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Mr. Peter Luff (Mid-Worcestershire): Does my hon. Friend agree that the oil-for-food programme does enormously more than just provide food? The consequences of losing that programme will be devastating in terms not only of food but of medicines, transport, telecommunications, infrastructure and water supply. It will affect the lot.

Mrs. Spelman: My hon. Friend is right. The programme extends to the infrastructure requirements of the country and I shall deal with that matter.

Will the Secretary of State shed light on why more than $4 billion in oil revenues remain unspent in United Nations accounts when that has been allocated to humanitarian programmes in Iraq? Will the right hon. Lady investigate whether it would be possible to secure that money to fund vital humanitarian programmes in Iraq in the event of war? It seems absurd that Iraqis are living in appalling poverty and misery while $4 billion lies unspent in UN accounts. Those are the profits from the sale of Iraqi oil and they must now be used to help the Iraqi people.

Mr. Salmond: Will the hon. Lady give way now?

Mrs. Spelman: I hope that the hon. Gentleman is going to ask me about refugees.

Mr. Salmond: I am. Is the hon. Lady aware that a nine-year-old Kurdish girl who fled persecution in Iraq a year ago has been successful in winning the prestigious Bridgeton Burns club award from Sighthill primary school in that area of Glasgow, which is an inspirational example of what can be achieved if asylum seekers' children are educated in local schools? The question is a serious one. What purpose would it serve for a similar child escaping persecution in Iraq or elsewhere to be locked up in a detention centre?

Mrs. Spelman: I am sure that I may extend my congratulations to that Iraqi girl through the hon. Gentleman, who I sincerely hope will pass on that

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message from all of us. He is aware, I am sure, that there is probably not one Member of Parliament who has not had to deal in his or her surgery with the case of an Iraqi asylum seeker. They are the largest group of asylum seekers in this country. I reiterate that we firmly believe that we need to be in a position to offer a safe haven to genuine refugees.

My hon. Friend the Member for Salisbury (Mr. Key) recently asked the Secretary of State how much her Department would provide towards the UN appeal for basic readiness funding in the light of a possible war in Iraq. Her answer was that she was

"not making funding available at this stage."—[Official Report, 20 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 26W.]

She may not be doing so at this stage, but surely officials from her Department are making some calculations as to how much it is going to cost. Can the right hon. Lady tell us today how much her Department expects to contribute to this crisis and what impact she expects the war in Iraq to have on other programmes that the Department funds in other parts of the world?

I am sure that the right hon. Lady shares my concern that a war in Iraq will disrupt the valuable work of her Department in Africa, Asia and other parts of the middle east. I hope, therefore, that she will actively encourage her counterparts in other countries, in particular European Union countries, to pay their fair share.

Resolution 1441 won unanimous support from the UN. I see nothing wrong in saying that those countries that choose not to make a military contribution to this important stage of the war against terrorism should be willing to make a more significant contribution to the aid effort. After the events of 11 September, we were promised a global alliance against terrorism. We need to keep working to make that coalition as wide and strong as ever. If our fellow European countries are unwilling or unable to send troops to Iraq, surely they should play their part by bearing a considerable portion of the burden of aiding the Iraqi people. France and Germany cannot be mere spectators on the war on terrorism.

In November last year, I held a forum in Westminster, attended by 17 aid agencies that operate in Iraq or on its borders. The forum was addressed by Larry Hollingworth, a UN emergency co-ordinator with considerable experience of working in conflict situations. Together, we identified the key elements of a comprehensive humanitarian response to a war in Iraq. I sent the Secretary of State a list of our conclusions, and a few weeks later received a meagre four and a half line reply, thanking me for my thoughts. That was hardly the reassurance that I sought from the Secretary of State.

One of the primary conclusions that we reached in the forum concerned the absolute necessity of good co-ordination within the UN and between the UN and the non-governmental organisations. We also recognised the overwhelming importance of good co-ordination between the military campaign and the aid effort. Strong civil-military liaison is vital to an effective aid effort. However, on Friday, the Financial Times reported that a humanitarian operations centre, which was supposed to have opened in Kuwait on 15 January, had been delayed and was not now due to open until February—the eve of a possible war.

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The Secretary of State was quite willing to attack poor levels of co-ordination during the Afghan campaign. In November 2001, she told the Select Committee on International Development, with her typical candour, that the US military was not taking the aid effort seriously. She said:

"The civil-military liaison is not working particularly well. The communications are there, but they are not being taken seriously enough at a high level".

When my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Devon (Mr. Streeter), asked the Secretary of State for Defence on Monday what discussions about humanitarian work in Iraq he was having with the Secretary of State for International Development, he refused to answer the question and said:

"I do not want to go into the details of . . . planning of the kind he mentions, because that implies the inevitability of military action."—[Official Report, 27 January 2003; Vol. 398, c. 558.]

That is not a satisfactory response. Military action should be our last resort, but that should not stop us from planning ahead for all eventualities. Is the Secretary of State for International Development now able to say what practical measures have been introduced to bring about greater co-ordination of the military and humanitarian forces than was the case during the war in Afghanistan?

Last October, Ali Hasmati, a UN information officer in Baghdad told the French Press Agency that the UN was making no preparation for how it would continue to deliver aid in the event of conflict. He said:

"We don't have anything materialised so far because we have no indications that any of what you said"

—about war—

"is going to happen and we still hope that things will be solved diplomatically and politically".

In a similar vein, in a written answer on 15 October last year, the Secretary of State told me that she was not actively discussing a humanitarian strategy for Iraq with the UN, the US or the European Union.

It is surely not acceptable for the Department for International Development to adopt an ostrich stance, sticking its head in the sand and hoping that war will never happen. There are leaked UN reports of UN contingency planning, but at the end of last month still no funds had been made available for even the basic preparations to begin. The Foreign Secretary admitted this week that war is now likely—something confirmed by President Bush's "state of the union" address.

The Gulf war caught the international community unprepared: we should learn from our mistakes. The Government need to be actively preparing a comprehensive military strategy to assist the people of Iraq in the event of conflict. We could be at war within two months, so there should be some well-advanced plans firmly in place by now. Food and vaccines should be stockpiled on the borders. Alternatives to the oil-for-food programme should have been found, and strong co-ordination between the military campaign and the humanitarian effort should have been firmly established. The Secretary of State should at least have an estimate of the commitment that her Department may make to a possible emergency and the impact that it will have on the rest of her Department's work.

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Above all, there is the moral imperative to help the Iraqi people. We are a rich nation and so is the US. We have chosen to stand shoulder to shoulder with the US in our own national interest, but we should not eschew the responsibility of reaching out to the innocents who may be caught up in the consequences of our actions. My cherished hope is that war can be avoided, but my conscience will not be clear until I am satisfied that the Government have proper plans for humanitarian relief.

2.36 pm

The Secretary of State for International Development (Clare Short): I am grateful to the Opposition for providing the opportunity to hold a debated focused on the humanitarian situation in Iraq and the risks to the Iraqi people of any possible military conflict. I hope that, with the permission of the House, I can also respond to the debate, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary is attending her mother-in-law's funeral. I hope that my request will be acceptable to the House.

I have to tell the hon. Member for Meriden (Mrs. Spelman) that this debate is enormously important and it is overdue, but the sort of petty point-scoring way in which she spoke is regrettable. [Hon. Members: "Oh, come on."] No, I am being very serious. I would have liked an opportunity to discuss these matters on the Floor of the House before. The usual channels did not provide that opportunity. I wonder whether she is aware of what the usual channels on her side are saying about her declining opportunities to say anything on the Floor of the House. She might want to look into those matters.

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