TUESDAY 14 MARCH 2000
_________
Members present:
Mr Bowen Wells, in the Chair
Ann Clwyd
Mr Bernie Grant
Mr Nigel Jones
Mr Piara S Khabra
Ms Oona King
Mr Andrew Robathan
Mr Tony Worthington
_________
EXAMINATION OF WITNESSES
RT HON CLARE SHORT, a Member of the House, Secretary of State for
International Development, MR BARRIE IRETON, Director General
(General Programmes), and MR ROB HOLDEN, Conflict and Humanitarian
Department, Department for International Development, examined.
Chairman
1. Good morning, Secretary of State. Welcome as usual and thank you
very much for putting other things aside in your diary to come and see us on
this very pressing and urgent problem in Mozambique. As always, of course,
we want to get to the truth and this is how you will help us enormously this
morning as opposed to what we read in the newspapers which, as we all know,
we do not always believe or should believe. I understand you have prepared
an opening statement. If that is so, I wonder whether we could cover your
current assessment of the position in Mozambique and what are Mozambique's
immediate and long term priorities for reconstruction?
(Clare Short) Thank you, Chair. I have with me Barrie Ireton, whom I
think the Committee has met before, who is our Director General (General
Programmes), and Rob Holden, who is from our Conflict and Humanitarian
Department and was there right through the crisis sending equipment and
support to Mozambique long before people had noticed there was a crisis and
has done an enormously important job. I have not prepared a long opening
statement. I just want to say that Mozambique is one of the very poorest
countries in the world. I know some of the Select Committee have been there
and they know. It has had a very hard hand from history. It is a very
beautiful country with a lot of natural resources located in a way that it
could develop, but colonised by Portugal and therefore no investment in it
because at that stage of Portuguese history it was a kind of extracted
colonialism. It had to fight for its independence. The only country that
would support it was the Soviet Union; therefore, of course, its initial
independence economic model was the Soviet economic model - poor Mozambique.
Then of course, because of that, the apartheid regime in South Africa helped
to incite civil war and it became very vicious and very destructive. Then
nine years ago it very bravely made a peace and people who had fought very
brutally became government and opposition in the parliament, which is a
remarkable achievement in my view. It became a great reformer, a very brave
government, a desperately poor country with limited capacity, but taking the
country forward, with good economic growth, concerned to put in place social
programmes, and then this terrible catastrophe. Poor Mozambique. History has
not been fair to the country. In terms of the response to the catastrophe
(and this is one of the problems most media comment has, and it arose also in
the case of Hurricane Mitch), the instant saving of lives is about what can
be there instantly when people are on the tops of trees or in the mud. That
is not about money availability or debt relief or anything. It is what is on
the ground there, then, to pull people out of the mud or to get people off the
trees, the save and rescue phase of the operation. We think that the most
helpful thing we did at that stage was to provide funding for the South
African helicopters to keep them in the air, because of course you have to be
there to get people while they are still well enough to be saved. Something
like 13,000 to 15,000 people were rescued in that way in the early days, and
without the helicopters about half probably would have perished, and even the
five helicopters that we had from Southern Africa that came in very quickly
did not help with that phase. They started to help with the next phase. Then
of course you have an emergency phase, the immediate saving of life, and now
there is the feeding phase and as the waters go down we will have to re-focus
on development and rehabilitation. If people think of it in three phases it
helps to clarify what kind of help is needed. The second thing I would like
to say is that everybody who is engaged with the emergency knows that the
United Kingdom is the biggest contributor of any country in the world and the
fastest. I saw Kofi Annan last night at Marlborough House - I saw you,
indeed, Chair, - and his first remark to me was, "Great thanks to the UK for
their immediate and quick and generous response in Mozambique." The third
thing I would like to say is that the important question, which is a very long
standing question, as you know, is about how much the MoD charges, or the old
ODA or now DFID, for its resources. It is an important question but secondary
and did not cause any delay of any kind in not commissioning helicopters or
any other equipment to get to Mozambique. That aspect of the press story is
a complete falsity and it was blown out of all proportion. It is an important
question long term for the use of MoD resources in relation to development of
conflict prevention and all the rest of it. Finally, responding to your
question on the current assessment, the waters are going down, it looks as
though the north is not going to flood, which is fantastically good news and
we really did expect it, -----
2. That is the Zambezi?
(Clare Short) Yes, and Cahora and Bassa, and more cyclones were coming
in. There was one coming and a series of others behind them. They seem to
be calming and turning. We cannot be sure and safe for two or three weeks but
it is looking better. We were expecting another catastrophe of equal
proportions in another part of the country. As the waters go down there are
the risks of disease, the need to get food to people; there are a lot of
people dispersed, as it says in the memorandum to the Committee. That is the
second and immediate phase and that is ongoing now. Then we need to do
emergency repairs to roads and have the beginning of a reconstruction but
still in emergency phase, and then re-focus our long term development work to
help Mozambique rehabilitate and get back to development. It has been a
terrible catastrophe. As you will see, we think the loss of life is probably
greater than has been generally thought yet and there is always a danger at
this stage that more people die than even in the emergency phase because of
the health and disease problems. The excitement goes away but this is a very
dangerous phase for people, and keeping up the effort and getting assistance
to people is crucial to the saving of life.
3. I wonder if we could look in a little more detail at some of the
major concerns that have been brought to our attention and which we ourselves
saw. Part of the Committee was in Maputo in the south, working and seeing
many of the Department for International Development's staff working very hard
down there between 20 and 24 February, before the next deluge occurred. Can
we ask about our capacity to deliver food to remote locations at the moment?
What is our capacity to do that?
(Clare Short) By "remote locations" do you mean of the people who have
been affected by the flooding who are dispersed as opposed to remote locations
all across Mozambique?
4. We are talking principally about those affected by the flooding
and who are remote from the centre, from Maputo. We are not talking about the
north of Mozambique or even the central part. We are talking about the
flooded area.
(Mr Holden) The number of people that we are talking about requiring
food aid is somewhere in the region of 470,000 people. The total number
directly affected by the disaster is 700,000 people or just a little bit more,
of whom the 473,000 require food aid. Of that number a further 211,000 are
displaced from their home. They are being cared for in a number of ways, both
in informal and in formal reception centres. There are 84 of these reception
centres at the present time and they hold anything from a few hundred people
up to 50,000 people. As days go by now we are seeing more and people
beginning to return to their homes as access becomes much easier.
(Clare Short) The question is, how well are we getting food and supplies
to all those people, especially the more dispersed ones?
5. Have we got boats if necessary because the roads are broken, or
alternatively can supplies be delivered by helicopter or drops from fixed wing
aircraft?
(Mr Holden) There are no drops. There is no need to do fixed wing air
drops. There are three modes of getting relief supplies through to these
people. One is by air, by helicopter, and there is an effective helicopter
operation now that gives good geographical coverage. There is the boat
operation which is diminishing as the flood waters recede and access to the
roads begins, and then there is the road access itself. Most people are
receiving some kind of humanitarian supplies.
6. If we can leave the Maputo area and the estuary of the Limpopo
and the Save rivers, let us move north for a minute where they have had this
terrible Hurricane Eline hitting the Beira area as I understand it. What is
needed in that area in terms of delivery of food to areas remote from the main
town?
(Clare Short) The numbers you gave, Rob, include that area?
(Mr Holden) Yes. That is total geographical coverage.
(Clare Short) Of all those affected by the flood and the emergency.
7. Both together?
(Mr Holden) Yes.
8. Are there any difficulties in delivering food in the northern
area?
(Mr Holden) There were some difficulties in the early days because
most of the resources coming into the country came into Maputo and most of the
air assets were based in Maputo. But we have found that as more resources
have come in they have split the operation. We have now got a base in Maputo
and a base in Beira where the operations have been run from to give that wider
geographical coverage.
9. We are told that there is quite a lot of dislocation in mines
which have been flooded as a result of the flooding of the Limpopo. Have you
any information on that?
(Clare Short) You know the Mozambique government asked different
governments to lead in different provinces and we, the United Kingdom, led in
Zambezi province which has not been affected by this flooding but was a real
centre of the fighting. When I was there more than a year ago the mines are
basically cleared but we have left a small capacity there because you always
find some in bushes and trees and so on. I just want people to know because
people sometimes think that you can never get rid of mines, but if you can end
wars you can. In the area affected by the flooding, I have read about this
in the press, -----
(Mr Holden) The United Nations Mine Action Group are in the country
doing assessments. It is very difficult, as you say, because the waters wash
these mines into areas that we are not aware of so there is a mapping exercise
and a public awareness exercise ongoing as we speak.
10. Who is doing that?
(Mr Holden) The United Nations.
11. And they have got the equipment necessary to locate where these
mines have been washed to, have they?
(Mr Holden) I am not sure what equipment they have got.
(Clare Short) They have got an expertise and they do a co-ordinating job
because, like all these jobs, if you have got lots of different NGOs you need
someone to hold it together, as in Kosovo. The United Nations Mine Action
Group do that, centralise, organise, co-ordinate in sharing out the tasks,
which they have done in a number of places now.
12. Is this OCHA?
(Clare Short) No. It is the United Nations Mine Action Group.
13. So it is a separate group?
(Mr Holden) Yes.
14. As you said, Secretary of State, the third phase is the
restoration of agricultural production, including the provision of seeds and
tools which are all washed away, and possibly fertiliser. Are we equipped and
ready to help in that area?
(Clare Short) Yes indeed we are. The second tranche of money that I
announced at the weekend for the emergency phase is focusing on those
supplies, seeds and tools, and we often provide the money through NGOs and
United Nations agencies that are on the ground that can move. Seeds and tools
are part of that operation.
15. We want to go into a little more detail on that later, but
obviously you are aware of it and you are providing both seeds and tools. You
have spoken about the risk of water borne diseases. How risky is it? Are we
getting outbreaks of cholera? Are we getting malaria setting in? Do we know
what is happening on medical and health grounds? You were saying that this
is the most dangerous phase for people. I think that is right.
(Clare Short) This province and area is a very poor area where poor
nourishment and a certain degree of illness and disease would be there anyway,
sad to say. The reports I have read are that it has not risen to a very much
higher level yet but the danger is very great.
(Mr Holden) It is not of epidemic proportions at the moment.
(Clare Short) But we need to be very careful.
16. But for young children this must be particularly dangerous. Have
we any idea of how that is being coped with?
(Clare Short) It is all that we have said: getting food supplies, clean
water, trying to make sure there is medical care. It was more chaotic. It
is getting more organised. There are no signs yet of an outbreak of disease.
Everybody is trying to watch and prevent that. But of course some of this
population suffers from malaria. Three million children a year die from
diarrhoeal diseases in the normal course of the way the world is organised.
I fear it will get worse.
(Mr Holden) Potentially.
17. What are we going to do about re-housing? I think you said
211,000 people needed re-housing. Is that right, Mr Holden?
(Mr Holden) Yes, that is correct. Two hundred and eleven thousand
people were displaced.
18. How are we going to re-house them?
(Clare Short) Mukesh Kapila, whom you have met before, who is the head
of our conflict team in the Humanitarian Department, has just been on a
mission in Mozambique. One of his recommendations for people who are
displaced was polythene rather than tents so that they could take it home with
them as they went to start to patch up their houses, and then of course other
materials should be provided to help people to restore their houses.
Obviously these are a people who build their own houses, but they will need
access to equipment and supplies so that they can do so.
19. They are largely wattle and daub, I imagine.
(Mr Ireton) Yes.
20. Before we move on let us have a look at Madagascar which has been
in the eye of the hurricane storms. Do we know what is happening in
Madagascar, what help they need?
(Clare Short) Yes, we do, and I will bring Rob in on this. I am happy
to say that the initial reports of massive dislocation and large numbers of
people affected have been exaggerated and it is not as bad as the first
reports suggested. What are the numbers?
(Mr Holden) As my Secretary of State has just said, the figures that
were announced in the media reports last week were quoting figures as high as
half a million people, particularly in the north east and east of Madagascar.
Following aerial reconnaissance by the United Nations and the Madagascan
authorities over the course of the weekend, I am glad to say that the
situation is not as severe as was first envisaged, though there are some
people who require assistance, but we think that number is around 24,500 that
require immediate assistance, spread out. We believe there are enough
resources in country and in the immediate pipeline to be able to deal with
that.
21. Is it requiring international help?
(Mr Holden) They have got help from the international agencies already
operational on the ground.
(Clare Short) We have made one small grant. I believe the French are
there. They had a ship nearby.
Mr Grant
22. When there is an international problem in a developing country
do the donor countries who see those countries as part of their sphere of
influence take the lead? For example, Mozambique is in the British
Commonwealth, so are we expected to take the lead and bring other countries
in? Madagascar is a Francophone country, so are we expecting France to take
the lead?
(Clare Short) There is not a legal or rule-bound system but it tends to
be as you describe because of course countries tend to have bigger programmes
in countries that are part of their history. In the case of Mozambique, very
interestingly the newest member of the Commonwealth, the only member of the
Commonwealth that was not colonised by the United Kingdom, we have a big and
growing programme in Mozambique but it is all hands to the plough and who is
closest and best should move first. How it should work is that the United
Nations agencies come in and co-ordinate, whoever is close supports. Thus the
crucial nature of South Africa and its helicopters and our ability to provide
the fuel. They saved more lives than anyone because there were there from day
one. The informal understanding is as you describe. It is not a formal
understanding.
23. In view of the mess that was made of the situation in Mozambique
and previously in places like Honduras, should there not be a more formal
arrangement? There is a formal arrangement in terms of development aid and
so on for these countries. Do you not think, in the light of these disasters,
that we should start thinking more seriously about having a formal
arrangement?
(Clare Short) What we need is a worldwide system that can respond to
emergencies wherever they arise. We need preparedness that is particularly
strong in regions and areas that are subject to natural disasters. We and the
United Nations - and this is frail but we are trying to work on it - are
trying to have capacity in each country, and we have given a grant to the Red
Cross to develop that kind of capacity within the country, a membership of
people who live there who can respond to immediate emergencies. For example,
Bangladesh has a lot of floods and it now has quite a strong capacity inside
Bangladesh to move very rapidly. Then you need regional capacity and you need
United Nations stocks and United Nations capacity that can move very rapidly
because you save lives in the very first stage. We have got the beginnings
of an international system which should be able to respond to emergencies
wherever they arise but it is weak and it needs strengthening and we have been
trying to work with the United Nations at getting that strength in the system
right across the world.
