House of Commons
Wednesday 28 January 2004
The House met at half-past Eleven o'clock
PRAYERS
[Mr. Speaker in the Chair]
PRIVATE BUSINESS
London Local Authorities Bill [Lords]. (By Order)
Order read for resuming adjourned debate on Question,
- That the promoters of the London Local Authorities Bill [Lords] may, notwithstanding anything in the Standing Orders or practice of this House, proceed with the Bill in the present Session; and the Petition for the Bill shall be deemed to have been deposited and all Standing Orders applicable to it shall be deemed to have been complied with;
That, if the Bill is brought from the Lords in the present Session, a declaration signed by the agent shall be deposited in the Private Bill Office, stating that the Bill is the same in every respect as the Bill brought from the Lords in the last Session;
That the Clerk in the Private Bill Office shall lay upon the Table of the House a certificate, that such a declaration has been deposited;
That in the present session the Bill shall be deemed to have passed through every stage through which it passed in the last Session, and shall be recorded in the Journal of the House as having passed those stages;
That no further fees shall be charged to such stages.—[The Chairman of Ways and Means.]
To be considered on Wednesday 4 February.
DR. DAVID KELLY
- 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 Report into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly CMG.—[Margaret Moran.]
Speaker's Statement
11.34 am
Mr. Speaker: I have a statement to make.
Right hon. and hon. Members will be aware that Lord Hutton is due to publish his report later this morning on his investigation into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr. David Kelly. I am aware of the considerable interest in Lord Hutton's findings. In those exceptional circumstances, I have agreed that the Prime Minister may make a statement on this matter this afternoon. The statement will take place at a convenient moment after 2 pm.
Oral Answers to Questions
DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
The Secretary of State was asked—
Millennium Development Targets
1. David Cairns (Greenock and Inverclyde) (Lab): What progress is being made with the millennium development target to make available the benefits of information and communications technologies to people in developing countries. [151163]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Gareth Thomas): Good progress is being made in many developing countries in spreading the benefits of information and communications technology to their people. For example, people in developing countries now own 46 per cent. of all mobile phones, with countries such as Uganda seeing user numbers double each year. By the end of June last year, the number of internet users in China had risen to 68 million. That represents just 5.3 per cent. of the population, so it also demonstrates the considerable challenge that still remains to spread the benefits of ICT throughout developing countries.
David Cairns : I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. A couple of weeks ago, Martin McCluskey, a young constituent, went to Ghana as part of his gap year in order to teach villagers in a very rural part of the country how to use the computers that they had had for some time, but had lacked the experience and training to make them work. Does my hon. Friend agree that computing technology is a vital development tool, but that there is no point in providing people with computers if we do not also provide the training and expertise to make them work? What help and assistance can the Government give to voluntary schemes such as the one Martin is on, and what direct assistance can the Minister's Department provide for training and knowledge-based skills?
Mr. Thomas: I commend my hon. Friend's constituent for going out to Ghana to work and provide training for people in the village. The House owes a debt of gratitude to the many volunteers who go out from this country to developing countries, and to the work of organisations such as the Voluntary Services Organisation, with which we are working closely in Ghana to provide information on how to use ICT there. We are also working directly with the Ghana education service to help it to use ICT to deliver better access to the curriculum for 30,000 untrained teachers in the country, so that the quality of education in Ghana can improve significantly.
Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con): Will the Minister join me in praising the work of Cisco Systems, which, together with the International Telecommunication Union, is establishing more than 20 internet training centres in developing countries? Will the Minister assure
the House, however, that, important as it is to try to reduce the digital divide, it will not take away resources from the important fight against HIV/AIDS in developing countries?
Mr. Thomas: I join the hon. Gentleman in paying tribute to the work not only of the particular company to which he referred, but to a whole series of private sector companies that are seeing what they can do to invest in ICT across the developing world. We need to play our part in the international community to ensure that the regulatory system is such that companies are keen to invest. I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we view ICT as a way of spreading messages to help in the fight against HIV/AIDS, so there is no need for the two to be mutually exclusive.
Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon) (Lab): If we are to meet this and all the other development targets, there will need to be a massive increase in overseas aid and assistance. When does my hon. Friend believe that we might reach the target of 0.7 per cent. of gross domestic product on overseas aid? Given that Norway, Denmark, Sweden and the Netherlands have topped that target for several years, should we not be able to reach it, too?
Mr. Thomas: My hon. Friend will know that we remain committed to the 0.7 per cent. target. We believe that we will have reached 0.4 per cent. by 2005–06, when the budget for international development will have risen to £4.5 billion. My hon. Friend will also know how much that contrasts with the record of the Conservatives, who saw moneys on international development halved in their 18 years in office.
