaps the new Chancellor of the Exchequer is less prone to indulge in talk of economic miracles, but that was his predecessor's theme.

We do not criticise the Government as strongly as we did in 1984-85. So much depended then on the generosity of the British people. It shamed the Government's niggardly response. However, what is beng done has to be set against a reduction in the overall aid budget. Hungry people need to be fed now if another major human tragedy in Ethiopia is to be averted.

We hope that the Government will follow a several-track policy and say something about what is being done by the Soviet Union. President Mengistu's position has been weakened. Is there evidence of pressure being exerted on President Mengistu by the Soviet Union? We have to work through our non-governmental organisations. We remain to be convinced that the Government will be able to respond in time and according to the scale of the need in that area.

9.46 pm

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Tim Sainsbury) : The debate has highlightethe deep concern of all hon. Members about the threat of famine in Ethiopia. The contributions to the debate have been of a high quality, accompanied by a remarkable degree of personal knowledge of the area and its problems.

The hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) asked a question that many people in the country are asking : why is it happening again? It was a powerful question. Subsequent contributors to the debate sought to provide an answer to it. However, as the hon. Gentleman recognises, it is not easy to find the right answer to that question. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley) spoke movingly of his visit to

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Mekele in 1984 when, as he so poignantly pointed out, the relief arrived too late. It was a stern reminder to us all of our duty to ensure that that does not happen again.

My hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester), who also has great knowledg of the area, referred to the fact that the three protagonists in the major civil wars, who believe that relief is secondary to their military aims, make it more difficult to find a solution to the problem. The hon. Member for Glasgow, Hillhead (Mr. Galloway), who has direct personal knowledge of the problems in the area, made important points about the Tigrayan People's Liberation Front and its likely effect on the food and relief programmes. My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry), who also knows the area, referred to his terrible memories of 1984. He said that it will be difficult to make the kind of headway that we need to make if that tragedy is not to be repeated. My hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson), who is a former director of fund raising for the Save the Children Fund, spoke with great knowledge of the valuable work being done by the voluntary organisations. I was glad that she referred to the Government's intelligent use of funds. She also drew attention to the great importance of teaching people how to make better use of their resources of land and food to solve the problems.

The House has shown a common determination that the threat of famine referred to in the motion and in the amendment must be averted. We must not allow a repeat of the tragic events of 1984. That concern and that determination are, I am sure, an accurate reflection of the way in which people all over Britain are already responding to appeals for assistance to the region. The Government welcome the fact that today's debate will have helped to focus public attention even more closely on the problem, as the hon. Member for Hillhead said.

I hope that this debate will also have shown clearly that the Government have already done and are continuing to do a great deal to alleviate suffering. We are determined to make sure that it does not get worse. The general public may understand this better than some Opposition Members. A humanitarian problem of this nature should not be addressed on purely party lines. A number of my right hon. and hon. Friends made that point strongly. I accept that all right hon. and hon. Members on both sides of the House are sincere in their concern, but I stress that the Government are also sincere.

Mr. D. N. Campbell-Savours (Workington) : May I ask the Minister a very simple question? To his knowledge, is any REST transport available in the Sudan to carry famine relief food supplies to Ethiopia? Does the Minister know whether any trucks are available right now?

Mr. Sainsbury : As has been mentioned in the debate, there are a very large number of trucks in the region. The problem is not so much trucks as opening the corridors to the food convoys. That it the key issue.

Mr. Campbell-Savours rose--

Mr. Sainsbury : I am sorry, but we have a very limited amount of time.

Mr. Campbell-Savours : Answer my question.

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Mr. Speaker : Order. If the Minister does not give way the hon. Gentleman must not persist.

