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7.58 pm
Mr. Robert Hughes (Aberdeen, North): Cuts in the overseas aid budget are to be deplored, and it does the debate no good when people say that other countries, such as the United States or even Canada, have cut their aid budgets even more than we have. Such comparisons are odious, and no answer to the problem.
Ministers talk about the great advantages of the flow of private capital in development. Private capital can be an aid to development, but I have never known it to be altruistic. Private capital goes overseas and to the underdeveloped world because it believes that it can obtain a good return. It is bogus, therefore, to include private capital inflows to developing countries in the category of aid.
I accept that overseas aid policy must have clear objectives and must be geared to countries in greater need. Of course we want aid to be directed to sustainable development and of course we want to lead countries out of need for aid, although I have never subscribed to the opinion which is held in some parts of the House, especially on the Conservative Benches, that there is an aid-dependency culture in some countries. No country wants its development to be held back simply to obtain aid.
I do not subscribe to the theory that a good aid policy depends on our self-interest. We benefit from overseas aid, but that should not be the primary reason to provide development aid. We have a responsibility to ensure that aid policy, whether multilateral or bilateral, helps the people in the greatest need and is directed to countries in whose future we have a direct interest and influence. The Minister conceded that one of the Government's aims would be to give aid where there is a possibility of influencing development.
Aid is desperately needed in Angola. I understand that in the next couple of weeks Baroness Chalker is to go to Angola. When she does so, she should remember that the United Kingdom was involved in the peace process which sought to bring to an end two decades of civil war and culminated in the Lusaka protocol in November 1994. Yet after all that time, more than a year later, the peace process is in serious danger. It hangs in the balance.
The United Nations Security Council will meet on8 February 1996 to decide the future of the UN mission in Angola. The United States is making noises to the effect that it is fed up with the situation and wants to walk away from the problem. We know, however, that one of the reasons for the difficulty in the peace process is the behaviour of the United States' surrogate, Jonas Savimbi of UNITA.
At the donor conference in September 1995, attention was drawn to the fact that, according to estimates by the United Nations children's fund, almost one in three children in Angola dies before reaching the age of five; 280,000 Angolans live as refugees in neighbouring states; only 41 per cent. of the population has access to safe drinking water; the urban population has increased from 15 per cent. in 1970 to about 50 per cent. in 1995 as people have fled the country because of the war; life expectancy for Angolans is 45 years.
Having heard those statements, anyone would say, "That country needs assistance." Yet at the round table donor conference in September last year, although the United States pledged $190 million to the reconstruction fund, France pledged $140 million and the Netherlands pledged $60 million, Britain fail to donate a single dollar, a single penny. The reason was that at the time the Government were busily involved in the argument about the further expenditure review. It is disgraceful that the Government of a country so closely interlinked and involved in the peace process, and in the pressure on the Angolan Government to concede massively to UNITA, should stand back and refuse to give any money. If Angola is to have a real future, Baroness Chalker--one of whose responsibilities is to participate in that type of argument--must tell the United States to make it clear that Savimbi must keep to the agreements that have been signed. There is a massive wish in Angola for peace. The peace process needs to be confirmed and money needs to be given.
Governments influence overseas aid and overseas development policy in many ways. Cash is important--I do not deny that--but giving cash makes no sense if the Government's negotiations on trade matters can negate the entire development policy. I draw the Government's attention to the trade negotiations between South Africa and the European Union. Things are at a crucial stage.
For years, every hon. Member said, with equal sincerity--I would not want to recall the past and quarrel with people who held a different view from me at the time--that we wanted the end of apartheid. We all said that we wanted a democratic Government in place in South Africa. We wanted that, not only because it was a theoretical democratic exercise, but because we wanted significant development for the people in southern Africa. None the less, the negotiations have stalled as a result of the way in which the European Union is approaching them.
