House of Lords
Sudan: Human Rights
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Chidgey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what is their response to reports of human rights abuses by state organisations in the run-up to the recent elections in Sudan.
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, the United Kingdom is deeply concerned about human rights abuses committed in the run-up to and during the elections in Sudan. This period saw reports of violations of political rights and freedoms, including harassment, intimidation, arbitrary arrest, detention and alleged torture. There have been worrying signs of a further crackdown by the authorities since the elections, including the recent arrest of an opposition politician. We continue to urge the Government of Sudan to address these concerns.
Lord Chidgey
I am very grateful to the noble Lord for that reply. Perhaps I may add to his comments the fact that recent laws passed in Sudan allow Sudanese security forces to arrest people and hold them for 45 days without review and with immunity from any charge for abuses which might take place during that time. As he mentioned, there has been the arrest of a senior opposition leader, Hassan al-Turabi, on rather spurious charges, together with the arrest of a leading editor from the Rai al-Shaab newspaper, Mr Abuzerr Ali al-Amin. Will he assure the House that the Government will take every measure that they can in the international call for the reform of these repressive laws in Sudan and for holding to account those responsible for the charges of torture?
Lord Howell of Guildford
My Lords, I can only endorse the grim catalogue that my noble friend outlines. It is absolutely so. We will continue to use all pressures we can and to urge the Government of the Sudan back to a better path in their human rights performance. The outlook is not good and there are obviously many major concerns ahead in dealing not only—as we all know—with the continuing horrors of Darfur, but with the potential instabilities arising from the forthcoming referendum in the south. We continue to want the comprehensive peace agreement to work; that must be our main focus.
Lord Anderson of Swansea
My Lords, Concordis, the Christian reconciliation organisation of which I am a patron, has just run two workshops in Upper Nile and Unity provinces. It tells me that there is a marked lack of international organisation presence on the ground and a real danger that there will be conflict arising from boundary demarcation disputes since the CPA is mapping the area from the air without discussing with local communities their views on the border. Will the Minister look into this? To what extent is he happy with the lack of engagement by the international community in the process leading up to the referendum?
Lord Howell of Guildford
The noble Lord makes a very good point, which I will certainly feed into our thinking. As to international involvement in helping with the process leading up to the referendum and thereafter in managing its results, much more clearly is needed. We are doing our bit. We are increasing our staff in Juba, for instance. Our eye is very much on the ball about this, but we want others to work as well. We want to encourage UNMIS to get more involved and we have several other proposals for increasing our input. No one should for a moment assume that there will not be a very difficult situation, whichever way the referendum goes. Of course, there are wide forecasts that it will go in favour of some kind of autonomy.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, first, regarding UNMIS, does the Minister think that additional troops will be necessary to safeguard the referendum process, bearing in mind the violence that occurred in the recent elections? Secondly, does he think that satisfactory voting arrangements were in place for the disputed border areas in the recent elections? If not, what additional measures would he recommend should be taken before the referendum?
Lord Howell of Guildford
On the noble Lord’s second question, I am afraid that there do appear to have been abuses in those and many other areas, and these matters will need to be monitored and safeguarded very carefully—more so than in the past. On the question of additional troops, by which I assume he means reinforcements for UNMIS, that is a difficult matter at the moment. We want some means by which the weak Government of Southern Sudan can somehow be strengthened in order to prepare for the enormous strains that lie ahead either way, whether the referendum goes for separation or not. Either way seems to point to more violence, danger and abuses.
The Lord Bishop of Gloucester
My Lords, given that the Governments of both north and south Sudan have little control of the country outside the few conurbations, and that the only organisations with an effective network across the whole of Sudan are the Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches, what plans might Her Majesty’s Government have to encourage both Sudanese Governments to link with the churches in order to build stability and peace prior to the referendum?
Lord Howell of Guildford
I am grateful to the right reverend Prelate. In all our urgings and advice, we take account of those important factors and will continue to do so.
Lord Lawson of Blaby
My Lords, may I recommend to my noble friend, who I am delighted to see has taken this very important post in the Government—it is well deserved—a recently published book called War Games by a distinguished Dutch woman journalist who is extremely experienced in this area? She demonstrates how many if not most humanitarian NGOs operating in this area are actually assisting in the repression and the inhuman activities that are taking place, without intending to. He may like to read it if he has time.
Lord Howell of Guildford
I thank my noble friend for his kind remarks and for his advice on my reading list. I will do my best. A number of insightful and valuable studies have been made into the effects—some good and some bad—of the various activities and intentions both of the non-governmental organisations, which are full of dedicated people, and indeed even of Governments, who sometimes, in thinking that their efforts will help, encounter all sorts of side-effects and consequences which had not been reckoned with.
The Earl of Sandwich
My Lords, given the involvement of the Chinese Government in Sudan—particularly in the oil industry—and remembering what was said in the debate yesterday, what early contact is the Foreign Office going to make with the Chinese, and will they be asked to co-operate in the preparations for the referendum?
Lord Howell of Guildford
We have contact with the Chinese about this and the more general question of the degree to which they should carry responsibility for matters like human rights in difficult areas where they are very active in investment terms. There is no doubt that Chinese oil interests and the money associated with them in Sudan are a factor. We have talked to them. Our Chinese colleagues are reluctant to take a forward position and their doctrine is non-interference in local affairs, but actually they do face some responsibilities and, as we point out to them, will have to adjust to them in due course.
Children: Criminal Responsibility
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Deech
To ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they plan to raise the age of criminal responsibility.
The Minister of State, Ministry of Justice (Lord McNally)
My Lords, the Government have no plans to raise the age of criminal responsibility. They believe that setting the age of criminal responsibility at 10 allows front-line services to intervene early and robustly. This helps to prevent further offending, and it helps young people to develop a sense of personal responsibility for their behaviour.
Baroness Deech
I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. Would he acknowledge that it is widely regarded as inappropriate to see 10 year-olds in court and very small children being examined as witnesses? Most of the rest of Europe has a much higher age of responsibility than we do and the United Nations is calling for it to be raised. Will the Minister kindly consider a package of measures: raising the age to 14; not holding trials of children in open adult courts; not questioning child witnesses in court; not using custodial sentences; and, of course, in this age of cuts, concentrating on preventing children getting into the criminal system in the first place?
Lord McNally
My Lords, having had less than a month’s experience, I pay due deference to the experience of the noble Baroness. Whatever age group we pick will be arbitrary. I have looked at the international comparisons, which range from six to 17. I will obviously take back to the department the recommendations she makes for due consideration. However, I was very impressed by the mixture of processes introduced by the previous Administration which makes it a rare occurrence for very young children to be before a court. There is a mixture of reactions to their offending which seeks to achieve early intervention and progress for the children concerned.
Lord Borrie
My Lords, does the Minister agree that, while there may not be one perfect answer for all cases—the differences across the jurisdictions demonstrate that—it might be an idea if a judge had an element of discretion in the case before him not to allow what happened in the recent case to which the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, referred?
Lord McNally
The case that has been referred to is still under the jurisdiction of the judge concerned. However, it is interesting that he is going to give his opinions of the process to the Lord Chief Justice, who, in turn, will give his to the Lord Chancellor. I emphasise again, coming to this very green and very new, I was extremely impressed by the wide variety of responses. The idea that children aged 10 to 12 are automatically put into the court system is false. The number of responses that have been developed over the past few years are very impressive and much to the credit of the previous Administration.
The Earl of Listowel
Under their duty to consult children under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, will the Minister and his colleagues consider speaking to 10, 11 and 12 year-olds in custody, particularly about their family experience? Will they further consider speaking to the teachers, social workers and psychiatrists who work with them on this matter?
Lord McNally
I certainly agree to that. I also take the noble Earl’s point about the family. One has only to look at a very few cases to find that these children come from extremely damaged backgrounds. We shall look at making sure that their parents take responsibility for their actions. There is a very clear relationship between damaged children committing crimes and an appalling family background.
Lord Elton
My Lords, does the Minister agree that the last of the lengthy catalogue of recommendations from the noble Baroness, Lady Deech, to reinforce the previous Administration’s legacy towards the early intervention to which he referred, was the least controversial, the most attractive and likely to be the most effective and least expensive? Will he add to that a dimension of support for the voluntary agencies, which are by far the most effective deliverers of these services?
Lord McNally
My Lords, the simple answer is yes. Whether the strategy of the previous Administration was working may be answered by figures released this morning that show a decrease of 20.7 per cent in the number of young first offenders. That has been achieved by avoiding knee-jerk reaction, using the voluntary sector and giving wide discretion. The direction of travel which we inherited is one which we intend to follow.
Lord Richard
Will the Minister assure us that the report by the learned judge to which he referred earlier will be made public?
Lord McNally
It is above my pay grade. It is no use the noble Lord saying, “Oh, come on”; he knows darn well that I cannot make that kind of commitment. However, I am sure that the Lord Chancellor will note such a recommendation from such a learned QC.
Baroness Buscombe
In developing his thinking, will the Minister look at the tremendous amount of work done by the Conservative Party in opposition in 2001-02, when we looked in great detail at how we prevent young people getting on to the conveyor belt to crime? I think that that would help him. Will the Minister agree to do that?
Lord McNally
One of advantages of the coalition is that I am now able to look at the wide body of research that comes from all the parties. I do not think that it is a party political issue; nor is there a simple, ideological solution. However, as a complete newcomer to this issue, I think that some solutions have been found. As I have said previously, we fully intend to follow the direction of travel of the previous Administration, while of course taking into account the experience of our sister coalition party as well.
Lord Bach
I thank the Minister for his generous comments; the comments that we received from around the House when we were in government were not always quite so generous. Will he ensure that, when the cuts come, the important work being done in this field which he has been generous about is not cut? It is crucial that it remains, whether voluntary or statutory.
Lord McNally
We shall certainly do our best, because the figures also show that making short-term cuts often leads to government expenditure such that it would be cheaper to send young people to Eton than to keep them in custody.
Children: Vulnerable Children
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Massey of Darwen
To ask Her Majesty’s Government how they will support vulnerable children.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Schools (Lord Hill of Oareford)
My Lords, among other measures, we are committed to the goal of ending child poverty by 2020, to carrying out a wide-ranging review of child protection by Professor Eileen Munro, announced today, to publishing serious case reviews, to giving parents of children with special educational needs more say over their children’s education and providing 4,200 extra Sure Start health visitors.
