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Montserrat
7. Mr. Nicholas Winterton: If she will make a statement on assistance to Montserrat. [14113]
Mr. Foulkes: Since the start of the volcanic crisis, around £45.8 million of emergency aid, development assistance and budgetary aid has been committed by Her Majesty's Government to the needs of Montserrat. When I visited Montserrat in September, we agreed to produce a sustainable development plan for the northern third of the island so that people can continue to live there as long as it remains safe to do so. However, as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has said, I met the chief scientist of the Montserrat volcanic observatory earlier and there are further doubts about safety which we have to consider urgently.
Mr. Winterton: I am grateful to the Minister for that information. Does he agree with the Chief Minister of Montserrat that it is wrong to use the same budget for assistance to British dependent territories as is used for aid to India, Pakistan and Uganda? Does not aid currently go from London offices to Barbados offices and thence to Montserrat? Could we not cut out one of those stages?
Mr. Foulkes: I have some sympathy with the hon. Gentleman, although I am surprised to hear myself say that. He has raised a good point about where the money comes from. If he has had the opportunity to read the White Paper, he will know that the reasonable needs of dependent territories will remain a first call on the aid budget. Barbados has been taken out of the line of decision making; there is a direct link between Montserrat and our Department in the United Kingdom and I talk regularly to the Chief Minister to ensure that things are done as quickly as possible and that the decisions made are implemented as quickly as possible.
Mr. Gapes: Will the Minister look urgently into the problem faced by many people from Montserrat who have been evacuated to this country through no fault of their own but are being subjected to the three-year rule on going into higher and further education and therefore not getting grants from local authorities? Will he discuss that with his colleagues from the Department for Education and Employment to find a way to assist British dependent territory citizens while they are in this country?
Mr. Foulkes: My hon. Friend is a little out of date on the arrangements for citizens of Montserrat. Special arrangements have been made for them. On his most recent visit to the United Kingdom, Chief Minister Brandt
discussed that issue with Baroness Blackstone and I know that the Department for Education and Employment is particularly concerned about it.
Mr. Faber: Does the hon. Gentleman recall the assurance that he gave the House on 1 July that he would make strong representations to the defence review on behalf of the West Indies guard ship, which continues to play a vital role in bringing relief to the people of Montserrat? Can he explain the written answer that I have received from the Secretary of State for Defence saying that no such representations have been made? Did it merely slip the Minister's mind that he gave the House such an assurance, or does he no longer consider the role of the guard ship to be as important as it was?
Mr. Foulkes: The West Indies guard ship plays an especially important role, as I saw myself when I visited Monserrat and met the captain and many of its crew. I have spoken personally to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence about the guard ship, which is perhaps why the hon. Gentleman got the answer he did. Officials from our Department are participating in discussions on the strategic defence review, and those points and others will be made.
Child Labour
8. Mr. Gareth Thomas: What steps the Government are taking to eliminate child labour. [14114]
Clare Short: We are working with the International Labour Organisation and developing countries to support programmes immediately to ban hazardous and exploitative child labour and to put in place plans to phase out excessive child labour and get the children into school. At the international conference on child labour in Oslo last month, I announced support for a new project in Pakistan and my willingness to work with other countries to reach our goal.
Mr. Thomas: I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for those comments. Does she agree that poverty lies at the heart of child labour and the exploitation of children, and that the way to eradicate those problems is to eradicate world poverty?
Clare Short: I agree with my hon. Friend. It is useful to examine our history on the matter and then we learn the right lessons. We used to have high levels of child labour and low levels of child education, but improvements in living conditions, as well as the spread of education, brought child labour to an end. We must have similar programmes in other countries to ban immediately the most exploitative and hazardous labour, and to increase the number of children in education and the opportunities of their parents to gain employment. That process of change is connected with plans for poverty eradication.
Mr. Ian Bruce: I congratulate the Secretary of State on transforming the way of dealing with child labour. The worst problems of many third-world countries are not the young children who work in sensible jobs. Will she focus the attention of her Department on street children, who work on their own behalf and are often badly abused?
That should be the first focus of our help; the other problems should begin to resolve as the economies of those countries improve.
Clare Short: The hon. Gentleman is right. The evidence in Bangladesh shows that well intentioned moves by the United States of America to ban the import of any garments produced by child labour led to many children going on to the streets as beggars and child prostitutes. That is why we need an overview of the problem to deal with the most exploitative mistreatment of children and to work with Governments to phase out child labour and get children into school, instead of having one-off boycotts.
Palestinian Authority
9. Mr. Gunnell: If she will make a statement on the level of financial assistance to the Palestinian Authority in the current year; and what is the projected level for 1998-99. [14115]
Mr. Foulkes: Bilateral assistance to the Palestinian National Authority in this financial year will amount to about £10 million. That is in addition to our £6 million contribution in 1997 to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees and our one-sixth share of the European Commission's 50 million ecu programme of assistance to the West Bank and Gaza. Bilateral funding for the next financial year will be decided early in the next calendar year.
Mr. Gunnell: I thank the Minister for that reply. Will he give particular attention, when he has some additional funds, to the needs of the Palestinian National Authority and projects in Palestine? I am sure that he is aware of the disappointment felt by people who live in Gaza and the West Bank at the restrictions on their borders. It is important that we ensure that progress is made in that territory to support arguments to put to those who wish to take up arms to support their cause. We need to urge them to join in the work to make the peace process effective.
Mr. Foulkes: I am sympathetic to the point made by my hon. Friend. Expenditure in the past three years has ranged between £3.5 million and £6 million. I am sure that he will agree that £10 million in the current financial year is a significant and welcome increase.
Mr. David Atkinson: As the Palestinian refugee question is one of the final status issues to be negotiated between Israel and the Palestinian Authority by May 1999--in 18 months' time--does the Minister agree that Governments should be budgeting now for their donations to the cost of resettlement out of the 59 camps, as well as their contributions to the Palestinian Authority and to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency? What initiatives does he have in mind to draw that need to the attention of Governments during the forthcoming British presidency of the European Union?
Mr. Foulkes: We shall certainly take account of those points, and we shall raise them on behalf of the United Kingdom Government in our discussions with UNRWA.
Dr. Starkey: As the White Paper stresses the importance of private investment in helping with
development effort, does my hon. Friend agree that the current closure of the west bank makes it incredibly difficult for private industry to invest there or in Gaza, because industries have almost no stable future in that environment?
Mr. Foulkes: I agree with every word that my hon. Friend has said.
Land Mines
10. Mr. Laurence Robertson: If she will make a statement regarding the Government's intended stance at the forthcoming Ottawa conference in connection with anti-personnel land mines. [14117]
Clare Short: I plan to attend the ministerial conference and convention signing ceremony on 3 December, and I shall proudly sign on behalf of Britain to join in the land mine ban. I will emphasise the Government's commitment to achieving the widest possible support for a total ban on anti-personnel land mines. We shall follow up the Ottawa convention in other negotiating bodies. We shall also pursue with vigour our programme of de-mining. The British delegation will take part in the parallel round table discussions, which will include discussion of plans to speed up and co-ordinate de-mining internationally.
Mr. Robertson: I thank the right hon. Lady for that answer, and I wish her well in her attempts to secure a worldwide ban. Is she aware that many land mines throughout the world are cleared by children as young as 10? What will the Government do to prevent that?
Clare Short: The hon. Gentleman is right; we need both a ban and a speeding up of de-mining. At current rates of clearance, it will take 1,000 years to clear the land mines already out there, and more are being laid as we speak. We must speed clearance and enlarge the capacity of the countries that have so many land mines to clear them for themselves. That is the only way to get the speed up.
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