Ann Clwyd
24. As you know, four members of this Committee were in Mozambique
throughout the period 20 to 24 February. We were not able to cross over from
Swaziland into Mozambique even on the 20 February because of flooding, so we
had to fly in to the country and we could see from the plane flooded land as
far as the eye could see. It was not easy to see what was water and what was
land. I know what you said to me when you made your statement on the Monday
after we came back and I made the point about the lack of helicopters, and
there is a dispute between myself and the Clerk whether there were two
helicopters or five helicopters actually there at the time. In my
conversation with somebody from OCHA they mentioned two helicopters so perhaps
you could enlighten us on that. I notice you said in a written reply: "My
Department has permanent staff based in Maputo who have been monitoring the
floods since mid-January ... specialists from my Conflict and Humanitarian
Department began detailed surveillance of the floods on 24 January. We
deployed two humanitarian specialists to the region on 11 February" - I do not
know whether those were to OCHA -----
(Clare Short) Those were with UNDAC, were they not?
(Mr Holden) They went in support.
(Clare Short) The United Nations sent in a team and we sent one of our
experts to be with that team.
25. "We deployed two humanitarian specialists to the region on 11
February ... between 11 and 16 February, my Department channelled some œ1.1
million for immediate relief through" various agencies. Given that DFID and
international organisations have been monitoring the situation since January,
why was the rapid deterioration in Mozambique on 25 and 26 February not
anticipated? Why were there so few helicopters on the ground when at that
time they were desperately needed?
(Clare Short) You will see in the memorandum that we have submitted to
the Committee that there were two phases in the emergency. There was a second
phase that brought on much worse flooding and the cyclone that led it to a
different level of crisis than it had been in the first stage. We had weather
forecasting but there was a failure of capacity, unsurprisingly in the
government of Mozambique, and the United Nations system was a bit slow to
move, to use the information we had. We needed to get the information to
people to get them to high ground. This is a country of virtually no
infrastructure, very few roads, so a lot of people who, if they have been
warned, could have moved, did not know and time was lost. That is to do with
the absolute poverty and lack of capacity in Mozambique itself and the United
Nations initially was slow to move, I regret to say.
26. Can you enlighten us on the helicopters on the dates I mentioned?
(Mr Holden) I believe at that time there were five helicopters all
from the South African Defence Force, and they were operational.
(Clare Short) And supplied with fuel by us. They would not have been
in the air without us, but that is what was going on.
27. I do not know whether the hire of planes was separate from the
provision of fuel, but I do remember OCHA people telling me they were funded
by Sweden and the Netherlands at that time.
(Mr Holden) That is correct. It was the Nordic countries that had
supplied fuel and provision of the support to keep those helicopters
operational and we came in on the 26th when the disaster started to unfold to
keep them flying over the next five days.
28. Why do you think all the agencies on the ground who were
monitoring at first hand what was going on did not anticipate that more
helicopters were needed, and why were they, I think I said to you at the time
when you were making your statement, concerned about the funding for the
following week, let alone increasing the number of helicopters? They were
bothered with the funding for the following week.
(Clare Short) I find increasingly as I live through emergency after
emergency that even people on the ground often lack information. It is part
of the problem because these are very complex situations. Everyone gets
obsessed with money. There is lots of money in banks and being pledged on
television sets across the world, but getting the money onto the ground, into
the place, into facilities, is always what the crisis is about. Clearly the
South Africans had provided the helicopters but they had said that they could
not fuel them.
(Mr Holden) Yes, beyond Tuesday.
(Clare Short) I do not know why the Nordics came in and then we came in.
Presumably we were sharing it out. We tend to work with the Nordics and we
have a very sympathetic relationship. There was no problem about the South
African helicopters continuing to fly, and then we hired another five
commercially from southern Africa, and they came in and they started to move
relief supplies. But even they, which were the next tranche, were not save
and rescue. It was those five South African ones that were there already that
were taking people off trees at a time when you had to save them or just lack
of food and water would have made them become so frail that they would not
have been able to hang on.
29. We went to an OCHA briefing on the 22nd. There was somebody from
DFID there who, with the government of Mozambique, was actually giving the
briefing. There seemed no sense of urgency in that meeting, I have to say.
It seemed relatively laid back. They showed no sign of awareness or
preparedness for the second wave of the floods on the 25th and 26th, whereas
the weather forecasts of course we were hearing every day and we were not able
to fly to where we planned to fly because the pilot could not take us because
of cyclone warnings. I do not know what the reason for that was, but for us
there as observers this lack of urgency was very apparent.
(Clare Short) We would agree with that, and sadly this is quite a
frequent experience. You have got the world concern, media pictures coming
out, and often the organisation on the ground is not as fast as it should be.
Indeed, from Mozambique back to Rob Holden to Mukesh Kapila who was East
Timor, on to the top of the United Nations system to get the United Nations
system to send somebody in, this is part of the lack of preparedness in the
international system to respond very rapidly to these sudden onset disasters.
We are working at it and I think it is improving but there is a lot of room
for further improvement and we saw it in Mozambique; you are absolutely right.
It was not alert enough and it was not fast enough at that point.
30. The question in everybody's mind is could more lives have been
saved if things had been different?
(Clare Short) I think the answer has to be yes.
Mr Worthington
31. Can I follow that through? On about the 10 or 11 February we had
the South African helicopters flying and they were saying, "We have not got
money to fund this beyond 20 February." Then we came in and we provided
funding for that. Then by 2 March there were 14 helicopters in the air.
Seven of the helicopters were from the South African Defence Force and seven
from ourselves. This raises the question: what is the rest of the world
doing?
(Clare Short) I agree with that question. I want to say something about
Malawi because Malawi is a desperately poor country that owns two helicopters
and it sent one of its helicopters very early. Malawi was quite near, a
desperately poor country. Things were slow, there is no doubt, but let me say
that materials from Europe would not have saved people who were in trees.
That can come in to help with the next phase. It is getting stuff from
Southern Africa that can move very rapidly and be there while people are
stranded and in trouble that is important. I think it could have been faster,
but it needs better organisation to make a call for it.
32. We must return to this later but it is the responsibility of
OCHA, and when we visited OCHA they were quite clear that they were
responsible for the co-ordination of international response in emergencies
such as this. What is their power in a situation like this? Would they have
taken it upon themselves to say, "We are clearly going to need more
helicopters" and to identify where they should come from?
(Clare Short) What we need from the very beginning from the United
Nations is people on the ground being authoritative and using the information
that is available and making the call back to people like Rob Holden who is
sitting in London and who can pick up a telephone and hire equipment in
Southern Africa, and of course the Nordics and others have this kind of
facility, but you need someone authoritatively making those demands and calls.
Once Rob's mountain got to Mozambique things improved massively.
33. But this was the end of February, the 29th?
(Mr Holden) Yes, 28, 29 February.
(Clare Short) He was sent from Geneva. There was a gap at the
beginning. That is right. The point about all of this in each case is that
we have got to learn from it and strengthen the system step by step, not just
say whose fault is it each time but learn the lesson and get incorporated into
the system lessons that will make sure the system works more effectively next
time. We think it is inching forward but it could go faster and better.
Ann Clwyd
34. OCHA organised the fielding of a five-member United Nations
disaster and assessment co-ordination team to Mozambique between 4 and 7
February. I think somebody from your Department was seconded either to OCHA
or to that particular team. What I could not understand was that the first
team concluded its work on 24 February. This is according to OCHA. Then OCHA
despatched a second team which arrived of 29 February. Does that mean there
was a five-day gap when the teams were not working because by now they had got
a third team? I just wondered what all this to-ing and fro-ing was about
because you had a very expert man seconded there during the period we were
there from 20 to 24 February, but he was finishing, I think he said, in the
middle of the time we were there. What kind of planning is that if teams are
changing frequently?
(Clare Short) I will bring Rob Holden in on this and Barrie Ireton if
he wants to, but the UNDAC team went in and we sent an expert with them and
they came out too quickly and that was deeply regrettable.
(Mr Holden) I would certainly agree with my Secretary of State that
the first five-person team that went in did a good job though there was some
confusion over their role. What they did do was put the systems in place, as
they should have done, to ensure that co-ordination as it was arriving from
outside Mozambique was well co-ordinated and well deployed out to those people
that needed it. They did withdraw too fast and I think that was a poor call
on the United Nations' behalf. They re-deployed very quickly again after
intervention by my head of department on the Saturday evening, the 26th.
(Clare Short) This is when we had a call across the world to get people
back in.
35. So the gap in cover really occurred at a time when they most
needed to be there?
(Mr Holden) Indeed, because you had three to four days getting into
country, and they were constantly playing catch-up, which in a situation like
that, which was still evolving, was extremely difficult.
Chairman
36. I cannot understand this. If you are an OCHA man, an
organisation designed to deal with humanitarian disasters, you see a
humanitarian disaster, you fly in and you organise, and then you fly out
again? It is beyond belief that they should do that, is it not?
(Mr Holden) The UNDAC mechanism, which is the United Nations Disaster
Assessment Co-ordination Team, is set up for that purpose. In country you
have got the United Nations Disaster Management Team, which is headed up by
the head of the various United Nations agencies in country. When you get a
situation that goes beyond their capabilities, ie a situation like Mozambique,
you bring in extra expertise, ie the UNDAC team. Their usual length of
deployment is two to three weeks. They go in, they help support, they set
mechanisms up, they do rapid assessments, they bring information together.
One of their key roles is resource mobilisation. Then they withdraw once the
systems are in place and things are stabilised, which they usually have done
in an emergency within three weeks. Obviously in this situation it was
somewhat different and I repeat: it was a misjudgment.
(Clare Short) And they left more quickly than that. But it is their
norm to come in and get things organised and then leave.
37. Providing they are organised and they are satisfied that they
have a situation covered.
(Clare Short) Exactly.
38. With the rains that were going on upstream of the Limpopo in
Botswana and Swaziland, as Mrs Clwyd has said, they should have anticipated
worse floods, should they not? I think you are saying yes.
(Clare Short) Yes.
Mr Worthington
39. This is very puzzling. I have looked at the relief web reports
that OCHA has put out. It is puzzling that there is this early reference to
the helicopters flying. But it is not really until the end of the month that
people start screaming for more helicopters. For example, Catharina
Velasquez, the leader of the UNDAC team on 7 February, praised the assistance
provided by the South African helicopters conducting rescue and distribution
missions in remote areas but said that donor governments had to provide
further funding for the costly air operation, which we did. But there was no
call for more helicopters. It is only right at the end of the month that that
becomes a priority. Before that it is about tents and medicines and so on.
Why should that occur? One thing that we have not mentioned so far is that
this is a regional crisis. It is not a Mozambique crisis. When we were there
the fear was about what was happening in South africa and Botswana had had a
lot of floods, Zimbabwe then, so it is a regional issue, not just a Mozambique
issue. How could it be that there did not appear to be work going on by OCHA
to identify further helicopters?
(Clare Short) I want to bring Rob Holden in on this because, as you can
see, he is a complete expert on all the detailed functioning. The other thing
I would like to say is that you always get the real problems and the media
story. The media story always becomes a complication because then you get all
sorts of political pressure on the media story. You get it in every disaster.
We try to hold our department focusing on the needs of the people and not
chasing the media story, but all the pressure that comes into the political
system is chasing the media story, and it happens every time. The call for
helicopters was really too late to save lives. We needed more helicopters
earlier. By the time it became the media story, okay, they can help with the
general relief, but not for save and rescue which is what they were recruited
for. By then it was too late for that.
(Mr Holden) Just to add to that, it comes back to the weakness of the
United Nations in this particular disaster. Not only did the UNDAC team
recall too soon but maybe they did not give us information. More importantly,
it is the analysis of that information on the ground that is extremely
important. You usually find it is a very confused situation. When you get
good people on the ground you can do an analysis and you can give some
indication, and despite the Committee questioning of what assets do you need,
any operation will fall down if you do not have good logistics and you do not
have good communications. Those two were vital components that we could get
more analysis on. It was very difficult and, as you rightly say, it did not
really become apparent until towards the end of the month that there was a
major downfall here.
Chairman
40. For the benefit of the Committee can we rehearse again the
helicopter position? In the two weeks beginning the early part of February
there were five helicopters?
(Mr Holden) That is correct.
41. Of which two had winches?
(Mr Holden) Yes.
(Clare Short) Remember, when I made my statement there were a lot
without winches and that was when we had to have winches.
(Mr Holden) Yes, that is correct. There were three with winches.
(Clare Short) Three out of nine I think.
(Mr Holden) That is right.
42. Three with winches, so it was three capable of taking people off
treetops?
(Mr Holden) Yes.
43. And out of the water?
(Clare Short) Yes, and off house roofs.
44. That is three out of five. The Nordics paid for the fuel, the
South Africans provided the helicopters; is that right?
(Mr Holden) That is correct.
45. And we also provided fuel?
(Clare Short) We took over from the Nordics.
46. Who had hired those helicopters, or were they made available by
the South Africans?
(Clare Short) I think they were South African Armed Forces helicopters.
The South Africans said, "We can make them available if someone will pay for
the fuel", so they did well, and getting the fuel to them: that bit worked
well. They saved lives. They are the crucial ones that saved the lives.
47. They were there and you had them there early, so that is a good
story?
(Clare Short) Yes. We then hired five more from Southern Africa.
48. Where did you get those five helicopters from?
(Mr Holden) We have got a number of arrangements that we have already
set up in-house for us to be able to call on certain assets, whether it be
helicopters, tents or whatever, which you need for a relief operation.
49. You have got those available to you at all times?
(Mr Holden) We have, 24 hours a day.
50. And you got five more helicopters? Where did they come from?
(Mr Holden) Three were from Mozambique and two from South Africa.
(Clare Short) Three commercial helicopters from Mozambique.
51. Did they have winches?
(Mr Holden) I am not sure. I would have to check on that. I think
three of them had winches.