Baroness Massey of Darwen
I thank the Minister for that response. Does he agree that vulnerability in children may arise from such things as abuse, disability, poor health, truancy and so on? Can he comment in more detail on one of those areas and say what the Government plan to do?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I am grateful to the noble Baroness for the question and pay tribute to the work that she does in this area, and has done for a very long time. On protecting children at greatest risk from abuse, I hope that the independent review announced by my department today, to be led by Professor Eileen Munro, whom many noble Lords and noble Baronesses will know well from their work, will help us to put better systems in place. Most importantly, I was told this morning that apparently social workers spend up to 80 per cent of their time in front of a computer screen rather than working with the children, as they would like to be doing. If we can reduce some of those burdens and support social workers to do the job they want to do—and we all want them to do—we will be making some progress.
Baroness Howarth of Breckland
My Lords, does the Minister agree that this Question is related to the previous Question that we discussed, about children who have come before the criminal courts? Is it not the case that there has been an unprecedented increase in the number of children coming before the family court in relation to both private and public legislation? However, while local authorities are working on safeguarding in that statutory area, they are certainly not working in prevention. As the noble Lord, Lord McNally, pointed out, unless we work in the area of prevention, more children will become before both sets of courts. What will the Government do to ensure that social workers in local authorities have the time to do both their statutory work and to work with vulnerable families in their own homes?
Lord Hill of Oareford
To pick up on the first point, I echo what my noble friend Lord McNally said about the work particularly of the family intervention projects, which the previous Government introduced. Some of the early results from that were extremely encouraging in helping the most disadvantaged families and children early on. There were some very big reductions in problem behaviour. On the broader point about what we can do to help social workers have more time to do their job, that comes back to my earlier remarks. One benefit that we hope will come from the Munro review is that we will free social workers from what we might call the more pointless box-ticking activity to have more time to do the job that they want to do, which would encompass the kind of concern that the noble Baroness has.
Baroness Morgan of Drefelin
My Lords, I have two questions for the Minister. First, this House worked very hard on the Children and Young Persons Act 2008. Will the Minister commit to implement that Act in full? It is about promoting stability for some of our most vulnerable children. Secondly, will the Minister honour the previous Government’s commitment, to which he has just referred, to roll out family intervention projects? We know that by investing in family intervention projects we project vulnerable children, and the results are tremendous.
Lord Hill of Oareford
In terms of the commitments that I can give, I have to make the broad point to which my noble friend Lord McNally alluded that unfortunately we inherit a financial situation in which, as the former Chief Secretary, Mr Liam Byrne, pointed out that there is “no money left”. So it is simply not possible for me to give any undertaking at all about commitments going forward on funding. However, I can certainly say that in looking at issues of public expenditure, clearly the priority that the Government will bring to bear is to protect wherever possible the most vulnerable in society. The decisions that we have already started to take with regard to Sure Start and the funding to protect it are proof of that point. We shall continue to do that, but it is simply not possible to give firm financial undertakings for the future. This Government are confronted with the same situation with which a Labour Government would have been confronted, if they had got in: there is no money left, we have spent it all, and we will have to make cuts to sort out the deficit.
Baroness Howe of Idlicote
My Lords, is the Minister aware that figures placed in the House of Commons Library show that the use of restraint on young offenders in secure training camps has risen, despite the previous Government having given an assurance and a pledge that they would reduce its use? That was recommended by the independent review on the use of restraint, published in December 2008. Does he agree that the use of restraint on children as young as 12 in such institutions should be kept to an absolute minimum? Do the Government have any plans to introduce other methods of handling these difficult and very damaged children?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I have not seen the research that the noble Baroness, Lady Howe, refers to. I would be happy if she could spare the time to discuss that with her, along with the broader issues that she has raised.
Baroness Garden of Frognal
My Lords, in these times of economic hardship, more children are likely to be at risk through poverty. What assurances can the Minister give that there are sufficient trained and experienced child protection officers, and what measures are being taken to recruit good people into that important service?
Lord Hill of Oareford
I agree with the point that in times of economic hardship and difficulty it is important that we are able to support the most vulnerable. As part of the announcements today about the Munro review, which may help the noble Baroness, we have announced that there will be a £23 million local social work improvement fund available to local authorities to help support children’s services in 2010-11. We will provide funding for the successful programme to support recruitment and retention of social workers, and we will make funding available for establishing an independent college of social work. I hope that all these measures will provide some reassurance to the noble Baroness.
Afghanistan: Child Asylum Seekers
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Roberts of Llandudno
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what proposals they have for the return of unaccompanied child asylum seekers to Afghanistan.
The Minister of State, Home Office (Baroness Neville-Jones)
My Lords, the House may be aware of press reports that have appeared on this issue in the past week, which may have misled. I assure the House straightaway that only unaccompanied children for whom satisfactory care and integration assistance can be provided will be returned. What is being proposed is part of that assistance. The UK is tendering for integration services for all forced-returned Afghans—that is, not just children. If that tender process identifies suitable provision for some Afghans in the 16 to 17 age bracket, then indeed it might be possible to return them. Children under that age will not be returned, but even in that age group that will depend on individual cases and the assistance that can be provided. We doubt that there will be big numbers.
Lord Roberts of Llandudno
I thank the Minister for that reply. I know that when we entered this coalition Government we thought that one of the great pledges was to stop the detention of children for immigration purposes and I hope that that will be implemented. However, this seems a backward step. Is the Minister convinced that we are keeping to the letter of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, which says that every child—everyone of 18 and under—should be cared for in a very special way? This seems to be treating the most vulnerable children among us in a very harsh way.
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, there is no question of detention, which does not arise in these cases. As to whether we are conforming to the provisions of the Convention on the Rights of the Child, I suggest that it is precisely in order to make assistance available to young people that we are instituting these arrangements and the tender is going out. This is not about buildings; it is about provision for reintegration into society and for other ways of helping these young people to find their parents and to get back to a normal life.
Lord Martin of Springburn
My Lords, may I ask for assurances that any child asylum seeker, while he or she is in this country, has proper legal representation and proper access to our social work care departments?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, when they are in this country, these children are in the care of local authorities, which is an extremely costly process for us. The sort of concerns that the noble Lord has are indeed being catered for.
The Lord Bishop of Newcastle
Does the Minister really believe that the deportation of unaccompanied child asylum seekers to Afghanistan is in each child’s best interests? If she does, perhaps she could tell us why.
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, I am sure that the House entirely agrees that this is a very difficult issue. We are in an age of migration, but we have to consider the alternatives. Unless this country is prepared to take every single individual who arrives on our shores as a result of having been trafficked through the system and to keep them indefinitely—in the end as our citizens—we have to find a humane way of returning people. These provisions are designed precisely to provide that degree of humanity and assistance to the young people who arrive here.
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, part of the service of providing assistance for reintegration will be to find these children’s families if they have not found them and to attempt to get them a job and an education. Actually, these young people are being helped to be put in a position that they might not have been in when they left their country. I do not think that we are doing them a disservice. On the question of wider immigration and deportation arrangements, that will obviously depend on the circumstances of each country, as the noble Lord knows.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, will my noble friend the Minister invite the organisations that have expressed concern about whether these arrangements are in the best interests of the child, including the UNHCR, Refugee and Migrant Justice, the Refugee Council and the Children’s Society, to a meeting so that she can explain the provisions and reassure them? Secondly, given that Sweden, Denmark and the Netherlands are all planning to return children to Afghanistan, while Norway is building a hostel similar to the one that we propose, would not pan-European arrangements for the reception of these children in Afghanistan be better than every state making its own arrangements?
Baroness Neville-Jones
My Lords, we have a memorandum of understanding with the Afghan Government about the return of such individuals, to which the UNHCR is party. We work with all the parties to ensure that the terms that I am trying to set out are observed. The noble Lord referred to other interested organisations. My understanding of the position of Refugee Action is that, provided that the conditions are right, which is the proviso that we are trying to meet, it does not have any principled objection to the return of children of this age in the circumstances that are being provided. As for other interested parties, of course I am happy to meet Refugee Action and I intend to make that part of my duties.
City of Westminster Bill [HL]
The Chairman of Committees
That this House resolves that the promoters of the City of Westminster Bill [HL] which was originally introduced in this House in session 2008–09 on 22 January 2009 should have leave to proceed with the bill in the current session in accordance with the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 150B (Revival of bills).
That this House resolves that the promoters of the Canterbury City Council Bill which was originally introduced in the House of Commons in session 2007–08 on 22 January 2008 should have leave to proceed with the bill in the current session in accordance with the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 150B (Revival of bills).
That this House resolves that the promoters of the Leeds City Council Bill which was originally introduced in the House of Commons in session 2007–08 on 22 January 2008 should have leave to proceed with the bill in the current session in accordance with the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 150B (Revival of bills).
That this House resolves that the promoters of the Nottingham City Council Bill which was originally introduced in the House of Commons in session 2007–08 on 22 January 2008 should have leave to proceed with the bill in the current session in accordance with the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 150B (Revival of bills).
That this House resolves that the promoters of the Reading Borough Council Bill which was originally introduced in the House of Commons in session 2007–08 on 22 January 2008 should have leave to proceed with the bill in the current session in accordance with the provisions of Private Business Standing Order 150B (Revival of bills).
Academies Bill [HL]
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Hill of Oareford
That it be an instruction to the Committee of the Whole House to which the Academies Bill [HL] has been committed that they consider the bill in the following order:
Clauses 1 to 9, Schedule 1, Clause 10, Schedule 2, Clauses 11 to 16.
Pensions: Automatic Enrolment
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
To call attention to Her Majesty’s Government’s plans to introduce automatic enrolment in workplace pensions; and to move for Papers.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, it is a pleasure to open this short debate. If I may, I would like to preface the debate by welcoming the Minister to his new and interesting position. He still has that sunny disposition and smile on his face. I hope that it is there until 2015. With a bit of luck, I will try to help him to get there. We will do the best we can.
