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2.08 pm
The Earl of Sandwich: My Lords, the noble Viscount has opened a fascinating debate which I hope will be continued, if not today then in the future. If I might begin with Afghanistan, our casualties there and the tragedies of every family that has suffered remain uppermost in our minds. Coalition forces, especially the British, US and Canadian soldiers in Helmand, have felt exponential losses this year; many people, me included, want to see at least a partial withdrawal from the front line and a rethink of our present strategy.
We must put our own losses in perspective too. The Afghan people have suffered; their soldiers and police have borne increasing casualties, and we should remember that the number of civilians killed has also risen sharply. Most of these civilians die from suicide or roadside bombings but, according to UNAMA, two out of five were killed by coalition and Afghan forces last year.
I return to the reasons for our invasion in 2001. The Government constantly emphasise terrorism and homeland security, but I also remember the genuine public sympathy for the victims of the Taliban and the determination to rebuild what it had destroyed. Under the Bonn agreement of 2001, we solemnly pledged billions of pounds to reconstruct the country. We have done a lot of it: cities, transport and infrastructure have been rebuilt. Critics of the war and the recent elections tend to downplay the achievements of the Karzai Government and aid agencies in restoring power, water, food supplies, health centres and schools where there were none. The vast majority of Afghans, however dissatisfied with progress and however difficult it has been to restore good governance and the rule of law, recognise that the international community is there to help them.
The mistakes we have made, in my view, were to attempt to rebuild a centralised state and to focus democracy on an elected central Government. How did our political leaders think that they could reinvent one nation so quickly from so many different loyalties? In Britain, we tend to think back to King John and the Barons, but it is not a question of a few Barons. There are warlords over every mountain in Afghanistan. Terrorism itself is highly localised and subcontracted. Only a complex system of alliances and financial inducements, such as we have tried in Helmand, would reap rewards-and then only on a temporary basis. The coalition plainly does not have, and should not have, the capacity for this, as the noble Lord, Lord
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The loya jirgas and the shuras have ruled Afghanistan for centuries and we should respect and use these as the principal channels of decision-making. The Foreign Secretary finally said as much two days ago, when outlining the new exit strategy. It is, in fact, the only way out.
The war in Afghanistan is not being won, nor is it being lost. However, the propaganda war is being lost, both in the UK and on the disputed borders where foreign forces will always be seen as the enemy. The perception on our TV screens is rather like that of a Beau Geste desert war that we can never win. What we never see in news bulletins is a national "hearts and minds" campaign in which Afghans are seen as our friends, although this is apparently part of our Government's new strategy.
With the help of NGOs and others, we can still succeed in that "hearts and minds" campaign. DfID is supporting a range of initiatives, such as business links, microfinance and other employment schemes. What is it doing to publicise these? The National Solidarity Programme, created by the Afghan Government in 2003, is a major success story which has achieved results, through thousands of local councils, in road building, education and reconstruction of all kinds. Hardly anyone in the UK has heard of it. Why do we not make more of this achievement with the help of the media? It has had problems, like many projects. The new-style community development councils, as channels of funding, have sometimes confused the shuras with imposed western values, but this is inevitable. The NSP is learning from its mistakes and will emerge well from a World Bank evaluation.
On international development and climate change, I welcome the Government's renewed commitment. It is encouraging to see the UK rising in the charts of official development assistance. Within the EU, which provides two-thirds of all aid, the UK is now ahead of France and Germany in aid per capita, although still well behind Scandinavian countries. I also welcome this Government's increased emphasis on aid effectiveness through the non-governmental organisations.
However, the latest World Food Summit has pointed to a recent increase in the numbers of the malnourished, to around 1 billion. This is more than there were at the first summit in the mid 1970s, and close to one in five of the world's population. The scandal of these figures is not explained by the available food or distribution, or even by biofuels-which have presented a new problem-but by the drastic fall in OECD investment in agriculture. Can the Minister say whether the UK, at least, is pulling its weight in this sector and urging other countries to do the same?
The UK is now the leader among EU states in global health spending. This is significant when climate change is likely to have such a negative impact on
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Higher temperatures, while only inconvenient and even beneficial to temperate climates, can mean much more severe floods and droughts, food and water shortages in tropical regions, as well as a lack of shelter and sanitation, all leading to higher mortality rates. Can the Minister spell out how the climate change budget allocated to developing countries will mean actual changes on the ground, meeting more millennium development targets, and will not all be swallowed up by their Governments' energy-saving and low carbon schemes, essential though those are in industrial zones?
