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1.22 pm
The Minister for Social Security and Disabled People (Mr. Alistair Burt): I am grateful to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South (Mr. Simpson) for raising this important subject for debate, which I am more than happy to answer. I am extremely disappointed that he has left me no time to deal with the points that he has raised, so I shall not bother to answer many of the points. If the hon. Gentleman does not give me sufficient time to deal with the issue properly, he cannot expect me to deal with it in a half-hearted fashion. He knows that the National Audit Office is dealing with the matter and that a report is expected soon.
I am sure that the hon. Member for Nottingham, South used it as a casual phrase, but he should be aware of its seriousness: simply to refer to the delay as being due to the likelihood of the National Audit Office "being nobbled", I think, means that he is accusing a public servant of being corrupt. It is up to him if he is content to leave that comment on the record, but that is what it
means. He is saying that if the NAO comes out and reports more or less along the lines that he has taken, fair enough, he will look at the report. If it does not, however, it is because a public servant is corrupt. If that is not what he meant, I urge him to take another opportunity, in due course, to make that very clear.
As most hon. Members know, Motability was set up in 1977 with all-party support. The then Secretary of State invited the late Lord Goodman to consider how disabled people could use their mobility allowance to gain access to a vehicle on terms representing good value for money. Lord Goodman, with Lord Sterling--Motability's present chairman--approached the Committee of Clearing Banks for assistance. They then set up the financing scheme which the hon. Gentleman now regards as crooked and corrupting. I am sure that they would be disappointed, and that the previous Labour Administration would be disappointed, to be associated with the words used by the hon. Gentleman.
As the hon. Member for Nottingham, South went on to say briefly, Motability has developed to become probably the most successful organisation of its kind in the world. It provides an opportunity for independent transport for hundreds of thousands of people who would otherwise not have such transport. It is a shame that that aspect of the matter is not highlighted more often. Motability is a very large scheme. Funding has grown. The assets owned by the bank, to which the hon. Gentleman referred, are the cars that people drive. As he will be aware, last year Motability achieved a significant milestone with the handing over of the 500,000th car. The Government therefore support the objective of the Motability scheme and acknowledge the very real benefits that the scheme can provide by allowing disabled people to become independently mobile.
The custodians of the scheme must be the governors of Motability. The governors and trustees have very clear responsibilities in relation to the general administration of Motability's aims and objectives, as set out in its royal charter, and in controlling the various charitable funds at its disposal. It is for Motability to ensure that the suppliers of the scheme offer value for money. Motability is a registered charity and, as such, is required to deposit copies of its annual accounts with the Charity Commission and to comply with company and charity law. As a requirement of Government grant, Motability must also submit its annual accounts to the NAO and is open to scrutiny by the NAO.
As the hon. Member for Nottingham, South knows, the NAO is currently preparing a value-for-money report concerning the Motability scheme. If Parliament subsequently wants to scrutinise Motability and its work, that would present no problem for Ministers or, I should imagine, for the scheme. If Parliament wishes to do that, it would be perfectly proper. Overall, however, the hon. Member is setting up a conspiracy theory and any evidence that comes to hand which does not back up that theory can be dismissed in one way or another. I find that disappointing.
The hon. Gentleman raised a number of specific points, of which I shall be able to deal with only one or two. However, I shall deal with some of the basics.
Who is in charge of the scheme? According to the hon. Member for Nottingham, South, it is the boss banks or something like that. The Motability scheme is a unique partnership between Government, the charitable sector and the private sector. Each partner in the scheme has its part to play. The governors of Motability have clear overall responsibility, as set out in its royal charter and articles of association, to ensure that the scheme operates in the interests of all beneficiaries.
I should deal with the transparency of the scheme, because that is important. While not directly responsible for the operation of the Motability scheme, I am keenly interested that it continues to achieve the Government's objective for the scheme: the provision of personal transport, for those who qualify, at terms which represent good value for money for the disabled customer. We are united in putting the disabled customer at the heart of our concerns and in wanting to ensure that the scheme works well for them.
Adverse comment and criticism of the scheme is a matter for serious concern and urgent attention. Having seen Motability's outstanding success, and being confident of the operation's propriety, I have been surprised at the range of criticism levelled at the scheme and at many the guises in which it has appeared. However, I do not take any issue with the hon. Member for Nottingham, South or with any others for seeking to find out information about the scheme and to raise legitimate questions.
A proportion of what the hon. Member for Nottingham, South said--he knows that we have a good relationship--was perfectly fair and reasonable. It is only when he questions propriety and uses language that I regard as unfortunate that I think he goes too far. But it is right to ask questions: there is no problem about that.
