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9.35 pm
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow): Thanks to the Inter-Parliamentary Union, the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling (Sir J. Stanley), accompanied by my hon. Friends the Members for Mansfield (Mr. Meale) and for Midlothian (Mr. Clarke) and by the hon. Members for Mid-Kent (Mr. Rowe) and for Vale of Glamorgan(Mr. Sweeney) and I were able to go to Nepal. May we have some formal statement on the future of the valuable agricultural research station at Lumle, about which the right hon. Member for Tonbridge and Malling and I met Lady Chalker? Its value is that it does urgent practical research into local crops in one of the poorest countries in the world. The scientists who took us round said, movingly, that they were really helping their people.
Mr. George Foulkes (Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley): I am not sure what debate the hon. Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) has been sitting through or, indeed, whether he has sat through the debate. Far from being esoteric, it has been valuable and lively. As thehon. Member for Torridge and West Devon (Miss Nicholson) said, it was opened with great sincerity by my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles (Miss Lestor). She was followed by the Minister, who spoke with some
urbanity, with his carefully crafted soundbite about "the substantial aid programme of which we can be proud". We have had that on a number of occasions and no doubt we shall hear it again. Although the journalists and spin doctors tell me that this is the age of the soundbite, I do not think that soundbites can hide the truth.
The Minister attempted, with, as I said, some urbanity to justify something that I do not think that he really believes in. The hon. Member for Broxtowe (Sir J. Lester) made it clear that some Conservative Members do not believe what was said by the Minister. Some of them must oppose, as we do, the hypocrisy peddled by a Government who are seeking to hold on to the trappings of power. They say one thing and they do another. They say that there is a substantial aid programme of which they can be proud, but they preside over cut after cut. The Deputy Prime Minister cannot take that--he cannot stand people picking up the sort of soundbites that he uses and throwing them back at him.
Successive Governments' commitment to the developing world may not be seen by some as a crucial campaigning issue. Some people may think that the issue does not win elections, but that they are won on issues such as health, education and law and order. But are we politicians who care deeply about development as far removed from the public on this issue as some people would have us believe? My hon. Friend the Member for Eccles quoted a Harris poll in which 81 per cent. of those questioned agreed that it was important that the British Government--not just voluntary organisations or private sources--provide aid to the developing world, and79 per cent. thought that Britain should increase the amount currently given. When will Ministers realise that the cuts that they regularly and meekly concede when the Chief Secretary to the Treasury calls them into his office are not supported by three quarters of the population?
The pride that the Minister keeps mentioning is nothing but rhetoric. The Government constantly say one thing and do another. The most recent Budget was a prime example. The ODA issued a public statement. Press releases quoted earlier said that the aid programme was to be increased. That was not true. The independent House of Commons Library analysed the figures, which show that, in both cash and real terms, the aid budget will fall this year. The Government say one thing but do another time and again.
As my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles said, even the Department's fundamental expenditure review estimates that Britain's aid as a percentage of gross national product will fall to 0.26 per cent. by 1997. When Labour left office in 1979, it was 0.52 per cent. and rising; now it is 0.3 per cent. and falling. Instead of vacillating and undermining multilateral assistance, Ministers would do better to spend their time opposing the cuts and the loss of British influence throughout the world caused by reductions in the World Service and in funding to the British Council. Above all, they should look at the fundamental expenditure review and oppose the cuts and the removal of British influence in the Caribbean, Latin America, south-east Asia and the Pacific. Guyana, Haiti and Vietnam have low per capita incomes and need assistance.
We heard the Minister's weasel words about the Caribbean. I hope that he will say something more positive about the Caribbean when he replies to the
debate. He shrugged off the importance of the Commonwealth. I hope that, when he replies, he will answer the points made about it.
The Minister should not kowtow to the Chief Secretary to the Treasury. I hope that he will give a pledge tonight that, because of what Opposition Members and some Conservative Members have said in the debate, he will press the Chief Secretary for a substantial and effective aid programme so that his deeds can match his words. It would be an easier task if the Minister were directly involved in the decision making instead of getting the crumbs handed down from the Cabinet table.
When Labour takes power, the ODA will be transformed into a Department of international development, with its Secretary of State in the Cabinet, speaking up for the overseas aid budget. A Cabinet Committee will bring together Ministers from the Department of Trade and Industry, the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food, the Department for Education and Employment and other Departments, to utilise their expertise in the developing world. A Select Committee will monitor our work, and a new vision and fresh impetus will be given to the Cinderella Department that exists under the present Government.
I do not deny that some aspects of the fundamental expenditure review, which will be debated in more detail once the House has received a report on it, are to be welcomed. Incidentally, some hon. Members may have seen tonight's programme on Carlton television about Humana. It was an excellent investigation into that organisation, but I hope that people will not judge the other excellent non-governmental organisations involved in overseas aid by one bad organisation. We want consultation with NGOs and an increased ODA role in multilateral institutions. There are things to be supported in the FER, but all of them are used as a smokescreen to camouflage the cuts that are the essential element of the document.
The withdrawal of aid from some of the poorest countries in the Caribbean and Latin America and the abandonment of some Commonwealth partners and of the dependent territories--colonies that have no place to look to other than the United Kingdom, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington(Ms Abbott) said--are an appalling indictment of the Government.
The budget has been decimated by the present Government. Before any Tory placemen rise to their feet proving Pavlov to be correct, let me reaffirm what my hon. Friend the Member for Eccles said earlier. She said:
the decline in overseas aid expenditure. It does not come much clearer than that. Even the hon. Member for Westbury (Mr. Faber), if he were listening, should be able to understand that.
Justification for the Government's continuing reduction in the aid programme was given by the Minister on Monday and again today. We heard about reductions in other countries' expenditure--the United States and Italy are repeatedly mentioned--but countries such as Japan are substantially increasing their programme. Taiwan is becoming a major aid donor. Let us forget the irrelevant comparisons. We should be standing proud in relation to our role in the world.
The Minister's plea, in mitigation, that a tight spending round hurt everyone this year is pretty pathetic--he said that hard choices had to be made--considering the need in the third world. One person in four lives in absolute poverty; basic social services are denied to more than1 billion people; 130 million primary school age children are not at school. Every day, 35,000 children die of preventable diseases--diseases that might be prevented with more help from countries such as Britain. The magnitude of the need is frightening, and is ignored by Conservative Ministers.
The Government, as my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington said, have even failed by their own standard, by their own claim, by their own natural instincts to look after themselves, to consider the political and commercial advantages to Britain in increasing the aid programme. The size and expertise of the aid programme have helped Britain to maintain an influence in the United Nations, in the G7 and in the World bank that is not justified simply by the size of our global responsibilities. We need to continue to have a global aid programme, to justify our participation in those institutions.
Looking beyond the short-termism of the present Government, aid to the developing world can save the Chancellor money. A better environment is created for trade and investment by increasing prosperity and stability in the developing world. Aid generates income for many British organisations. Do not Ministers read the advice of their experts, as expressed in the FER?
I want to give the Minister time to reply, so I shall leave out some of the things that I intended to say. No doubt I shall have opportunities to return to them. I shall say, finally, what we shall do after the next election.
Labour will set out its agenda in full during the summer. We shall produce an agenda for the future--a set of policies that will revitalise an area regarding which we have in Britain the ability, the expertise and the resources to help the developing world. The agenda will be rooted in traditional Labour ideals--fairness, rights, responsibilities and the idea of society and community, which is as relevant abroad as it is in the United Kingdom.
"In their first year of office, a Labour Government will start to reverse"
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