52. So we have now got five with winches.
(Mr Holden) That is correct.
(Clare Short) That was the next speedy helicopters, but they did not
actually save lives in the save and rescue. They started providing supplies
which is important but is not that key first phase. Even they were not in
time for the save and rescue.
53. We have now got I think 10 helicopters in area; is that right?
(Clare Short) There might be some coming from other countries.
54. That is the next question.
(Mr Holden) As the hours and days went by in what we call the second
phase from 25 to 26 February onwards, on a daily basis there were more
helicopters pledged. Obviously it took days for them to be transported to the
region but we saw on a daily basis that number begin to increase, slowly at
first and then a surge in the middle of that week at the end of the month and
in early March.
55. How many helicopters have we got there now?
(Clare Short) Fifty, I think.
(Mr Holden) It is closer on 60 but most of them are now withdrawing.
They are beginning to phase out.
(Clare Short) They are very expensive to provide long term supplies to
people. We do not want lots of helicopters. But obviously this is the delay
in the international response. The call was for helicopters to save people
and then it accumulates and they come and by that time that phase is over and
you do not really need helicopters for the later phase.
Chairman: It is important to get it straight in our minds.
Ann Clwyd
56. In the week 20 to 24 February the United Nations people told us
that it was the Netherlands and Sweden that were paying for those helicopters.
Fergal Keane wrote an article which said Mbeki's order was to "save lives
first, worry about the money later", shamed governments of the West. He is
suggesting in his piece that South Africa provided those helicopters for free,
and that they were the first to respond, the first time that I can remember
an African nation has led the rescue of another African nation from calamity.
It was South Africa which responded first which sent aids and pilots which
have been flying round the clock. The suggestion was that South Africa was
doing it out of the goodness of its own heart, but the helicopters were hired
from South Africa, were they not?
(Clare Short) I do not have to tell you, Ann, that you must not believe
everything you read in the newspapers, even someone as fine and good a
correspondent as Fergal Keane, especially in these chaotic situations. My
understanding is, and I will get Rob to clarify this, that the South Africans
made available five military helicopters but said they needed help with the
fuel to operate them from the beginning. The Nordics moved first and we took
over, and they kept them in the air and they saved a lot of lives. The second
five that we hired were commercially hired and we were just hunting around
Southern Africa to find some more helicopters and that was a different tranche
of helicopters.
Mr Grant
57. Could I pick up a point that Tony Worthington touched on? Can
you tell me whether the United Nations organisations like UNDAC and OCHA have
the authority to commission helicopters or anything else that they might need
on the ground? Could you tell me what was the role of the different person
who joined the OCHA team? What did that person report back here and what
action was taken as a result of those reports?
(Clare Short) On the first question, my understanding (but again I will
defer to Rob) is that the United Nations can pick up the phone but they need
the money covered from somewhere. Our relationship with the United Nations
is that we will do that, like in Kosovo. We can pick up the phone and get an
aeroplane to move the staff or they can pick up the phone and get the
aeroplane and we will give them the money, whichever is the fastest way of
doing it. They need covering financially. They have the authority and of
course if they are commissioning aeroplanes the question is, will the supplier
believe them? I think in an emergency knowing the back-up they will. Is that
correct?
(Mr Holden) Yes, that is fine.
(Clare Short) On the question of the DFID person on the UNDAC team first
phase, what is his role?
(Mr Holden) His role was two-fold. Basically there were two people.
One of them went out as a DFID assessment team. Basically they were the
Department's eyes, ears and mouth on the ground in a very confused situation
to help us make appropriate decisions back here in London and better targeted
decisions for our assistance. As well as doing that role, and once that role
was coming to an end and UNDAC arrived in country because we were there ahead
of UNDAC, they came alongside and provided a support function to them. They
were basically assessment; they were humanitarian specialists who would go out
and find out information and help set up the co-ordination mechanisms.
58. What did they report back? Did they say, "We need X helicopters
or boats"?
(Mr Holden) They did not give us specific details about whether they
wanted boats, helicopters and so on. What they did present back was quite a
confused picture of which air assets was one potential area that we may get
involved with but it was not clear at that time what assets were needed and
how the disaster was unfolding, so it was confused.
Chairman: Mr Grant wants to know what is the point of doing that?
Mr Grant
59. If there is no action.
(Clare Short) If I may say to Bernie through you, Chair, these disasters
are chaotic. The world wants them to be tidy. You do not know the second
disaster is coming. We have got some people, as you know, based in the
country who are following all this but they are development people, not
humanitarian disaster people, so we send someone out into this chaos where
there is one individual in a big country who is not part of the government or
does not have any authority beyond their own knowledge, to try and report back
and then we will be on the phone to Rob Holden and people reporting back that
there is a lot of chaos. That was the first message. They talk endlessly and
try to get on top of it and try to get things organised and try to be clear
about what we can most usefully do, but it is often very messy.
(Mr Holden) There was not a clear recommendation that came back from
the field that helicopters were their ultimate priority at that time.
(Clare Short) But of course the crisis got worse after that; you have
to remember that. What we sent first was not helicopters. It was emergency
needs, tents, clean drinking water, sanitation facilities, shelter, health and
basic survival items. On the first phase that is what we were being told was
needed.
60. How could the media know what the problem was?
(Clare Short) The media came much later than this.
Mr Robathan
61. I notice that the media seemed to fill up the hotel rooms, as
frequently happens. The BBC must have had at least or six of their top
correspondents out there so I suppose they needed to find a story to justify
that. I would have thought one person could have covered it just as well and
used up less space in the helicopters flying about. However, that is just a
comment. I would also like to comment that we did attend an OCHA briefing and
I think there was a great weakness in OCHA in sending people out there for two
weeks. I think those attending the OCHA briefing would agree that the two
British people, Greenall and Howard Williams, was it?
(Mr Holden) Correct.
62. They obviously did not have the authority of the government, but
they were trying to do a reasonable job of extracting some light out of chaos,
although I think it was a grave weakness that they returned so early and I
think the responsibility for that should be laid at OCHA's door. Could I come
back to helicopters? At the meeting we attended at OCHA, a South African
particularly said that he would not be able to fly beyond the end of the week
unless funding was available. That was not my point but I just try to clarify
this because there is a little bit of chaos going on around here too. If
there were three commercial medium lift helicopters available from Mozambique,
and I know that Mozambique have no helicopters in their armed forces, why did
the government of Mozambique not hire them themselves and then apply for the
money? They had already made an appeal as early as 10 February. Why did they
not hire these helicopters if urgency was such a matter? I know it is not
your responsibility. I would like your comments.
(Clare Short) We have a very strong relationship with the government of
Mozambique and we have made it clear they are a good reforming government.
But you have to imagine being one of the poorest countries in the world with
a civil service that is virtually non-existent with no systems that work, with
no roads, with no communication systems to begin to comprehend what the
government of Mozambique has to try to do. We cannot imagine it. We think
of ministers being backed up with systems and people. In Mozambique the whole
thing is very frail.
(Mr Ireton) Absolutely right.
(Clare Short) So you have got good individuals but without systems
underneath them doing their best to cope with something they have never
experienced before. Any one of us I think might have foundered.
63. Whilst we were out there admittedly the second wave did not occur
and was not expected to be as bad. I do not think anybody expected it to be
as bad as it was. Nevertheless, the responsibility for using these
helicopters must reflect on the government of the time. I know the government
has a terrible weakness of capacity, and I do not think it is necessarily up
to the British International Development Department to find these helicopters
and hire them, or was it?
(Clare Short) My Conflict and Humanitarian Department is one of the
fastest that turn around. We can deploy resources very quickly so we move
because we can move. Other parts of the system are slower. What we would
like is an international system where everything can move more rapidly. It
was not our responsibility but if we could do anything we should do it.
64. You do see what I am saying, Secretary of State? Here is a need
for helicopters and presumably a request for helicopters from the government
of Mozambique, and sitting in Mozambique are medium lift helicopters which we
then identify. Have I missed something here? I would have thought that at
least the Mozambique government know better than we did where helicopters are
in Mozambique.
(Clare Short) Do you know where all the helicopters are in the United
Kingdom?
65. No, but there are an awful lot of them.
(Clare Short) Yes, but you could find someone who did know. Mozambique
is not like that.
(Mr Ireton) The only thing I would add is that the Secretary of State
has already made it pretty clear the lack of capacity. It is also the case,
and one of the things we are finding in our partnership with the Mozambique
government, that they did inherit a rather different system from their
colonial days?
66. It was 1974.
(Mr Ireton) And it is unfortunately yet to be greatly modified and it
is very procedurally hidebound as we are finding. The norms that you might
expect, that there would be immediate flexibility, that funds would be shifted
from one budget line to another in view of the tremendous emergency, are not
necessarily in the early days forthcoming.
Ms King
67. On that point, if there is an apparent increase in these natural
disasters, is it part of DIFD's audit perhaps in countries to look at what
transportation or other necessary equipment in the face of an emergency is
there so that at the very least perhaps it would be possible to say five days
earlier to the Mozambique government, notwithstanding the fact that you might
think they would know, but I take on board your comments, "You have this
available and we need it"? Is that perhaps the route that DFID might be
looking at if we are trying to shift the emphasis on to regional responses to
these disasters?
(Clare Short) We are trying to build an international system that has
a much higher level of disaster preparedness. Our own department at the
moment cannot do that, we are not operating in every country in every region
of the world, but we are trying to help strengthen United Nations systems, Red
Cross systems, build up capacity country by country, regionally and so on.
Then in the countries where we work that are subject to natural disasters we
try to support the governments of those countries to increase their capacity
to respond. That is part of what we do. The whole thing could be driven
forward more rapidly and I think that the report of this Select Committee,
which I hope will not just castigate, can help to achieve that. Yes, we
should say that there were shortcomings but then we have to say, "Come on; let
us make a more effective United Nations system" rather than simply pointing
fingers. It might help to drive forward that commitment in the international
system. With global warming there are going to be more and more of these
terrible disasters. That is going to bring more suffering to people.
Remember this. They had the worst floods since independence in Bangladesh,
but because of Bangladesh's preparedness there was a very tiny loss of life.
Hurricane Mitch, complete lack of preparedness, terrible loss of life. So
even in the face of natural disaster, if you have got good, efficient
capacity, you can massively save life and restore and then learn where to put
houses and not to have them on places that are vulnerable to flooding and mud
slides. It is a very urgent matter now and, in the face of global warming and
more instability and therefore more disasters, it is important that we move
this whole thing forward internationally.
Chairman: Secretary of State, you know this Committee is always slow to
criticise but when we do criticise, like we did the UNHCR in Kosovo, we do it
with constructive reasons in mind. I think we have succeeded, together with
your own pressure, in getting UNHCR to address some of their weaknesses as a
result of that report, and I hope this report will be equally constructive
Mr Jones
68. I was in Mozambique in December monitoring the elections. I
think you were right in your introduction to say that the country is making
progress. They have got to grasp democracy and it is right and proper that
we should help them. Can I give you the opportunity now to chase one of the
media stories that was running while the crisis was on that you did not chase
at the time? That is the ongoing support for Mozambique. The Observer
reported on 5 March that, in a Statement from you, you said, "We are planning
to increase our programme of support to Mozambique to œ70 million over the
next two years." The Observer pointed out that your Department's Annual
Report said that it had already set expenditure over the next two years at
more than that, at œ76.5 million. In a later statement DFID officials
explained that the œ70 million would be drawn from a special reconstruction
fund for Mozambique, which would be separate from the Mozambique country
programme. In a speech to the Labour Party Conference in Scotland on 11
March, you suggested that this was not new money but was a "refocusing" of the
money already allocated to Mozambique. Can you clarify that for us?
(Clare Short) As the Committee knows, in response to your request and
because it is my wish that the Department will be as open as possible, as you
know we have published all our planning figures for the first time.
Chairman
69. And you briefed us for our visit there.
(Clare Short) And we have put a health warning on all of them: these are
planning figures and we will vary them. Sometimes we will not be able to
spend, sometimes there will be a greater need somewhere else, often you cannot
disperse rapidly and so on. As for the difference between the œ76 million and
the œ70 million, that is the same money. It is planned commitment. Before
this crisis arose there was a growing commitment to a development programme
in Mozambique. In the press statement I amended it to say "we have already
committed" so no-one could be in any confusion. I do not know what happens
then between anyone talking to anyone, that we were claiming it was new money.
That is that money. You read out some words from someone from my department.
I do not know if anyone from my department said anything like that. We work
very closely as a department. We do not have any conflicts, but if anyone
said, "This is new money because of the disaster", that is not true. The
money that was new money because of the disaster is the initial aid. We have
got money in the bank we can keep deploying as the days go by, so it went five
million, eight million, 10 million. Then I announced at the weekend another
œ10 million for the follow-on phase for the seeds and tools and urgent repairs
to roads maybe and polythene and so on. That is emergency money which will
be deployed by the conflict in humanitarian emergency people who can move very
rapidly. We also have an ongoing programme in Mozambique with a budget for
this year which, as I indicate in the statement to you, is likely to
underspend. People say there are these different pockets of money but when
there is an emergency on it is not notional money; it is real things on the
ground that you can deploy immediately. These are the world's fastest experts
that do that. We put money behind them so that they can move: hire
aeroplanes, send out the lifeboat people. We have got a lot of fire brigade
people out there and our own lifeboat people who have not had much praise but
have done a stunning job. We have got fire brigades across the world who are
all on emergency call-down and we call them in for these emergencies. We have
got 30 people between the lifeboat teams and so on. That comes out of that
budget. There is just one other figure - I hope this is clear - out of what
was coming up to be an underspend on this year's development programme,
nothing to do with the emergency. We are re-deploying œ10 million to get it
into the budgets of the government of Mozambique to fund things that they are
going to have to fund because of the emergency. The final complexity on money
is that Mozambique as a government has got a lot of reserves in the bank.
Because it is doing so well a lot of donors are giving it resources, because
it has qualified for debt relief and because it has got weak capacity to
spend. I hope that is helpful. There are all these different pockets of
money and they need to be used and deployed differently. Finally, around œ70
million, and it can be more. If we can spend more effectively I can increase
that, no problem - is already committed to HIV, AIDS, education, and we are
doing a pilot on teacher training and so on, but we will re-focus because
obviously Mozambique needs to recover before it goes back to its long term
development activities.