I have never had the opportunity to thank the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, for the professional and collegiate way in which he, as a Minister, allowed me and other Opposition spokesmen to share some of the Government’s thinking. I appreciated that support, and look forward to listening with great interest to what he has to say in future; that is really a way of softening him up, because the full-frontal attack will come any moment now.
It is hard to cover this territory in 15 minutes, but the debate’s purpose is to allow the incoming Government to report progress on automatic enrolment and personal accounts. We should take time at this stage to reflect on some of the continuing concerns identified by the industry, because they are real. Some understanding of the timetable, and the planned next steps, would be extremely helpful. Noble Lords will know that the new NEST—the National Employment Savings Trust—is vested with its powers on 5 July, which is not a long time coming. It is an important reform and an important body. There is a lot of money at stake. The success of this policy programme is fundamental to the future provision of workplace pensions in this country.
The context is well known and understood across the whole House. Not only is the United Kingdom seriously personally indebted at the level of households—we have had some interesting discussions about that in the debate on the Loyal Address—but, looking forward to pension provision in the longer term, it has undersaved as a nation. We obviously face the financial constraints of which everyone is aware. That will become clearer later in the year.
I never tire of making the point that, as a country, we underestimate the impact that demographic trends will have on all of our policy areas. I attended an interesting PPI AGM yesterday where the point was made that the best projections we are all working on are estimates. If they are wrong by even 1 per cent in an upwards direction, there are some serious consequences. The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, chaired the event, which was an interesting demonstration of how some of these estimates can be wrong. There have been underestimates in the past, and we must make proper provision for long-term saving for some of our citizens, who are just ignorant—in the best sense—of how long they will have to make provision for when it comes to their retirement: some 20 or 30 years. It is perhaps not surprising that some do not think about that because they are working out how to budget through the next week, never mind the next 20 or 30 years.
There is a need to understand the context, and to re-establish the consensus across the party divide if we can. Pension provision is a long-term problem. Of course, there might be tactical differences and different approaches in dealing with the next Comprehensive Spending Review provisions. However, we must not lose sight of the fact that pension provision is a long-term strategy. We must get it right for the long term.
The National Employment Savings Trust is an important element in all of this. I support workplace pensions. I was first introduced to the idea by a man called James Purnell, of whom noble Lords may have heard since he served on the Select Committee that I had the privilege to chair in a previous incarnation. Auto-enrolment is a key new factor in being able to encourage people to save properly.
The Government are new. We have had a period of purdah when everything has been in stasis and no one has been able to take things forward. The mid-2012 introduction date is fast approaching. Some clarification of the Government’s position on the review and its terms of reference would be useful. The scope and membership would obviously be part of that. How long is it going to take? When will we get access to its conclusions? Are we right to assume that it will include the delivery contract, which is quite controversial? By that I mean the contract with TATA to provide the default NEST pensions provision. We have already spent some £60 million on loans for the personal administration—that is, on PADA, which preceded NEST. Is there any further information about how that looks and what the Government propose to do about it? We would also like to hear from the Government about the annual management charges for personal accounts. All of that is simply to clarify the situation, so that the industry, which is interested in engaging with this as positively as it can, can respond as positively as it is able.
There are other, perhaps less obvious, questions about the review. There is a business department review of red tape, which will look at whether and how employers can certify existing schemes to qualify under the new provisions. There is a huge amount of red tape there. We know about this because we spent a long time discussing it in the course of the primary legislation. Will that be a factor? Is the review taking into account the business department’s interest in this important area of policy? It would be helpful to know that. Is it likely to be directly affected by expenditure cuts? We all expect the Comprehensive Spending Review in October to be quite difficult to handle. Will those CSR announcements indirectly or directly affect the proposals for personal accounts and auto-enrolment?
In the longer term, although still important, is there any fresh thinking about how the auto-enrolment personal accounts will impact on and fit with means-testing policy? This is a debate that I know the noble Lord, Lord Freud, is actively and rightly engaged in. He is trying to get some of these incentives changed and made more positive. It is difficult to see how you can be confident about deploying the NEST and personal accounts policy without being careful about how it fits with means-testing in the longer term.
The problems with this debate are very interesting. I recently had the pleasure of sponsoring a lunch here, where the pensions company AXA brought forward its research entitled Public Policy Research Report: Workplace Pensions. The results of this survey are very important. AXA carried out an equivalent piece of work in 2006, at the same time as the White Paper was published. It found some interesting concerns that needed to be addressed. Three years on, in December 2009, AXA repeated the research, covering a group of 300 employers of different sizes and scale and more than 1,000 employees, just to test what they knew and thought about these policy proposals. The conclusion, I think, is that support for this policy is waning. That is the worrying thing and it is my conclusion from reading this research.
Mr Steve Folkard, who is head of pensions and savings policy, reports in his foreword to the research that he expected support to grow between 2006 and 2009, but writes:
“However, in the three years that have passed the findings do not make for the most comfortable reading for policy makers”.
Looking at the detail, I agree with that statement. Mr Folkard concludes his foreword by saying:
“NEST is designed for the low to average wage earners and its success will be judged not just by the extent to which the number of people saving for retirement increases but whether the aggregate amount saved by the population increases too”.
I agree with that.
The survey has five bullet point findings which are worth rehearsing. First, it states:
“Support among employers for the introduction of NEST has dropped to 26%”.
That is a fall of 26 points over the three-year period, which is of serious concern. Secondly, it states:
“There has been a 7 point fall in companies being able to ‘absorb the costs and comply’”.
Thirdly, it states:
“19% of employers say they will reduce employee numbers as a result”—
of this policy’s introduction. That is “up 3 points”, which is bad news. Fourthly, there is a piece of good news. The survey states:
“21% of employers would level down to 3% per cent”—
there is a problem with levelling down—which is,
“5 points lower than in 2006”.
However, I am sure that colleagues will be concerned that 21 per cent of employers are considering levelling down. Fifthly, I was interested to note that the survey stated that,
“matched contributions is the single biggest issue that would encourage employees to raise their contributions followed by better awareness of what they may receive in retirement”.
I hope that the Government will study that survey carefully as it raises concerns that we all share.
I believe that two or three points need to be added to that list. Size of business is an issue. There is clear evidence in AXA’s survey that smaller companies will struggle to deal with all this to a far greater extent than some bigger businesses. We need to consider that further. If we are not careful, low-income workplace savers, particularly early joiners who are close to retiring age when they join, may get no benefit whatever from this system. That also needs to be looked at. Going forward over the next three years, opting out will be even more important for reasons which we all understand; that is, household domestic budgets will be under even more pressure. People will think of this measure as a wage cut if its positive aspects are not explained to them to enable it to be taken forward.
What can we do to help? What should we be looking to do? I look forward to hearing about the review. I understand that that discussion may be premature in that the Government have been in office for only 20 minutes, as it were, and reviews are reviews.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
I hear cries of “Too long” from a sedentary position. We have been in office longer than 20 minutes, but these are early days. However, I hope that the Minister and the department will understand that we need to take account of the urgency of this matter. The Government should restate their position as energetically and urgently as they can. They must demonstrate enthusiasm and demonstrate that they are up for this fight as it will be a struggle to win hearts and minds to make this policy successful. It is clear to me that we need to provide more flexibility for employers, and soon. We need to be able to access better information systems that explain the long-term benefits of this policy for employees and employers. We need to be able to do that in pretty short order if this policy is to succeed.
In the longer term we need to look at the promise of an evaluation when the “steady state” is reached in 2016. It is a shame that this has slipped back. I understand the reasons why the previous Administration slipped back the timescale slightly. I supported that as the original timescale presented many challenges. However, we will now not have a fully functioning 8 per cent annual saving amount until 2016. That is a long time coming and people will suffer from being undersaved between now and then as a result. We also need new impact assessments of the cost provisions that accompanied the draft regulations. I do not think that the earlier cost assumptions were sufficiently realistic. There should be better information. The department should have done more work since the previous assumptions were published. It would give the industry confidence if the department undertook to set up a working group with it and other interested parties in order to engage with the deployment and implementation of this policy. That is important.
This is a very important piece of legislation that we must get right. There is a case in the even longer term for the Government to think about creating an independent body to formulate strategy for long-term savings. It should be broadly drawn, because it is important to try to develop and enforce a consensus in this important policy area. It is too important to get wrong. I hope that today’s debate will help to shed some light on the Government’s thinking. That was the purpose of tabling the Motion in the first place. I look forward to contributions from colleagues and others. I beg to move.
Lord Fowler
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend on his speech. We have spent most of our time in the other place and here debating against each other, but it is extremely good that on this, and I suspect many other issues, we are very much on the same side. He made an excellent speech. I also congratulate the Minister on his appointment. He comes with a wealth of knowledge and we wish him the very best of fortune in his new post.
I start in a way which may seem a little away from the detail of automatic enrolment, but I hope that the House will soon see the relevance. Next week is the 40th anniversary of my coming to Westminster in June 1970. I spent 31 years in the House of Commons and nine in this House. I have to say that 1970 was another age. There was no Portcullis House with private offices and research assistants. I shared an all-party office. On one side I had Kenneth Clarke with his smelly cigars and dark brown Hush Puppies—or was it the other way around? Facing me was John Prescott—soon to be of this parish—who visibly scowled as I dictated down the telephone press releases defending the Government of Ted Heath. At the end of the room was our very much non-coalition partner, Cyril Smith, who happily did not come too often to the office. The noble Lord, Lord Pendry, and I tried to find space as best we could. To add to my problems, the first Queen’s Speech of the new Government abolished my then constituency of Nottingham South. It was not altogether a happy beginning at Westminster.
What is the purpose of this example, apart from alerting news editors throughout the country of this significant anniversary next week? My purpose is to make a fundamental point about the history of pensions policy in the 40 years that I have been at Westminster. In this period, we have had one government scheme after another. In my first Parliament, we dealt with the pension plan of Dick Crossman and then that of Keith Joseph. When in opposition I became my party’s spokesman on pensions and social security—to universal surprise, including my own—we had to deal with the Barbara Castle-Brian O’Malley plan and, in particular, the unlovely-named state earnings-related pensions scheme, SERPS. I learnt during that first debate how it is in Westminster that when the subject of pensions goes up on the screen, Chambers—here and in the Commons—miraculously empty, much to the disadvantage of our debates.
