House of Commons Hansard Debates for 14 Jul 1993

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Mr. Lennox-Boyd : Do not spoil my speech. I shall not give way as I have given way to the hon. Member several times.

The hon. Gentleman said that the Government should take the lead in setting out a trading framework which will ensure that developing countries can play a full part in the world trading system. The key to achieving that aim is to pursue with vigour the chance to conclude the GATT process and to increase the trade of the poor world by $90 billion per year.

The British Government have pushed for some time for the phasing out of the multi-fibre arrangement, and the incorporation of trade in textiles into the general agreement on tariffs and trade as part of the Uruguay round. That will improve developing countries' access to our textile markets.

I urge the House to consider those matters. It should consider the context of the aid in the correct dimension of a wider context which contains all the factors involved, and reject the motion.

8 pm

Sir David Steel (Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale) : I shall start by confessing to the House that during my long time here I have never discovered how to be in two places at once. I have an engagement which will prevent me from listening to the entire debate, but my hon. Friend the Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes) has kindly offered to do so. Therefore, I owe the House the courtesy of being brief. I shall deal with the issues of aid, trade and debt in that order.

The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs is one of the most exasperating Ministers to follow in any debate. I have listened for 38 minutes to a speech which had, at the most, 18 minutes' worth of content. The Minister is so nice that he keeps interrupting himself--the asides and diversions prolonged his speech. He asked Opposition Members to stop asking questions, to stop chuntering and to stop grinning. He stopped short of asking them to stop breathing. Everything that the Opposition did appeared to prolong the speech. The Minister's most revealing aside was when he confided in us that he agreed with Government policy. That fact is worth highlighting in yellow in Hansard.

There was an exchange of statistics on aid and, as so often happens in this place when the Government and the Opposition exchange statistics, both were correct, but they were trading different ones. Sadly, in 1992 our official development assistance fell from 0.32 per cent. to 0.31 per cent. of gross domestic product. We moved away from the United Nations target, instead of moving towards half the United Nations target. That fact is incontrovertible.

As the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) said, since 1991 our overseas development aid budget relay assistance budget has fallen by 4 per cent. The Minister countered that by saying that the budget for 1993-94 shows an increase of 1 per cent., which is splendid, and if we add the two together there is a net decrease of 3 per cent. He asked the Opposition if they would at least agree on the basic figure. Even my elemental arithmetic allows me to work out that one plus minus four equals minus three. The Minister produced a figure for 1987.

The Government's record on overseas aid since they came to power in 1979 has been lamentable and the fault

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for that lies with the previous Prime Minister. It has to be said in favour of the present Prime Minister that he has changed the record so that it is no longer totally disgraceful, but rather poor. That is all that can be said about it.

I am glad that the Minister for Trade is present and is to sum up the debate--I shall be back to hear what he has to say. I want to ask him a specific question on the future aid budget. It is a question raised by the House of Lords in the report published last month by the Select Committee on European Communities. We are committed to an increase in the European Community's aid programme. The Lords report makes interesting reading as it commends the European Community's aid programme. On page 22, paragraph (b), it states :

"We are concerned about the potential serious effect on the United Kingdom's own bilateral programme because of the decision to increase EC aid without knowing whether there will be a corresponding increase in the ODA budget which finances both our share of the EC's programme and also our own bilateral programme. There is a risk of an unacceptable squeeze on our bilateral programme."

I hope that we can be told what the effect will be of our commitment to join in the share of the increased EC budget as well as enduring the current public expenditure squeeze on our budget. It remains my party's firm view that we should not just make a general commitment--as the Government have--to the United Nations target on overseas aid without setting a date, but have a specific programme. No political party, even one which has been out of power as long as mine, can promise to do that tomorrow, but we should have a committed programme over a full Parliament to reach the United Nations target of 0.7 per cent., which is attainable and reasonable and should be met.