Given the criticisms that have been made, it is possible to recognise that earlier recognition of the depth of the concerns voiced about transparency and swifter action to provide details on the operation might have helped to avert the current situation, in which lack of knowledge has led to unjustified suspicion. I should also point out that, as a registered charity in receipt of Government funds, Motability deposits its accounts both with the charity commissioners and with the NAO, while MFL--the limited company--deposits accounts at Companies house. They therefore all have to be open to public scrutiny.
Much has been made of the structure of the scheme and the suggestion that partnerships have been set up to hide the movement of funds through the funding banks. That is not the case. The scheme was set up in a tax efficient and perfectly legal manner to ensure that disabled people gain the maximum benefit. I am anxious that Motability should be able robustly to deal with the criticisms that have been made and to demonstrate fully the propriety of its operation. I believe that the publication of the NAO report will provide the most appropriate opportunity for that. When it is published, I shall be more than happy to talk to the hon. Gentleman about what it reveals. I presume that there will be an opportunity to discuss the matter then.
I am extremely sorry that I have not had the opportunity to say more. Had I been given more than eight minutes, I probably would have done.
Mr. William Powell (Corby):
It is a privilege and a pleasure to introduce a short debate on the United Kingdom's relations with Mongolia. It is a very long time since the House had the opportunity to discuss those relations--it is certainly a long time since they were discussed at such a reasonable hour. My noble Friend Lord Rees told me that there was much speculation about the Mongolian tax system during debates on Finance Bills in the 1970s but, that apart, there has been precious little parliamentary discussion of Mongolia.
However, that is not to say that there is not a significant number of hon. Members with a real knowledge of and interest in this particular subject. I became interested in Mongolia thanks to our former colleague Sir James Kilfedder, whose untimely death left such a void in those of us who knew and loved him dearly.
Mongolia is not--to adapt a phrase used by our former Prime Minister, Mr. Neville Chamberlain--a faraway country of which we know little. That is far from the truth. As we speak, at this reasonable hour, darkness is descending in Ulaanbaatar. It would be perfectly possible for someone from this country to reach Mongolia by air in well under 24 hours, so it is not a faraway country, but it is a most interesting one.
Mongolia is about the size of western Europe, and its population is 2.3 million--about that of Greater Birmingham. In other words, a country the size of half our continent has a population equivalent only to that of our second principal city. It might have a small population, but it has masses of what President Kennedy used to call geography.
No country in the world has more sunshine than Mongolia. There are few clouds, at least in the physical sense, although I shall refer to some aspects of public policy which could be described as clouds. The sun shines, and the sky is blue. To the north of Mongolia lie the Arctic wastes of Siberia and its 100 million people. To the south lies the Gobi desert and Inner Mongolia, as it used to be called.
To the east is the great wall of China, Beijing and the plains and riches of China, which have so fascinated people from our continent since the time of Marco Polo. To the west is the romance and mystery of Bukhara, Samarkand and Tashkent. That is an enormous area of north central Asia, with which this country has long had friendly relations.
I am proud and pleased to be able to say that relations between our two countries are as warm today as they have ever been. The President of Mongolia has just made a successful visit--the first ever such visit--to this country. Along with the hon. Member for Bolton, South-East(Mr. Young), I was privileged to be part of the fifth Round Table delegation, which, under the redoubtable leadership of my noble Friend Baroness Trumpington, visited Mongolia shortly after Easter.
This is May, and it should be springtime in Mongolia, with the equivalent of alpine flowers all over the plateau, but, for reasons that I shall identify in a moment, since our visit--but, I hope, not because of it--a terrible tragedy has befallen that country. However, I want to use this debate not to dwell on darkness but to identify some of Mongolia's many assets which should be of interest and advantage to us.
Mongolia's population is highly educated. Probably no other country has achieved such good results, per head of the population, in the school and higher education system. It was a privilege and a pleasure to me to meet people who had learned about the market economy, for example, at the university of Leningrad, and who had been able to learn something of European culture and civilisation in the somewhat unlikely institutions built in the spirit of those awful old reprobates, Walter Ulbrecht and Mr. Honecker of the former East Germany.
What we would regard as such an unpromising start has nevertheless left the Mongolian population educated, sophisticated, skilled and knowledgeable, which is a massive asset. Mongolia also had an outstanding health system, which, alas, has to some extent fallen into decline as a result of what Mongolia regarded as the immense tragedy of the collapse of the Soviet empire.