I admit that when I got into office, Parliament had to deal with the Fowler plan on personal pensions and the end of discrimination against early leavers. Then we had the plans of Peter Lilley in the Conservative Government, while under the party opposite the ideas of Frank Field were considered—briefly. His ideas were so unthinkable that he was immediately sacked. Later, when plans were subcontracted to the noble Lord, Lord Turner, we made more substantial progress.
In the past 40 years, we had the basic pension which was earnings-related; then it was price-indexed; now it will be earnings-related again. Also, there has been one variation after another of the state second pension. We have had SERPS; we have had modified SERPS; we have had son of SERPS; and now we have an ailing cousin of SERPS called S2P. At the same time, we have seen the decline, and almost fall, of final salary occupational pension schemes in this country, for which, frankly, the party opposite must bear some responsibility. I am trying to put that in the most moderate way by saying “some responsibility”. The noble Lord on the Front Bench shakes his head but I think that the party opposite must bear some responsibility for it, although I certainly accept that it does not have total responsibility. However, we should now be trying to get as much agreement between the parties as we possibly can on the way forward.
Pensions are a long-term investment and require long-term policy-making. In the current economic circumstances, it may not be possible to introduce every part of such an agreement at the same time, but I do not think that that should dissuade us, even at this point, from seeking as much agreement as we can. Indeed, I think it can be argued that in the past we have been too impatient in trying to introduce pension plans—not least in implementing the original Beveridge proposals. Therefore, my first point in this debate is that we should seek to agree on the goal of a pensions policy, getting as much agreement between the parties as we conceivably can and, above all, seeking to avert a pensions crisis whereby many of those in retirement will be living in hardship. That, I believe, is a cause that all parties can embrace.
I suggest that the basis for such an agreement—in a sense, it is what I proposed 25 years ago—is a twin-pillar system. The first pillar is undoubtedly state provision. The second pillar is personal provision, very much including workplace pension schemes of the kind that my noble friend has described. I say in parenthesis that such a twin-pillar system has been in place in Switzerland for many years, and it has worked to the great satisfaction of the public there. However, the important point is that both sides are essential. Without good state provision, you will not sufficiently encourage personal saving. The basis must be as generous a platform state pension as can conceivably be afforded. The structure that we have at present is not particularly generous but it is, without doubt, extremely complex and administratively extremely expensive. It is, above all, ill understood by the public. I remember that when we carried out our own pension review in the 1980s, most people who were members of the state earnings-related pension scheme did not know what the scheme was. I wonder how many today know the detail, or even the outline, of S2P. I would guess not very many. I also wonder how you can plan for old age if you do not know the basis of your pension provision.
Therefore, I think that the basic state pension should now be put together with the state second pension with the aim of lifting the pension level above pension credit. There would then be a decent platform pension. I accept that it may not be possible to do all that at the same time but affordability can come, for example, from adjusting the pension age. Again, it was a quarter of a century ago that I advocated flexible retirement up to the age of 70. As for paying the pension, I propose—it has already been proposed and I think it is very sensible—that you start with the over-75s and then move down the age scale. However, my basic point is that even in the present circumstances we can make some moves towards the goal of better pensions in this country.
I then come to the second pillar—personal provision. Here workplace pension schemes are fundamental and I certainly support everything that my noble friend has said about that, particularly what he said about automatic enrolment. As he said, the policy must be right in the long term. Automatic enrolment is an important step forward. I listened with concern, as I am sure the House did, to the figures of the survey that he quoted. That is not good news for future policy. He made important points about the detail of the automatic assessment. I shall not repeat all those points but they are important.
The essential point is that we know enough about how people put off making a contribution to realise that something of this kind is needed in the public interest. It is also entirely fair that personal pensions should be a combination of personal contribution, employer contribution and tax relief. Again I remember when we were going round this course in the 1980s with the state earnings-related pension scheme. At one stage we were proposing that it should go and considering what we should put in its place. I proposed exactly the kind of workplace pensions now in legislation. I think that we proposed a rather bigger contribution from employers than that being proposed today. The Treasury predictably opposed us on grounds of the tax relief bill and the decisive intervention in that debate came from the Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, who supported absolutely our proposal, including employer contribution.
It should be emphasised and underlined that a pension contribution is a very good investment for any company that is intent on trying to keep good staff and employees. We are also trying to make saving as attractive as we possibly can. In that respect I welcome very much the decision of the Government to do away with the absurd restriction that you must take an annuity at the age of 75. We have been fighting about that in the previous Parliament and before. There was never any particular justification for that policy and it is encouraging to see the Government moving so quickly. I am sure that my noble friend needs no instruction here, but I observe that not all pensions policy is made in his department. I am sure that the ex-Pensions Ministers from the previous Government who seem to be around the House today did not have their hearts set entirely on defending compulsory annuities at 75. I note that the noble Lord does not shake his head on this occasion.
However, that is what the Treasury decreed. Let us make no mistake; it is not something exclusive to Labour Governments. I say from personal experience that such interference is not unique. I could write a chapter of a book on how my own review was damaged. In fact, from memory, I think that I have written a chapter of a book on that. Let us hope that the sensible decisions on annuity mark a new era in the intervention of the Treasury.
I always said when carrying out my own review that we were making policy in a cold climate. If it was cold then, it is positively arctic today. Even so, I believe that we can make progress. The Chancellor has already shown that on annuities. As for the parties, we can certainly debate the speed of improvement and the other important improvements that can be made for, say, married women and the details of automatic enrolment. It would be of enormous benefit if the parties, after 40 years of debate, could agree the principles and the structure of what we want to achieve. That would be an enormous step forward and it would also be in the spirit of today when we are all seeking as much common ground as we conceivably can in all areas of policy-making. We are seeking to prevent hardship in old age and pensions policy is a crucial part of that.
Lord Lea of Crondall
Can I be clear that the noble Lord is strongly supporting the automatic enrolment principle? There is all this talk about people not being aware of it, not supporting it, and so on. We have had the big review—the Turner review—and we have a policy to make sure that for the first time everybody has some buy-in through the company for which they work. It includes both employers and employees, and we have heard neither the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, whose speech I very much admired, nor the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, saying that we have to sell this harder despite some of the propaganda against it by the private insurance industry.
Lord Fowler
It is marvellous that when one tries to reach agreement the noble Lord immediately looks for disagreement. There is no disagreement with him on that point; there is no disagreement from my noble friend and none from me. We want automatic enrolment. I said that about five times but the noble Lord may not have been listening at the time. Of course we need to promote and sell it, but let us not have a bashing match and go back to the old business at which the noble Lord is rather adept of having a go at the industry or whoever his latest target happens to be. Of course I agree with automatic enrolment and of course it needs to be sold. That is also the view of my noble friend.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for introducing this debate today. There is very little that I would disagree with within what the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, said. The crisis in occupational pensions, which certainly exists, has a deeper base, which is the issue of longevity. A quarter of all women, which I reckon is, or was, about three of us in this Chamber, will live to 95. Fifty years from now, the Lancet estimates that the median life expectancy will be more than 100 years—102—with half above it as well as half below. There are now more 65-year olds and above than there are under-16s. We all live a year for every three.
It was not until about 2005-06 and the report of the noble Lord, Lord Turner, that actuaries started building that in, after five years in which many companies had been taking contribution holidays. The resulting panic of renewed employer contributions at much higher levels accentuated by FRS 1719 and the collapse of the markets since then means that when I last checked, only four of the FTSE top 100 companies still had their DB schemes open to new members. We all know that in DC schemes, the employer’s contribution is 6 per cent, rather than 16 per cent in DB schemes, so the employee gets a smaller pot, together with investment risk, disinvestment risk, inflation and longevity risks, all falling on the shoulders of people who find pensions intimidating. We end up in the DC private sector with only 40 per cent of people covered, compared to 85 per cent in the DB public sector. It is coverage and adequacy as much as pension type that divides private and public sector pensions, which is why I so welcome auto-enrolment, either into an existing pension or into a shell stakeholder—which may be the most important element of all this, where we know that if employers do not contribute, employees will not, and which will therefore have an employers’ content for the first time—and NEST.
Will auto-enrolment work? Yes. When Scottish and Newcastle went from opting in to opting out, it went within a matter of months from 45 per cent contributions to 90 per cent contributions. The only people opting out were student workers. So there is huge potential. As always, I am especially concerned with the implication of auto-enrolment for the low paid, especially women. Should low-paid people be auto-enrolled? Without trying to go over the arguments that some of us raised in debate on the Queen’s Speech, only if it is safe to save and only if it is attractive to save. We must make it safe and attractive. Here, I entirely support the noble Lord, Lord Fowler. Increasingly, there is all-party consensus and full industry support for a new state pension which lifts people off means-tested pension credit.
As Steve Webb, who is now the Minister for Pensions, and I argue in a pamphlet, which can be found at www.soapboxcommunications.co.uk/anewstate pension.pdf, we could fund that pension by putting into one pot BSP, the state second pension capped at 2020 to give the extra headspace, and pension credit. At a stroke, there is a pension floating people off pension credit and thus making it safe to save and pay to save. Without such a platform, too many people will be at risk of mis-selling, and if we do not do it, issues such as annuitisation at 75 will be at risk. If we scrap annuitisation at 75, which I support, then, but only then, if it is underpinned by a safe new state pension, savers would no longer have to annuitise a slice of their pot to keep them off pension credit should they blow it all. A new state pension also sorts out the NEST problem, the removal of annuitisation at 75 problem and the stakeholder problem. That is not bad, and it is all for broadly the same cost as now.
In order to make it attractive to save, we have to allow low-paid people, who often have no other savings, access to a slice of their pension fund, perhaps represented by the 25 per cent tax-free lump sum, otherwise women, in particular, will not save if they have to lock the money away for 40 years when they may face all sorts of financial tumult in their working lives from divorce, disability or the need for running away money. We need to find appropriate low-cost vehicles in which to save. I have great hopes for auto-enrolment and also for employers’ contributions into existing shell stakeholder pensions. For example, we know that where employers do not contribute to a shell stakeholder pension, only 13 per cent of employees contribute, but where employers contribute, something like 80 to 90 per cent of employees contribute. As a result of NEST, people who are lower paid or are working in businesses with fewer than five members of staff—the cut-off point for stakeholder pensions—will have the opportunity to come into auto-enrolment.
