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9.15 pm
Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney, North and Stoke Newington): My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor) made a powerful case from the Dispatch Box. She made the moral case for aid, but I am afraid that I do not share her optimism about the moral sensitivities of Tory Ministers, so I intend to make the practical self-interested case for aid.
I begin by emphasising that it is important to put all the issues connected with aid and development in the wider economic context. That is why I welcome the fact that the Government motion refers to their work on debt.
The first point to be made about aid is that it is quite wrong to present it, as many Conservative Members do, as though it were merely a question of charity and of handouts to undeserving black and brown people. The fact about the flows of money between Britain, the European Union, America and the third world is that more money flows from Africa, India and the rest of the third world in debt repayments than flows to them in aid.
If we put aid, especially the vexed question of debt repayment, in the wider economic context, we can see it more clearly. As there is a brief mention of debt in the Government's motion, we must not forget how the debt was incurred.
The history of the debt crisis of the 1970s and 1980s is a fantastic tale of the agents of international banks criss-crossing the third world urging dictators to take on debts. Much of the money never touched the borders of the countries that ostensibly borrowed it. Instead, it was safely stashed away in Swiss banks. Much of it was spent on arms, and most of it never trickled down to the people of the countries concerned, in whose name the debts were incurred.
There is something very cruel and unfair in the fact that, as we approach the millennium, the people of some of the poorest countries in the world are toiling to pay the interest on the interest of debts incurred in their name by long-past military dictators.
The Government speak of their record on debt, and Opposition Members commend them for their efforts in relation to the Trinidad terms and in trying to change the way in which the World bank looks on debt, but, sadly, past efforts at debt reduction have focused on two categories of country--countries such as Mexico and the Philippines, where it was politically convenient for the United States to forgive debt, or the very poorest countries.
There are, however, many so-called middle-income countries, such as many of the nations of the Caribbean, with social conditions that would require the Government to consider debt reduction for them much more seriously than they have hitherto. The Trinidad terms were worthwhile, as they did not involve huge sums of money, but they only began to chip at the weight of debt--even for the poorest countries--and they did not help the deserving populations in many so-called middle-income debtors.
If the issue of aid is to be viewed properly, it must be considered in the context of this country's work on debt reduction and its role in the International Monetary Fund and the World bank. A review of the terms of some of the structural adjustment programmes that we are forcing on third-world countries is long overdue, as the record of such programmes is not wholly good. In many countries that have had structural adjustment forced on them by the IMF and World bank, living standards, education and basic health care available to ordinary people worsened in the 1980s.
Sadly, in recent years we have witnessed the redirection of flows in aid and other multilateral assistance from the poorest countries in Africa to eastern Europe. Opposition Members want, of course, help to go to eastern Europe, but not at the expense of the very poorest peoples of the world. At this point, I wish to echo what was said by the hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington(Mr. Forman) about the Commonwealth preference. Many people were sad to hear that there is a possibility that the ODA will cut aid to any part of the world, but in particular to the Caribbean.
I travel regularly to the Caribbean, particularly to Jamaica, where my family comes from. It is sad that although people in Jamaica and the Caribbean hold the Commonwealth link in the highest esteem, Ministers speak of it in the Chamber in a cavalier way. Countries all over the world have Chambers that are replicas of this one, and one can step out of the tropical sunlight into such a replica. Those countries hold the British and Commonwealth link in the highest regard, yet daily people see Ministers turn away from the Commonwealth. I think that there is a case for a Commonwealth preference in relation to aid.
I feel most strongly about the Caribbean. It is all very well for Ministers to look at the totality of GDP figures in the Caribbean, but the figures mask the increasing poverty and decline in basic social services in health and education. The sugar and banana industries in the Caribbean have collapsed following the impact of Lome,
and the ill-effects of the north American free trade agreement have meant that trade that might have gone from America to the Caribbean is now going to the NAFTA counties.
What do the Government think the consequence will be of their cuts in aid to the Caribbean? I can tell them that it will not be an increase in self-reliance. Rural labour will not be getting on their bikes. The consequence will be an increase in the drugs trade. Where traditional agriculture has collapsed in the Caribbean, it has been replaced by the illegal drugs trade. There is no point in Ministers talking about a war on drugs while the Foreign Office and the ODA pursue policies designed to create the economic conditions in which the drug trade flourishes.
There are historic links between this country and the Caribbean. Many people from the Caribbean fought for this country in the war or helped the war effort, and there is a large Caribbean community here. There is an ever-growing drugs menace in the Caribbean, and the Government should think seriously before cutting the already low level of aid to the Caribbean.
I have spent today in the Committee considering the Asylum and Immigration Bill, and I do not wish to bring the details of that Bill into tonight's debate, but in the context of immigration and asylum we hear over and over again about the waves of economic refugees and how the continents of the world are being criss-crossed by refugees driven by the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--war, famine, poverty and pestilence. What is the point of introducing increasingly punitive and criminalising measures against economic refugees if our aid programme does not address the causes of economic refugees? I am not saying that it is practical at this point for Britain to open its doors to economic refugees, but it is heartless and impractical not to aim aid and development work at dealing with the causes of economic refugees. Our aid should be directed at some of those countries to help development and growth.
