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Clare Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I am aware that the Select Committee has been in Mozambique and grateful to it for being careful not to use any resources that are needed to help deal with the disaster. I appreciate that; it behaved very responsibly.
It is always easy to say that there is not enough money. Truly, the problem is not that, but getting people, organisation and efficiency on the ground now, getting helicopters--we do not have enough and we have even fewer with winches--and getting them flying. The disaster is that Mozambique is one of the poorest countries in the world and history has been very hard on it. It has a good, reforming Government, but capacity in the country is enormously weak.
It is not true that money is the problem for the UN or non-governmental organisations; it is getting the money and the assistance deployed on the ground. I am proud that our Department and my officials in our conflict and humanitarian affairs department are among the best in the world at moving rapidly. Lots of other countries go on television to pledge money, but it takes months to get it to Mozambique. We can provide money for as many helicopters as we can get into the theatre and are searching for them all around. Believe me: the problem is not money but organisation, helicopters, efficiency and getting food to people before many die.
Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stortford):
Can the Secretary of State tell the House a bit more about the effect of the hurricane that hit the central provinces of Mozambique? Most of the BBC reporting has been on the flooding to the north and south of Maputo. Can she also say whether provision is being made and plans are being laid to provide the farmers with seeds and tools to replant their crops after the floods recede? That is necessary before the dry season sets in. They need to plant as soon as the floods recede.
Clare Short:
The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. There was a cyclone and flooding is coming on the whiplash, back in from South Africa and Zimbabwe. Another storm is coming in from the sea and there is a danger of Cahora Bassa flooding. That is a disaster and so hard and unfair for Mozambique, which is being hit from both sides. It looks as though things will get very much worse. I can assure him that we and, I presume, others are preparing for the next phase in terms of seeds and tools. The main road has been damaged and Mozambique has hardly any infrastructure or roads. I have had meetings with my officials. My emergency officials are at work and the officials out in Mozambique are preparing for the next phase now.
Fiona Mactaggart (Slough):
The Secretary of State will be aware that one of the responses of ordinary people
Clare Short:
My hon. Friend is right--the British people are notoriously generous. Whenever there is a crisis, they want to contribute and do so in large and ever growing amounts. People can give money to the NGOs that I have mentioned, which are working on the ground--Save the Children Fund, ActionAid, World Vision and so on--and I believe that there is to be an appeal from the Disasters Emergency Committee. I am sure that the public will want to contribute as generously as they always do.
Mr. Andrew Robathan (Blaby):
I too was in Mozambique last week with the Select Committee on International Development. May I say, unusually, that the Government's response was good? I particularly commend the work of the Secretary of State's officials in Mozambique, and of the two people seconded from the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Gilbert Greenall and Ian Howard-Williams, who did excellent work in co-ordinating the humanitarian relief.
The people of Mozambique had very little, and now many of them have much less. Will the Secretary of State assure the House that she will not reduce the aid that she has already given to Mozambique for purposes other than this catastrophe, especially for the work on HIV and AIDS prevention in that country?
Clare Short:
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his tribute to my officials. This country has a reputation as one of the fastest to respond to disasters, because officials in my Department work day and night and have good response systems. We are all entitled to be proud of them.
I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we will not reduce our growing aid programme. Mozambique is a very poor country with a frail administrative capacity and a weak infrastructure. At the moment it has reserves, because it is having to strengthen the capacity of its systems to be able to spend money on the ground to reach people all over that desperately poor country. We have a growing programme, and I can increase it as the money can be spent.
We must review the position once Mozambique is over the disaster so that reconstruction can begin. We have committed resources and we can spend more than Mozambique can absorb at the moment. I assure the hon. Gentleman that that will continue to be the case.
Mr. Peter L. Pike (Burnley):
My right hon. Friend will know that a parliamentary delegation from Mozambique came to this country last year under the auspices of the Inter-Parliamentary Union, and visited Burnley. Members of that delegation underlined the points that she has made about the difficult problems that their country is facing after a civil war that lasted many years.
Mozambique is the newest member of the Commonwealth. Are Commonwealth countries responding positively to deal with the immediate crisis and to help to save lives now, to cope with the immediate aftermath of the crisis to which my right hon. Friend referred, and to aid its
economy and help to solve the on-going debt problem? The Commonwealth, in addition to this country and South Africa, should respond positively.
Clare Short:
Mozambique is a proud member of the Commonwealth, and, I think, the only member that was not colonised by Britain. The Queen visited Mozambique recently and was given an enormously warm reception. The Commonwealth is not a large donor of emergency assistance. The Commonwealth secretariat is good on human rights work, support for Parliaments and other such matters. I am sure that other Commonwealth countries will respond.
My hon. Friend is right to say that the needs are massive, and I am sure that the world will rally to Mozambique. History has been hard on that country, and the Mozambique Government, in their brave efforts to take their country forward and to institute reform, deserve all the support they can get.
Mr. Roger Gale (North Thanet):
May I add my good wishes to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office staff in Maputo? They are a first-rate team who are working in conditions that are difficult and dangerous for them as well as for the people of Mozambique.
Those of us who went to Mozambique at the end of last year to scrutinise the elections came back with mixed feelings of hope and despair: some hope because the elections were, by and large, fair and democracy looked set fair, and some despair that poverty may undermine the democratic process. That was before the floods.
It is clear that the people of Mozambique are facing real threats of dysentery and cholera, and the food crop for this year is likely to be entirely wiped out. One of the biggest problems faced day in, day out are land mines. Those mines will have moved in the floods, and no one will have any idea where they are, so agriculture will be incredibly dangerous. This must be the time for the right hon. Lady to talk immediately to her hon. Friend the Minister for the Armed Forces with a view to getting out there the engineering capacity to cope with this crisis--not just in the next two or three weeks, but in the next two or three months and perhaps the next two or three years.
Clare Short:
I agree with the hon. Gentleman about Foreign Office staff in the area. Our high commissioner has given an excellent lead, and is dedicated to the provision of support for Mozambique.
Although Mozambique is a very poor country, it is a very impressive country. A vicious civil war, partly fed by apartheid South Africa, has now turned to democracy. People are no longer killing each other, and there is a Parliament with a Government and an Opposition. That is a remarkable achievement for such a desperately poor country, but its democracy will be under strain as a result of this growing disaster. As I have said, we will do all we can to help with reconstruction of the infrastructure, and the provision of food and seeds.
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