House of Commons Hansard Debates for 1 Jul 1997 (pt 22)

7.48 pm

Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury): I congratulate the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) on a truly first-class maiden speech. It was pertinent and relevant and everyone who heard it will remember it for a long time. It says much for the thriving abilities of the House of Commons that Members such as her come to us. Among hon. Members' greatest concerns as we go around our constituencies is the feeling that too many people have become disillusioned with contemporary politics. Her presence, and that of many other new Members, can only augur well for the well-being of Westminster as a whole.

The whole House will want to thank the Secretary of State and the business managers for giving us the opportunity to debate international development policies. All too often, we have a debate once a White Paper has been published, not before. I appreciate the Secretary of State's difficulties. I am sure that she arrived in her Department and was confronted with a budget of which--for perfectly good reasons which we all understand--more and more is taken each year for multilateral projects and aid. There is nothing wrong with multilateral aid. There is much that is good about it, but it requires some fairly strong scrutiny and means that the scope for United Kingdom bilateral aid is more limited. One appreciates the tension created by that scope being shrunk.

As the Under-Secretary of State for International Development said yesterday, the first calls on the bilateral aid programme are the dependent territories. We are seeing that clearly in what is having to happen in Montserrat. There cannot be a scintilla of criticism for what the Department of International Development or the West Indian and Atlantic department of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is doing in Montserrat. I am sure that everyone is doing all that can be done. Some of the comments in the press today were less than fair.

Anyone who has been fortunate enough to visit Montserrat, as I did when I was a Minister, recognises that the logistics of that island are difficult. One has a great understanding of the difficulties that the Government face in this predicament. It must be difficult to decide whether to rebuild Montserrat or to relocate

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people. I have no doubt that, in due course, those on the Treasury Bench will explain to the House, having consulted the people and the Government of Montserrat, what they intend to do. One appreciates that countries such as Montserrat, the Turks and Caicos Islands and others take up a substantial part of the bilateral aid budget.

I understand why the Government want to have a look at how international development money is spent, but I am concerned that in the process we may not include the private sector sufficiently. Around the world there is much that United Kingdom industry, technology and science can, and do, offer to the developing world. It was impressive to see the Cairo waste water project undertaken by Thames Water and others, with some help from the Overseas Development Administration. Many such first-class projects around the world have brought water, electricity and power to thousands of millions of people who would not have had them without the contribution of United Kingdom know-how and technology.

As Oxfam says in the briefing paper that it has sent to all Members of Parliament:

"In the modern globalised economy, the economic success of any country depends heavily on trade and on the investment it can attract."

We have to involve the private sector. I noticed that Magnus Linklater, in his article in The Times a few days ago, said:

"The future of development depends on investment from the private sector as much as it does on Government aid. The Third World needs British goods, technology, experience, management techniques and long-term assistance. It is more efficient and effective than anything a non-governmental organisation can provide."

I do not want to get hung up on whether we should have the aid and trade provision in its existing form. It is included in forward public spending plans for the next three years. I hope that the Government's White Paper will make clear the role that they see for the United Kingdom private sector in our development projects and ensure that it has a role to play.

As other hon. Members have said, there has been a fundamental review of ODA expenditure. The main report was published as recently as July 1995. It concluded that ATP had a useful purpose and said:

"Given the signs that the Helsinki disciplines are reducing demand, and that the quality of ATP projects since the 1993 reforms is no different from that of bilateral country programmes as a whole, there is little case for winding up the scheme."

I was slightly surprised, therefore, by the Secretary of State's recent comments to the House in oral questions and I hope that she can explain them to the House. She said:

"we are reviewing the aid and trade provision. There is much evidence that it is neither developmentally nor commercially beneficial."

I am not sure what that evidence is or where it comes from. She went on to say:

"I am sure that Conservative Members would not want to featherbed the inefficiency of British companies by a sort of backward-looking tying of minor parts of the aid programme when all the evidence and research undertaken by my Department and the OECD shows that it encourages inefficiency and damages the developmental quality of aid projects."--[Official Report, 25 June 1997; Vol. 296, c. 830-31.]

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But many, if not all--so far as I know--such projects have been first-class examples of United Kingdom industry and technology. It would help the House if we had some understanding of the way in which the Secretary of State felt that such projects had failed. Certainly no one wishes to featherbed inefficient United Kingdom industry--far from it--but I hope that we can find a mechanism in the development programme for involving the best of British industry and technology.