70. When we were there we met one of your people, Anna I think her
name is, and she was telling us that one of the programmes that we support in
Mozambique is tertiary roads so that people can get their produce to market.
Presumably this disaster is going to affect the spending on that. Is that
where some of the expenditure is going to come from?
(Clare Short) Rural roads are fantastically important for poor people,
and, of course, the main north/south road in Mozambique is now damaged and
will need repair. Our biggest work is in Zambezia province, because that is
what the government of Mozambique asked for us, where we have a rural roads
programme. There has been training of local contractors, because you need to
both build roads and have a capacity to maintain them. So there are three or
four local contractors now managing this work, employing local labour,
including a lot of women because there are a lot of widows in the areas,
working on the roads. Our evaluation - and I have not seen it recently -
showed that not only did that mean they could grow more crops, get more to
market and increase family income, but more children got to school and more
people got health care. However, that is up in Zambezia province and
Mozambique has virtually no roads. We might be able to deploy some of that
expertise down into this region, but the first job will be to patch the main
north/south road which has been breached. Then we will refocus in the best
way we can to help.
71. The emergency money that you announced increased this last
weekend from œ2 million to œ20 million. That is in addition to the hugely
generous appeal that the British public have contributed to, which is
phenomenal. Where is that œ20 million coming from? Is it coming from within
your own budget, is it coming partly from the underspend, or have you managed
to get the Chancellor of the Exchequer to open up his coffers?
(Clare Short) It is coming from within our budget. Barrie Ireton will
say exactly where. Let me say, Andrew Smith spoke to me in the lobby early
on and said "If you need extra resources come to me, Clare", and I said "Thank
you, but I do not need it yet". As you would expect, we have got to deploy
our budget as effectively as possible, and have that relationship of trust
with the Treasury so that when we really do need extra money and go to them
it is a genuine call. That came from an official level, too; the Treasury
contacted us very early on and said "If you need extra come to us." Do you
want to say where the œ20 million - I think some of it is already in your
budget.
(Mr Ireton) Some of it was already in the CHAD budget, but as we have
moved towards the end of the financial year we have continued to take stock
of exactly what our total spend is expected to be on all our programmes and
balance that up against that cash limit. There have been one or two
particular underspends - our draw-down of EC expenditure has been less than
originally expected - so it has created a certain amount of capacity which is
a little bit greater than we would have anticipated as we were going through
the last quarter of the year. So we have been able to find what we call
"unplanned savings" from elsewhere in the system to redeploy to emergency
assistance, which is something we do commonly.
(Clare Short) We have this problem with the EEC all the time. They draw
down on our budget, we have to allocate money to their draw-down; we allocate
less than they say they will because we know they cannot spend it and then
they spend even less. This is a problem for our planning because we get lumps
of money towards the end of the financial year that we could have deployed.
So, as a matter of course, we do move money around to spend it well and find
more money for the Mozambique emergency.
Chairman
72. Secretary of State, when Sir John Vereker came in front of us,
talking about the annual departmental report, he told us that in view of the
emergency money that you had to spend in Kosovo the Treasury had offered and
would meet additional expenditure on an emergency basis of more than œ1
million or so. What you are saying is that you have not needed to call on
that. Is that right?
(Clare Short) That is absolutely right. We have that understanding with
the Treasury, but, obviously, if we have got underspend from the EEC we should
use our own budget first. They offered if we needed.
Mr Robathan
73. Secretary of State, much has been made of this in the media, but
I would like to ask one particular question. In your statement in a written
answer and then, subsequently, in your statement to the House back at the end
of February, you said there were no military assets available within 3,000
miles of Mozambique. Then, you will recall, there seemed to be some
disagreement from the Minister for the Armed Forces sitting next to you. Were
there military assets, had you been informed there were no military assets,
or were you misinformed?
(Clare Short) Again, Rob Holden and his team in all these emergencies
always ask the MoD - as they ask all the other suppliers - what they have got.
Of course, if you remember Hurricane Mitch, it just so happened that we had
that new ship full of brand new helicopters steaming past - just a wonderful
coincidence. So we always ask them. The answer on the Saturday was that they
had nothing within 3,000 miles, and we accepted that. When I said that to the
House I think John Spellar was surprised. However, obviously, as you know,
when you speak to departments you do not necessarily ring up the minister;
presumably ministers - even in our own system, let alone in Mozambique - do
not know where all the equipment in the armed forces is when you ring them at
the weekend, but somebody does.
74. I think the question in particular is RFA Fort George, which I
think is part of HMS ILLUSTRIOUS's Air Group.
(Clare Short) Yes.
75. I understand it was actually in the Gulf or the Indian Ocean at
the time, which, even with my limited knowledge of geography, is relatively
close. So were you misinformed, or is it just that it was not there at that
time?
(Clare Short) You told me the day the ship - was that ----
(Mr Holden) That was in the Gulf.
(Clare Short) Was that Tuesday or Wednesday?
(Mr Holden) That was on the Wednesday, I believe.
(Clare Short) That was the first we heard of the ship. Then it was in
the Gulf, but it was eight days' time to get there, or something like that.
(Mr Holden) Nine days.
(Clare Short) Of course, it comes with its own fuel, and if the north
had gone we would have massively needed it, but we could not get it in to get
people off trees - even though it was in the Gulf and could not get there that
fast. Also it had a higher price initially.
76. You were never told there was not anything there. You were never
misinformed?
(Clare Short) We were told the nearest was 3,000 miles away and we were
told on the Wednesday about the ship, but it took the ship a considerable
amount of time to get there.
77. Sticking with the question of the MoD co-ordination, there are
various points I want to clarify. I think we now know that you approached all
departments that might have had any availability to assist, particularly the
MoD. Who else did you approach? You mentioned commercial people in
Mozambique, but who else?
(Mr Holden) As a matter of course I spoke to the MoD on Saturday night
and I also spoke to ----
78. Which Saturday?
(Mr Holden) Saturday 26th. I think it was 25/26th at about 8 o'clock
at night. I spoke to the duty clerk and asked what military assets they had
in the region should we require them to be able to respond. The answer came
back that the nearest assets of any use were 3,000 miles away, and that was
the end of the story. I then put our own systems into place where we have got
call-down arrangements. We have an emergency route response team that has
links into the UK fire service, air charity organisations and then we speak
to all the agencies you would expect in the UN, Red Cross and the NGOs. So
I speak to a whole range of agencies which are either operational or co-
operational in Mozambique and in the region at the time.
79. Not with the Ministry of Defence until the 26th.
(Mr Holden) Not until the night of the 26th.
(Clare Short) We had already sent a lot of material and it was not until
then that people were calling for helicopters.
80. Yes, although from our own experience we know that Typhoon Eline
went through Barra on, I think, the Tuesday or Wednesday preceding that. I
am just slightly surprised ----
(Clare Short) Maybe you are prescient, but we are not. We are fast but
we are not prescient.
Chairman: It had been approaching for a number of days, actually.
Mr Robathan
81. As regards costing, again we have heard a lot about this in the
press, what was the initial costing? How was it broken down and how did it
compare with the cost of hiring the helicopters you have got elsewhere?
(Clare Short) I am not sure that it was broken down but it was 2.2
million for the helicopters. The ship came in on the Wednesday but I cannot
remember the figures. It was too expensive and we had alternatives, so it was
very simple for us. I have to say, if we had not had alternatives we would
have paid, because our duty is to get help to the people in Mozambique but,
also, to use our budget well. If there had been no alternative, even if the
price was high, we would have purchased, but we had better prices closer, so
it was just too expensive and we said "No, thank you".
82. How did it come about that the costings were revised, because we
have now got the RFA Fort George RAF Pumas there?
(Clare Short) I think it became more and more a kind of international
emergency and the public were more and more concerned. You always get, in the
Ministry of Defence, the helicopter pilots wanting to go. Walking round the
House - we were voting that week quite a lot - we had MPs from areas where we
have armed forces saying "They want to go, because they have got helicopters
and they want to go to Mozambique and help". So, I think, both the media and
the people in the armed forces really want to go, and so a decision is made
to reduce the price.
83. However, you have already said - and I just want to get this
clear - that in your opinion there was no delay in sending equipment; there
were no lives lost as a result of not sending the Pumas a lot earlier.
(Clare Short) Absolutely. I was in the office that week so I saw Rob
Holden more than once a day, as offers were coming in. He had to make
decisions. I said "No politics in this of any kind. Mozambique comes first.
Don't be pressurized, we will get things there. It does not matter what the
media is saying, it does not matter what pressure we are under anywhere. We
will put Mozambique first." Then he would tell me the offers that were coming
in and what we had got. I said "Don't worry, it is too expensive, we have got
alternatives, hire the alternatives, don't worry about the politics, leave
that to me". I was there, close by your team making these decisions day-in-
day-out, and we always had these alternatives; it was never the case that we
did not purchase the MoD offer because it was too expensive and we had no
alternative. As I say, I would have purchased then, even though I thought it
was a high price, if that was our only option, but it was four days when they
first spoke to us - the time to get there - so it would not have got people
off the top of trees and houses, it would have been the second phase of
getting supplies around, because they could not get there that fast.
Chairman
84. Secretary of State, on this business of the MoD quoting figures
to you, which I consider - and is generally considered - to be extremely high,
I reckon the Ministry of Defence must have added in the date to get to a
figure of 2.2 million for what they were providing. What is the MoD doing?
Did you not question them?
(Clare Short) No, I did not. I was not interested, in the middle of
this emergency in Mozambique, in having a discussion with the Ministry of
Defence about how they do their funding; I was interested in getting
helicopters and equipment to Mozambique. I was telling all my officials to
leave the rest, we had to keep our mind on our main task. All the rest can
be looked at later. This question of charging is a long-standing issue.
There has been some discussion since, as you can imagine, between the
departments. The Ministry of Defence say it is all marginal costing, it is
not full costing.
85. Have you looked at that?
(Clare Short) I do not think it is my job - do you, Chair - to question
Ministry of Defence officials and ministers about their own figures. The
people who went to Mozambique, as I understand it, were going to go to Norway
for training, and then the question is whether you take off what would have
been spent going to Norway for training because it is saved because you are
going to Mozambique, which has training value, and that is the difference
between the higher price and the lower price. I am not in authority on these
matters.
86. Mr Ireton will remember this event in Ethiopia when the
department - the ODA at that time - was using RAF helicopters to distribute
food to famine struck Ethiopians. There was a row at the time, and it was
agreed that the MoD would have a formula about costs and would then stick to
that formula in any request from ODA to them for the provision of military
equipment in humanitarian crises. What happens when you ask for equipment?
You get quoted some huge price, evidently not calculated in accordance with
a formula because, within days, they had reduced it by half.
(Clare Short) I do want to say - and this is very important - that for
the UK effort to help people in emergencies, we must not be obsessed with our
own Ministry of Defence resources, we must be obsessed with how you get the
fastest help to those people from whatever sources. Of course, in Kosovo
they were already there and we worked together very effectively indeed, and
MoD staff in the armed forces loved working with us; in East Timor the Gurkhas
were there and we provided funding to help them to get people back into their
houses; in Bosnia we did a lot of work together in getting people back,
getting their electricity reconnected and fixing up schools, because they were
there. By and large, if they are not there, we can usually do something else
faster. So we need, as a department, the freedom to always purchase the best
and fastest. So although we should have an understanding with the MoD, it is
secondary to our freedom to deploy our resources and our capacity as rapidly
as possible to get help to the people in need. That must be our top priority.
87. I do not think anyone is going to quarrel with that as the top
priority. The question I ask is this: do you not think you should ask Mr
Holden, or whoever is the right person to ask this within your department, to
sit down with the MoD and get a fixed agreement on how they will charge out
for their equipment?
(Clare Short) There have been some negotiations since this, and I will
bring Barrie Ireton in, but they want to go case-by-case. They have said it
will always be marginal cost, but how big the cost will be will vary; whether
they can move at all depends on having some capacity to move, obviously, and
then it would depend on if there is a training value in the operation. If
there is then it will be a lower price than if there is not a training value,
because if someone has to be diverted from training that later has to have
that training then it will be a higher cost than if not.
88. We need a simpler formula than that, do we not?
(Mr Ireton) Yes, I think we have clarified and got an understanding
(and the MoD, of course, should answer for this, really, rather than us). Our
understanding is that they will charge what are called "long-run marginal
costs" - what I think, in MoD jargon, is known as "no-loss cost". What it
means is, in the case of helicopters, essentially, the costs of deployment,
fuel, maintenance etc. Of course, if that means that a helicopter flying
around Mozambique has to be serviced earlier than would otherwise be the case
due to increased flying hours, that would be a cost; if they are going to
depreciate faster because of more flying hours there would be an element of
cost there. It is what they call "long-run marginal costs". The other issue,
which the Secretary of State has explained, is that a judgement is made as to
whether there are some offsetting costs in relation to, say, training. In
this case, not deploying into Norway, the MoD decided they could offset that
cost against the charge to us.
(Clare Short) That is how the price came down. They decided it would
be of value in a training way and, therefore, they would not have to spend the
money later to go to Norway.
(Mr Ireton) There was one other element in the reduction in costs,
which was to do with what was in the package, and which we clarified.
(Clare Short) It came down from 144 people to 100.
89. I am just absolutely astonished that the Ministry of Defence has
as many accountants as you suggest they have to make those calculations
continuously. Is it not very foolish of them to do so?
(Clare Short) I understand you are going to have an MoD Minister before
you.
90. Yes.
(Clare Short) For us, what is really, really important is being able to
deploy what is best from anywhere. If we become fixated on this question of
reducing the MoD costs, it is as though people think "Only if it comes from
our armed forces is it supplied by the United Kingdom". If you are on top of
a tree you do not mind whose flag is on the helicopter, as long as it comes.
For us the most important thing of all is that no one questions our freedom
of manoeuvre, to spend our budget in the best possible way in getting help as
rapidly as possible to people - and within that, of course, to spend well and
not be wasteful.
Chairman: They were trying to waste DfID's money, in my view.