I shall raise some detailed issues about NEST, and I hope the Minister will bear with me. I hope they will be considered in the 2017 review. NEST is targeted at the low paid, who are disproportionately women, who are probably earning between £10,000 and £20,000 a year. Given that they are low paid, to start with the NEST pots will be pretty small. I accept that you cannot ask kitchen-table employers to contribute more than 3 per cent at this stage, although I would hope that in time that would rise to at least 5 per cent.
I shall put four propositions to the Minister that would make NEST work and make it safe and attractive, which are the two criteria that dominate the debate. When NEST has rolled out, employers will contribute only 3 per cent, which will be 8 per cent in total, on earnings above the LEL. That means that someone on half average earnings—£10,000 to £11,000—will get a pot built on contributions of only just over half of that—£6,000—unlike other occupational pensions, which take the whole of the earnings range into account. I believe that where an employee wishes to contribute on all her earnings, including those below the LEL, as happens in other OPs, she should be allowed and encouraged to do so, and where she does, so must the employer. To do the full range for somebody on £11,000 a year would cost the employer an additional £4.50 a week, but the employee’s pot would more than double. Paying in only above the LEL for, say, 20 years on £11,000 a year would give her a pot of around £19,000 or an extra pension of around £19 a week, on which she promptly loses 40p in the pound on pension credit, so she ends up only approximately £11 a week better off. Put in the new state pension, and she would keep that £19—as opposed to £11—in full. Allow—indeed, encourage—her to pay on all her earnings, at a cost to her of an extra £5 a week, and her pot doubles to some £35,000 and she gets £35 a week, which brings her off pension credit. She keeps every penny and has a real, decent opportunity of comfort. So she could get £11 a week, £19 a week or £35 a week. By doubling her contribution, she receives three times her pension, and by making a new state pension, she receives double her pension—a huge increase for a modest additional cost, which, as I say, is about £4.50 a week or so for the average employer.
Secondly, I want NEST to offer access to that 25 per cent lump sum to encourage saving. After all, if a financial emergency hits you, it is much cheaper to borrow from yourself than from loan sharks charging 500 per cent APR down the road.
Thirdly, I want NEST to raise its ceiling in due course from £3,000 a year. I know that providers of other pensions were worried at the time that money that goes to them will be diverted, but, frankly, once NEST has settled down, we should permit it. Why is it okay to have a £10,000 cap on ISAs but only a £3,000 cap on pensions—on NEST? That is nonsensical.
Fourthly, NEST and other auto-enrol schemes really must help us with the problem of orphan pots. A hairdresser may have had a couple of periods of self-employment and built up a small pot of £2,000. She has £18,000 in her NEST pot on retirement, which is modest, but she cannot access that £2,000 because it is floating out there in the ether. She cannot trivially commute it into cash, because her NEST pot is above the trivial commutation limit. She cannot annuitise it because it is too small for providers to do so. She cannot import it into her NEST holding to raise it to £20,000 because of the preliminary rules that we have established and which should be reviewed. I know that there is good will in the DWP to attach it, so I hope the Minister can tell us how far it has gone with this when he replies. It would be unfair if someone in that hairdresser’s position had saved £20,000 but cannot touch 10 per cent of it because of completely arbitrary—and, if I may say so, man-made—rules.
Finally, I will go slightly wider than the topic, if I dare, and say a word about public sector pensions. I accept that government will wish to review how sustainable they are in the current climate. I am a new governor of the PPI—a long-established governor of the PPI, the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, is sitting behind me—which is researching possible options for this. One option, which I really want to float today, is for DB for earnings that attract a standard rate, and then a flip to DC on earnings at a higher rate or at another figure of, say, £35,000 a year or £30,000, so that the broadest shoulders bear the risk and those who are most in need of protection have the security of a DB slice. It is a hybrid scheme, and your Lordships are quite sensitive about hybrid schemes at the moment. I regret that I have not been able to cost the savings, but it would be fair, protect the low paid and be simple. Everyone would know what it means, and it would share risks, allow public sector employers to have a better stab at protecting and predicting future liabilities. It would also discourage the habit of late-life promotion for white men to enhance their pensions.
I very much welcome today’s debate. I hope that the Minister will clearly show his support for NEST today, flag up that we will have a review in 2017, confirm that some of the issues that have been raised today and that could transform the financial outcomes for women in particular will be considered, and that he, like the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and I, will join in the general consensus that the only way to get the low paid into pension provisions is, first, to make a new state pension safe and, secondly, to make it attractive. Ninety-five per cent of the bits are in place, and it would not take much to have a new picture on the jigsaw box. We would then have a landscape that was built on consensus and that could last us for a couple of generations.
Baroness Greengross
My Lords, I declare an interest as president of the Pensions Policy Institute and head of the UK International Longevity Centre. I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, on securing a very timely debate. He has raised some important issues and asked some significant questions. I also congratulate the other speakers today, who have been quite exceptional. I know that those who follow me will be the same, so my comments will be brief.
I am supportive of auto-enrolment but above all of the important consensus that has emerged about long-term pensions issues. Personal accounts may not be suitable for all employees due to their interaction with means-tested benefits. This particularly applies to workers over 55 years of age, who will always have insufficient time before retirement to accumulate a significant fund under the scheme. However, they may have just enough pension to reduce any benefit entitlement, including passported benefits, such as council tax relief, pound for pound. As I have said previously, this does not mean that people should not be auto-enrolled, but it implies that people will need, as the noble Lords, Lord Kirkwood and Lord Fowler, said, clear information and generic advice to help them to make informed decisions about whether they should stay in or opt out of personal accounts
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, pointed to the extraordinarily awful levels of ignorance among the general public. The issues are who pays for the information and who will provide the information and advice, particularly down the line at the decumulation stage when employment has ceased. An important test of the personal accounts policy will be whether it is possible to design information and generic advice in a simple and easy-to-understand way to help people to decide whether they should opt out of personal accounts.
There are policy options that the Government could consider to improve the incentives to save for some groups, particularly those who are heavily at risk. I hope that the Minister will be able to indicate some of the thinking along these lines. Increasing the trivial commutation limit or introducing a limited pension income disregard could improve the returns from personal accounts for some individuals at a cost of increasing government expenditure on means-tested benefits.
I know that these are difficult decisions for the Government to make. I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, that a working group of experts to consider some of the important issues that have been raised today might be helpful in taking things forward. We must get this right in the long term as well as the short term.
Baroness Noakes
My Lords, for the avoidance of doubt, I draw the attention of the House to my interests as shown in the register. I do not believe that any of them constitutes a relevant interest for the purposes of my participation in today’s debate, but in these difficult times it is always better to be safer and certain. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, on securing this debate so early in this new Parliament. I also congratulate my noble friend Lord Freud on his appointment as Minister and I look forward to his response.
As my noble friend Lord Fowler pointed out, pensions are one of those topics that attract only a small group of usual suspects, who usually know rather a lot about the subject, and so it has turned out again today. It was certainly the case when we considered the Pensions Act 2008, which I am sure is engraved on the heart of the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, who so ably led for the Government on that Bill. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said about the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, and his handling of the Bill—indeed, the whole of his portfolio—as Minister.
When I took part in the debates on the Pensions Act 2008, sitting in the seat now occupied by the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, I was grateful for the briefing provided by a number of outside bodies, but in particular that from the Confederation of British Industry and the Association of British Insurers. I am grateful to those bodies for briefing me again today for the purposes of this debate. It is a pity that the noble Lord, Lord Lea of Crondall, is no longer in his place after intervening earlier and implying that the attitudes of industry were inimical to auto-enrolment. I can certainly confirm that the Association of British Insurers and the Confederation of British Industry support auto-enrolment and are trying to work on the practicalities of making it a success.
As has already been said in the debate, there was a broad consensus around the Pensions Commission’s proposals for auto-enrolment as the basis for achieving a significant increase in the number of those saving towards their retirement. My party always registered some caveats about the scheme, in particular in relation to costs, to which I should like to return later. I understand that the coalition’s Pensions Minister in another place, Mr Steve Webb, has said that the Government will go ahead with auto-enrolment but that they will review the specifics of the scheme. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, I hope that my noble friend can give some more details today about that review. He must be aware that employers and the pensions industry need to know what this review will entail, who will undertake it, when it is expected to be completed and who will be consulted. If there is any substantial uncertainty about the way ahead, that will inevitably affect the willingness of the business community to devote significant resources to continuing to prepare for something that may change. I hope that we can have more clarity on this today.
In my view, the previous Government’s approach had one fundamental flaw. They built their scheme of auto-enrolment around the proposition that every employee earning above the threshold should be included. I believe that this is an unrealistic approach, which in practice has produced real difficulties. The prize for society as a whole is to get a significant number of people saving for their retirement and saving more than was the case in the past—but not every last one. Policies that try to do too much often run into problems, as we have seen with many grandiose projects in the public sector. In the world from which I come, achieving an 80/20 solution—that is, 80 per cent of the benefits for 20 per cent of the costs—would be regarded as an excellent outcome. However, the former Government pursued the last percentile of benefit regardless of its cost.
Auto-enrolment is due to start in 2012, which does not leave much time to sort out the remaining details. The business community believes that the Government should look again at the draft regulations. The previous Government’s first shot at the draft regulations was pretty dreadful and business bodies and the pensions industry have been working with the department to try to get them into a shape that is acceptable. While this has largely been achieved, there remain aspects that cause disproportionate cost and complexity for employers. Will the new Government’s review be looking again at these regulations in order to see whether greater simplicity and lower costs can be achieved?
The noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, will recall our discussions about qualifying earnings, which have been alluded to. These had a particular impact on employers who already had good pension schemes but who used definitions that, although they are common in the private pensions industry, are quite unlike those used in the Act. The noble Lord was helpful and facilitated some amendments to the Bill, which allowed the regulations to accommodate the different ways in which employers are structured as regards their pensions, but that has simply deferred the problem to the regulations. I understand that the regulations in draft still do not recognise the difficulties for employers. The business sector has developed a self-certification approach that is practical and delivers a high degree of conformity, but that has not yet found favour with the Department for Work and Pensions. I ask my noble friend to ensure that his department will start to operate in a pragmatic way that supports employers who are trying to deliver good workplace pensions rather than penalises them for not guaranteeing the last percentile of benefit.
In addition to the qualifying earnings problems, the timing arrangements for auto-enrolment into personal accounts are also a problem. It is inefficient if, as currently planned, the rules require the enrolment of people who are likely to opt out—short-term workers, for example. Business would like enrolment to be delayed for, say, 30 days, which would avoid most of the unnecessary paperwork. To date this has been resisted, so will my noble friend ensure that the department looks at this again? The Government also need to look again at the impact on very small businesses. Again in their zeal to pursue the last percentile, the previous Government included even the smallest employer, including someone employing one person, such as a nanny or a housekeeper.
The previous Government also rejected using HMRC to administer the scheme alongside PAYE and, in so doing, they created an administrative cost for the scheme and a burden for small employers that are disproportionate. I hope that my noble friend will say that the new Government will look again at taking micro-employers out of the ambit of auto-enrolment.
The previous Government never faced up to the very real threat to workplace pensions of employers levelling down to the personal accounts scheme. Every time the Department for Work and Pensions insists on an employer-unfriendly rule, it makes it harder to maintain an existing workplace pension scheme and increases the likelihood that employers will simply default into the personal accounts scheme. This will hurt employees because most workplace schemes contribute more than is required under the 2008 Act. Our Government need to recognise that encouraging workplace pensions means encouraging employers, not hitting them with administration and regulation. This is part of a bigger theme of government action harming workplace pensions. It started in a big way with the ACT raid of 1997 and has got worse over the past 13 years. I hope that we can return to those broader issues on another day.
I emphasise that there is one area in which the business community does not want change—the timetable for implementation. I know that when my party was in opposition we criticised the previous Government’s draft timetable, which will delay full implementation of the employer contribution until 2017, but I believe that it is a pragmatic approach that allows a reasonable time for employers to plan for the cost implications of auto-enrolment. I hope that my noble friend can confirm today that the new Government will not shorten the timetable.
I turn now to costs. In opposition, my party did not believe that the personal accounts scheme could be delivered for the 0.3 per cent annual charge that the Pensions Commission calculated, and so it has proved. While there will be an annual charge of 0.3 per cent, there will be a whopping 2 per cent upfront charge in order to cover the set-up costs. In addition, according to a Written Answer that I received from the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie of Luton, just before the Dissolution of the previous Parliament, the personal accounts scheme will start this summer with a debt of more than £60 million and over the following five years will borrow another £400 million from the Government. There is no sign that when we get to 2015 the appetite for public money will have run out.
While the 2 per cent upfront charge may be necessary to keep these huge borrowing figures from ballooning even further, no date has been set for its removal. The CBI is concerned that the 2 per cent charge will increase opt-out rates and thereby defeat the purpose of the policy. The perceived returns on saving will simply not be sufficient, particularly for older workers being enrolled. Is my noble friend satisfied that the costs that underpin the need for this upfront charge and the massive borrowing are reasonable and that the scheme has not been overengineered?
Perhaps more worrying is that the previous Government announced in March that they proposed additionally to subsidise the scheme to an unspecified extent on the basis that it would have to accept all comers, which the commission had not thought necessary when it produced its 0.3 per cent costing. Can my noble friend say today what this proposed subsidy will cost? Do the new Government sign up to the subsidy on top of the high lending that has to be provided to the scheme?
Lastly, there will also be costs to the Pensions Regulator for policing auto-enrolment. I understand that those costs, too, will be met by further public money. Will my noble friend say how much that will cost? Why is the cost of regulation not borne by pension savings, as happens with other forms of pension saving?
I do not have to remind my noble friend that we live in an age when public expenditure must be cut and that we cannot afford, as the previous Government planned, to carry on spending regardless of the consequences. That may mean that the scheme for auto-enrolment and personal accounts has to be trimmed in order to fit what can be afforded. We cannot have everything that we want. I support auto-enrolment, but not at any cost. I have major concerns about the cost to employers and the cost to the public purse. I hope that my noble friend will be prepared to take radical action when the Government review their inheritance on auto-enrolment. When they do that, I hope that they will also abandon the notion of chasing every last percentile.
Lord McKenzie of Luton
My Lords, I join other noble Lords in thanking the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for initiating this debate, which gives us a timely opportunity to understand the proposed direction of travel of the coalition Government on this important matter. I thank both him and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, for their kind comments.
The debate gives us a chance to test whether the broad consensus around pension reform hitherto still holds. Noble Lords will be aware—it has been referred to today—that this was anchored largely in the work of the Turner commission. It is a particular pleasure to note that another member of that commission, Jeannie Drake, will shortly join your Lordships' House on the Labour Benches.
It has been a very good, if short, debate. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, called on the Government to show some enthusiasm for auto-enrolment—I certainly endorse that. He and others have pressed on the scope of the review, to which I should like to return in my contribution. I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, on his upcoming 40th anniversary. I am delighted that he will soon be reunited with John Prescott.
We had a fascinating trip down the memory lane of pensions: graduated pensions, SERPS and S2P. I say to the noble Lord that S2P has been simplified, squeezing out some of the earnings-related component of it. Perhaps we might find another opportunity, together with the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, to debate what has happened to defined benefit schemes. I might just ask the Minister whether the so-called tax raid on pension funds will be reversed by the coalition Government.
As regards the need to annuitise at 75—or the need not to do so—I have been an agnostic on that because it has nothing to say to those who are likely to benefit for auto-enrolment. Auto-enrolment is to deal with people who undersave, who need their income in retirement and who do not have the opportunity to store it up and pass it on as an inheritance. When the proposals come forward, we will look at the tax treatment of pots that are left and then passed on as an inheritance, and whether that properly takes account of inheritance tax. It would be quite wrong to use it to open up a tax loophole.
My noble friend Lady Hollis, as ever, made a thought-provoking contribution, stressing particularly issues around longevity and the huge potential for auto-enrolment. She spoke of the challenges of small pension pots and the emerging consensus around a new state pension. I take the point exactly that, if that were to be achieved, it would help on issues around the interaction of benefits.
The noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, remains supportive of auto-enrolment, and again stressed the importance of consensus, on this issue of the interaction with the benefit system. Consensus was an issue that the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, also acknowledged. I am intrigued about proposals on the scope of coverage and all employees not necessarily having to be covered. I accept that issues around self-certification, trying to give administrative easements to employers while still encompassing a broad range of employees, have proved a challenge. I think that there were a couple of goes at it and would acknowledge that it was unfinished work in progress when we left office.
The Turner commission was established to consider the long-term challenges facing the UK pension system, characterised by undersaving for retirement, inequalities and complexity in the state pension system and demographic and social change. Changes to the state pension, making it fairer and more generous, were implemented from April this year, providing a firmer foundation upon which people can build savings for their retirement. Notwithstanding these improvements to the state pension system, including the coalition Government’s announcements about uprating, which I welcome, it will not provide the retirement income to which many people aspire. It is estimated that around 7 million people are currently not saving enough to obtain a reasonable replacement rate of income in retirement. In excess of 40 per cent of working-age employees are not contributing to a private pension.
The reasons for that are complex, but they include issues around low financial literacy, inertia, lack of provision especially for those on low and moderate incomes, as well as declining employer provision away from defined benefit schemes towards contract-based DC schemes—hence a role for government intervention. That government intervention had two key components. One was a system of automatic enrolment requiring employers to make a minimum contribution to their workers’ pension funds and a new national pension scheme designed to provide a simple, low-cost way of saving for low to moderate income earners—originally personal accounts. Put simply, that was our starting consensus, enshrined in primary legislation in the Pensions Act 2008. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I remember it well. But the consensus did not just involve political parties; it involved a significant range of stakeholders, including the CBI, the TUC and the ABI. By and large, that consensus has held, which is to be welcomed.
As ever in these matters, the challenges come in the detail of the earnings on which employers’ contributions are to be made; what the mechanics are surrounding the process of auto-enrolment and the right to opt out; what safeguards there are in the system to discourage employers with existing provision from levelling down and what existing provision satisfies the auto-enrolment tests; what information should be provided to employees; whether advice should be provided to all or any groups of individuals being auto-enrolled; and what compliance and anti-avoidance measures are required. On the low-cost national scheme, there are issues around not being favourably treated so as to prejudice private sector providers; the funding and charging arrangements; the sheer operational and governance issues of a trust-based scheme with potentially 1 million employers and several million members; the nature of the investments of the fund; and how lifestyling is to be organised for so many members—indeed, how the scheme administration is to be accomplished.
Much of this, subject to any review which the Government may wish to undertake and advise us of today, is settled. Regulations are in force which prescribe the arrangements which the employer must follow to comply with the employer duties on automatic enrolment. I believe that there was a broad consensus on that; we had two goes at it to try to improve the original draft, and I thought that there was an acceptance that there was a considerable improvement. There were issues around information requirements, opting out, and duties towards voluntary savers. Existing regulations also cover the point in time at which employers will have to start to comply with their duties and the minimum contribution level which employers and employees will have to make.
Arrangements have been made for the national scheme which provide for the winding up of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority, as it has completed its task of providing its advice and designing and developing the infrastructure of the new low-cost scheme. Statutory instruments have given effect to the scheme order, which will actually create the new scheme—to be called the National Employment Savings Trust or NEST—as a trust-based, occupational pension scheme. This is currently due to inherit property, rights and liabilities from PADA in July 2010 and thereafter to be responsible for implementing and running the scheme.
A lot has been accomplished but there is a lot of work still in hand. Like other noble Lords, I acknowledge the desire of the coalition Government to take stock and review matters, and this obviously raises a number of questions. We have heard some of this from other noble Lords, but I should be grateful if the Minister would deal with the following points, either in responding to this debate or later in writing.
We understand that there is to be a review of aspects of auto-enrolment. Like the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, and the noble Baroness, Lady Noakes, I ask the Minister to tell us a little about the scope of the review and what drives its timing. I think that this is a separate review from the 2017 review. I take it that the coalition Government remain committed to the concept of auto-enrolment, and that this is not to be abandoned. I accept that already from the tenor of today’s debate.
Is it envisaged that the scope would remain as currently planned, or are there any proposals to curtail the range of employers subject to the duty or limit the range of income to which the duty applies?
As currently planned, the auto-enrolment process would commence in 2012 and be staged over a four-year period so that all employers would be within the duty by 2016. As for employer and employee contributions, the phasing currently provides for an initial period where minimum employer and employee contributions would commence at 1 per cent each and not reach the full 3 per cent and 5 per cent respectively until October 2017. Is it envisaged that either of these would change, and is it the Government’s desire to accelerate the employer duty obligations, leave them unchanged or introduce them at a slower pace?
Fears of employers with existing provision “levelling down” have been ever present, despite DWP research that shows that this is generally unlikely. Are the Government contemplating any further arrangements to allay any such concerns, which we have heard expressed again today?
On a wider point, one of the commitments in the coalition programme is the undertaking to explore opportunities for people to access part of their pension early, presumably looking at the New Zealand and US experience. I know that this concept is much beloved of my noble friend Lady Hollis, although of course not beloved of the Treasury, but I am interested in the Minister’s view on this and on whether shifting emphasis from something that is overwhelmingly about provision for retirement to an effective lifetime savings account will change the paradigm with regard to employers’ willingness to contribute beyond statutory minimums.
Another concern expressed about auto-enrolment was the risk of mis-selling because individuals would not get full value for their contributions as they would lose benefit—possibly, in some cases, pound for pound for any pension income secured—and this despite detailed analysis demonstrating that overwhelmingly individuals would get positive returns. At the time of the legislation there was much debate about whether people should be able to access advice as well as just receive information. There was a Lib Dem amendment, as I recall, that suggested that anyone of 50 or over should get one hour of free financial advice. In this regard, I note and welcome a commitment of the coalition Government to create a free national advice service, apparently to be funded by a levy on the financial services sector. Is the Minister able to tell us more about this, such as when it is expected to be up and running and the likely structure and level of the levy? Will this overlap with the proposed banking levy?
Whatever else the review is to cover, we understand that it will cover the suitability of NEST as a delivery mechanism for auto-enrolment. We know that NEST is well advanced in its preparations: it takes over from PADA in July, trustees have been appointed, arrangements for the scheme administration are in hand and an impressive team has been assembled to address the full-range challenges of running a scheme of this magnitude.
So what are the concerns? Is the suggestion that NEST has the wrong business model, or is the contention that the existing private sector providers could serve the target market better? The latter would be surprising, as they have lamentably failed to do so in the past. Will the Minister give us an assurance that there is no intention to move away from the universal service obligation envisaged for NEST or indeed that the scheme should be other than a low-cost scheme?
Securing dignity and security for tomorrow's pensioners is the business of Government. The reforms that we initiated were founded on the principles of personal responsibility, fairness, simplicity, affordability and sustainability, which has helped build the consensus. We hope that that consensus will endure. We look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say and seeing the results of the review in due course.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Work and Pensions (Lord Freud)
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, for raising this debate and providing the House with an opportunity to discuss this important issue. I also congratulate those taking part and join the noble Baroness, Lady Greengross, in her congratulations to those people on such an extraordinarily high quality of debate, which I personally found extremely valuable as we shape the immediate period ahead.
During the past decade, we have seen a big decline in the level of pension saving in the UK. Overall saving in the private sector workplace in terms of pension provision has fallen, from 46 per cent of employees in 1997 to 37 per cent in 2009. That means that 2.6 million more people are not saving in a workplace pension. In the same period, the availability of defined benefit schemes in the private sector has also declined, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, pointed out, and membership fell by 1 million between 2005 and 2009.
For those in defined contribution schemes, there has been a decade of lost growth in the primary market—the equity market. The average real rate of return between 1999 and 2009 was minus 1.2 per cent per annum, and just last month the typical pension fund performance for balanced managed funds was down 3 per cent.
While those trends have been happening, life expectancy in the UK has reached its highest level on record and will increase further to the point where in 2050 there will be just three working people for each pensioner. The reality is that, if people want to enjoy a decent standard of living in retirement, we all as individuals and as a nation need to be much better prepared. But that, of course, is not the only problem we face. Whatever we do now needs to be seen in the context of the worst recession since the Second World War, and the need to reduce the unprecedented fiscal deficit. As a nation, we simply cannot afford to continue without a step change in our savings culture.
This coalition wants to see the principles of fairness, responsibility and social justice apply to both our welfare and pension agendas. The Government want to encourage individuals to take more personal responsibility for themselves by saving more and saving longer towards a retirement income that will meet their expectations. Already, we are in a position today where 45 per cent of pensioner households are entitled to pension credit, and 50 per cent to council tax benefit. It is not sustainable for the state to continue to meet the challenges of undersaving all on its own.
The state pension needs to provide a fair and solid foundation for people to save for their retirement, so this Government will restore the earnings link with the basic state pension from April next year with a “triple guarantee” so that it will rise by the higher of earnings, prices or 2.5 per cent. However, at the same time, we need to restore confidence in public finances, so we will hold a review to set the date at which the state pension age starts to rise to 66 years.
We also want a more flexible approach to retirement. People need to be able to retire when it is right for them, so we intend to phase out the default retirement age and will be consulting with employers and others on how to do this. However, if we are to have a pension system which is fair and sustainable into the future, we also need to reverse the significant decline in private pension saving that we have witnessed in the past decade. That is why we continue to support automatic enrolment.
We want to encourage employers to provide high quality pensions for their employees, but additionally we want to explore options that will stimulate greater personal saving. We are therefore considering additional ways of reducing the costs of running pension schemes, making pensions more affordable for employers to run, and investigating ways of making saving more attractive to individuals. Changes such as our commitment to abolish compulsory annuitisation at 75—as the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, suggested—will provide greater flexibility for pension savers in planning for their future.
The big prize here is to help people when they are working to save more and save for longer, and to make it easier for them to do so—to take responsibility for their future. We need to encourage and enable participation in pension saving so that it is no longer the preserve of the financially savvy or those who happen to work for particular employers. Quite simply, we need to get people back into the savings habit and ensure that they have access to a good workplace pension scheme.
The Pensions Commission’s solution to this dilemma was automatic enrolment into a pension scheme, with mandatory contributions by employers. We on the Government Benches have long been firm supporters of automatic enrolment. We believe that it will be highly effective at tackling the failures in our pensions system by increasing participation in pension saving.
At this point, I pay tribute to the work of one of the earliest behavioural economists, Dr George Loewenstein, who happens to be my cousin. He created the concept of asymmetric paternalism which was so influential in getting these automatic enrolment features in a range of public provision. The evidence shows that it works, leading to increased participation. Your Lordships have only to look at the United States, where automatic enrolment increased membership of its 401(k) schemes among new employees from around 20 to 40 per cent to nearer 90 per cent. Another example is New Zealand, where the introduction of automatic enrolment is estimated to have doubled pension savings in the KiwiSaver product over a three-year period.
As we made clear in our coalition programme, we remain committed to automatic enrolment, but we need to find the right way to make it work. A lot has changed since the Pensions Commission published its recommendations back in 2005. Given the current economic climate, it is essential that we ensure that automatic enrolment is introduced in a way that strikes the right balance between cost and benefits, and ensures maximum value for money for individuals, for employers and for the public purse.
Our review of these reforms will cover the scope of existing plans for automatic enrolment and NEST. Noble Lords would agree that it is vital that the Government take ownership of this initiative so that we have cross-party agreement on this, which, as my noble friend Lord Kirkwood pointed out, is so essential.
We will reach our conclusions quickly and take a hard look over the summer at the plans that we have inherited. If necessary, we will make changes to ensure that the reforms deliver for individuals, employers and the taxpayer.
Let me deal with the many fascinating points raised in debate; I will aim to get through as many as possible.
Baroness Hollis of Heigham
I was fascinated by the noble Lord’s point about the review. Which areas in particular are the Government concerned about, and will therefore be discussed in the review? I do not mean what will the conclusions be, but what will the territory be?
Lord Freud
I thank the noble Baroness. That is exactly what I was about to get straight on to. I will deal with her particular issues in that context. Before I get into what the review will cover, I start with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, particularly what he said about employer attitudes and his concerns after meeting the people from AXA and reading their research. Evidence emerging from our research—a large survey of employer attitudes—suggests that 56 per cent of employers believe that these reforms are a good idea. Seventy-seven per cent believe that when they are already contributing 3 per cent or more. There is no doubt that the cost to employers of automatic enrolment is significant. The cost to employers—the smallest employers in particular—concerns me and is something that I want to look at closely in the review.
We are committed to getting the details right. That is why we are carrying out the review—to ensure that the proposals work properly. Several participants in this debate have asked about the details of the review, including the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, my noble friend Lady Noakes and the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie. We are finalising the details of the terms of reference, including who will conduct the review, its process, its reporting and so on. We hope to make an announcement encompassing those issues soon. To offer some reassurance, we are concerned about the impact on employers, particularly small employers. We also want to look at the position of older workers. We will review the contract for the NEST administration services, but with an open mind; if it fits with what is needed we will run with it. We aim to reach our conclusions quickly. Again, the detail is yet to be determined, but I expect we will know where we are with this before the House returns after the summer.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked about the NEST charging structure and whether we would keep it. He will infer, from my last answer, that that is a level of detail that we have not yet got to. The first question to ask is: does the scope of auto-enrolment work for both individuals and employers? Scope is key here. Secondly, given that, is NEST, as it is currently configured, the right intervention?