Two propositions were made, one by the Government and one by the Opposition, on which no agreement was reached across the Floor of the House. As the Minister said, there is no doubt that the developing world as a whole will benefit from increased liberalisation of trade. However, it is equally true, as one or two Opposition Members said, that the very poorest countries do not stand to benefit. Both propositions are correct. We are entitled to ask the Government what approach they take to future GATT talks --that is a direct question for the Minister for Trade. It seems that the GATT will not tackle the commodity crisis. The poorest countries naturally have to rely heavily for income on their own primary products, but the price of those products has been falling--it fell 30 per cent. in the 1980s. The EC tariff on cocoa beans is 3 per cent., but if the beans are processed into cocoa butter in the country of origin the duty is 12 per cent. If they are further processed into chocolate it rises to 16 per cent. Such a policy discriminates against the economic development of primary products in the developing world. We are entitled to ask what the Government will do about such issues in future trade negotiations because such policies operate against countries that have few resources other than primary products that they wish to develop.

The Government must pay special attention to the commodity problem. They should consider compensation for the losses that the poorer countries would face under GATT agreements. They must consider some support to enable such countries to continue to benefit from some of their current trade preferences.

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The Minister for Trade (Mr. Richard Needham) : I am sure that the right hon. Gentleman appreciates that GATT trade negotiations are conducted through the Commission. Given the right hon. Gentleman's federalist tendencies, I am sure that he is happy for that to remain the case. There is a limit to what the Government can do, but we shall take account of the commodity issue and press for a solution.

Sir David Steel : If that is a form of commitment, I welcome it. Of course, the decisions are made by the Community as a whole. I said that we are entitled to ask what the Government are doing in the Community to have those policies changed. Inasmuch as my party has any influence with Ministers and similar parties elsewhere, I assure the Minister that we shall press exactly the same issues. We do not speak with two voices on this matter.

Debt is the most serious of the three issues facing the developing world. I accept that the G7 leaders had a healthy debate on the debt burden, especially that of Africa, but the figures given by the hon. Member for Oldham (Mr. Meacher) are correct and show the huge increase in debt in the past half dozen years. Although my figure on Zambia's debt is different from that of the hon. Gentleman, it shows that every man, woman and child in that country owes more than twice the national income. That is intolerable.

The fact that some of us were a bit disappointed by what happened in Tokyo is illustrated by the text that I read in the Library of the detailed communique and the Prime Minister's statement. I shall contrast what he said about the aid to Russia with what he said about aid to the poorest countries. He said that the Group of Seven had put together an unprecedented set of measures to help Russia. He went on :

"We set out a programme worth some $3 billion to help privatisation and restructuring."

I am not in any way against those firm and specific proposals. However, later in the statement when the Prime Minister dealt with debt reduction, he said :

"I secured agreement that improved debt reduction terms should be considered for the poorest and most indebted countries. I hope this will carry implementation of the Trinidad terms further." The Chairman of the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs, the right hon. Member for Guildford (Mr. Howell), the hon. Member for Oldham, West and I went to see the Prime Minister before he left for Tokyo. Therefore, I am aware of that hope. However, the G7 summit did not produce the firm commitment to relieve debt in the poorest countries that it produced on the issue of aid to Russia.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd : I think that the right hon. Gentleman gives us credit for trying. Success will be achieved by taking consensus forward. The alternative might be to have some sort of unilateral concession by the United Kingdom on some debt, but that would be nothing like as effective for the poor world as one that had the agreement of the other parties to the Paris club.

Sir David Steel : When the Minister reads Hansard he will see that I thanked the Prime Minister for his efforts. We should not get carried away simply because G7 countries are considering the matter. As democratic politicians we are entitled to press for more specific action. The Minister tempts me to digress a little.

In the House and privately to us, the Prime Minister said that the Japanese Government, who are one of the

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major players, are philosophically reluctant to engage in debt write-off. I raised that with a Japanese Government representative a few days ago. He said tJapanese Government are pursuing that policy, at least they are not proving an obstacle to greater agreement among the G7 countries on the debt question.

