House of Commons
Wednesday 22 November 2000
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
Oral Answers to Questions
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The Secretary of State was asked--
Flood Relief
1. Mr. Mike Gapes (Ilford, South): If she will make a statement on her Department's contribution to flood relief. [138066]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. George Foulkes): We have responded to a large number of floods during the past year, including in Venezuela and Mozambique, and more recently in India, Vietnam and Cambodia. We are continuing our work to strengthen OCHA, the United Nations co-ordinating agency for emergencies, to ensure that international help is well deployed. We are also helping developing countries that are particularly prone to natural disasters to prepare for them in their development plans.
Mr. Gapes: I am grateful for that reply. Does it not show that the problems that have been experienced in recent weeks by many of our constituents in this country are as nothing compared with the terrible problems experienced globally by people in Mozambique, India and Bangladesh and throughout the world? Does it not also show that serious international efforts need to be made to deal with the climatic causes of such events, so that the lives of millions of people are not put at risk in the future?
Mr. Foulkes: My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Although we are not able, by statute, to operate in the United Kingdom, during the recent floods we offered the assistance of our expert personnel and some vehicles were deployed to help other Departments.
My hon. Friend's point is correct; for example, the situation in Mozambique is already beginning to create cause for concern. The first heavy rains of the season started a week ago; there is flooding in Zambezia and Nampula--nine people were killed overnight. Our contingency planning means that we are ready to respond; a multi-agency planning group, including the Ministry of Defence and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, met recently. The Royal National Lifeboat Institution and the UK fire and rescue team are also involved. Our emergency response team is monitoring the situation daily. We have
seconded someone to Maputo to work with the United Nations development programme, so we are more ready to deal with the floods than we were last year and we hope to respond even more effectively than we did then.
Mr. John Bercow (Buckingham): What proportion of the flood victims are still housed in accommodation centres? How many of them are suffering from either cholera or malaria? Further to the helpful information that the hon. Gentleman has just given the House, how do those figures compare with the position 12 months ago?
Mr. Foulkes: I do not have the immediate figures to hand, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that I shall write to him with answers to his specific questions. We are extremely anxious to ensure that, wherever possible, such floods do not recur, and that if they do so, they will not have such disastrous effects. That is why we are helping with reafforestation and other programmes to try to ensure that when there is flooding, it is not as devastating as it has been in the past.
Burundi
2. Ms Oona King (Bethnal Green and Bow): If she will make a statement on her Department's aid projects in Burundi. [138104]
The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): Burundi is still at war despite Nelson Mandela's efforts to facilitate peace. Our support is therefore confined to humanitarian assistance. We have contributed more than £41 million since 1994. We stand ready to provide appropriate support if peace is agreed, but are not in a position to take a leading role in Burundi. We shall also of course be providing considerable support through our European Union contributions.
Ms King: I thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. She will be aware that, since the outbreak of the civil war in Burundi in 1993, 200,000 people have died. What assistance might the Government be able to offer the peace process in Burundi? Might Burundi benefit from funds from the conflict prevention fund for sub-Saharan Africa?
Clare Short: I agree with my hon. Friend that the suffering in Burundi is great; in fact, 20 per cent. of the population of Africa are affected by conflict. That is devastating for the people of Africa and holds back human development. We must all do more to resolve conflict wherever we can.
We are already helping the Burundi peace process, through technical support and inputs to the peace negotiators. The pooled fund is intended to cause the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and my Department to work more actively together to resolve conflict; some of the funding already provided to Burundi has gone to the notional funding for that, so it is likely that we shall help in that way. However, the point of the fund is to make a strong impact through the UK's efforts in resolving conflict in Africa.
Mr. Bowen Wells (Hertford and Stortford): Burundi is one of the least developed countries and would benefit from the everything but arms initiative from European Commissioner Pascal Lamy. That is greatly to be
welcomed. Is the right hon. Lady aware, however, that that initiative, which is to be decided as early as 5 December at the ministerial meeting in Brussels, would in fact result in impoverishing some African, Caribbean and Pacific countries--in particular those that produce sugar, bananas, rum and rice?
Clare Short: The hon. Gentleman seems to be taking two slightly contradictory positions. The least developed countries--most of which are in Africa and thus benefit from the African, Caribbean and Pacific tariff options--make up 0.4 per cent. of world trade. Those are the poorest countries in the world. Pascal Lamy's proposal, which we strongly support, is that those countries should be given improved access to the European market. A campaign has been mounted by countries which produce sugar, bananas and rum, and which feel threatened. We shall obviously look into any adjustment help that is needed. I do not think that the least developed countries--least of all Burundi--will be able to build up their exports quickly--until peace is achieved.