Detailed discussions finally started in December 1995, after a long period of pre-negotiations. It is almost two years since the Berlin conference to discuss the relationship between South Africa and the European Union. Negotiations are in danger of stalling because France, supported by Germany and some southern European countries, is drawing up a list of "sensitive" products to be excluded from the negotiations. A list is accumulating, and circulating among member states, of products amounting to 58 per cent. of South Africa's agricultural exports to the European Union. What is more, it has now been suggested that before negotiations can be completed, "impact assessments" should be made of the impact on the European market, not only of potential South African produce, but of free trade agreements in general. Those may cause enormous delays.
The Italians, who currently hold the presidency of the European Union, believe that they can achieve a deal that can be signed during their presidency. If that is to happen, it is imperative that the United Kingdom pulls out all the stops to urge the other EU member states to allow a speedy start to the detailed talks and to resist a growing protectionist momentum against South Africa.
Although some minor trade concessions were made last year, the European Union gives South Africa a worse deal than most countries outside the western world, including many with a higher per capita income. South Africa is often said to be a rich country, but it has an extremely low per capita income. About 58 per cent. of its population is illiterate. There is desperate unemployment.
Those things must be considered in the round. Development policy is not a simple matter of bandying around figures to say that this will work this way and that will work that way. It is about real people in real situations. I hope that in discussing overseas aid policy the Minister and Baroness Chalker will not take a monocular view, as the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Mr. Forman) eloquently put it. I hope that they will not adopt tunnel vision and seek to defend their policy, or to make progress with their policy only in the narrow sense of percentages of gross domestic product. Those are important, but they are not the whole story.
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd (Morecambe and Lunesdale):
I am pleased to follow the hon. Member for Aberdeen, North (Mr. Hughes), who made several comments with which I agree. I shall refer to the issue of national self-interest, which he touched upon, in my short remarks.
I had the great privilege to be a Foreign Office Minister for four years, and for two of those years I answered for the Overseas Development Administration in this place.I was enormously impressed by the quality of the British aid programme and by the quality of advice that I received as Minister defending the Government's policies. I am pleased that some of those who advised me are present today and I note from the tabulations attached to my right hon. Friend's brief that he receives the same fulsome advice. Although I worked extremely hard, I must confess that sometimes it was rather like boxing with one's eyes blindfolded. I hope that my right hon. Friend does not feel the same way.
I welcome the aid programme because I see it as an extension of the British diplomatic initiative--the British interest. Those who criticise the aid programme because they do not believe in aid or because they believe in charity more than the British national interest should consider the Japanese position. Japan's aid programme is about four times as large as ours in money terms.
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley):
Hear, hear.
Sir Mark Lennox-Boyd:
Japan's aid programme is smaller than ours as a percentage of gross national product, so perhaps the hon. Gentleman should temper his enthusiasm to support his hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor), who opened for the Opposition.
When the Japanese give aid, the four-wheel drive vehicles and other manifestations of Japanese commercial clout arrive shortly afterwards. I believe that the attitude of most decent people in Britain to aid is a reflection of their attitude to the conduct of their lives: they are mindful of their own self-interest while doing what they can afford to help others. When it comes to aid, I sometimes wish that the Opposition would recognise that self-interest is no bad thing. The hon. Member for Aberdeen, North touched on that issue in his speech. Of course it is not a primary objective of our aid programme, but I believe that it must be given greater emphasis.
Opposition spokesmen often seem to be in the grip of non-governmental organisations, such as those involved in the World Development Movement, which deny the national self-interest. On occasion, I feel that Opposition speeches are not directed to the House and to the nation, but to the NGOs to which I have referred.
The British aid programme is a good programme because it is targeted largely at the poorest countries; I do not wish to see that change. However, I am a strong supporter of the aid and trade provision and I believe that everything about that concept should be encouraged. I am sorry that my right hon. Friend Baroness Chalker and her colleagues in another place found it necessary to cut the ATP this year in their fundamental expenditure review
and that it will be cut further. I am greatly disquieted by Labour party proposals, which lack any substance or detail, to reform the provision still further if Labour were elected to Government.
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