Pressure on the commercial banks should not be passed over as lightly as the Minister did. If my memory serves me right, there was a measure in last year's Finance Bill to help the banks to write off debt. I am not a Treasury expert and someone from the Treasury would be needed to speak about that. Moreover, many commercial banks have made provision in their accounts for writing off debt but have not written it off. Surely the Government should have a word with the commercial banks to persuade them to do more on this issue. Secondly, what is the Government's strategy towards the multilateral agencies on debt? The IMF and World bank meeting will be held in September. What stance will the Government take at that meeting to try to get the agencies to do more? As we have heard, the Commonwealth Finance Ministers meeting and the international conference on African debt will be held in October. All those meetings are scheduled to be held shortly and there is scope for the Government to continue to take a high profile on debt relief. Yes, we shall thank them for trying, but we shall thank them even more when they succeed.

8.16 pm

Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stortford) : I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister on his achievements at the G7 summit in Tokyo. He has returned from all three recent summit meetings--in Copenhagen, Edinburgh and Tokyo--with the consistent message that he wishes to see measures that will encourage economic development in the industrial world and in the third world.

At the Tokyo summit, there was major progress on debt, on the GATT talks and on world trade and unemployment. Those are the problems that will beset the world and we must try to deal with them in the third world, Russia, Asia, Europe and the Americas. The theme of the Prime Minister's message to the House on Monday was that he believed that more trade produced more jobs and that economic development was the way to deal with debt issues and the alleviation of poverty, to which we are all devoted.

One of the major issues in economic development in Africa and the third world is debt. The right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel) rightly said that African debt is largely to the international financial institutions and not to the commercial banks or to Governments.

Therefore, the debt problem in Africa, and especially in Zambia about which the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) was concerned, is a matter for the international financial institutions. To clear that debt, we must consider complete debt forgiveness. In that context, the Japanese example is important, but without debt forgiveness interest continues to mount. Debt forgiveness is needed from the Japanese and I am afraid that we shall

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have to press them still further, because just giving grants to repay debt will not be sufficient to pay the capital let alone the interest that has accrued on much African debt. That is especially true of the highly indebted Zambia.

Therefore, there has to be bilateral action by the member states of the G7 and others to write off debt in the Trinidad terms to which every hon. Member has referred. It was pioneered by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer and he has continued to press it throughout all the international conferences he has attended.

We have to take further initiatives and consider all the debts in each country--private debts, commercial debts, trading debts and debts to international financial institutions--make an overall settlement with each country and arrange for repayments to be made over an extended period. Some 35 years or more may be necessary for those countries to be able to afford to repay the debts on a controlled basis without taking too much of their export earnings or their gross domestic product which in some countries in Africa is entirely hypothecated to the repayment of debt.

Considerable progress has been made in debt repayment. One can point immediately to Mexico which was one of the major indebted countries when we were considering these matters in the early 1980s and when the Brady plan came into existence. A great deal of effort has gone into Mexico, and Mexican debt has now been stabilised. We are seeing inward investment into Mexico and the stopping of capital flight from Mexico which is becoming a focus for inward investment. That represents a great international success in dealing with debt worldwide. The same story applies to many countries in South America.

The international community, with Britain playing a leading role, has had considerable success which we should not underestimate or denigrate. However, we have to go further ; it is never enough--but that always applies to all aid issues.

Our own aid budget, of course, is not, and never will be, enough to deal with all the problems, but I should like to make one or two suggestions. Our aid programme now, which is of high quality, is probably stretched too tightly over too many objectives to become as purposeful and effective as we should like.

The objectives for overseas aid in Command Paper 2202, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office's departmental report, list a whole set of aims, which include

"the adoption of economic policies that reduce price distortions and rely more on the market ; encouragement of the private sector as a source of wealth creation ; investment in economic and social infrastructure ; improvements in women's status ; higher standards in political systems, public administration and the legal sector ; projects and programmes which have a positive impact on the lives of the poorest people ; and investment and planning to help protect the economy from natural disasters."