Conservative Members have the idea that a practical approach to aid means misusing aid as a form of soft loan for arms deals and dubious construction projects. That is wholly impractical. Aid should be used to promote growth and development, which is the only effective check on the waves of economic refugees. Surely nobody seriously believes that people leave Africa, the Indian sub-continent and other parts of the third world to sit in damp council flats in Hackney and live on benefits. They leave because they are driven to do so by poverty.
Our aid programme should not be directed to help arms dealers: it should be directed to the relief of poverty. The aid programme should not be abused in other ways. It is bizarre that Dominica is getting extra aid--alone in the Caribbean--because it is willing to take a refugee who is inconvenient to the British Government. That is another abuse of the aid programme.
Mr. Robert Key (Salisbury):
I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office on his speech. He said much that I would have wished to say, so I need not repeat it.I strongly support the Government motion. I shall speak briefly about three aspects of aid--poverty and suffering, multilateral aid and increasing the poverty focus.
On the question of poverty and suffering, I wish to draw attention to the worldwide premature abandonment of the high profile accorded to the problem of acquired immune deficiency syndrome over the past few years. That work has not been mentioned in the debate so far, but it is crucial. Human immune deficiency virus rates are stabilising in some parts of the world, but the epidemic is continuing to spread at an alarming rate.
Many countries with weak health and social systems are finding it virtually impossible to cope with the growing numbers of people falling ill. In certain African cities, the rate of HIV infection is as high as one in three adults. In rural Zambia, mortality among hospital nurses had soared from 2 per cent. in 1980 to almost 27 per cent. by 1991.
There have been many successful interventions by the world community, and Britain--I am proud to say--has been in the forefront. Where funds have been invested in community activities in the past three years--for example, in parts of Tanzania and Thailand--there have been impressive successes in slowing the rate of growth of the HIV epidemic.
There have also been large-scale changes in sexual behaviour, which 10 years ago people said was quite impossible. There has been a clear-cut decline in conventional sexually transmitted diseases from north-west Europe to Thailand and from Costa Rica to Zimbabwe.
There are still many concerns. I hope that the future focus of the Overseas Development Administration budget will not affect programmes aimed at preventing the spread of HIV at a time when the epidemic is continuing to spread at an alarming rate. It is important to remember that, while 93 per cent. of the people with AIDS live in developing countries, only 8 per cent. of HIV and AIDS funding is allocated to those regions. It is also important to remember that the World Health Organisation has estimated that up to $3 billion is needed every year for basic prevention of HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases in developing countries, yet only10 per cent. of those funds is currently available.
British international trade is of prime importance when considering the aid programme, and private flows simply cannot be ignored. They complement Government donations--taxpayers' donations--and the contributions of non-governmental organisations.
I sometimes wonder what my constituents in Salisbury would make of the debate, which has been esoteric to say the least, when what they understand to be meant by overseas aid is the sort of charities for which they work so hard--for example, Oxfam, which has such a strong base in our communities.
What on earth do our young people think when they hear us rabbiting on as we have been tonight? Their idealism is unmatched anywhere in the world, as far as I can tell. It is undiminished in the younger generation,
compared with how we felt 20, 25 or 30 years ago. What do they think when we are not talking about how they can get involved?
We have to face some difficult problems. Humanitarian emergency aid is one. I know of no one, whatever his or her political leaning, who wants to cut that--it is accepted by everyone. However, most people understand the aid programme to be poverty focused aid--water and food, usually in Africa and perhaps in India and Pakistan. What about India and Pakistan? Are we really talking about the British taxpayer supporting the poorest people in those countries, when, at the other end of the economic scale, they have the capacity to develop nuclear industries?
I was interested to receive press releases from the Overseas Development Administration in October and December. Of Shanghai, I read:
The ODA also says that
So why is our aid programme providing £2.8 million
Similarly, I do not think that my constituents understand why the overseas aid programme is spending £8.4 million on the new international airport that is being built south of Nanjing. It is not as if the Chinese do not have an airport in that province--they have, but they do not think that it is big enough.
Of course, the Government must promote British interests and support British companies overseas, but those are important issues and they raise questions about the aid framework and particularly about aid and trade provision. I suggest to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State that the time has come for more scrutiny of the provisions--for example, the concessional financing arrangements--which would benefit our aid programme. I am not arguing that such arrangements should not be made, but they are misunderstood and a stronger case can be made for them.
On 13 February, a further concessional financing arrangement will be signed between the United Kingdom and China, which will double that arrangement. That is the sort of thing that we should tackle.
Finally, on multilateral aid, it was a pleasure to be criticised by the hon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Miss Nicholson) for being ignorant--I then realised that I must be on the right track. Her comments were somewhat premature, however. It is true that I do not boast about my knowledge as shamelessly or as often as she does, but I yield to no one in my support ofUK overseas aid, not just as parliamentary private secretary to Chris Patten, but for many years before that as a supporter of the Project Trust and of GAP activity projects, which introduced hundreds of young people to the developing world. In multilateral aid we have a new weapon that we can use to our advantage and to that of others.
I must say a few words on the importance of the southern flank of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and how that is relevant to overseas aid--[Interruption.] It will take only a couple of minutes. I am sorry if the
hon. Member for Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley (Mr. Foulkes) is angry with me, but there have been some lengthy speeches by Opposition Members.
"Rapid development is taking place."
"Shanghai is China's biggest municipality and industrial centre, supporting heavy and light industry as well as township and village enterprises."
"to help combat industrial pollution and improve the municipal water supply"?
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