Mr. Sainsbury : No one should be in any doubt about the scale of the problem. As hon. Members have pointed out, the risk of famine is compounded and complicated by a web of related factors. First, there is not one but two civil wars. In Eritrea, the conflict has been in progress for 27 years. In Tigray, a hard-line Marxist regime is opposed by rebels who believe that Albania is the ideal to which their citizens should aspire. Incessant fighting would challenge any Government's ability to run the country. Secondly, misguided economic policies, particularly in the agricultural sector, have reduced the country's ability to feed itself even in non- drought years. There are, however, some signs of hope. Peace talks aimed at ending the civil wars are now taking place. We continue to urge all parties to keep the process going in a spirit of compromise and flexibility. We shall do all that we can, in association with our European Community partners and through direct and indirect contact with all the parties concerned, to give those talks the best chance of success. There are also signs that the Ethiopian Government have begun to moderate the worst aspects of their economic policies. That is a result of representations made to them by the donor community, including the EC and the World Bank.

The conflict obviously has a direct bearing on the success of the aid effort. Convoys must be able to get through. As hon. Members have pointed out, the logistical problems are enormous. The tonnages of food required and the distances over which they have to be moved are very great, particularly in Tigray. There is a shortage of transport and a fuel problem, particularly in Sudan, which means that it has to be imported at great expense and difficulty. The terrain is particularly problematical and there is a constant threat of bombing of the food corridors. Some food certainly can be moved through Sudan and into the areas of need. If free access across the lines cannot be agreed, it will be necessary to move as much as possible through that channel, but it certainly will not be possible to meet all the requirements.

That is why it remains vital that food corridors should be opened to allow relief supplies through the ports of Massawa and Assab, which are controlled by the Ethiopian Government. If confirmed, President Moi's announcement that President Mengistu has agreed to this is welcome. We can confirm that President Moi made the speech in the terms quoted, but we cannot confirm independently that President Mengistu has specifically agreed to the proposal. As I am sure that the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) will appreciate, the key to progress is not President Moi's announcing an agreement but the protagonists accepting and adhering to that agreement. The recurrent droughts affecting the Horn of Africa are the prime cause of famine, and they are beyond anyone's control. The effects are worsened, notably in northern Ethiopia, by over-grazing, poor agricultural techniques and deforestation, to which the hon. Member for Swansea, East referred. All of this causes great environmental damage and weakens Ethopia's long-term capacity to feed itself. Those are problems which can be tackled in the longer term. We are helping to do that under our technical co-operation programme, as are the multilateral donors such as the European Community and the World Bank.

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The hon. Member for Falkirk, West (Mr. Canavan) referred to the need for developmental aid, and that is certainly recognised. There are further important steps that the Government of Ethiopia can take. First, they can negotiate an end to the fighting--a number of hon. Members have recognised that as the prime task--thereby releasing the resources needed to tackle the problems of drought and under- development. Secondly, they can move further towards more liberal and market-oriented policies, particularly in the agricultural sector. This will do much to increase food production and enhance the security of food supplies, even in years of drought. The scale and complexity of the problem are daunting. I hope that we would all accept that humanitarian issues such as this must be dealt with on a non-party basis. I echo my hon. Friends' call. It is not a matter of accepting the motion or the amendment--it would be much better if both were withdrawn and the House could agree with one united voice on the need for help. I assure the House that we work closely with all the NGOs, although I find that expression a little off-putting--I refer to the voluntary organisations and charities which do such excellent work. They have a tremendously important role to play in the relief operation and we shall stay in close touch with them. The voluntary agencies have long experience in ensuring that aid reaches those who need it on the ground as quickly and effectively as possible. That is why we channel the bulk of our emergency aid through them. The European Community has already committed significant contributions of emergency relief aid. We fully support that and our share of that assistance is substantial. The United Nations' role, too, is vital.

The United Nations emergency planning and preparedness group in Addis Ababa, which the United Kingdom helped to establish, co-ordinates the efforts of the various United Nations agencies, such as the World Food Programme, in coping with the emergency. It is a mechanism which has worked extremely effectively. We should very much like to see the International Committee of the Red Cross resuming a fully active humanitarian role in Ethiopia, as it did before April 1988, when it was asked to leave the country. I understand that negotiations are in hand and I wish them well.