Small farmers in arid lands are highly efficient, as has been said, because they have to be, both in land use and in conserving precious soil and water. Our climate change campaign would seem to be almost irrelevant to them, as they are doing it all the time. We need to pay much more attention to Africa and how it copes with climate change. While its farmers' carbon footprint is generally light, its foresters and scavengers cause perhaps one-third of the world's deforestation, much of it timber for export.
Rich countries can earn carbon credits through forestry projects under the clean development mechanism and the reduced emissions schemes. However, according to one leading expert, Camilla Toulmin of the International Institute of Environment and Development, there is hardly any take-up of these projects. Again, I hope that the Minister can provide an answer, at least in relation to the UK's performances in this critical arena of climate change.
2.18 pm
Lord Chidgey: My Lords, I am, as always, delighted to follow the noble Earl in this debate, particularly his final theme of issues in Africa. Significant aspects of the UK's foreign policy are to some degree influenced by the state of affairs on the African continent. It is worth looking at whether DfID and the FCO's resources, in particular, are being effectively deployed in those areas. I declare my interests as vice-chair of the All-Party Group on Africa, a council member for AWEPA-European Parliamentarians for Africa- and the chair of the advisory board of the Commonwealth parliamentary studies unit.
Looking at key developments in Africa over the past few years, such as the advent of the NePAD initiative that also developed the African peer review mechanism, it is clear that that peer review, which was devised and overseen by the African Union, has yet to be established root and branch. Countries that have volunteered for peer review have tended to be from the traditionally democratic African states. There is therefore a view, particularly among African nations, that it has become something of a toothless exercise, much like
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I will come back to NePAD later. I will now talk a little about progress towards meeting the millennium development goals. Senior African politicians are now very objective in their assessment of the effectiveness of, and progress with, the MDGs. For example, Graça Machel, the former Prime Minister of Mozambique, speaking in Cape Town just last month, pointed out that the international financial crisis and global recession has impacted more severely on Africa than on other parts of the world, not least because some donor countries have cut their funding targets in response. I note our Government's commitment not to do that and to reach the 0.7 per cent of GDP target.
It is also unrealistic to think that all 53 countries in Africa will reach the MDGs on time. African politicians are determined that the failure of some countries should not be seen as the failure of the continent. Through the peer-review mechanism, they note that many Parliaments are struggling. Parliaments in Africa are under-resourced and unable to hold their Executives to account. They need support to develop monitoring capacity over national resources. They need, as Mrs Machel puts it, "to be more assertive" over the distribution of their national resources by their Executives. Mrs Machel begs the question: how many African countries are now allocating 10 per cent of their resources to agriculture? How many are now allocating 15 per cent to health, as promised in the MDGs? It is clear that the MDG target of halving the number living on a dollar a day in sub-Saharan Africa is unlikely to be met. Cutting aid budgets in the midst of a global recession adds to the African crisis of 200 million people going hungry every day and 33 million children being undernourished.
Achieving the MDG on poverty reduction is estimated to be postponed by at least three years now, over which time 400,000 more children will die. To quote Mrs Machel again,
The question for the Government must be: have they got the balance right between aid and foreign policy spending? We know that the DfID budget is set at something like £1.2 billion. The FCO's budget is about £33.5 million for bilateral programmes for political stability and good governance in the longer term. Is that right?
This brings me to progress with parliamentary strengthening and democratic stability. Recently, several African presidents have changed-or are seeking to change-constitutional term limits that prevent them seeking a third term in office. Examples include Uganda, Tunisia, Algeria and Cameroon. In Uganda, President Museveni's long rule has brought a degree of stability and peace, and a developing multipolitical party Parliament. There are nevertheless warning signs that this stability could be undermined-for example, the September riots in Kampala that left 27 people dead and more than 100 arrested, and led to the forced closure of at least five radio stations. That was followed by claims of the abduction and torture of senior journalists.
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There is a sense among humanitarian organisations such as War Child that there is now a gap between the phasing out of emergency funding in Uganda and the lead-in to development funding. Human Rights Watch notes that there has been a lack of a cohesive response from the donor community to the events that took place in Kampala in September. It is against this background that the amendment of the presidential term limits from two to three in some countries is not seen as supportive of free and fair elections, but is, in Uganda in 2011, essential to retaining stability and peace in the region. Have the Government had any discussions concerning the changes that are taking place in Uganda's presidential term limits?
We work very closely with the Ugandan Government. I would be interested to know what the Government's reaction has been to, for example, the reappointment of the National Electoral Commission, which has taken place in spite of accusations of fraud in the Ugandan court. What plans do our Government have to provide technical or financial support to the conduct of the 2011 elections scheduled in Uganda? DfID is supporting and training counterterrorism operations in Uganda, but Human Rights Watch and others have meanwhile been highlighting allegations of repeated state-sanctioned human rights abuses. What action are the Government taking to support and develop reforms through current bilateral training programmes?
Looking at counterterrorism in the Great Lakes region, the Lord's Resistance Army remains a threat to regional stability in northern Uganda, southern Sudan, eastern Democratic Republic of Congo and parts of the Central African Republic. Civilian protection must remain a critical priority. In this context, there is currently no coherent international plan to apprehend and remove the LRA from the Great Lakes region. However, the United States Congress has before it draft legislation entitled the LRA Disarmament and North Uganda Recovery Act. More than 150 members of Congress have signed up to it. Would the Government consider making commitments similar to those outlined in the draft US Act, which many consider to be an excellent model to follow? In that context, and with MONUC's mandate due to be renewed shortly, do the Government support extending this mandate to include the apprehension of Joseph Kony and other LRA commanders?
The year 2010 will be crucial for the DRC and Rwanda. The DRC will probably hold local elections in 2010, with national elections in 2011. Respect for the rule of law and democratic institutions will need to be embedded to help those elections run smoothly. MONUC is doing a good job, but it needs to prepare for transition by focusing on institution-building, the role of Parliament, the judiciary and so forth. What role are our Government planning for the United Kingdom in institutional strengthening and electoral registration? Resource exploitation and corruption are the underlying sources of conflict in the DRC, as confirmed by DfID's own report and studies into exports over several years. In some cases it was found that the export of minerals was more than
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With regard to relations between Rwanda and the DRC, we should all welcome a meeting in August between Mr Kagame and Mr Kabila, but there are still concerns over Rwanda's alleged support of rebel groups in the DRC only last year. We note that Rwanda has formally applied to join the Commonwealth; that application will be considered by a Commonwealth summit in 2010. Do the Government agree that before Rwanda is accepted into the Commonwealth, we must ensure that the criteria of Commonwealth core values of human rights, democracy and democratic institutions in an open and free society are first met?
Other noble Lords have mentioned climate change; I will comment briefly on Africa and climate change. Kofi Annan made the point when addressing the Global Editors' Forum last month that it is a tragic irony that the countries which have done the least to cause climate change are those which are suffering, and will suffer, most from its impacts. Although Africa accounts for only 3 per cent of total global carbon emissions, it must now bear the brunt of climate change. The estimated financial impact could be as high as $130 billion in Africa. The impacts can already be seen in devastating floods in Burkina Faso and the droughts that have killed thousands of livestock in northern Kenya. However, African countries will barely be represented at the Copenhagen conference next month. Do the Government agree that African nations must have a more prominent role in future international climate talks?
Finally, I turn to Africa and China, which other noble Lords have commented on. China is heading to overtake the EU as Africa's biggest trading partner. China is already beginning to exert political influence and power, akin to that of the western imperial powers in past centuries, since Chinese companies frequently plan with 30-year timescales as a minimum. This can be incredibly problematic for western nations, which put democracy, the rule of law and human rights into the mix of international trading agreements.
The worrying case in point is the Chinese position in a growing clash over diplomatic and trade relations with Guinea in west Africa. Guinea is central in the region's trafficking of cocaine and other narcotics to Europe. A common initiative agreed between United Nations agencies and other west African coastal countries to curb this trade has already been compromised by elements of the ruling military junta in Guinea engaged in this very narcotics trafficking. In reaction to the presidential guard publicly raping and butchering more than 150 protesters in Conakry, the EU and the AU have imposed economic and financial sanctions, but their effects are being diluted by China's decision to sign a $7 billion mining deal with Guinea, the world's largest exporter of bauxite. The question for the West, and our Government, is whether China is straying into short-termism by striking secret deals with corrupt Governments and will discover that such investments are high-risk over time, and in any case do little to benefit Africa's development.