That is not a full summary of what the Overseas Development Adminstration does, but it is a considerable programme to try to implement in any country, particularly in the large number of countries to which our aid budget is devoted.

I do not believe that we should cut out aid to any particular country except those with a hostile economic and governmental structure which makes economic development impossible. To use President Reagan's expression, we must concentrate more on developing

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measures by which we can give people in these countries the means to cure their economic problems. We should give them more of the fishing rod and less of the fish.

For example, we must reduce our concentration on health matters, education matters and technical assistance, which involves sending executives and civil servants to help with administration or central banking functions. We have to reduce those activities and concentrate more on economic development and encouraging those countries to adopt economic policies and introduce Government measures to encourage economic development. That means that we have to encourage the private sector to develop in those countries and help them to take out of public sector mismanagement.

For example, appalling waste can be seen in many of the Zambian parastatals which are inefficient and corrupt. We need to take them out of that inefficient management and help them get back into prosperous and efficient operations in the private sector. The Overseas Development Administration is to be congratulated as it has started to develop some of its programme towards that end, but it must be taken very much further forward. One of the ways in which the Overseas Development Administration is immensely successful is through the Commonwealth Development Corporation and I shall say a few words about the problems that now face that corporation which I had the honour to serve in a junior capacity before I entered the House.

At present, as a result of the public expenditure survey settlement, the corporation has been left without access to the aid programme's budget and therefore to low-interest loans. If that programme continues, the Commonwealth Development Corporation will have to come out of the very places that we need to support, such as Africa. Those countries are the most difficult places to get economic development started. It will become exceedingly difficult for the CDC to invest in those countries, repay the loans with interest to the Government and pay tax on those loans, which are its current terms of reference and method

If, on the other hand, the Government renew their support for the Commonwealth Development Corporation, the CDC can get beneath Government level, into the wealth-creating sectors of the economy and invest in profitable operations, including, of course, those producing commodities.

We have heard about the problem of prices. We have to recognise that GATT is a very important issue for the third world countries and begin to address the problem of low and falling commodity prices which have created many problems in the third world over the past decade.

If we begin to eliminate agricultural surpluses by the elimination of subsidy in our over-subsidised northern agriculture arenas in commodities such as sugar, we will stop exporting onto the world markets. The European Community exports more than 3 million tonnes of sugar onto world markets with what effect? Of course, it reduces the world price of sugar and third world countries are exporting their sugar at world prices.

If we stop subsidised sugar and other commodities coming onto the world market, we will raise the prices that third world countries get for their commodities and begin the process of enriching those countries and enabling them to buy products from our countries, thus benefiting from world trade. That would benefit third world countries and enable them to help themselves. Quite frankly, that is the

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only way in which those countries will begin to be able to repay debt and improve their standards of living. I am forced to conclude that we must concentrate on third world countries' wealth-creating sectors, support them through aid, and reduce or write off their debts--or at least make them capable of repaying them, so that further investment by private banks and international financial institutions is not inhibited.

Those institutions have a problem in Africa, and I hope that my hon. Friends will ensure that it is raised at the World bank meeting in September. I am concerned particularly about repaying international financial institution debt without reducing the inward flow of moneys from those institutions and investment in the economic cycle of which I have spoken.

