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Mrs. Maria Fyfe (Glasgow, Maryhill): My right hon. Friend said that this was more a question of immediate organisation than of finance. Does she agree, however, that there may well be thousands of small boat owners who are relatively poor and whose boats could be put to use, but who will need recompense for their loss? A few weeks down the line, it will be a question of providing more money for that purpose. Is my right hon. Friend confident that international financial resources will be available?
Clare Short: At present, 100,000 people are stranded, and we have nine helicopters with winches. We need boats to convey food and water, and to get people out. The situation is turbulent, and the conditions are currently dangerous for boats. What we need are bigger boats.
Many people have lost everything--their home and all their property. Those are terrible losses, but we must ensure that people do not lose their lives. Of course there will be further losses and the reconstruction effort will be massive. In the face of emergencies such as this, there is always--understandably--a call for money, but we must provide help on the ground now while people are still alive, to prevent them from dying and make them safe. Such organisation is not a resource problem: the UK can find more money and other countries have committed money. That is not a difficulty at this stage.
Madam Speaker:
Order. When the Secretary of State turns her head away from the microphone, the recording is lost.
Mr. Crispin Blunt (Reigate):
Does the Secretary of State know the location of the nearest United States navy carrier group? If it could be of any use, has she interceded--or will she intercede--with her United States opposite number?
Clare Short:
I do not normally monitor the location of the United States navy, but I will ask someone to find out. USAID is engaged, but I have heard no talk of deployment.
Mr. Jeremy Corbyn (Islington, North):
Is the Secretary of State confident that the Ministry of Defence and other armed forces Ministries have heard her plea for more helicopters? They are clearly available to the armed forces in many countries, not just ours, and they should be sent as quickly as possible. Can the Secretary of State ensure that that happens?
Will the Department also look at the reasons for the cyclone and the flooding, and decide whether there is not a case, in the longer term, for giving more serious
consideration to the need for reafforestation of much of the hinterland of both river systems, as well as a better system to give early warning of cyclones hitting the coast of Africa? There is a very good cyclone warning system in the Caribbean and the north Atlantic.
Clare Short:
I will certainly talk more to my Ministry of Defence colleagues. We will consider where helicopters can be brought into theatre, but we have already discussed that, and currently they are too far away to get there quickly.
I have asked the question: are we having more cyclones and flooding? Everyone understands that global warming implies more and more such events throughout the world and more such disasters, but the advice that I have had from my officials is that it is not so much that more disasters are taking place, but that more and more people are living on frail, dangerous land, so that the number of people who are hurt by disasters is becoming greater and greater.
I do not think that deforestation is a problem in Mozambique. It is in many other countries. But I agree with my hon. Friend that we need better early warning and emergency response systems, particularly in countries that are prone to disasters. Clearly, there will be lessons for Mozambique after the disaster is over.
Mr. Harry Barnes (North-East Derbyshire):
I accept my right hon. Friend's argument that organisation is what is required and that money is not an immediate issue, but it is obviously an issue in the long term--some of the points have just been made--and it has been an issue for Mozambique in the past.
In that context, there is growing demand in the House for some consideration of the Tobin tax: a tax on international capital speculation. Is it not time to move forward on that matter to ensure that problems such as Mozambique's can be tackled and handled in future?
Clare Short:
A lot of money will be needed for the reconstruction of Mozambique, but Mozambique has frail capacity. It needs--it is doing it--to build the capacity of its administrative system, so that it can deliver reconstruction and spend the resources that are available. We and others have a growing resource to provide and Mozambique has reserves that it will, I hope, be able to spend very quickly, once the disaster has resolved itself.
The Tobin tax is a very interesting proposal, but if we are ever to get there it will take time, as all the countries of the world will have to agree to impose the tax. Although it is an attractive idea, how long will it take to achieve international consensus to introduce it? It is worth looking at, but in the meantime, we need to deploy the £50 billion in the worldwide Overseas Development Administration more effectively, and persuade our publics to put more into backing good reformers such as Mozambique, so that we can help the poorest countries in the world to grow out of poverty, which they could with more support.
Mr. Tony McWalter (Hemel Hempstead):
Like many hon. Members, I pay tribute to the courage of the Mozambique people in dealing with the problems. In the recent election, one driver who was trying to deliver ballot boxes in Sofala province found that the whole of a road had been swept away by a very short, sharp shower.
Does my right hon. Friend agree that, in the longer term, the banked railway system, which was destroyed in the civil war, will be vital to the reconstitution of Mozambique's infrastructure? Will she give the House an assurance that she recognises that and that the Government will do whatever they can to ensure that the infrastructure in Mozambique will be much more proof against such events than it has been in the past?
Clare Short:
My hon. Friend is right. Mozambique is a very large country with lots of land and virtually no roads. Many people live in desperate poverty and cannot get their produce to market or their children to school, or reach the health facilities that there are. We are working in Zambesia province to create local capacity to build rural roads. We need more of that throughout Mozambique, so that the economy can be built up. Roads are needed so that people can grow crops and increase their incomes. We are focusing on that.
On the railway, I do not have any detailed expert knowledge, but we are working with the World bank to help Governments to put in place feasibility studies, regulatory systems and so on, so that countries such as Mozambique can attract private sector investment. They need big investment in infrastructure to improve their economic development.
Mr. Tam Dalyell (Linlithgow):
Could we hark back to the answer to my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North (Mr. Corbyn)? The erosion is not taking place in Mozambique itself. The trouble starts in Zambia, Zimbabwe and, above all, South Africa, with much irresponsible felling. Do not the South Africans have a moral responsibility, as their rather callous use of forests has caused much of the problem in the first place?
Clare Short:
I defer to my hon. Friend's expertise, although I do not know whether my natural resource advisers would agree with his analysis. There is no doubt that some of the flood waters are coming from Zimbabwe and South Africa. As we all understand, however, there has been a major change of Government in South Africa. Therefore, if there has been irresponsible felling, the current South African Government are not responsible for it. We have to help all the Governments in the region to gain the capacity to prevent disasters, to restore the environment and to overcome the type of environmental degradation caused by irresponsible felling.
As I said, I did a careful analysis of events in central America. That analysis revealed that events there were less a matter of disasters being more frequent, and more a matter of ever more people living on very frail lands. Those people were therefore terribly vulnerable when there was a disaster. We have to act on both those issues.
Mr. Dale Campbell-Savours (Workington):
Is my right hon. Friend genuinely convinced that--in the light of recent experiences, and certainly in the light of the past five or 10 years--the United Nations is capable of dealing with emergencies? Should it not now reprofile some of its
Clare Short:
My hon. Friend is absolutely right to say that the administrative capacity and efficiency of the United Nations is wanting. As he will know, however, Kofi Annan is leading on trying to make the UN's systems more efficient. Those systems--which were built to cope with the cold war and all the divisions in the international system--are ponderous and bureaucratic. However, we are now living in a different world, and the systems need to be much more efficient and speedy. We need major improvements throughout.
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