Ann Clwyd
91. I wanted to put the memorandum that we have from Paul Beaver, who
is the defence analyst. He makes the point: "I believe that UK forces should
have an immediate role in emergency disaster relief". He then is critical of
the delay and he spells out ----
(Clare Short) May I say there was no delay.
92. ---- three immediate sources of aid which could have been
deployed. He talks about men and equipment from the Royal Marines; he said
that they have got rigid radar assault craft ideal for working in the waters
of a flood and can carry 10 people or equivalent supplies; rigid inflatable
boats of the Royal Marines have a capability, and then he talked about the UK
Joint Helicopter Command, whom he said, again, could have been used because
they can carry a number of helicopters. Then, of course, he mentioned HMS
ILLUSTRIOUS. All through he says that he believes that if those had been
deployed assistance would have been brought faster. This is an MoD
responsibility, obviously, but I wondered if any of those possibilities had
ever been discussed by your own department.
(Clare Short) I want to repeat: I find that members of the armed forces
very badly want to help in humanitarian disasters. They have got the
equipment and they are sitting there, they are helicopter pilots, or whatever,
and they cannot bear it - they want to be there and want to be helping. So
there are lots of people saying "We should deploy MoD equipment". From our
point of view, it is often a bit slower and it comes with very, very, very
heavy staffing resources behind it, because, of course, the Ministry of
Defence have to be highly organised like that. I think there are 100 people
servicing the four Pumas, and the five helicopters that we got out of Southern
Africa have less than ten. So I do ask the Committee not to be fixated on us
using MoD facilities, because the way that people are trained and deployed,
and the numbers of people that are involved in operating in the armed forces
way tends to be a little bit slower and have a long tail of people. It is
very important to us, because sometimes you have got to get people somewhere
to live and in an emergency you do not want excessive numbers of people, no
matter how well-intentioned. We are back to the fact that we should use the
resources where they come in fast and well, or we should use other resources
if that is better.
93. You would refute the assertion he is making that those resources
could have been used quickly and should have been deployed?
(Clare Short) I am not a military expert. I do not know where they
were, or how fast they could have got there, but we have told you what our
interaction was, the answers we got and the decisions we made.
Mr Grant
94. Secretary of State, there appears to be a contradiction in what
you are saying. You are saying, on the one hand, that money is no object,
there is no problem, but then, when the Ministry of Defence puts up its price
you then have a row with them over it.
(Clare Short) I had no row with them. There was a row in the press, but
I never had a row with anyone.
95. Do not let us get diverted from the point I am making. The point
I am making is that whilst I accept that the dispute did not delay the
acquisition of helicopters, what it did do, of course, is that it allowed the
very press that you are complaining about to have a story, and to make it
appear as though government effort is a shambles. What I would like to know
is why could you not accept the Ministry of Defence figures and then argue
with the Treasury afterwards? The second point I want to raise is that when
we had a situation in relation to Montserrat there was a row between DfID and
the Foreign Office. I believe that we have recommended, and it was generally
accepted, that there should be some kind of liaison committee set up between
the various departments to iron out difficulties before they became public.
Would you tell me whether a liaison committee exists between the Ministry of
Defence and DfID to iron out these problems before the matters became public?
(Clare Short) There is no contradiction in what I have said. I have
said there was no limit on our budget to hire emergency equipment and help to
get to Mozambique. It kept growing as the days went on and we would have
found more money and redeployed it across our budget, just as we have and we
could do it again. That does not mean that I just throw money around in a
wasteful way. We look at the needs, we hire what is best and closest at the
best price, but if the price was higher and there was no alternative we would
have paid that price. I have said earlier, if there was no alternative to the
2.2. million we would have paid that. So I do not think that is any
contradiction whatsoever. The priority is the people of Mozambique, and
getting things to them is the absolute urgency in everything we are driven by,
but if we have got more than one alternative we take the closest and the best
price. That is the position and I am sure that is the right position. There
was not an argument. I do not know how this story got into the press or who
was putting it. I am just telling you, as a matter of fact, I did not have
an argument with any minister or official in the Ministry of Defence. There
were officials from the Ministry of Defence talking to Rob Holden and saying
"2.2 million" and he was saying "Sorry, no, but if you can come back with a
lower price". That was not an argument, that was a statement of the
situation. I agree with you very much, that the result of all of this is that
a lot of good, decent people in the UK who cared about the situation in
Mozambique thought it was a shambles. It was not a shambles but they thought
that - and reasonably thought it, given the press coverage. I think that is
regrettable. I have said to you, and I gave this absolute instruction to the
whole of my department and all my staff, that we would not change anything for
presentation purposes; we would do what was right; we would get help to
Mozambique, and even though there was this story running that was attacking
us and claiming we were being inefficient, I was not going to spend money
differently or do what was wrong to appease that pressure from the press. I
said to all my officials, "I will take the blame for all of this. This is the
right thing to do. I am not going to chase a press story, we are going to
make the priority Mozambique". So I regret the story but I believe that we
took the right decisions and it would be wrong to respond to the press rather
than to the emergency. Your third question was on a liaison committee. When
these emergencies are on you cannot have a committee. These people are on the
telephone and it has to move very rapidly. However, we do have - which never
existed before - a cross-departmental ministerial committee on development
that now has MoD ministers, DTI ministers, Ministry of Health, and the Foreign
Office, and so on and so forth. So we have better machinery within Whitehall
to co-ordinate work on deployment. No, the appearance of a shambles in the
media is regrettable, but much more important is doing the right thing by the
people of Mozambique. We should not distort doing the right thing by the
people of Mozambique to please the media, whatever the attack they make on us.
Chairman: We have got five minutes, and we have got to cover the role
of the international community, regional responses to the crisis, debt, and
I would like to bring Piara Khabra in, but very quickly.
Mr Khabra
96. I will be very short and brief. We have been talking, one way
or the other, about money and funding. I would like to ask you what sort of
support the World Bank or the IMF have given and what is their attitude to the
crisis?
(Clare Short) Can I just say, first, that I am seeing Mr Dious, who is
the Director General, of the Food and Agricultural Organisation, to talk about
strengthening that bit of the UN at twelve.
Chairman
97. I know. That is why we have got to hurry.
(Clare Short) He has come especially to London to meet me. The IMF and
the World Bank are not operators in the middle of a humanitarian emergency,
but they are very important for reconstruction. In the past (and I think
probably still, in reality) they have been very slow to come in. We have been
talking to try and get them to have post-conflict, post-emergency capacity to
move more rapidly. They have done it in Sierra Leone. They will come later.
The experience of East Timor is it is too much later. So they are moving, but
they do not help with the emergency. They are very tuned in to the
reconstruction. They are improving but they could be faster.
Mr Worthington
98. We have covered the international response in terms of OCHA, I
think, fairly thoroughly. I would like to talk about the European Community
and its role. In going through all the output from OCHA and others about what
was happening there is an early reference, on about 18 February, to one
million euros being given by Europe - that is cash - and then no reference at
all to them until the Commissioner goes in early March, and suddenly there is
an announcement of 25 million euros going into Mozambique. What is the role
of Europe in a situation like this? I thought ECHO was about rapid response
and, hopefully, about co-ordination, but what was Europe doing in this time?
(Clare Short) I will have to ask Rob Holden to answer that, but ECHO is
about emergencies.
(Mr Holden) I have not got a detailed answer, to be perfectly honest.
ECHO, as you know, did give 1 million euros, then they went up to 2 and then
up to 4, and then after the Commission there was a large announcement. They
are known for being relatively slow in responding to disasters and getting
resources out to the agencies that they fund - usually the NGO sector. I do
not have the details but I do not think they would be much faster in this
particular case.
Chairman: Could you write to us about that?
Mr Worthington
99. It really does have to be tackled. If you have an emergency
reaction service which is slow, there is a problem.
(Clare Short) Yes, indeed.
100. What is bothering about it as well is that it is simply
announced as cash, and my bet would be that very, very little money in fact
has been expended, through ECHO, on the emergency. So not only were we slow
in reacting with funds, it then will only come through when the emergency has
passed. Is that correct?
(Clare Short) That is the problem in the whole international system.
You get people announcing money on television, right through the international
system, that does not get on to the ground, sometimes, until a year later.
They say "What is X country doing?" They say "Big song".
Chairman
101. Can we jump on, because we will need to get you to your
meeting, Secretary of State. Could you write about what exactly ECHO did and,
also, tell us what the United States contributed? I know they were having a
conference in Washington at the time on Africa, but I do not think they have
contributed anything, and they have got Diego Garcia not very far away.
(Clare Short) They have got quite a lot of troops there now, have they
not?
Chairman: I want to move quickly, Mr Robathan, to regional responses
and then to debt.
Mr Robathan
102. We have already covered the question of helicopters actually
within Mozambique, but there have been a lot of problems with visas there, I
understand, for emergency personnel and civilian personnel.
(Clare Short) That is part of the problem that Barrie Ireton referred
to, of a very bureaucratic system that cannot even move in an emergency. So
there are people coming in to help with the emergency being held up with
visas.
103. The overriding question is, really, if there is anything that
can be done either by Britain or the international community to assist
developing countries respond to crises like this, and that is a particular
example (and another example is the aircraft that flew into South Africa and
was told it could not stop and had to move on); whether there is anything the
international community can do to foster regional co-ordination prior to the
crisis and, particularly, thinking about water control in the Cahora Bassa,
or wherever it might be. In particular - and this is a specific instance -
what do you think of the regional response to the emergency? We have heard
what you think about South Africa. Zimbabwe, of course, has a lot of
helicopters and most of them are fighting a rather unpleasant war in the
Congo. Is there anything else that could have been done regionally?
(Clare Short) I think the first part of your question I fully take, and
I have already answered that. We need to strengthen the international system,
its regional capacity and in-country, especially in countries subject to these
disasters. We have been working on it, it needs a push and it needs more
urgency. On the general water in the region, we have this conference coming
up in The Hague very shortly about water and sanitation for people that are
lacking either. We need better management of water both to deliver it to
people but also for its use for agricultural and to prevent wars, and so on.
We need to think much, much more strategically about water and the interface
with the environment, and we do hope to push that forward. In terms of
Zimbabwe, you are right, they were affected by the crisis and they have their
own flooding. I do not know how many helicopters they have but they are
engaged elsewhere, and they have got an awful lot of problems themselves.
Chairman: I think we will have to leave it there, Secretary of State,
if you are to keep your appointment.
Mr Grant: Clare, you wanted suggestions, not only negative criticisms.
Can I suggest that you develop a system where you divide up the world into
spheres of influence and have individual countries responsible if there is a
disaster in that area? Those countries can then liaise with the United
Nations as well as other countries in order to get the effort sorted out. If
it is left to the United Nations I doubt very much whether we will be here in
five years' time.
Chairman
104. Not exactly a short question.
(Clare Short) I understand the frustration that goes into the system,
but the UN is the only UN we have got and it is a completely precious
instrument. It is the only thing that can do, with real moral authority and
respected by the governments concerned, this co-ordinating job, and we have
to strengthen the capacity of the governments that are subject to these
disasters to cope themselves. So I understand, you are almost saying that
because all that does not work why do we not get different donors to take
responsibility. Mozambique, for example, has a very proud government - quite
right too - and early on very much wanted to be in control of events, and then
got a little bit outpaced by the scale of the emergency. So one has to be
respectful - and you are the last person I have to tell this to. So the real
test is to get the UN working, get regional systems and get governments more
prepared to cope with disasters.
105. Secretary of State, I was going to ask you about the debt
question but I think, if I may, I will simply write to you and ask if you
would write a note.
(Clare Short) I would be happy to provide you with a full note. This
is very important for the reconstruction phase, but not of course for this
phase. As a matter of fact, at the moment Mozambique has quite a lot of
reserves and we need to make sure they are properly deployed. Barrie Ireton
is working on this in the reconstruction phase. So debt really matters to the
development of Mozambique but not to getting people off trees and then getting
them fed and preventing the spread of disease.
106. Would Mr Ireton include the financial perspective that you
describe in dealing with the debt issue? We would be very grateful.
(Clare Short) Insofar as we can, because they are not our reserves, but
we will tell you all we know about them.
107. What the financial situation is, because there is, of course,
the total debt forgiveness (?) in Mozambique.
(Clare Short) You know the UK has done that and Gordon Brown has been
working to get everyone to have a moratorium, which happened in the case of
Central America. So as well as the debt relief coming there should be a
moratorium about any payments while that is sorted out, as the UK has done.
Gordon is working hard to try to get agreement on that.
(Mr Ireton) There is a meeting at the Paris Club on Wednesday and
Thursday of this week, in which we will be proposing that everybody agrees a
moratorium on the bilateral issue there.
108. I know there are other pressing duties, but if you could get
us a letter by the end of the week.
(Clare Short) We will indeed. It is here, we can get it to you.
109. Thank you very much for coming, Secretary of State. You have
clarified a whole raft of questions for us and enabled us, and I think the
public in general, to see that you have been working extremely hard and
effectively to try and rescue people from the desperate situation they are in
in Mozambique. Thank you, all three of you, for coming this morning and
spending your time telling us what you are doing.
(Clare Short) Thanks a lot.
RT HON GEOFFREY HOON, a Member of the House, Secretary of State for
Defence, AIR COMMODORE PAUL LUKER, MR ROGER PAXTON, Finance and
Policy Division, Ministry of Defence, examined.
Chairman
110. Can I thank you, Secretary of State, for coming so quickly to
our Committee to respond to our concerns about the deployment of defence
equipment to Mozambique in view of the emergency there. We are grateful to
you for coming and for, probably, rearranging your diary as a result of coming
here. I wonder whether you would like to introduce this particular group with
you.
(Mr Hoon) Yes. On my left is Air Commodore Paul Luker - L-U-K-E-R -
notwithstanding the enthusiasm to give him a Balkan-style name. He is also
a helicopter pilot and therefore can deal with some of the more technical
matters that I will not be able to deal with. On my right is Roger Paxton who
is from the Ministry of Defence's Finance and Policy Division.
111. Thank you very much. I understand that you do not have an
opening statement, so perhaps we can go straight into questions. We want to
talk to you about the deployment of helicopters to Mozambique and the first
question, perhaps, is when was the Ministry of Defence contacted by the
Department for International Development about (a) assets available in the
region and (b) assets available for deployment from the United Kingdom? At
what level were these contacts made?
