| Previous Section | Index | Home Page |
Mr. Hayes: Will the Secretary of State give way?
Clare Short: No, of course not.
Clare Short: Because you have been interrupting this very important discussion about the situation in Mozambique to try to talk about four helicopters. I am trying to give you the answer, but again you try and interrupt.
Mr. Deputy Speaker: Order. The right hon. Lady has used the word "you" on two occasions now. That is not the correct parliamentary language, and I should be grateful if she would observe the correct usage. When hon. Members try to intervene, she need do no more than indicate whether or not she will accept an intervention.
Clare Short: I would, Mr. Deputy Speaker, but Conservative Members keep shouting rather than merely asking whether they may intervene.
The decision not to commission four Puma helicopters from the Ministry of Defence at £2.2 million but to commission less costly helicopters from southern Africa caused no delay of any kind in getting helicopters to Mozambique. Even Conservative Members can understand that helicopters from the United Kingdom would take
longer to arrive in Mozambique than helicopters from southern Africa. Perhaps even they can cope with that concept, or that understanding of geography.
Mr. Fabricant:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Clare Short:
No, I will not give way. May I proceed?
Mr. Streeter:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Clare Short:
No, I certainly will not.
The reality is that during such an emergency, and every time, staff from our conflict and humanitarian affairs department commission emergency help on a daily basis from when the crisis begins. As we always do, we ask the Ministry of Defence as well as other providers what it has available. We then commission what is closest at the best price. I cannot see anyone advocating anything different--anyone with any sense, that is.
There was no financial ceiling on our available help. Indeed, the Treasury made it clear at ministerial and official levels that extra money was available if needed. In the early stages of such an emergency--for people in the mud in central America or on the top of trees or houses in Mozambique--it is the speed of response that saves lives.
Mr. Fabricant:
Will the right hon. Lady give way on that point?
Clare Short:
No, I will not give way.
In fact, 13,000 to 15,000 people were rescued in the early days from trees and roofs. Without the helicopters, perhaps half of them would have perished. The best thing that we did in this phase was to provide the money to keep the South African helicopters in the air, saving lives. The helicopters that came later have helped move supplies around and have been very valuable in the second stage of the emergency, but they were too late to help with search and rescue.
On 29 February, four days after the cyclone struck, we commissioned five further helicopters from southern Africa--they were the closest, so they could get there the fastest. Even they were too late to help with search and rescue, although of course they provided major help with the distribution of relief supplies. Those are the facts about saving lives and getting helicopters to Mozambique.
Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West)
rose--
Clare Short:
On 29 February, we also sent two large aircraft containing 69 inflatable boats, 39 rafts, 20 Land Rovers, shelter material and 30 volunteer experts from our fire services and our life boat services. I have heard no one praise them. They are working there still today, and we should be proud of them.
We should be very proud that my Department has on standby firefighters, life boat experts, logisticians, health workers and other experts who will overnight drop
everything and respond to an emergency anywhere in the world. We are entitled to be very proud of the generosity and expertise that is available in the United Kingdom and of the effectiveness of Department for International Development staff, who keep all such capacity up to date and on standby so that we can provide the help that is needed as emergencies arise.
Mr. Swayne:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Clare Short:
I will give way to the hon. Gentleman, who asked a sensible question during International Development questions.
Mr. Swayne:
I hope that the right hon. Lady will consider this a sensible question. While we are rightly proud of the contribution of those volunteers, we are concerned about the issue with the MOD. Why did she complain about the price that the MOD was charging for the helicopters?
Clare Short:
Perhaps I should speak very, very slowly, in capital letters. When asked why we had not commissioned MOD helicopters, I explained that they were very expensive and would take quite a long time to get to Mozambique because they had to get from the UK down to southern Africa. We had alternatives that were closer and cheaper, so we commissioned those. That is the answer; that is what we did, and it was clearly the right thing to do.
Mr. Nick St. Aubyn (Guildford):
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Clare Short:
No, I am not giving way--the answer is clear. [Interruption.] There seems to be an awful lot of noise, Mr. Deputy Speaker.
A list is available of all the emergency help that has been provided to Mozambique, and it is being added to continuously. The House will see that my officials had been commissioning and sending help long before there was any media interest in the crisis in Mozambique, and that we will remain engaged after the media has moved on.
I should like to deal with the "someone ought to do something" criticism. Various people have produced articles suggesting that the disaster could or should have been prevented. Mozambique is used to floods and cyclones--they are regular events for the country. But the two events have not come at the same time, as in this emergency, since records began 50 years ago.
The first phase of the emergency began on 10 January with heavy rains in Mozambique, Botswana, South Africa and Swaziland, which caused flooding. Because of local topography, the flooding returns to Mozambique in a second stage, raising the water level. Flooding accelerated in early February when a number of rivers in Maputo and Gaza provinces burst their banks. By 10 February, 200,000 people were estimated to be affected, many of whom moved to emergency accommodation. During this phase the relief effort focused on delivering tents, sanitation facilities, shelters and basic survival items. From 11 to 16 February, we provided £1.1 million worth of such help through United Nations agencies and non-governmental organisations who were on the ground and able to help immediately.
Phase 2 started after 25 February and was the consequence of Cyclone Eline, which led to a massive tide of water, flooding rivers and bursting dams. Warnings went out to people to get to higher ground, but communications are poor in Mozambique, and a major flood crest surged down the Limpopo, Save, Buze and Inkomati rivers overnight on 25 February. Many people lost their lives, and large numbers of very poor people have lost everything--their homes, possessions, crops and animals--and are scattered in 87 formal and informal centres.
Mr. Fabricant:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
The waters are going down. It looks increasingly as though there will not be flooding in the north, although that may be proved wrong as a danger remains that the Caborra Bassa will flood, and rain is still falling heavily even though the cyclone coming from the Indian ocean has turned and departed. We shall not be sure whether the north is safe from equally savage floods for another two or three weeks. We are now in the phase of the emergency in which we need to ensure that people have food, medical care, seeds and tools so that we can avoid more loss of life from hunger and disease. In many emergencies, more lives are lost in that second phase than in the first. We must help people to get back to their lands and rebuild their homes.
Obviously, rehabilitation will take time. At the weekend I announced a further £12 million worth of emergency assistance. The details of that help are outlined in the memorandum that we provided to the Select Committee, and it is available in the House.
Mr. Hayes:
Will the right hon. Lady give way?
Clare Short:
I will. I hope that it is for the last time, but I realise that the hon. Gentleman has been trying to intervene.
Mr. Hayes:
I am grateful to the right hon. Lady. We do not seek to challenge her good intentions. The debate is about her competence. Given the criticisms made of the co-ordination of our reaction after Hurricane Mitch, what plans did she make for disaster recovery, a rapid reaction force, and a strategy for crisis management? If such plans were in place, can we be made aware of it? Could the plans be laid before us so that we might study and debate them intelligently?
| Next Section
| Index | Home Page |