| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
5.20 pm
Sir Raymond Whitney (Wycombe): The hon. Member for Leicester, East (Mr. Vaz) was right to point to the welcome improvements in a number of African states. He was also right to mention the importance of relieving debt interest. However, he might have recognised the important start made in that respect by the previous Conservative Government. I differ with him over his suggestion that the present Government came to office on 1 May with a new set of policies. As far as the country can tell, most of the Government's policies are a pale imitation of Conservative policies. Labour offered only two policies: a minimum wage, which will cost jobs, and a windfall tax, which will do great harm. There is little sign of any other new policies.
I have had the privilege over 10 years of my working life to be involved with development in one form or another on the Indian sub-continent and in east Africa. Throughout that time, I have been struck by the danger of introducing woolly thinking into the subject. That was one of a number of points on which I agreed with the Secretary of State. She said that what were needed were not just soft hearts but hard heads, and I agree. However, as she continued her speech, hard-headedness seemed to disappear.
As we enter yet another review with this White Paper, the new Department should ask the following question: after more than 40 years of massive development effort and after countless billions of dollars or pounds have been spent, why do these enormous problems and challenges remain? The problems seem greater now than they did in previous decades. That is not necessarily because they are greater in real terms; it is because we are more aware of them. The communications revolution means that the problems appear on our television sets virtually every night and there is, rightly, deep awareness of them. The public will to meet that challenge is entirely justified and, I am sure, shared by parties throughout the House and the country.
I also agree with the Secretary of State that it is possible to eradicate poverty; it is technically achievable in terms of increasing the production of agriculture, food and other goods so that other countries attain the sort of standard of living that we in this country are fortunate to enjoy. It is possible to eradicate poverty if we introduce the right policies, but that is where we have to make a judgment. The White Paper must be clear and as we move forward on, I hope, a bipartisan basis, we should learn the lessons of the past 40 years, which have not been an unmitigated success. However, in the past few years, some progress has been made in Africa.
No amount of aid or sacrifice by the developed countries will work unless conditions are right in the developing and recipient countries. There are two major challenges or obstacles to be overcome. The first challenge is what we might call civil strife. If there is civil war or tribal fighting of the sort that we have seen in central Africa over the past two or three years, nothing can be achieved, whatever the world community does. All we are doing is putting a finger in the dyke; no progress can be made towards eliminating poverty.
I am not suggesting that I have the answer, but the international community must work out what it can do if one country or a group of countries seems intent on tearing itself to bits. To what limits can the rest of the international community go? What action can we take through the United Nations, the European Union or any other international group? How far can we go in peace-keeping terms? We all know the terrible challenges involved. How many of us are ready to tell our constituents that their sons must enter the armed forces and defend the status quo in Rwanda, the new Congo or wherever? We also face the challenge of what happens when we leave. Will we be sucked into what is known in the United States as the Vietnam situation? Those challenges present an examination test to which the international community has not yet found the answers. I do not have the answers either. Those problems constitute a crucial element in the challenge that the international community must tackle if it is to solve world poverty.
I believe that we have learnt lessons and can make progress in our efforts to overcome the second challenge or danger. I shall sum up that danger in a word that may give offence to some Labour Members: it is socialism--state interference. We saw that happening for at least a quarter of a century--
Sir Raymond Whitney:
I shall tell the hon. Gentleman. I can give the example of Tanzania. I am referring to the 25 years between 1960 and 1985--the hon. Gentleman was not in the House at that time, but I was, towards the end of that period. Dame Judith Hart, to whom much reference has been made in the debate and to whom I pay tribute, was totally committed to the cause. If ever there was an example of a soft heart taking precedence over a hard head, it was in the form of that admirable woman, Dame Judith Hart.
I am giving the hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr. MacShane) his answer and I hope that he is listening. Tanzania is a perfect example. We kept hearing about Uncle Julius--President Nyerere--who was
President for about 25 years, during which time there was what he called Ujamaa socialism, which was a total disaster. With a few, freak statistical exceptions, no country in the world has had more aid than Tanzania, which has nothing to show for it in terms of its people making progress towards escaping poverty.
There has been a change in the past five years. We have got away from the one-party state, from centralisation and from the socialism of Tanzania into a multi-party state led by President Mkapa. He follows the precepts and recipes of the International Monetary Fund for which he worked.
Mr. Soames:
Julius Nyerere followed mad policies which did terrible harm in Africa and awful corruption flowed from his Government. Does my hon. Friend agree that the debate turned largely because of the efforts of my colleagues at the Overseas Development Administration to link aid to good government? Does he agree that--far from there having been no overseas aid until the right hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) became Secretary of State for International Development--the whole debate and the thrust of our aid programme had already dramatically changed for the better and led to profound changes in those countries?
Sir Raymond Whitney:
I am most happy to agree with my hon. Friend--we must not let Labour Members get away with pretending that international development began on 1 May. We were, quite rightly, the sixth largest donor in the world and, as most of those familiar with aid programmes on the ground recognise, the British aid programme is one of the best administered of the lot. I would add, en passant--if I am allowed to use a little French in this Chamber--that one of the other lessons I learned from personal experience is the extreme value of well-administered non-governmental aid. I emphasise the term "well-administered", because there are some badly administered programmes. I reckon that £1 spent by a good agency is worth £5 spent by a multinational operation and I have seen many examples to justify that belief.
Let me return to the point in my speech where the hon. Member for Rotherham gave me the chance to offer him the salutary example, which I hope he will consider carefully, of Tanzania and how the dangers of a socialist approach destroyed any hope of using aid productively and effectively. That point was again underlined by the world development report issued by the World bank, to which the Secretary of State referred. If the seed of development is to flourish, the soil has to be fertile, which means that the approach of the recipient Government has to be sensible, non-dogmatic and pragmatic. It is the lack of those qualities that will reduce the economic success that the Labour Government have inherited from their predecessors.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North):
Before the hon. Gentleman gets totally carried away with his eulogy to free market economics, will he pause for a second and recognise that the free market economies of Latin America that he admires so much have created the most incredible gap between rich and poor--which is precisely what they are designed to do--and that the gap is getting greater and the rate of environmental destruction in those
Sir Raymond Whitney:
I invite the hon. Gentleman to consider the standards of living in even the poorest countries of Latin America and compare them with the impact of socialist policies in Africa. I would be the first to agree that there is a challenge in some Latin American countries, but he should recognise that the trickle-down effect actually exists--although I realise that that is anathema to his basic political philosophy. Would that the economic position in Africa were remotely comparable to that in Latin America, which is the second fastest-growing economic area in the world. If I were asked who would be better off in 10 years' time, someone who lives in Zaire or Rwanda or someone who lives in a favela outside Rio, I know where I would put my money.
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |