House of Commons
Wednesday 19 December 2001
The House met at half-past Two o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
INTERIM REPORT ON THE ENGLISH NATIONAL STADIUM
- That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, That she will be graciously pleased to give directions that there be laid before this House a Return of the Interim Report made by Mr. Patrick Carter in December 2001 in respect of the English National Stadium Review.—[Mr. Caborn.]
Oral Answers to Questions
INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The Secretary of State was asked—
Pre-Budget Statement
1. Mr. Simon Thomas (Ceredigion): If she will make a statement on the implications for her Department's spending plans of the pre-Budget statement. [21882]
The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): The pre-Budget statement committed my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to increase significantly the amount of our development aid and its share of national income. Details will be worked out as part of the spending review over the coming year. I hope that hon. Members in all parts of the House will support a substantial increase in spending, for reasons of moral decency as well as of the safety and the security of the world.
Mr. Thomas: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. I certainly give her my support for what was contained in the pre-Budget statement. I know that the right hon. Lady will do her best to spend the money wisely.
Another wish shared by hon. Members of all parties is that our spending on overseas development should be raised to 0.7 per cent. of gross domestic product. The Chancellor said that the percentage of GDP that we spend on overseas development would rise, but what is the timetable for achieving that target? Will it be achieved in this Parliament?
Clare Short: I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his support for increasing the aid budget. Successive British Governments have committed themselves to reaching the target of 0.7 per cent. of GDP. The previous Labour Government reached 0.5 per cent. The level was 0.26 per cent. when I came back and we are on our way
to 0.33 per cent. We do not have a timetable for the 0.7 per cent. target. As we go to the United Nations conference on financing for development, to be held at Monterey, many non-governmental organisations and other countries say that every country committed to that target should give a timetable. The debate is useful, but the UK has not yet set a timetable.
Mr. John McFall (Dumbarton): I congratulate my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Chancellor of the Exchequer on the work that they have done at international level on this issue, and especially on the way in which they have brought to the fore in this country the need to assist developing countries around the world. However, my right hon. Friend will know that there are still more than 1.2 million people living in absolute poverty. Would not it be symbolic if the UK could say that it would achieve the target of 0.7 per cent. of GDP within a certain time? Will my right hon. Friend take that message as a matter of urgency to the Cabinet table and to my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor, so that we can consolidate the good work done to date and ensure that the developed countries achieve by 2015 the targets laid out by my right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Chancellor?
Clare Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I should be delighted to take the messages expressed by him and by the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr. Thomas) to the Cabinet table and to my right hon. Friends the Prime Minister and the Chancellor. I shall make sure that that is done.
We need to improve both the quantity and quality of aid. The World Bank and ex-President Zedillo of Mexico have done studies to determine the amount of resources that should be devoted to aid and how those resources should be used to invest in creating the conditions in which poor countries can grow their economies and provide better services for their people. To meet the millennium development targets, current resources must be doubled. At present, there is $55 billion worth of overseas development aid in the world system, and the estimate is that twice that amount is needed.
The value of the amount of aid resource contained in the budgets of other countries could be increased. That is not true of the UK, but the European Union budget, for example, is not as effective as it could be because of the way funds are tied or misdirected away from where the poor people and the reformers are. To meet the targets to which the whole world has signed up, the amount of resources devoted to aid must be doubled. We in this country have our duties, but we must also mobilise the international community to be more serious.
Norman Lamb (North Norfolk): Sustainable development and the reduction of poverty are the key objectives of the Department and of the Secretary of State's budgetary and spending plans. What account has the right hon. Lady taken of the consequences for sustainable development in Tanzania of the determination of the Ministry of Defence to push through the sale of the BAE
Systems military air traffic control system, which costs £28 million? Does not the episode demonstrate a failure of joined-up Government?
Clare Short: I can tell the hon. Gentleman that I have taken deep and full account of that matter. However, I am not in a position to make an announcement today.
Glenda Jackson (Hampstead and Highgate): My right hon. Friends the Secretary of State and the Chancellor have done remarkable work in winning the argument about tackling real poverty in the developing world, with the result that a policy of debt relief has followed in train. However, does not my right hon. Friend think that the Government's influence at the Monterey conference may be reduced by the current confusion over the proposed sale to Tanzania of a vastly expensive and utterly unnecessary air traffic control system?
Clare Short: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for everything that she has said. I shall make sure that her message is conveyed to the appropriate quarters.
Zimbabwe
2. Mr. Stephen O'Brien (Eddisbury): If she will make a statement on the measures taken by her Department to encourage free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. [21883]
6. Mr. Graham Brady (Altrincham and Sale, West): If she will make a statement on her Department's efforts to ensure free and fair elections in Zimbabwe. [21887]
The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): The Government are working with the international community to try to ensure that free and fair elections are held in Zimbabwe. My Department has provided support for civic education programmes and the training of independent election monitors. However, recent developments have been very worrying, as the House knows. The economic and political situation in Zimbabwe continues to deteriorate and is causing great suffering and a terrible growth in poverty.
Mr. O'Brien: I thank the Secretary of State for that answer. Crucial as the freedom and fairness of Zimbabwean elections in April next year are, what are the right hon. Lady and her Government doing before then to penalise Robert Mugabe's tyranny in having declared war upon the opposition, which could lead to a Rwanda-type genocide? What, in particular, does she say to the Zimbabwean farmer who has written to my hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Mrs. Gillan)? The letter says:
- "For every day that this situation here is merely a point of discussion in the corridors of world powers, more men, women and children will be deprived of their lives, their dignity, their homes and livelihoods and their basic rights as humans."
The United Kingdom is engaged in trying to contain the situation and get a commitment to free and fair elections and reform. The European Union is fully engaged, as is the Commonwealth, the Southern African Development Community and the surrounding neighbouring countries. However, I am sad to say that the country continues to deteriorate.
Mr. Peter Pike (Burnley): How can the Government ensure that the ordinary people of Zimbabwe do not suffer more as a result of the actions that we take to ensure that the elections next year are free and fair? We are quite rightly worried about the direction in which events are moving in Zimbabwe, but action can mean that the hard pressed whom we most want to help suffer the most.
Clare Short: There has been some criticism of this, but we have a big HIV/AIDS programme in Zimbabwe. Some people say that we should cut off our entire aid programme completely, but I think that that is wrong. People are already suffering because of misgovernment, and we should not inflict further punishment on them. We must make sure that we do nothing to strengthen the Government's misbehaviour, which we are trying to do. We are also doing all in our power to ensure that the elections will be free and fair, but there are worrying signs that they may not be.
Mr. Brady: If the Mugabe regime uses force to prevent free and fair elections in the spring of next year, does the Secretary of State agree that it would be entirely inappropriate and would send out the wrong signals if Zimbabwe were to be welcomed as one of the civilised nations competing in the Commonwealth games in Manchester in the summer of next year?
Clare Short: I think that all of us who care about the people of Zimbabwe and the future of Africa must do everything in our power to ensure that there are free and fair elections and that outside observers are present, and so on. There are great worries about that, but we should not prepare for failure. [Interruption.] We should not; and it is not funny. We should do our best to succeed, because preparing for failure means that we tend not to try to succeed. The Commonwealth is actively engaged in considering not only what happens at the Commonwealth games but at Commonwealth conferences. The Commonwealth and the CMAG—the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group—are meeting to decide what the Commonwealth is going to do about the situation in Zimbabwe.
Hugh Bayley (City of York): Although I share the concern of Members on both sides of the House about the political situation in Zimbabwe, can I impress on my right hon. Friend the importance of working through international bodies such as the Commonwealth and the SADC? If we act alone, there is a danger of letting Mugabe off the hook by allowing him to accuse us of playing the role of an ex-colonial power. It would be wrong to give him that ammunition against the opposition
in Zimbabwe, so will my right hon. Friend confirm that we will do what we can through international organisations?
Clare Short: I agree with my hon. Friend. The story that President Mugabe tells his people is that he got on really well with the Conservative party when it was in government, but that the wretched Labour Government does not co-operate with him in the way the Conservative party used to. The story then goes that there should be land redistribution in Zimbabwe, which there should be, and the delay is somehow blamed on the Government. That is a piece of nonsense, of course—we strongly support land redistribution, but it must be transparent and focus on the needs of the landless or of those living in overcrowded communal lands. That is President Mugabe's story to his people. He is using land hunger to excuse what he is doing. It is very important that the whole international community be involved in pressing Zimbabwe to hold free and fair elections, and that Mugabe is not allowed to pretend that this is just an issue between Zimbabwe and a former colonial power.
Mr. Nick Hawkins (Surrey Heath): Does not the right hon. Lady understand how many of our constituents have families who are the victims of Mugabe and his thugs? All her fine words do not produce action to deter Mugabe, and many Conservative Members and our constituents have long memories. We remember how many leading spokesmen for the right hon. Lady's party encouraged Mugabe for years while he was coming to power. The party that she represents should not treat with terrorists and tyrants.
Clare Short: The hon. Gentleman is very silly to make such a foolish argument. Mugabe was elected by the people of Zimbabwe. As a Government, we support democracy and the right of people to elect their own Government—[Interruption.] The hon. Gentleman says, "Look what we've got". The people of Zimbabwe elected President Mugabe. Members on the Conservative Front Bench are not allowed to tell the people of Zimbabwe which Government they should have—that is what caused all the bitterness in the independence struggle in Zimbabwe in the first place.
I understand that some people in this country have relatives in Zimbabwe about whom they are worried. There are also Zimbabwean refugees in this country and they too are worried. People throughout the rural areas and in the towns of Zimbabwe are worried and I am worried on behalf of all of them—not just some of them.
David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire): Is not Mr. Mugabe's planned public order and security legislation worse than anything that was seen in colonial Zimbabwe and apartheid South Africa? Will it not effectively remove freedom of movement, speech and association and is not that an appalling backdrop to free and fair elections?
Clare Short: As I have said, the situation in Zimbabwe is extremely worrying. People are being oppressed, violence is being used, the rule of law is not being honoured, the economy is in a desperate state, poverty is growing and the country has the worst incidence of HIV/AIDS in the world. We are anticipating elections, but
there are deep worries throughout the international community that they will not be free and fair. Everything about the country is worrying. We are all doing everything in our power to ensure that the elections are free and fair, but that cannot be easily done—whatever nonsense is spoken on the Opposition Front Bench.
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