Further progress has been made in finding a way in which the world economy can begin to work to the benefit of countries in not only the north--which we desperately need, if we are to be able to employ more people--but the third world. Only a beneficial relationship between the two will bring success in addressing world poverty problems. 8.30 pm

Mr. Mike Watson (Glasgow, Central) : I did not intend to refer specifically to aid agencies--which are always helpful in providing up-to- date information on their activities and advice for the purposes of such debates. However, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs reacted like a wounded animal to the comments of my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Meacher) on the success or otherwise of the Tokyo summit, and the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) also seems to think that the summit was a success and that the G7 ought to be congratulated. I will quote briefly from comments by professional agencies in the field which put aid programmes into effect, and which have regular contact with many of the countries in question. ActionAid stated : "The tariff cuts agreed at the summit last week are unlikely to provide many benefits for developing countries. It is disappointing that the failure to include tariffs on agricultural products may postpone agreement at the GATT talks on areas (such as agriculture) essential for the future of developing countries."

Christian Aid commenteed :

"The G7 Tokyo Summit Economic Declaration does little to promote debt relief for the Third World ; it merely reaffirms the status quo."

Oxfam stated :

"Following the failure of the G7 meeting yet again to address the problem of debt, HMG must redouble its efforts to get the issue firmly on the international agenda."

Those comments counter the claims made by the Minister and Conservative Members in tonight's debate. I know which side I am on in reaching my conclusions.

I am in no doubt that, not for the first time, the G7 summit promised little and delivered even less to the developing world. The declaration does little more than maintain the status quo, while the Prime Minister's performance did not enhance his poor aid record, or that of this country over the past decade.

In 1989, when the Prime Minister was Chancellor of the Exchequer, he told the G7 summit that the Trinidad terms ought to be introduced with a view to easing the third world's crippling debt burden. We sought to support that

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initiative, and we continue to do so. I would have preferred a 66 per cent. write-off rather than the 50 per cent. for which the Toronto terms provided.

Four years later, even that modest improvement has not been delivered. That write-off would not itself be sufficient to counter the crippling effects of debt repayment, yet the Prime

Minister--despite the fine words of Conservative Members--was unable to deliver even that pledge, far less his new proposal for 80 per cent. write- off.

Only last month, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, addressing the One World Action conference on debt, claimed that Britain would press for improved debt reduction terms for poor and heavily indebted countries. He said :

"for some of them, particularly those in sub-Saharan Africa, much more needs to be done We in the UK would like to see the Trinidad terms improve so that they conform more closely to the proposals John Major put forward in Trinidad in 1990."

I am sorry that the Under-Secretary of State has left the Chamber, presumably to take his evening meal--although he has every right to do so. I wanted to put to him a question, of which his advisers will no doubt inform him when he returns to reply to the debate.

Where is the evidence that the good intentions espoused by the Prime Minister, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury and other Ministers were vigorously pursued at Tokyo? It is no use the Under-Secretary praising the Prime Minister. What did the British initiatives at Tokyo actually produce for the poor?

Mr. Needham : I shall be winding up the debate.

Mr. Watson : Then I hope that the Minister for Trade will answer that question.

The summit at least acknowledged the particular needs of sub-Saharan Africa, but the Under-Secretary of State made no commitment to respond to those needs. One way would be to announce additional assistance from the current public spending round. Without such a commitment, this country's already poor record of aid spending will at best remain at current levels. My hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West spelt out that the freeze will amount to a 4 per cent. reduction in real terms. ODA funding is already in reverse, at 0.31 per cent. of gross domestic product this year, compared with 0.32 per cent. last year, which is well short of the United Nations figure. I wholly endorse the view of the right hon. Member for Tweeddale, Ettrick and Lauderdale (Sir D. Steel), that that should be an achievable target of a Parliament. Labour made a commitment to the United Nations target in its aid proposals at the last general election, and the United Nations figure is clearly endorsed by the Liberal Democrats. If the Government had a clear commitment to aid, they would at least announce a timetable to implement the United Nations target.

How do the Minister and the Government expect us to take them seriously when they are back-peddling and making no real attempts to acknowledge or to deal with the mountain of debt that is weighing down and stunting the growth potential of the third world? The Minister for Overseas Development, Lady Chalker, constantly talks up her Department's relatively modest aid to countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan. The briefings that emanate from the ODA refer to

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£20 million of food aid here or £20 million of humanitarian assistance there. I do not mean to belittle those valuable efforts, which I commend if they meet their objectives, but they pale into insignificance alongside the crippling debt burden of many African countries.