Ms Tess Kingham (Gloucester): This morning I had a very enjoyable breakfast with the World Service and heard about the World Service's Great Lakes lifeline project, a regular radio broadcast in Burundi that is funded by the Department for International Development. Does my right hon. Friend believe that such radio broadcasts can contribute to the peace-building process in Burundi, and will we continue to fund peace-building media projects that disseminate the peace message through civil society?
Clare Short: I hope that my hon. Friend's children enjoyed the broadcast as much as she obviously did. Such broadcasts are very important. In Rwanda, hate radio played an enormous part in building up the hate and lies that generated the atmosphere that led to the genocide. The same sort of thing happened in the Balkans. Now that radio technology has become so flexible, we are increasingly trying to deploy it to get truth through to people in situations where there is a lot of conflict, and a lot of dishonesty that feeds that conflict.
Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park): Does the Secretary of State agree that the continuing war in the Great Lakes region is a destabilising factor in Burundi? Does she also agree that the free flow of small arms into that region is a major factor in continuing that war? What pressure is she bringing to bear on her Government to introduce the promised legislation on the control of arms brokers?
Clare Short: I very much agree that the war in the Great Lakes is causing enormous destabilisation and involving many countries in Africa in conflict. Small arms are circulating around the continent of Africa that are manufactured within the continent, not imported, so we must do more to extract small arms, using different initiatives such as the one in the Southern Africa Development Community and the one in west Africa. The Government strongly support and will introduce the legislation to which the hon. Lady refers, although I cannot say exactly when.
Sudan
3. Sandra Gidley (Romsey): If she will make a statement on her Department's aid policy to Sudan. [138105]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. George Foulkes): Since 1991 we have provided £217 million in humanitarian relief in Sudan, but 1.5 million people have died in the war and the suffering of the people continues to get worse. Our priority is therefore peace. We are working diplomatically to strengthen the Intergovernmental Authority on Development peace process and we have made it clear to local Church groups and non-governmental organisations that we are keen to fund any peace-building activities that they suggest to us. Unfortunately, the interest of regional leaders in a peace settlement remains very weak.
Sandra Gidley: Does the Minister agree that there is acute underdevelopment in southern Sudan, and that development aid should be provided in many areas where there is now relative stability? Problems such as poor education and lack of access to health care can be addressed. To that end, how many proposals from non-governmental organisations has the Department supported, and what plans are there to support such organisations specifically in future?
Mr. Foulkes: We plan to spend £4 million in humanitarian assistance in the current year and we are looking forward to receiving proposals from Church groups and NGOs. Unfortunately, they have not come forward as quickly as we should like, and we are doing everything that we can to encourage them. If the hon. Lady, who may have contacts--or any Member of the House--will encourage them to come forward, we shall be very receptive to any proposal that would help in the peace process, would help with humanitarian assistance or would help poor people in Sudan in any other way.
Mr. Tony Worthington (Clydebank and Milngavie): The Minister is right to draw attention to the aid effort, which has probably been going on for 30 years, and the amazing work that has been done from Lokichokio in northern Kenya to supply aid, which is incredibly expensive. The solution can only come by the political route. My hon. Friend has mentioned the lack of concern by the other countries in the region, because some solution must come from there, but can he give us an up-to-date report on the response of the Sudanese Government to the situation in a country that has been torn apart by war?
Mr. Foulkes: We are certainly continuing our efforts and working with Norway and the United States in particular. However, there has been a setback recently. The visit of Susan Rice, the assistant Secretary of State from the United States, was very unhelpful and risked setting back the peace process. We urge the Sudanese Government not to respond negatively to the visit. We hope that the peace process will get back on track as quickly and as effectively as possible.
Mrs. Cheryl Gillan (Chesham and Amersham): Of the 48 least and less-developed--LLD--countries, 21 produce sugar, and Sudan has the largest sugar production among them. If the European Commission's
everything but arms--EBA--initiative goes ahead and Sudan and other countries have duty-free, quota-free access for sugar to the European market, it is very likely that other African, Caribbean and Pacific countries will be driven into poverty. Will the Minister elaborate on the Secretary of State's response and tell us what assessment the Department has made of the impact of the EBA initiative on aid policies in Sudan and other African countries? Does he really support an initiative which, as it currently stands, will probably relegate several Caribbean countries to the very LLD status that the policies seek to alleviate?
Mr. Foulkes: No one is more sympathetic to the problems of the Caribbean than our Department, this Government, my Secretary of State and myself. We have been involved with the bananas problem and with issues relating to rice, rum, sugar and other products. Conservative Members have a strange sense of priorities. The hon. Lady spoke about it in Westminster Hall the other day, the hon. Member for Hertford and Stortford (Mr. Wells) asked about it earlier and the hon. Lady now raises it again. The whole purpose of the everything but arms scheme is to help the poorest countries of the world, which make up only 0.4 per cent. of world trade. They contain the poorest people in the world, so I should have thought that they would have been made a priority by Conservative Members, as they have by the Government.
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