Southern Asia (HIV/AIDS)
2. James Purnell (Stalybridge and Hyde) (Lab): If he will make a statement on the growth of HIV/AIDS in southern Asia. [151164]
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr. Gareth Thomas): HIV/AIDS is a critical development issue for south Asia. At over 4 million, India has the second largest number of HIV infections of any country in the world. If current rates of growth continue, there may be 25 million people infected in that country alone by 2010. Although numbers of people infected with HIV in other south Asian countries remain low, the conditions are in place for a rapid increase in transmission without comprehensive action. The recent "Call for Action on HIV/AIDS", which the Government published on 1 December, recognises the importance of action in south Asia to achieve a more effective global response to this epidemic.
James Purnell : I thank my hon. Friend for that answer. As he says, it is possible that by 2010 India will have more cases than anywhere else in the world. Does he agree that the world needs to focus as much on Asia as on Africa, because a similar potential tragedy is happening in Asia? In particular, what are the Government doing to work with the Indian
Government to reduce the impact on India, and with neighbouring countries to try to reduce the spread of this disease to Bangladesh and Pakistan?
Mr. Thomas: My hon. Friend is right: there is a window of opportunity at the moment to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS in south Asia so that it does not reach the levels in sub-Saharan Africa in particular. We are funding the National AIDS Control Organisation of India to the tune of £123 million and are working with it closely on the design of a more effective strategy. We are also working closely with similar AIDS-control organisations in Pakistan and Bangladesh, and shortly will be doing the same in Nepal. South Asian countries themselves are beginning to recognise the importance of further work on HIV/AIDS. We need to see their Governments taking more of a lead in the fight to prevent discrimination and stigma from halting and inhibiting the fight against HIV/AIDS.
Tom Brake (Carshalton and Wallington) (LD): In 2002, the Prime Minister pledged that Africa would be a priority in his second term of government. With an HIV/AIDS pandemic threatening in southern Asia, and with African populations devastated by HIV/AIDS, it is now time for the Prime Minister to turn his words into more decisive action. Does the Minister agree that making international development a priority of the United Kingdom presidencies of the EU and the G8 would give the international community the impetus it needs to pre-empt a disaster in southern Asia and make decisive, positive changes in Africa?
Mr. Thomas: I am sure that the hon. Gentleman would want to congratulate this Government on the fact that there has been a sevenfold increase since 1997 in the amount of money we are spending to tackle the spread of HIV/AIDS. As he knows, we are committed to spending £1 billion in Africa by 2005–06. As for the £320 million that has not yet been allocated, we have said that we shall make HIV/AIDS a priority for that spend. I am sure that there will be further discussions about this during our presidencies of the G8 and the European Union.
Tony Worthington (Clydebank and Milngavie) (Lab): What steps are being taken to avoid making the mistakes in south Asia that were made in Africa? I am thinking particularly of mother-to-child transmission. What steps are being taken to ensure that reproductive health services and the AIDS services are brought closer together to stop the tragic transmission of HIV from mothers to children?
Mr. Thomas: My hon. Friend will be aware that the issue of mother-to-child transmission has been a big problem in the spread of HIV/AIDS in southern Africa. We are working very closely with south Asian Governments in designing effective prevention programmes that will prevent the mistakes that were made in tackling the HIV/AIDS epidemic earlier in Africa from occurring in south Asia.
Mother-to-child transmission is one of the issues on which we are working with Governments and AIDS-control organisations in southern Asian states. It is an
issue that we are continuing to talk very closely about with the Governments, because political leadership is at the absolute heart of a strong response in southern Asia.
Alistair Burt (North-East Bedfordshire) (Con): The Minister will be aware that there have been some claims recently that the number of people affected in Africa is not as great as was once claimed. Bearing in mind the importance of that, the difficulty of ensuring accuracy, and the crucial importance of maintaining confidence in what is happening, is the hon. Gentleman certain that there is a good system in place for measuring accurately the number of people involved, so that we do not get a fuss about claim and counter-claim, which is currently affecting confidence in tackling the disease in Africa?
Mr. Thomas: It is certainly true that there have been a number of expressions of concern about the statistics. We are confident that the statistics used by UNAIDS—the Joint United Nations Programme on HIV/ AIDS—which we use in order to understand the HIV/AIDS epidemic, are accurate. The continuing worry about the level of the statistics is a matter of concern, but we need to get on with scaling up our response and the response of the international community, instead of worrying about the concerns of a small number of people about the statistics.
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