This ought to be a time of hope for Africa. Things are looking better in terms of developing democracies in a number of countries. Ethiopia, Eritrea and Mozambique--which are populated by some of the world's most vulnerable people--have seen peace established and maintained after decades of armed conflict. However, of necessity, they remain fragile and are seriously undermined by lack of support from the international community, which allows their debt burden to rise.

Nowhere is the legacy of accumulated debt more threatening than in Ethiopia. It is estimated that its economy shrunk 6 per cent. last year, and that it will need to find £1 billion annually over the next three years just to cover debt service payments. It is surely important that such a sum should be used to develop Ethiopia's economy, feed its people in the short term, and ensure that it can sustain itself in the long term. That is more important than servicing debts which, no matter how much is repaid, seem to grow ever larger.

From the threadbare section on aid that emerged from the Tokyo declaration, it is clear that the world's richest nations failed to grasp the fundamental point. That statement was vague and complacent :

"We will continue to strengthen our support for their self-help efforts based on the principles of good governance. We will also encourage them"--

the developing countries, that is--

"to follow sound and open economic policies to create a solid base for sustainable economic growth."

"Encourage" is the key word. Many of the countries concerned have been effectively strangled by structural adjustment programmes, mainly through the World bank.

The declaration continues :

"we will make all efforts"--

there is nothing more precise than that--

"to enhance development assistance in order to respond to ongoing needs as well as new requirements."

Although the Prime Minister and the other G7 leaders may have achieved some successes, I venture to suggest that tackling the issues of aid, trade and debt in the developing world was not one of them.

The massive wave of debt repayment that washes over the poorest countries every year hits Africa hardest. Between 1985 and 1992, the continent repaid more than £80 billion in servicing its debt, diverting Government spending from desperate social need and choking at birth any real chance of recovery. To concentrate on Africa--in which I have taken a particular interest--is not to ignore the need to assist other developing countries ; I accept that need exists much further afield. It merely reflects the priorities at a time of scarce economic resources throughout the world.

Of course, everything is relative. In Latin America, external debt amounts to an average of 37 per cent. of gross domestic product ; in the United Kingdom, the figure is about 6 per cent. In Africa, the average exceeds 100 per cent., and is much higher than that in many of the poorest nations. Zambia has already been mentioned. The stark fact that must be spelt out repeatedly until it is both grasped and acted on is that sub-Saharan Africa owes more than it earns, and cannot hope to repay that debt in the foreseeable future. The only way in which those

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countries can be enabled to recover and build up their economies is the writing off of debt. The sole question should be what percentage is written off.

It could be argued that the write-off should be total, although in the past the Government have argued that full write-offs encourage debtor countries to ignore their repayment requirements. That is all very well, but to apply such a stricture to the poorest countries while applying different criteria to assistance to Russia--or the writing off of most of what Egypt and Poland owed--is to employ double standards that invite cynicism when issuing from the mouths that call for the implementation of the Trinidad terms while failing to deliver.

That tendency to cyncism is hardly diminished when we consider the performance of British banks in regard to third world lending. Most shy away from Africa, concentrating instead on Latin America--but not Lloyds and the Midland, which have done very well out of the debt built up by the developing world. Over the past three years, the developing countries have propped up the Midland, subsidising its United Kingdom operations. In 1991, without profits from third world debt, the bank would have recorded a loss of about £50 million rather than a profit of £36 million. Last year, £82 million of its operating income came from developing countries' activities.

Recently, Ben Jackson of the World Development Movement said : "It is unacceptable for the banks to enjoy tax holidays at the expense of British taxpayers without passing a penny of that relief onto the world's poor and then, when it suits them, to write those debts back into their accounts".