(Mr Hoon) On Saturday 26 February at around 2 o'clock the Department
for International Development contacted the Ministry of Defence and spoke to
the Resident Clerk. As I am sure you are aware, we have a 24-hour system and,
essentially, the request then was whether the Ministry of Defence had any
appropriate assets in the region - that is, in or around Mozambique. The
answer given was that the nearest were in the order of 3,000 miles away, as
perhaps will become clear as we discuss this further. We had a task group in
the Gulf. That was the nearest military ----
112. That was what was being referred to, was it?
(Mr Hoon) Yes.
113. A task group in the Gulf, 3,000 miles away. How many days
steaming - if that is the right ----
(Mr Hoon) When I was looking at the availability of the Royal Fleet
Auxiliary, we judged it in the order of nine days' sailing time - which is
perhaps a better phrase. That is obviously affected by weather conditions and
the need, in particular, in terms of actual deployment, to load certain
equipment.
114. And assets available in the UK?
(Mr Hoon) There were a number of assets that could have been made
available in the United Kingdom. That was not a question that was asked on
the Saturday, simply because, quite rightly and understandably, the Department
for International Development were concerned with getting equipment there as
speedily as possible and, inevitably, assets in the United Kingdom were going
to take a good deal longer to deploy than assets more locally available.
115. Subsequently, of course, you did consider the deployment from
the UK as the crisis worsened in the next week. We wanted to inquire, first
of all, when that inquiry came to you? We understand that the Ministry of
Defence quoted a figure of 2.2 million as the estimated charges to the
Department for International Development for deploying helicopters to
Mozambique.
(Mr Hoon) At the risk of interrupting you, if I could just set out the
context, because I think this is quite important. In parallel, on Monday
morning ----
116. That is now the 28th.
(Mr Hoon) On the 28th, the Minister for Armed Forces, John Spellar,
indicated to his officials the need to prepare contingency plans in the light
of both the request on the Saturday evening and, obviously, in the light of
the rapidly worsening situation. So by the Monday morning, the Ministry of
Defence was preparing options that could be offered to respond to the
situation. That work was conducted during the day and, essentially, three
different options were identified. Firstly, helicopters, which would clearly
have to be flown down from the United Kingdom; secondly, a team of Royal
Marines with inflatable boats and hovercraft, and, thirdly, the Royal Fleet
Auxiliary Fort George which was with the task group in the Gulf. At that
stage this was simply contingency planning, these were options that could be
made available, clearly, if the department with a policy lead judged it was
appropriate.
117. When did you get a request for the deployment of helicopters?
(Mr Hoon) Let me make it clear: there is not a stage at which there is
a formal request; the two departments work, and have been used to working,
closely together. There is an exchange of information and we would have
indicated to DfID (I understand this took place at 9 o'clock on Tuesday
morning) ----
118. So we are on the 29th.
(Mr Hoon) Yes. ---- that these various options were available and were
possibilities if the department judged that it was appropriate. They asked
for further information including, in particular, the question of the costs,
and that was information that then we sought to make available.
119. So DfID knew the options and knew the costs on the 29th. Is
that right?
(Mr Hoon) Yes, by Tuesday afternoon we were able to provide a very
general estimate of the cost. We had not had accountants working out the
precise cost of making these options available; we were able to give a very
general estimate as to the likely cost, as, indeed, we are required to do
under government accounting rules.
120. Was this the 2.2 million that is referred to in the press?
(Mr Hoon) It was actually nearer 2.4 million, for the sake of accuracy,
but I think we are talking about the same ball park figure.
121. Did this represent capitation costs, marginal costs or some
other costing?
(Mr Hoon) There are a variety of different terms used, but I think we
are all talking bout the same thing. The cost was based throughout - there
was no change in the basis of the cost - on what we call "no loss costs". It
is sometimes called "marginal costs", but it is the standard basis for
charging between all government departments. Essentially, it is the extra
cost that a department sustains if the activity in question had not been
carried out. So what we are looking at in relation to personnel, for example,
is the additional cost of transport to the required location, subsistence, any
extra allowances, clearly accommodation, but it does not include the salaries
of the people concerned. That is a cost that lies with, in this case, the
Ministry of Defence, but the department that is providing the asset.
122. You are going to bear that anyway, are you not?
(Mr Hoon) Exactly. So it is sometimes referred to as marginal costs,
but, as I say, the no-loss cost; that is how much extra expenditure that
department providing equipment or personnel would have to bear as a result of
participating in the particular activity in question. Similarly, as far as
equipment is concerned, in this case we are talking about helicopters, and
there would be the cost of transport to the required location, the hourly
rates for using the helicopter - fuel and oil consumption and so on.
123. We have been hearing that, in fact, that figure which you
have just described as a ball park figure, if I can use that term (rough
estimate) was then reduced later on in the week to half that figure. Was it?
(Mr Hoon) We looked very carefully at these figures, obviously, in
discussion with the Department for International Development. Let me make it
clear: that total ball park figure included two of the options; it included
both the deployment of helicopters and the deployment of the Marine group with
boats and with hovercraft.
124. Aah.
(Mr Hoon) So the reduction was, first of all, an elimination of the
requirement for Marines, because the Department for International Development
judged that, at that stage, they were not necessary and were not needed. So
a significant element of the ball park figure that we provided came out
because we were no longer going to have to send the Marine team down there.
The second change which we were able to make after consultations with the
Treasury, was that we were able to reduce the cost by the amount that we would
have spent on the exercise in Norway from which we removed the helicopter
group. So these people should have been going to Norway in the week in
question to participate in what is a NATO operation. We would have faced
costs in that and I judged that it was right, if we could do it (and we had
to get the view of the Treasury) that we were able to reduce the cost still
further, taking account of the costs that would have been faced in the
exercise in Norway. There were one or two other slight changes, in that the
cost of the heavy lift was not quite as large from the charter company as
anticipated, but the two big changes in the costings were accounted for by the
fact that we did not have to send the Marine team and we were able, with
Treasury approval, to offset the cost of the exercise. I do need to emphasise
that that second stage was a wholly exceptional process, in the sense that
these people were supposed to be in Norway on a training exercise that is
important for their skills in terms of their ability to do their job on behalf
of the country, and sending them to Mozambique was something quite different.
There are very difficult judgments as to whether it is right to substitute the
cost of their training for the cost of going to Mozambique. I asked for this
decision to be looked at on the Tuesday evening because I felt it was
important to get on with things and that that was something that we could take
account of.
125. What figure did you come down to with the elimination of
those two factors?
(Mr Hoon) Again, these are ball park figures, but about œ1.15 million.
Again, none of these are precise. Indeed, the Committee might be interested
in hearing that that figure has risen to around œ1.23 million because the
costs of accommodation and so on in Maputo have proved a little more expensive
than originally estimated. These are estimates; as I said at the outset,
these are not figures that we work on with the benefit of accountants. We are
required under the rules to make an estimate of the likely cost of providing
people and equipment and we do so as quickly and in as round terms as is
sensible.
126. You sort out the details later.
(Mr Hoon) We still, frankly, have not worked on precise details because
those people are still there and they are still incurring costs.
127. Would you confirm that this question of what it was going to
cost did not delay deployment?
(Mr Hoon) Absolutely not at all.
128. Can you tell me why do you have to go to the Treasury to get
permission?
(Mr Hoon) Because we were subtracting a cost which was not normally the
kind of subtraction that would have been made in this situation. We were
subtracting the cost of what these people should have been doing. In fact,
government accounting says in principle that departments should work out the
full cost and that, frankly, includes salaries but the practice between
departments has always been - and if the Committee is interested I can give
examples from other government departments where police for example are
provided from time to time - the practice within government departments is to
supply personnel and equipment at this no loss cost, the marginal cost which
does not include salaries. In addition to that I was able to reduce the
amount of charge to the Department for International Development by the
further amount that we would have spent in any event on the deployment to
Norway, but that is exceptional simply because what has to be judged there is
whether what the people are doing contributes to what is their primary
function and primary responsibility, which in the case of helicopters and
pilots and equipment is training and exercising for the kind of military
deployment that we rely on them to carry out.
129. You say really that it is the Treasury at the heart of this
problem of working out what you can and cannot charge? It is these rules
which they impose on you which cause you to have all this difficulty with
figures, is it?
(Mr Hoon) With respect, I do not perceive there to be a problem. These
are standard arrangements. I can give you examples, if necessary, that go
back over a long period of time between departments. There is a not a
problem. This is the standard way in which different government departments,
which have people and equipment which might be required by another government
department, calculate the likely cost and then later work out the precise
cost. This is something that is done all the time so there is not a problem
and there was not a problem in this context.
130. That was not the perception of the press or of any of us
sitting outside government. It might not be a problem inside government but
it is certainly very difficult for us to understand why you and the Department
for International Development should be discussing money of the kind you were
when what was needed was helicopters to take people off the top of trees. You
may not have a problem but Britain has a problem in understanding what you are
up to.
(Mr Hoon) Let me make it clear, I do not regard this as a problem. It
certainly did not delay the deployment. This Committee obviously oversees the
Department for International Development and I am sure that you would be
extremely concerned if, for example, the Secretary of State for International
Development decided simply to spend unlimited amounts of money on getting
helicopters into a situation where that could not be justified. You would be
very concerned if she simply approved her Department spending huge amounts of
money that did not have much effect because that would be money going from a
budget you would be particularly concerned about.
131. We would be very concerned, you are quite right, about the
Ministry of Defence raiding the budget of the Department for International
Development in order to offset its own costs because by paying the Ministry
of Defence you would reduce the capacity of the Department for International
Development to provide the assistance and aid which it should be doing.
(Mr Hoon) Let me make it quite clear - and I do take exception to your
word "raiding" - that that did not happen. I have explained the basis of the
charging. There were no costs the MoD would not otherwise have suffered. We
charge that on a straightforward basis which is wholly consistent with the way
in which other government departments operate. Let me make this point clear
to you. This is why it is necessary to give some indication of the cost.
Having given some indication of the cost, it is then appropriate for the
Secretary of State for International Development to make a judgment because
it is the policy responsibility of the Department as to whether it is
appropriate given resources to spend that amount of money. If we do not give
that sort of calculation you, I am sure, would be concerned after the event
if we came back and said actually we would like œ10 million for these
helicopters, a figure that had never previously been mentioned, the
helicopters had gone, and had then we levied a charge which you would then
complain about, quite rightly.
132. We would certain enquire into it, yes.
(Mr Hoon) So by giving an indication of the likely cost we allowed, as
would happen in any government department in a similar situation, the
Secretary of State to make a judgment as to whether in the circumstances it
is right to pay that amount of money. This is particularly relevant in the
context of what was takeing place in Mozambique because, quite rightly,
earlier in the week the Secretary of State had judged that what was of
paramount importance was to get helicopters into Mozambique as quickly as
possible and the best way and cheapest way of doing that was to hire locally
or regionally available helicopters and that was done. Once the situation was
deteriorating then clearly what she did was to look at the other options that
were available - and my understanding is that something like five were hired
locally - and then to consider whether the situation was so grave that it
justified what was inevitably going to be a very considerably extra cost of
getting helicopters down from the United Kingdom. Out of that œ1.15 million
ball-park estimate for the strategic lift requirement, that is the cost of
carrying the kit down there, the helicopters and relevant personnel plus other
relevant equipment, was in the order of œ740,000.
133. That is the hire of the Antonov?
(Mr Hoon) The hire of the Antonov was part of that. The hire of the
Antonov was getting on for half a million pounds plus we also had a Tri-star
that was going to be available. It is absolutely right that the Secretary of
State for International Development should make a judgment as to whether you,
for example, in looking at this matter after the event would say that this was
a reasonable use of what are inevitably scarce resources to get four
helicopters down to Mozambique. If we had not given her that estimate of the
cost she would not have been in a position to make that judgment. If things
had been improving by Tuesday or Wednesday in Mozambique she might have said,
quite rightly, "I cannot justify that enormous cost" - and I recognise it is
an enormous cost - "to hire an Antonov to put four Pumas inside", but the
situation was grave and she judged, and I agreed, that we should get them
there as quickly as we could and that is what we did.
134. Obviously the costs that you attribute, however roughly, to
the exercise, as you say, has to be part of the judgment of the Secretary of
State for International Development as to whether or not she will buy what you
are offering at that price. That is what I think you are saying.
(Mr Hoon) Yes "buy" and "price" are perhaps --- She has got to make a
judgment and she has got to have the information on which to make that
judgment.
135. And the figure is important?
(Mr Hoon) And the figure is vitally important.
Chairman: Tony Worthington?
Mr Worthington
136. Can we return to the Antonov which is the thing that puzzles
me. We have all the resources of NATO and we have had crisis after crisis,
emergency crises, either humanitarian or military, in lots of parts of the
world and every time it comes down to logistics and every time heavy lift is
mentioned. Why is it when we have a crisis like this that the NATO defence
forces have to go and hire a commercial plane at œ750,000 in order to move
helicopters?
(Mr Hoon) It would be unfair to those people responsible for making the
aircraft available if the figure of œ750,000 went unchallenged. It is in the
order of half a million for the Antonov. The extra costs were for the costs
of getting a Tri-star down there.
137. But the point remains.
(Mr Hoon) But the point remains, I accept that. It is a point that,
frankly, the Secretary of State for Defence has to struggle with because
lessons learned from Kosovo and similar operations demonstrate that the basic
problem that we face in Europe is the shortage of heavy lift aircraft. It is
a problem identified in the Strategic Defence Review. It is a problem that
the United Kingdom has had for some time. It is a problem we are seeking to
address and there is a substantial procurement programme underway reaching
resolution shortly, that is designed to identify specifically that problem.
Chairman
138. I understand the Ministry of Defence's answer on heavy lift
as to why they have not got it is that "the Americans will take us there if
we want to go." Is that the position?
(Mr Hoon) No, because the reality as far as the United Kingdom is
concerned is that we identified in our Strategic Defence Review a shortage of
heavy lift, which was something that was clear as well in the context of the
Kosovo campaign, something identified by my predecessor in his initial
reaction to lessons learned from Kosovo last October, and it is something we
are seeking to address. As I say, there is a procurement programme designed
to provide heavy lift aircraft.