I pay tribute again to the response of the British public. Their typical generosity was no doubt given an additional spur by the distressing and disturbing television reports transmitted last month. The Opposition have suggested that what we offered was a wholly inadequate response to a tragic situation, but my hon. Friend the Minister of State has made it clear that that is totally unjustified and wrong. We have been aware of the risk of famine in northern Ethiopia for some time, and we have been working to prevent it. This year we have given nearly £13.5 million to Ethiopia. We have given £67 million since 1987 and £150 million since 1984.

Question put, That the original words stand part of the Question :--

The House divided : Ayes 210, Noes 262.

Division No. 18] [10 pm

AYES

Abbott, Ms Diane

Adams, Allen (Paisley N)

Allen, Graham

Alton, David

Anderson, Donald

Archer, Rt Hon Peter

Armstrong, Hilary

Ashdown, Rt Hon Paddy

Ashley, Rt Hon Jack

Ashton, Joe

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Banks, Tony (Newham NW)

Barnes, Harry (Derbyshire NE)

Barnes, Mrs Rosie (Greenwich)

Barron, Kevin

Battle, John

Beckett, Margaret

Beith, A. J.

Benn, Rt Hon Tony

Bennett, A. F. (D'nt'n & R'dish)

Bermingham, Gerald

Bidwell, Sydney

Blair, Tony

Blunkett, David

Boateng, Paul

Boyes, Roland

Bradley, Keith

Bray, Dr Jeremy

Brown, Gordon (D'mline E)

Brown, Nicholas (Newcastle E)

Brown, Ron (Edinburgh Leith)

Bruce, Malcolm (Gordon)

Buchan, Norman

Buckley, George J.

Caborn, Richard

Callaghan, Jim

Campbell, Menzies (Fife NE)

Campbell, Ron (Blyth Valley)

Campbell-Savours, D. N.

Canavan, Dennis

Carlile, Alex (Mont'g)

Clark, Dr David (S Shields)

Clarke, Tom (Monklands W)

Clay, Bob

Clelland, David

Clwyd, Mrs Ann

Cohen, Harry

Coleman, Donald

Cook, Frank (Stockton N)

Cook, Robin (Livingston)

Corbett, Robin

Corbyn, Jeremy

Cox, Tom

Crowther, Stan

Cryer, Bob

Cunliffe, Lawrence

Cunningham, Dr John

Dalyell, Tam

Darling, Alistair

Davies, Rt Hon Denzil (Llanelli)

Davies, Ron (Caerphilly)

Davis, Terry (B'ham Hodge H'l)

Dewar, Donald

Dixon, Don

Doran, Frank

Douglas, Dick

Duffy, A. E. P.

Dunnachie, Jimmy

Dunwoody, Hon Mrs Gwyneth

Eadie, Alexander

Evans, John (St Helens N)

Ewing, Harry (Falkirk E)

Ewing, Mrs Margaret (Moray)

Fatchett, Derek

Faulds, Andrew

Fearn, Ronald

Field, Frank (Birkenhead)

Fields, Terry (L'pool B G'n)

Fisher, Mark

Flannery, Martin

Flynn, Paul

Foot, Rt Hon Michael

Foster, Derek

Fraser, John

Fyfe, Maria

Galloway, George

Garrett, John (Norwich South)

George, Bruce

Gilbert, Rt Hon Dr John

Godman, Dr Norman A.

Golding, Mrs Llin

Gordon, Mildred

Gould, Bryan

Graham, Thomas

Griffiths, Nigel (Edinburgh S)

Griffiths, Win (Bridgend)

Grocott, Bruce

Hardy, Peter

Harman, Ms Harriet

Haynes, Frank

Henderson, Doug

Hinchliffe, David

Hogg, N. (C'nauld & Kilsyth)

Home Robertson, John

Hood, Jimmy

Howarth, George (Knowsley N)

Howells, Geraint

Howells, Dr. Kim (Pontypridd)

Hoyle, Doug

Hughes, John (Coventry NE)

Hughes, Roy (Newport E)

Hume, John

Illsley, Eric

Ingram, Adam

Johnston, Sir Russell

Jones, Martyn (Clwyd S W)

Kaufman, Rt Hon Gerald

Kinnock, Rt Hon Neil

Lambie, David

Lamond, James

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