I understand that the Secretary of State is due to make a speech next week on the aid and trade provision. I hope that the potential of British industry can be widely promulgated. Some superb parts of the United Kingdom industry are apprehensive and feel that it is being signalled that their contribution to the developing world is suspect.

The aid and trade provision is overshadowed by the long debate over Pergau. Pergau was an exceptional circumstance and has proved to be very much a one-off. No other project has attracted that sort of criticism. Many other projects to which the private sector has contributed in recent decades have made a long and enduring contribution in the countries in which the investment was made. It would be a tragedy if we minimalised the contribution that United Kingdom industry, technology and exporters can make, in partnership with the Department of International Development and others, to helping the economies of developing countries. I hope that the Secretary of State and the Government will make it clear that there are ways in which the best of British industry, technology and science can continue to make an enduring contribution to development aid and that they do not intend to squeeze out the private sector or marginalise it. It would be a great pity if that happened.

7.57 pm

Mr. Martyn Jones (Clwyd, South): One of the fears that one has as a Member of Parliament of long standing is that one might have to congratulate an hon. Member on a maiden speech that was not of the quality for which one might have hoped. However, I have no fear in saying that the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Ms King) was first rate. I am sure that she will make a tremendous contribution to the House.

I also congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Clare Short) on her appointment as Secretary of State for International Development and on the running start that she has made. It is fitting that such a dedicated internationalist with regard to social justice and environmentalism should take up the reins of this important new Department.

Social justice and environmental protection go hand in hand. It is precisely that point that must never be forgotten. It is difficult to think of a country in need of our help that has not been a colony of either Britain or one of our European neighbours. That said, we have not only a special knowledge of many developing countries but a special responsibility for them.

This marriage of social justice and environmental protection has brought some excellent initiatives. They include fair trade--trade not aid, as it is known--intermediate technology and, in agriculture, the "farmer first" approach, pioneered by Robert Chambers. Such initiatives tackle poverty by putting control in the hands of the people, not the aid workers. Poverty is not a choice

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or a state of mind, but a harsh reality that sometimes drives people to exhaust the very land on which they depend. If we are to alleviate poverty, social justice must be as much about empowerment as about basic rights. Another important element in the alleviation of poverty is access--access to land, to water and shelter, to proper justice, to dignified working rights and to information. Those points are not separate, but intrinsically linked.

It is heartening to see that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State concurs with me on the marriage of social justice and environmental protection. In a recent written answer, she said that her priority in the new Department would be the

"elimination of poverty through sustainable development. This goal is impossible to achieve without the early stabilisation of world population."--[Official Report, 25 June 1997; Vol. 296, c. 557.]

As chair of the all-party group on population development and reproductive health, I welcome those comments.

I wish to expand on two points involving the critical subject of world population growth: access to information and the empowerment of people, particularly women. We must get one thing straight. When considering global population growth, one does not have to be a genius to see that the major factor associated with large families is poverty. If there was a high probability that a large number of my children could die of disease and I did not have a pension, I would be encouraged to have a large family.

If we are to begin to tackle poverty and disease and to help our brothers and sisters throughout the world to lead fruitful and fulfilling lives, we must provide them with access to appropriate reproductive health care. In many other parts of the world where local resources are just adequate to provide for smaller families, there are women who want to plan their families with fewer children. As before, they need access--they need access to family planning. When 70 per cent. of the 1.3 billion people living in poverty are women, such access is critical.

In both scenarios, access to reproductive health clinics is vital. The world population in 1996 was 5.77 billion. The United Nations medium-term projection is that that figure will grow to 9.4 billion by 2050. If poverty is the track of the railway population train and social justice the brake, the critical lever is the empowerment of women. Without environmental protection, there is nowhere to go once we have stopped the train.

I endorse the concepts of the reproductive and sexual health rights enshrined in the 1994 Cairo programme of action, agreed at the United Nations international conference on population and development, and the 1995 Beijing platform for action agreed at the fourth world conference on women. I call on the Department of International Development, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and the Department of Health to ensure that those international principles and standards are reflected in the implementation of reproductive and sexual health policy programmes and services.