Mr Grant
139. On a separate issue, Secretary of State, I am a very simple
person and I watched the pictures on television of people hanging from trees
and out of houses and they were surrounded by water. Why could the Ministry
of Defence, for example, not drop inflatable dinghies, drop floats, drop
something which would allow those people to get out of the trees and try and
make it to land?
(Mr Hoon) Can I answer that first because in the first place we would
have had to have got those dinghies and that equipment down to Mozambique and
essentially the debate/discussion we have had so far is about how you get
those pieces of equipment to where they are needed, and we would face both
time delays and costs in achieving that. Can I absolutely assure you that I
also watched those pictures on television with the same horror and concern
that I am sure you felt and I wanted to ensure that we played our part if the
Department that is responsible judged it appropriate for us to assist. That
is why from Monday morning onward in the week in question a number of plans
were prepared ready to execute once the Department for International
Development judged it appropriate.
140. Can I say that you do not need heavy lift aircraft to drop
some dinghies and some basic lifebuoys and floats and so on to those people.
(Mr Hoon) I agree with you entirely.
141. So was that not considered at all?
(Mr Hoon) On the Monday morning I have indicated that the Department
identified three options. One of those options was in fact a team of Marines
with inflatable dinghies, with hovercraft that could have been deployed if
those with the policy lead judged it appropriate. But it is important in this
situation, as is beginning to be clear in Mozambique, that there is a degree
of co-ordination. It would not be right for any one government department to
simply act on its own initiative where another government department had the
policy responsibility and, again, I am sure this Committee would have been
critical if we had simply decided without any reference to the Secretary of
State for International Development at all that we were going to do our own
thing irrespective of what she judged to be right and proper in the
circumstances.
Chairman: Then I think we would have had a row. Andrew Robathan?
Mr Robathan
142. Looking to the future in terms of heavy lift, how many Pumas
could one get into the FLA should we buy it - the Future Large Aircraft - now
called the A400?
(Mr Hoon) It is a slightly separate debate but I am perfectly willing
to enter into it.
143. One, two, four, nil?
(Mr Hoon) The answer is that it does depend on how much you strip them
down. We could have flown a C130 aircraft with a stripped down Puma inside
but the problem with that if you strip them down is you then have to put them
back together again. That takes seven to eight days with favourable equipment
on site in the region and we simply judged in the planning that that would not
have been much use to anyone both in terms of the delay that it would take to
get them into service and into operation together with the fact that we could
not absolutely guarantee when we got to northern South Africa or Mozambique
that there were going to be the facilities to put them back together again.
So these things do depend. One of the advantages of the Antonov undoubtedly
is that with modest change in the equipment, although it still requires some
change, you can get four of them into a commercially available aircraft.
144. Right so the future is not looking good if we buy the future
large aircraft?
(Mr Hoon) I did not say that at all.
Chairman
145. The point being in this matter, Secretary of State, that if
we are to have a rapid reaction force in humanitarian situations we have got
to be able to have a method of getting the equipment and the personnel
necessary to the crisis point, the emergency point, quickly and economically.
That seems to me where the co-ordination between your Department and the
Department of International Development needs to take place.
(Mr Hoon) That is absolutely right. Let me make it clear that there are
overriding defence requirements over and above the humanitarian concerns ---
146. Yes.
(Mr Hoon) --- which mean also that we require this heavy lift capacity.
If I simply mention the fact that one C17, which is the modern US aircraft
that many governments would like to purchase, costs in the order of 200
million dollars - one of them - you will see the difficultly which successive
governments have faced in trying to buy sufficient number to make a
difference. We would all like to be able to have a fleet of heavy lift
aircraft available, the last government would have done, this government would
have done, but they come with a very expensive price tag.
147. Yes, well what we are suggesting is a reordering of your
priorities.
(Mr Hoon) It is one of our priorities, let me make it clear.
Chairman: Right.
Mr Worthington
148. The point is that more and more of your work in defence is
multi-national and is peacekeeping, it is not war.
(Mr Hoon) Yes.
149. What puzzles me about this is that we have all the resources
of NATO and yet we are responding on a single nation basis where there will
be within NATO, I assume, C17s, or something equivalent, that ought to be made
available in a situation like this, surely?
(Mr Hoon) I did ask the question, since I am somewhat preoccupied with
heavy lift these days, and it is one of our priorities, whether there were any
C17s available and unfortunately on that day there were not. The C17s, the
ones which are deployed at the moment are American owned and operated
aircraft. I believe that the Americans did use C17s eventually to fly in some
equipment. There is a degree of co-ordination but that co-ordination
inevitably between countries does take time. There is not a standing force
available anywhere in the world and we would have to have discussions as to
where that might be to be able to respond to, say, a crisis one month in, say,
Honduras where you might want to locate one standing force as opposed to Sub-
Saharan Africa as opposed to Southern Africa. Where would you make such
equipment available? I think it is an extraordinarily difficult question, it
is a question we face militarily in terms of where do you locate a rapid
reaction force because whilst those people are waiting for the crisis to
arise, frankly they are not doing a great deal. They would not be doing a
great deal in humanitarian terms as opposed to defence terms, you have got to
have people training, exercising, you want to use them. They want to do
things. You cannot expect them to be sitting around waiting for a crisis which
means that they have to be somewhere. What you then have to do is to have the
planning that allows you to say, for example in this context, "These people
should have been on a NATO training exercise in Norway, we held them back, we
did not allow them to go because we anticipated that there might be a need for
them to go to Mozambique. They actually waited for a couple of days, not doing
a great deal, before the decision then was taken to allow them to go to
Mozambique". That seems to me to be a sensible way in which we plan these
things.
Ann Clwyd
150. Four of us were in Mozambique in the period 20 to 24
February. It was already very clear to us that - and we were lay people but
it was extremely clear to us - there was already an emergency, that they did
not have enough helicopters to fly at that time food relief to the people who
had already been affected by the flooding. Now, looking at the diary of
events, it seems to me extraordinary that there was not joined up thinking
between Government departments during that period, or even before that. You
were not contacted until 26 February.
(Mr Hoon) Yes.
151. Now if the helicopters had been asked for on 26 February,
when would they have got there?
(Mr Hoon) I do not know whether I can easily answer the question
because on 26 February it was two o'clock on a Saturday afternoon and, to be
fair, I doubt that the kind of planning people were necessarily available. I
am sure we would have made them available if a specific request had been
received and people would then have looked at it. One of the key factors we
faced - I am afraid it is back to heavy lift - is the availability of one of
these Antonov aircraft. Even by Monday, when we were planning this, my
recollection is - although you may be able to confirm this - that an Antonov
was not going to be available I think until Thursday. Because we are
chartering these aircraft commercially it does depend on when one is
available. The reason I cannot properly answer your question is I do not know
whether if on Saturday we had asked for one, one might have been available on
Monday but I cannot honestly answer that question.
152. I have been in diaster situations many times over the last 15
years and every time I have seen when the military got there some order was
put into the situation. I think the most recent time we saw it was in
Macedonia and Albania and the military got to grips with the situation very
quickly. I have always believed the UK forces should have an immediate role
in emergency disaster relief and I wonder if you agree with that because it
has been put forward by defence analysts such as Paul Beaver, he was asking
that should happen. What is your own view as Secretary of State on that?
(Mr Hoon) Could I say certainly that I think there is a perception in
the country that where there is a crisis of this kind that they want to see
British forces and British equipment used if at all possible. That sometimes
is reinforced by speculation in the media as to what should and should not be
done. I think it is only right to say, consistent with what I said earlier on,
that when the cost of that is considerably more than the cost say of hiring
a helicopter locally, in this case say in South Africa, that is a factor that
inevitably has to be take into account by the Department that is responsible.
As I said earlier, if by Tuesday or Wednesday of that week the water was
receding and there was less need for - Bernie has gone - saving people from
trees then it might well have been that the Department for International
Development would have said "Frankly we no longer need the helicopters to
perform that particular function, we might look elsewhere". It was the
combination of factors and the fact, as you say, that the crisis was getting
worse that then justified what is still a very large amount of money to fly
four helicopters down to Southern Africa. I do not think I can give you a
prescriptive answer to that question, it is always going to depend on the
circumstances but I do recognise that there is a great deal of public feeling
that when the country responds in the way that it has at the individual level,
they also want to see the country responding through the use of its military
personnel and its military assets. Certainly I would want to play my part and
certainly the Ministry of Defence would play its part in that process but
without unduly occurring expenditure that would otherwise be unnecessary.
153. Paul Beaver in his memorandum to us made a few interesting
points which I think you have seen. He said that he thought there had been
a delay and that the UK could provide three immediate sources of aid. He
talked about men and equipment from the Royal Marines.
(Mr Hoon) That was the second option, that was the option of a marine
contingent.
154. Because they have craft which are ideal for work on
floodwater. Then he mentioned personnel and equipment of the UK Joint
Helicopter Command. Then he talked about HMS ILLUSTRIOUS air group. Now if
you had been asked, would you have pitched those resources into the crisis?
(Mr Hoon) There is not a great deal of difference between us in the
sense that the three options that I set out that were worked on on the Monday
were in effect not quite the three options you have described but they were
pretty near to it. Four Puma helicopters, a Marine contingent with boats and
potentially hovercraft, plus instead of HMS ILLUSTRIOUS an auxiliary vessel
which is the Royal Fleet Auxiliary vessel FORT GEORGE which I judged was
appropriate rather than perhaps an aircraft carrier for two reason. Partly
it is capable and is carrying five Sea King helicopters, so we get the benefit
of the aircraft, plus it is a supply ship and it carries fuel, fresh water,
it stopped off actually to pick up medicines on the way to Southern Africa.
Normally when we are dealing with crises of this kind we are - if I can use
this phrase - behind the curve, we are always reacting to events that are
unfolding and, frankly, I suspect that most people would say we are reacting
too slowly. My judgment in the course of that week as far as the auxiliary
vessel was concerned, was that we were going to face different sorts of
problems once the water started to recede, particularly problems with disease
and malnutrition. It did seem to me that although it was going to take, and
I was quoted initially nine days for it to get it there, that at least was a
useful piece of equipment once the water started to go down and we faced
different kinds of problems. In addition to the fresh water and the fuel and
the helicopters it has also a medical theatre on board and six medical staff.
There was an opportunity there, it seemed to me, perhaps to get ahead of the
curve in terms of trying to provide equipment that would address the problems
we were likely to face in Mozambique once the water started to go down.
155. In fact you are saying that if you had been asked earlier you
might have been able to provide those things. I think people who saw the
television pictures will have said "Well the help came too late". If you were
in charge of a rapid reaction force you could make that decision on your own
much earlier presumably on the basis of what people were telling you about the
weather, about the needs and so on.
(Mr Hoon) The request came on the Saturday, we began our planning on
the Monday morning and the three options were identified in the course of
Monday as options that we judged might make a difference and might help. As
I understand it, the specific reason for the request on the Saturday was the
surge of water that made the situation still worse on the Saturday. Certainly
those three options I am sure have proved, certainly in two of the three that
have been deployed, to have made a difference and to have been useful.
156. The FORT GEORGE and the five Sea King helicopters were to
arrive in Mozambique on 9 March. Clare Short told us that there are now 50
helicopters in Mozambique as a result of the international community's belated
response, some are now being withdrawn as unnecessary. Do the Sea Kings now
really have a useful job to do or are they already too late?
(Mr Hoon) Again I think Bernie, before he left, made a reference to
picking people out of trees and a great deal of the initial publicity and
concern, understandably, was people who were waiting to be rescued from
precarious and dangerous positions. The priority rightly was to get
helicopters in to do that work. It is difficult to imagine any other vehicle
doing that as successfully. What has changed is obviously the kind of work
that the helicopters are now doing. There is not the same necessity for search
and rescue as there might have been very early on in the particular phase of
the crisis but certainly helicopters are now providing a very useful function
of carrying food, medical supplies, carrying people, we have carried quite a
lot of people from one part of the country to another in order to make sure
they have access to food and medicines. So there is still a great deal that
helicopters can do. You have seen it, and I have not, but it does seem to me
that a helicopter is a particularly helpful vehicle given the circumstances
on the ground and given what needs to be done.
Chairman: Oona King?
Ms King
157. Thank you, Secretary of State. I recognise the fluidity of
the situation that you were describing but on the premise that any situation
can always be managed better and there can be improvements, and given your
experience of that week, is there any improvement in the way that yourself and
the Department for International Development used to deal with such disasters,
so that when one occurs next week or next year British military personnel will
be there more quickly?
(Mr Hoon) One of the great benefits to me of having available such a
large group of talented military minds is that they always try and learn
lessons from the activities that we engage upon and that process will
certainly be undertaken once the deployment has been completed and we are able
to analyse what has occurred. Given the information I have to date, the two
areas of concern understandably both for the public and for this Committee,
I am sure, are the question of the time taken to respond and the question of
whether discussions about the cost had an impact on that and I have looked
very carefully at that and I can assure the Committee that there was
absolutely no delay caused by any discussion about cost. I hope I have
satisfied the Chairman at least that it is absolutely crucial that some
indication of cost is given to a department in order that it can make the
appropriate policy judgment as to whether in the circumstance that is
necessary. But as to the wider lessons, we will certainly be examining very
carefully these factors. Some of these lessons we know. Tony has made the
point repeatedly, rightly, about heavy lift. That is something you would not
need to remind Secretaries of State for Defence about because it appears
clearly in the Strategic Defence Review. It is a problem which not only the
United Kingdom faces but also our European allies and partners and it is
something that we are seeking to address. I have given the Committee some
indication of the essential problem. I would be delighted to take delivery
of a large number of heavy lift aircraft; unfortunately, someone has to pay
for them.
Mr Worthington
158. Is this part of what you are trying to solve with your
European defence co-operation, particularly with the French that you are
planning a response that will be better in the future?
(Mr Hoon) Certainly the most recent agreement that I was able to sign
in November with my French counterpart is concerned with logistical support.