For the Midland, third world debt has turned into a nice little money earner. Its shareholders may be satisfied, but the world's poor certainly are not. Debt repayments continue to flood out of the third world. I invite the Minister to condemn the banks' self-seeking approach, and to endeavour to close any loopholes that permit such an approach.

There are two main reasons why the world's poorest countries should have been offered a major programme of assistance last week. First, they have generally done their best to repay their debts, but have simply been unable to do so. For instance, 10 years ago, the total external third world debt amounted to about £550 billion ; in the intervening decade, debtor countries have paid back nearly £1,000 billion more, but they now owe £1,100 billion. They are not merely running fast to stand still ; they are being propelled backwards at a rate of knots. That cannot be allowed to continue.

Secondly, the crisis is not of the debtor countries' own making. I do not deny that there are examples of economic mismanagement, largely because Governments are running economies for the first time ; but a cocktail of plummeting commodity prices and soaring interest rates has caused Africa's debt burden to spiral out of all control. As a result of the diversion of scarce resources, Africa now spends four times as much on debt repayments as it spends on health care. The House has already debated the dreadful health problems on that continent.

I agree with the Minister about the need to use trade as a means of assisting such countries. Certainly, there is far more to be gained from trading with them than from simply doling out aid. Trade links provide a potential lifeline for developing countries. I think the Minister said that trade with the developing world amounted to three

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times the value of aid ; I believe that the figure is higher, but I will not quibble. The point is that most developing countries rely on a small number of primary commodities. The World bank's commodity price index has plummeted by some 30 per cent., with

all-too-predictable results for the poorest countries.

As has been pointed out, the tariff cuts agreed at last week's summit are unlikely to provide many benefits for developing countries. None of the aid agencies considers that anything meaningful has emerged from Tokyo. It was a lost opportunity for the G7 nations. Of course we in the developed world have our own problems, but it is simply not good enough to pass up the opportunity to help the developing countries, instead producing a few bland paragraphs in a subsequent announcement.

Oxfam is one of the aid agencies that called for full implementation of the Trinidad terms. It was supported by a recently formed all-party parliamentary group called Africa Caucus, whose members include the hon. Member for Broxtowe (Mr. Lester), my hon. Friend the Member for Oldham, West, the hon. Member for Southwark and Bermondsey (Mr. Hughes)--who was present earlier--and myself. We urged the G7 leaders to give serious consideration to debt write-off at the summit : it would allow developing countries to gain the breathing space necessary to enable their economies to recover and begin the inevitably slow climb towards sustainable recovery.

Although that approach proved ineffective, Africa Caucus will continue to campaign for at least a year to highlight the serious plight of African countries, and to seek the support of the developed nations.

ActionAid, not being content with dwelling on the past, has targeted the future, referring to the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund and the World bank in the autumn and the international conference on African development which will take place in October. Although the declaration refers to that, and also to the population conference to be held in Cairo in 1994, it does not suggest a link between those events to help the poor. As things stand, they will prove no more significant than the Tokyo summit--perhaps even less significant.

The Government must play a much more vigorous role in ensuring that the plight of the debt-burdened nations is treated seriously at such fora, and that that consideration is translated into meaningful action. So far, that has not happened.

If both the Ministers present today--and the Prime Minister--expect to be taken seriously in regard to aid, trade and debt, I suggest that they make firm commitments. First, although it stresses the need to alleviate poverty, the ODA does not measure the amount that it spends for that purpose ; it is impossible to obtain a figure showing the effects of that spending. I understand that no benchmarks are available to assess the ODA's performance. That gap ought to be filled. I ask the Minister to make attempts to get the ODA quickly to introduce indicators and benchmarks so that its record can be evaluated.

I mentioned earlier that the Government should also revoke the decision to freeze between now and 1996 the official aid figure that has already been announced. I referred to the effect that that will have. It amounts to de facto cuts, which represent a further betrayal of the

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