In the Soviet days, Mongolia was not a Soviet slave or captive nation, as some countries in eastern Europe felt themselves to be; rather, it was a friendly and integrated part of the Soviet world, although its economy was very dependent on mutual trade with the old Soviet Union. Therefore, the collapse of the iron curtain and the Soviet system reduced overnight the wealth of the nation by one third. Very few countries could sustain such a blow, but Mongolians, with the good humour that we would expect of them, set about introducing reform.
The World bank and the International Monetary Fund--two institutions familiar to the House--arrived in Mongolia and gave advice that the people were happy to accept, after proper consultation. Mongolia then proceeded with modernisation, liberalisation and the start of a programme of privatisation.
Of course, as the old trade links had been destroyed, and as there was no infrastructure of alternative trading routes, the blow suffered by Mongolia in the early 1990s was formidable. That is one reason why I say to the Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office, whom I welcome to his place, that I hope it may be possible for us to do more to assist Mongolia than has hitherto been possible.
Mongolia has some outstanding products of its own. The aficionados of vodka say that Mongolian vodka is the best in the world. There is no question but that its cashmere is of the highest quality. I hope that it may be possible to expand trade in those two important items between Mongolia and Great Britain.
There are other opportunities for us, and the Round Table delegation enabled us to explore some of them. I welcome the fact that the Confederation of British Industry was represented on the delegation. Much hard work was done in acquiring information and intelligence to be spread among companies in this country to enable them to recognise those opportunities.
I pay tribute to a company in my constituency, Marlec Engineering, which is the only company in this country ever to be awarded the Queen's award for industry for exports to Mongolia. The company has supplied Mongolia with wind-powered machines for generating energy.
Our relations with Mongolia are the product of hard work. I pay tribute to the Mongolian ambassador to this country, who has been here for more than a year and has worked hard to improve our relations. I also want to pay tribute to his predecessor, who was here for a number of
years. I knew him well, and I was delighted to see him again in Ulaanbaatar. He is now the deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs.
On the British side, I pay tribute to the wonderful work done by the non-governmental organisations. These are essentially British in character, and they are doing useful work in Mongolia. For example, the work of Save the Children in Mongolia--led by a scion of the Dukes ofSt. Albans--is as valuable as its work in any other part of the world. I also pay tribute to the splendid daughter of Canada who led the British team of volunteers from the Volunteer Service Overseas. There are many non-governmental ways in which British people are engaged in important and necessary work in Mongolia.
I also pay tribute to our ambassador and his excellent staff in Ulaanbaatar. At one stage, it seemed that the British embassy--opened in 1962 and the first western embassy in Ulaanbaatar--might not survive some of the periodic efforts of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to save money in our posts abroad. Fortunately, Ulaanbaatar was saved from that fate.
The work of Mr. Sloane, our ambassador--who is shortly to retire--his wife and his excellent staff has been outstanding, in both the public and the private sector. Too often, hon. Members ignore what some of our less important posts abroad do, but sometimes the staff in posts in what may rank as only minor countries do work at least as important as, if not more important than, those in the great posts of Washington, Paris, Bonn and Japan.
My plea today is that Mongolia deserves British attention, and one area in particular that I wish to stress is the know-how fund for the republics of eastern Europe. Mongolia was excluded from that fund--perhaps for good reason--but it was just as much a part of the Soviet system as Bulgaria, Romania, Czechoslovakia and Poland. It is somewhat strange that it has been excluded from the scope of the funding. But I do not want to be too technical. If for any reason the know-how fund is not an appropriate vehicle to try to assist the Mongolians, I hope that it may be possible to boost our overseas aid funding, so that Mongolia receives a higher priority than at present.
I pay tribute to the university of Leeds, which is doing excellent work in educating in our language students from Mongolia. However, there is some suggestion that Cambridge university--the world's most important university--should abandon Mongolian studies. Mongolian may not rank as the most important language in the school of oriental languages at Cambridge, but it is important that a university of the quality of Cambridge should continue to make it available. I hope that my right hon. Friend the Minister of State will draw to the attention of the vice-chancellor the fact that it is the view of many hon. Members that Mongolian should be retained at Cambridge.
May I also say how important the overseas service of the BBC is? In a curious way, this country has managed to nurture the leading English language authorities in countries such as Mongolia through the work that they do for the BBC overseas service. We were blessed in Mongolia to have as one of our number a man who is undoubtedly regarded worldwide as the leading academic authority on Mongolia in the English language. He was
able to acquire this skill through the work he did for the BBC overseas service. That is an important way in which we can assist Mongolia.
1.30 pm
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