In every day language what that means is assisting each other with transport,
with equipment, with sharing the assets that we have available, but for the
moment unfortunately we are not sharing very much because the problem is a
common one. Andrew made reference to a future large aircraft and, not
surprisingly, the reason why the future large aircraft project is a joint
European project is because there are lots of Europeans that have very similar
problems to the ones that we have.
159. Could you send us the formula which has now been worked out
with regard to DFID. As I understood it, you are not charging for salaries,
you are charging what I would call marginal costs. Is that right?
(Mr Hoon) That is correct.
160. Can I ask you something that has been suggested to us that
one of the reasons your costs are higher is that your support team is rather
bigger than a commercial support team would be for, for example, your four
Puma helicopters. How many staff are there in Maputo with those helicopters?
(Mr Hoon) Do you know the answer to that, Paul?
(Air Commodore Luker) The package that is directly involved
with the helicopters includes the crew, the engineers, an element of life
support personnel and other ground technical support, a package of load
handlers and also a contingency package which includes the ability to
transport and manage fuel out on the ground, so it is bigger than just the
straightforward operating costs of a commercial concern. The absolute numbers
come to something in the order of 60 people for the whole four aircraft
package. Again, part of that early deployment was while we were waiting for
confirmation from the recce team as to just how much assistance would be
provided by the host nation and would be available in the local economy. So
to satisfy our duty of care responsibilities there is a slightly larger
package than you might see from a commercial concern already operating down
in that part of the world.
161. So it is always going to be more expensive to hire your
services?
(Air Commodore Luker) In those terms in terms of the numbers
I suspect it will tend to be that way because we have to work in advance of
getting confirmatory reports from the recce party if we are to respond in a
timely manner.
(Mr Hoon) I think the other point in contrast to perhaps what might be
available commercially is essentially what we would be offering is a complete
solution. We would be offering a team that could go into almost any situation
irrespective of what was available on the ground, irrespective of the
mechanical facilities available, irrespective of the kind of equipment that
would be available locally. When you talk about the costs commercially I am
not necessarily convinced that you would be comparing like with like.
(Air Commodore Luker) Can I come back on that, Secretary of
State. For example in exactly that context, we deployed environmental health
technicians and medical staff down there as well. That is part of the
holistic approach of dealing with a problem of this sort. It is more than
operating helicopters; it being able to deal with the problems they identify.
162. I understand that but when the Secretary of State for
International Development seeks to get helicopters locally from a commercial
firm the price she will pay for that is less than the package you impose on
the Secretary of State for the same helicopters because you say you have to
take everybody?
(Mr Hoon) They operate as a team, they are organised as a team, they
train and they deploy as a team. Probably at the margins there are things
we could do but, for example, part of it is making sure these people have
somewhere to live whilst they are in Mozambique, that they have someone to
service their aircraft properly. This is not simply a question of hiring them
just to fly the aircraft.
163. No, but the point I am making is marginal costs sound good
but the price you pay is greater than the commercial cost for someone else.
(Mr Hoon) I think it is probably almost impossible to compare like with
like. I do not know, I have never had any experience of how much it costs to
hire a helicopter commercially, it is not something that we very often have
to do, but the reality is that what you are comparing is a highly trained very
effective team who can go into any situation, wherever it happens to be in the
world and do their job. I am not sure you will necessarily find a
commercially available package with which to compare that degree of expertise.
164. If you had been the Secretary of State for International
Development you would probably have made the same choice that she did in that
she was saying it was more expensive to get our forces and it would take
longer?
(Mr Hoon) I made it absolutely clear that in the first phase I would
have taken precisely the same decision she took. I have made that point
already to the Committee because the priority was to get helicopters there as
quickly and - and I recognise that as a factor in this - as cheaply as
possible and that was done. That is why she was absolutely right. I assume
had I had similar information to her I would have taken precisely the same
decision, but the point about the military deployment was that the situation
was not improving and at that stage clearly because of the very considerable
extra cost she made a judgment that it was then appropriate to use these extra
helicopters that we could make available. But I think that is an appropriate
process of decision making. I do not have any doubts about the fact that she
was right to do it in that way.
Mr Jones
165. Can I ask you about the ship, the Fort George, which is now
in the region. How is it going to be used in the light of recent events? Is
it going to be in Mozambique or are you going to send it to Madagascar? Are
you going to charge? If so, how much? If it goes to Madagascar does that
come in a different budgetary discussion?
(Mr Hoon) The charge off the top of my head was œ1.4 million, ball-park
figure. For the moment at any rate it is providing support as far as
Mozambique is concerned. I do not think we have yet had a request to move
into Madagascar.
(Air Commodore Luker) We have examined moving it to Madagascar
but the DFID advice and direction is that they think the greater need is in
Mozambique. It is today working off Beira offloading stores and will then
move south down to the Save River to work there which is an area that is more
difficult for other helicopters to reach.
(Mr Hoon) Its great advantage is that it is not only packed full of
equipment and supplies, it also has the helicopters in addition, so it is a
very useful piece of equipment and is making a real difference.
Chairman
166. Particularly in that area which I understand is likely not
only to be subject to further floods as it is still raining in the hills and
mountains behind but also subject to further cyclones.
(Mr Hoon) As far as Madagascar is concerned the policy lead for these
decisions rests with the Department for International Department. It is
rather the same question I had asked earlier, you would not think it right if
we took unilateral decisions as to where we would deploy a ship without the
views and the decisions of the Department for International Development.
Mr Jones
167. Is there a time limit on how long that boat can stay there
within the œ1.4 million?
(Mr Hoon) I think we initially made it available for 14 days but,
again, we are in a position to be able to review the situation, and to
determine whether it can continue to provide assistance. Clearly half the
battle will depend on how long its stores last, how much fuel it has got, how
much fresh water it has got available and whether it can continue to do a
useful job, but we will monitor that situation when we get nearer to the end
of the 14-day period.
Mr Khabra
168. Why was NATO not involved in this humanitarian effort? Is it
the case that NATO is only interested in military operations?
(Mr Hoon) No it is not but - rather back to the Chairman's earlier
point - NATO is very good at planning military operations. We do not yet have
the kind of sophisticated operation around the world that allows for
humanitarian crisis planning and, frankly, that is why we are often behind the
curve and why we do not have assets necessarily available as quickly as we
might like them to be.
Mr Robathan
169. There has been much greater involvement in humanitarian aid
by military forces over the last few years. I notice the Strategic Defence
Review particularly said there was a role for the military "to respond to
poverty and inequality and human suffering". Given that and given that I
suspect you agree with me that the armed forces bring an unusual perhaps
unique resource to situations such as Mozambique, would you consider it was
a useful training role for the armed forces when you sent these Pumas to
Mozambique? Furthermore, do you think that this is quite good for the armed
forces in that it is welcomed by those involved and by those doing the
planning as well?
(Mr Hoon) I can only give you an equivocal answer in the sense that it
will depend. It will depend both on what precisely they are doing, their own
level of expertise as well as how long the situation lasts for. In the short
term, I do not think we make many judgments of that kind as to responding when
we do and want to do to the kind of disaster we have seen in Mozambique. I
am not sure we are looking very carefully as to what training they might
otherwise get but as the situation goes on, as it is likely to do, training
does become a factor because inevitably if they are doing something which is
not what would be their core responsibility for a prolonged period of time
that inevitably affects their war fighting capability. That is why we engage
on exercises and training to ensure they can do, frankly, what the country
employs them do, which is to be prepared to fight wars.
170. I entirely sympathise with that, but flying in difficult
circumstances in unusual terrain and climatic conditions, would that not be
quite a good training role for helicopter pilots?
(Mr Hoon) Yes it was and that was why I was able to go to the Treasury
and say, "Look, in these particular exceptional circumstances we can
substitute the costs of the exercise in Norway and reduce the cost
accordingly." That is why it has to be judged in all the circumstances. I
cannot give you a prescriptive approach that will deal with every situation
because they might have been doing a very different type of training. Some
people might from a pure military view say that the training they were doing
in Norway was NATO training. It meant working with other countries, other
nationalities, using different languages, trying to work through on operation
which they may get some experience of in Mozambique but not enough. These are
judgments that have to be made in all the circumstances.
171. I am sure they will be learning some Portuguese anyway. If
the deployment lasts will there become a problem with overstretch or
over-commitment that will get pushed out of the way?
(Mr Hoon) I always have to take account of the effect on the people
concerned of the decisions that the Government takes. We have faced
difficulties in recent times about overstretch and it is a factor that I have
to take into account. Frankly, on this occasion there was an overriding
reason for having these people go there and they themselves would have been
the first to say that whatever pressures they have faced in recent times of
repeated deployments that they would have wanted to go.
172. They would have been in Norway anyway if they were not?
(Mr Hoon) Yes, they would have been in Norway anyway.
173. Could you explain the assessment process that the MoD went
through for Mozambique and in general as well. We understand that DFID did
an assessment of the situation in Mozambique in early February, about the 11
February I think it was. The MoD sent out a subsequent team in early March.
First of all, it seems that since DFID was paying for the helicopters'
deployment, the marginal costs at least, could you not have used the DFID
assessment? Did this not lead to just another delay in the deployment of
resources out there?
(Mr Hoon) There were in a sense two roles. The team we sent out on the
Tuesday night, that was Tuesday 29 February, was essentially going there to
examine the circumstances in which potentially - and the Marines decision had
not been taken at that stage - they would be deployed plus the helicopters
would be operating so that they were looking at the situation on the ground
so far as what it meant in practical terms and what kind of equipment we
needed to send with the helicopters and the Marines. So it was a very
practical exercise in judging what we needed to find on the ground in order
to be able to send people in there. One of the practical things that we had
to look at, for example - back to heavy lift - was whether we could get an
Antonov anywhere near there because, as you will know, they require enormous
runways in order to be able to land. There are not that many airstrips around
the world where you can land them compared to landing a smaller heavy lift
aircraft.
174. Where did it land in fact?
(Mr Hoon) In northern South Africa in Hootsbrut (?) which is a South
African Air Force base.
175. In this burgeoning or this growing involvement in
humanitarian relief do you involve DFID at all in training troops for
humanitarian operations, what used to be called military assistance civilian
part.
(Mr Hoon) Certainly there is a great deal of contact between the two
Departments and when British forces are deployed on essentially humanitarian
tasks they will work closely with representatives for the Department for
International Development, yes.
176. But there is no training done with DFID representatives. Is
there any input by the Department for International Development?
(Air Commodore Luker) There are a number of places where DFID
do participate in training with us, for example at the Royal Military College
of Science at Shrivenham. They participate in some of the courses and
seminars that are run there. We do other practical work on the ground with
them as well - in Sierra Leone there was a joint team looking at security
sector reform - so we do work extensively with them and they undertake some
of our training with us.
177. Okay. In the medium term there are going to be lots of
problems in Mozambique, as we can see. Do you think it is likely that the MoD
might be asked and might get involved in further crises out there? I am
particularly thinking of whether or not you might be involved in mine
clearance. After all, a lot of mines, as you know, have been swept down the
rivers with the floods and also perhaps in engineering assistance in bridge
building. Would you be sympathetic to requests?
(Mr Hoon) You are asking me to speculate about a situation that has not
yet arisen, but I am sure that we would want to try and help if at all
possible, if we had the resources, if we had at people available and if we
could make a difference, but I think that rather depends on what the situation
is like once, frankly, the water has receded and the situation in Mozambique
gets to the phase where we are thinking about reconstruction rather than
simply saving people from the immediate catastrophe.
Chairman
178. You intrigued me, Secretary of State, that you decided to
send on Tuesday the 29th a team to do a recce, as I understand it. At that
time I think you also told us that the Department for International
Development said that you were too expensive and therefore you were not
needed. So did you send this in anticipation of the fact that the Department
would wish to come back to you?
(Mr Hoon) One of the things that they actually recommended when they
did report back was the Marine group perhaps was by then less necessary than
it might earlier have been, so one of their recommendations in fact was that
perhaps was something that was not absolutely necessary. Before you send any
helicopter team into a situation it is very important that you know where the
carrying aircraft can land and indeed what should happen on the ground.
179. So you sent this team in in case you might be needed. Is
that right?
(Mr Hoon) Yes.
180. You were trying to anticipate, and I think you used the term,
get ahead of the curve?
(Mr Hoon) Yes.
Chairman: I see. Thank you very much. Ann Clwyd?
Ann Clwyd
181. Can I put to you, Secretary of State, a point made in the
memo by Christian Aid. They talk about the challenge for the twenty-first
century, and it is a government not a departmental policy document, and that
says: "In responding to emergencies we aim to provide swift, appropriate and
cost-effective transport and material and technical assistance based on an
analysis of actual need. The UK's capacity to respond to disasters overseas
will be strengthened by tackling that reservoir of available skills, by
building new partnerships ... to ensure that all players are used to their
best competitive advantage. In all disaster work our responsibility must be,
first and foremost, to those affected." Do you think that the experience and
response to the Mozambique floods indicates that in practice there may still
be a lack of joined-up thinking across departments of government and perhaps
even a lack of cross-government commitment to implementing the policies spelt
out in that White Paper?
(Mr Hoon) No, I do not. I am sure that when we analyse, as we will do
in detail, what has taken place and what is continuing to occur in Mozambique,
there will be improvements we can make. We always learn lessons from these
situations. In terms of the generality of your question, I do not believe
that we could have got there more quickly. The only helicopters that were
flying in Mozambique before British helicopters arrived were from Malawi and
South Africa, so I think that is a practical indication of how quickly and how
joined-up was our response that notwithstanding the fact that they had to come
from the United Kingdom to Southern Africa they were deployed ahead of
helicopters from any other countries other than those immediately in the
regional neighbourhood.
Chairman
182. Secretary of State, I think you have cleared up an awful lot
of misunderstandings this morning in a way which will help us come to a
balanced and sensible conclusion on the events in Mozambique. It is quite
clear that the British Government and I think the British people as a whole
have wanted to help as much as we could possibly do and we were there and
helping and I think that that should be borne mind by any commentators. Thank
you very much indeed, both yourself and your team, for coming and explaining
to us and to Parliament and to Britain what was going on.
(Mr Hoon) Could I in turn thank you for the courtesy of your questions.
Chairman: Thank you very much.