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The whole point of NePAD, the new economic plan for Africa, is to create sound investment criteria through transparency, the rule of law, democracy and human rights and to break the cycle of corruption, despotism and instability which marred the post-colonial period and made inward investment into Africa too high a risk. China, it seems, has to learn from the past mistakes that most African nations are steadfastly trying to overcome.
2.30 pm
Lord Guthrie of Craigiebank: My Lords, I declare two interests as a non-executive director and adviser to a defence company and as the colonel of a regiment serving in Afghanistan. The Prime Minister is absolutely right to stress the importance of succeeding in Afghanistan, and to be disturbed by opinion polls here and in other NATO countries. The prospect of Pakistan collapsing-that is a real possibility, with an extremist, failed, radicalised Afghanistan slipping into war with India-and destabilising the region is a real possibility. Pakistan is a far more important and politically dangerous country than Afghanistan. War in the subcontinent would damage the whole world.
The reasons for our being in Afghanistan go far beyond keeping the streets of Britain safe. The Prime Minister is also right to promote a conference about Afghanistan, but it is key, although difficult, to engage the major countries in the region, not just NATO countries, as well as Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia and possibly China, all of which have a perhaps even greater long-term interest than we do in seeing a stable Afghanistan. We cannot be in the region for years at our current levels, spending the money that we do, and the Prime Minister is right to recognise this. There is, however, a real problem if one fixes and announces dates for an exit strategy. That may be seen as necessary to reassure public opinion at home but greatly assists the Taliban's planning and timing. We may not have the time but it probably does, and can wait if we give it a date.
The military can only do so much and progress will depend on our commitments, the United States' commitments, the determination of the Afghan Government and of a large number of the Afghan people themselves. The drive and commitment of a cross-Whitehall committee, chaired by the Prime Minister, will be crucial and needs to be very much more effective and active than arrangements have been to date. Our service men and women in the front line need to know that the Government and people are for them and that the Government are resolute. They do not want to see dithering-other noble Lords have used that word today-over the 500 who are still awaiting an order to go. That does not do any good. It seems to me that it would be so easy to send those 500. It should not be linked to the 40,000 American soldiers who are waiting to go.
It is not right, as many claim, that Afghanistan is a hopeless case and always has been. There have been long periods when progress was made and the country flourished. General McChrystal, who I know well and who is a very able United States commander, believes that 70 per cent of the Taliban can be swayed to support the Government. Many young Taliban fighters
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A defence review is necessary. This will be very difficult. I agree with the remarks on defence funding by the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Bramall, who commanded me on a number of occasions in my career. The Ministry of Defence is vastly overspent and faces large payments. Very difficult decisions will have to be taken. A review should be foreign policy-led. We need to ask ourselves what we want to do in the world. It will be a very difficult time for the department, which has vested interests, and some cherished, nice-to-have projects must go, but if we try to do everything and to maintain forces and equipment to cover every eventuality, however unlikely, we will end up being good at nothing.
2.37 pm
Lord Clinton-Davis: I am delighted that the noble Lord, Lord Williamson, is present, for several reasons: first, I have always had a high regard for him; and, secondly, he served the EC with great distinction for 10 years.
I was very impressed with the thoroughness of the European Union Committee's work, which reflected extraordinary expertise. Few parliaments in the EU could have carried out this vital task in such a way. As a former European Commissioner, I am an unashamed supporter of the concept of the EU. Of course, like all political institutions, it has made mistakes, but its overall accomplishments have been impressive. France and Germany, once at each other's throats, now work in harmony. Smaller states enhance their status and preserve their interests by co-operating purposefully in the enterprise. The EU is a major player on the world stage. I only wish that the UK had been rather more engaged. While we are an important member, we could have done much more to advance the EU's salient work.
The Opposition-not all of them, of course-are prepared to put all this at risk. Frustrated by the EU's unanimity over the Lisbon treaty, they ally themselves with some highly dubious political groups and engage in imprecise and dangerous policies vis-à-vis the EU. At least we know where we are with UKIP, and that is too dire to contemplate.
In the new Parliament, the Conservatives-I hope still in opposition-could be even more undermining. If elected, where would they stand in respect of initiatives proposed by the Commission and endorsed by the
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