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, asked about the certification process and whether that meshed with the BIS drive to reduce red tape. We are committed to recognising and maintaining existing high-quality pension provision. That means developing a process for employers with good money purchase schemes to show that their scheme meets the minimum requirements for auto-enrolment. This is called the certification process. In the coming months, DWP officials will work with the pensions industry and directly with employers to develop effective processes to support automatic enrolment. This includes straightforward ways for employers to assure themselves that their pension schemes qualify under the law.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, queried the four-year implementation period. We are fully committed to taking forward the automatic enrolment provisions under the Pensions Act 2008. However, the effects over the medium and long term will be huge. That is why we want to take stock of where things are; that is what the review is about and I do not want to prejudge it.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, concentrated my mind on wider savings incentives. It is critically important that people have confidence in saving towards their retirement if we are to deliver the step change in savings behaviour that we want. The department’s analysis is that more than 99 per cent of people can expect to be better off in retirement if they have saved than if they have not saved. However, we need to take seriously the possibility of someone facing a loss. The problem is that the people who fall into this category are not like leopards with spots that one can see beforehand; that situation emerges later, so it is a difficult problem. It is important that we allow people to take personal responsibility. However, the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, made the point that people are woefully ignorant in this area. I think that the noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, said that he used the term “ignorant” in the best way in that regard. There is ignorance in this area, which means that it is very hard for people to take personal responsibility. Clearly, this is a vital area which we will address in our review.
The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, mentioned the costs of the Personal Accounts Delivery Authority and the impact of any expenditure cuts. The reduction of the deficit is a number one priority for the Government. Therefore, we will need to look right through the cost base to ensure that the costs are justified and that savings can be made where possible. I reassure my noble friend Lady Noakes that we will take a hard look at those costs and that we will not spend money unnecessarily.
It is vital that individuals have information about opting out. The noble Lord, Lord Kirkwood, is concerned about that. That will be critical to the success of the reforms. We are working closely with the Pensions Regulator to ensure that there is coherent and consistent information.
The noble Lord, Lord Fowler, and the noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, talked about the state of our state provision. The noble Baroness, Lady Hollis, again drew to our attention, as she did in her excellent speech last week, her booklet, A New State Pension. I was touched to think of her running on to the age of 95, and I hope that she does. However, it is slightly invidious to say that, statistically, only three noble Baronesses who were then present in the Chamber would do so, as I count seven who are now present, so it is a case of pot luck. There are clearly attractions in combining various elements of the state pension to introduce a single decent state pension. However, a large number of issues, not least one of them being cost, need to be considered before we introduce such a scheme.
I am very conscious that I am running out of time—unless noble Lords want to give me three more minutes.
Lord Freud
I saw someone else obtain three minutes the other day, but this is not permissible. I will write to noble Lords on other issues that I have not managed to cover. I have a lot to write to noble Lords about; I apologise.
Our goal is straightforward—
Lord Freud
I close by thanking all noble Lords who have taken part in this debate and I will write where I have not responded.
Lord Kirkwood of Kirkhope
My Lords, I am seriously grateful to the Minister. It is perfectly understandable, because he had questions of very high quality thrown at him from all sides, that it was impossible for him to respond in the time allotted, but perhaps he could respond—the noble Lord, Lord McKenzie, said that there were common issues—and take advantage of the useful briefing that is already in his inside pocket. Perhaps he can put copies in envelopes and send them to us in due course. It would be extremely helpful if we could be told the terms of reference for the review before the House rises for the Summer Recess. Obtaining a fuller response by the time that we return after the Recess is an acceptable timetable, if the noble Lord can keep to it. I promise that if he does not keep to it, some of us will remind him of the target date that he set for himself. I am very grateful for his reply, which will repay careful study, and to colleagues for contributing to the debate. I am seriously interested in the fact that the coalition Government are now committed to asymmetric paternalism, in addition to the other matters in the joint agreement.
These are pesky issues with which we will all have to wrestle, but knowing the noble Lord, Lord Fowler, to be a hospitable host with a 40th anniversary approaching, I am sure that we can all console ourselves when he convenes—we all look forward to joining him in the Bishops’ Bar, or wherever, to celebrate his distinguished anniversary. I am very happy to withdraw the Motion.
Zimbabwe
(14 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord St John of Bletso
To call attention to developments in Zimbabwe; and to move for Papers.
Lord St John of Bletso
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to have the opportunity to debate current developments in Zimbabwe. I thank all noble Lords for agreeing to speak in the debate. I had hoped that there would be a few more speakers, but at least we have the benefit of not being short on time.
The last full debate in your Lordships’ House on Zimbabwe was in March 2005. Since then there have been several Questions for Short Debate. The other place recently debated the all-party group’s report, Land in Zimbabwe: Past Mistakes and Future Prospects, on that vexed issue. At the outset, I pay respect to the contributions of the late Lady Park of Monmouth and Lord Blaker, both of whom were ardent campaigners for democratisation and for human rights protection in Zimbabwe. They are sorely missed and their contributions were greatly appreciated by all.
It is perhaps opportune that this debate is taking place on the eve of the opening of the World Cup, whereby global attention is focused on not just South Africa and the great sporting spectacle, but the opportunities and challenges facing the region. Some commentators may argue that the past 10 years in Zimbabwe have been a lost decade. So I thought that in addressing the current developments in Zimbabwe, I should speak briefly on the background to the political and economic demise of the country.
Essentially, all was well in Zimbabwe until 1997, as the IMF reform programme was being effectively implemented. However, the free market reforms resulted in a growth of the middle class in Zimbabwe, and wealth creation at the time effectively made ZANU-PF less relevant under its current system of patronage. Furthermore, the so-called war vets were not benefiting from the reforms and growth, and they threatened to remove their support for President Robert Mugabe unless he helped them. The ensuing massive payouts of bonuses and allowances had a devastating effect on the fiscal deficit and effectively resulted in the freefall of the Zimbabwe dollar in 1997. The war vets then carried on with their threats, which led to the calls for radical land reform. When Robert Mugabe lost the referendum in 2000, he blamed the white farmers for their support for the MDC. This led to rampant farm invasions, and that totally destroyed the fabric of the agricultural sector, which had for many years been the breadbasket of Africa.
As we all know, over the past decade the country has endured rampant inflation and critical food and fuel shortages. By March 2008, when Zimbabwe was hyperinflating and a 100 trillion Zimbabwe dollar note was worth barely £10, shops were empty, farms were totally unproductive, the population was starving with more than 90 per cent unemployment, and the president’s popularity was at rock bottom. When he lost the election and was on the verge of conceding and standing down, unfortunately the generals and strong political allies who controlled the army, the air force, the police and the justice system refused to allow him to do so and, we understand, they persuaded him that he could win the presidential run-off.
That led to a spate of rampant human rights violations and beatings of opposition supporters, particularly in the rural areas, which forced Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the MDC, to drop out of the election, making the rerun for the presidency a total farce. It was at this point that the President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, negotiated the deal that resulted in the global peace agreement—the GPA—on 19 September 2008. However, the transition was hindered by Mbeki’s close relationship with Robert Mugabe, and it was only Mbeki’s removal in early 2009 and a deal negotiated by interim President Motlanthe that paved the way for a transition coalition Government.
The appointment of Tendai Biti, the Finance Minister from the MDC, in 2009, the legalisation of the multi-currency system and the scrapping of the Zimbabwe dollar ended the patronage system that ZANU-PF had built through the Reserve Bank and effectively side-lined the Zimbabwe Reserve Bank. Today, nearly 18 months into the multi-currency system, exchange controls are effectively non-existent. For the first time since the 1960s, shops are full, restaurants are buzzing and businesses have taken off. Thanks to the support from NGOs and Governments around the world, humanitarian aid has been extended to schools and hospitals, as government revenues could not possibly sustain such an expense. The result is that schools and hospitals are now all open and there is clean running water in most of the hospitals.
In the agricultural sector, while land invasions unfortunately continue, they are no longer driven by the ZANU-PF but more by factions within ZANU. Many farmers are now returning to the land having done deals with the so-called new owners. Seed/maize production has trebled in the past year. The gold mines have reopened and investment is now starting to come back into improving the infrastructure. Of course, one of the major problems facing the gold mines is the lack of power. However, slowly but surely investment is trickling back into the mining sector.
The mining sector has been dogged by one major political gamut—the indigenisation regulations to which I shall refer later. In previous debates in your Lordships’ House many have rightly argued that South Africa has not exerted enough pressure to bring about meaningful change in Zimbabwe. Following his state visit in March, President Zuma assured our Government that he would exert a lot more pressure on the three parties in the coalition Government in Zimbabwe to complete the GPA. Significantly, following his visit he went to Harare and met all the major party leaders. ZANU agreed to the appointment of independent commissions for human rights, media and electoral reform, all of whose members have now been agreed and appointed. This week the first daily independent newspaper opened its doors as a result. The fact that one or two of the journalists have subsequently been arrested is perhaps another point that needs to be addressed by the Minister.
There has been a knock-on effect in South Africa from all the problems in Zimbabwe. There are more than 3 million Zimbabweans living in South Africa who are unregistered, and part of the challenge in South Africa of reducing the scourge of crime has been that many of the crime syndicates have been coming in from Zimbabwe. There is also the problem of xenophobia. Zimbabwe has traditionally had an industrious, entrepreneurial workforce and still has higher levels of education than most countries in Africa. Many Zimbabweans who have moved to South Africa have been prepared to work at cheaper rates than local South Africans which has often led to sporadic conflicts in the townships. Zimbabwe still has a major dependence on power supply from South Africa, but while trying to promote political change in the country, South Africa is now encouraging its companies to be more proactive in Zimbabwe and thereby promoting job creation.
One of the key challenges in Zimbabwe today will be the drafting of the new constitution which will ensure the success of the GPA. That will encompass the protection of human rights and civil liberties and will lay the foundations for free and fair elections. The constitution is due to be revised over the next nine months and must be in place before the next elections. Community outreach programmes are a key part of this process and clearly Zimbabwean citizens must have a say in the development of their own constitution. Meanwhile the hardliners are doing everything they can to frustrate the process through using the Attorney-General, the police or the army, but it is only a handful of hardliners who are causing the problems.
The most recent obstacle to change was, as I mentioned before, the gazetting of the indigenisation regulations that effectively stopped the economy in its tracks. An attempt was made to force all foreign companies to hand over 50 per cent of their equity to local Zimbabweans. Although we are all in favour of black empowerment, that clearly was more of a political tool. At the time, it was seen as an election winner, but it has backfired and it has negatively affected Zimbabwe-owned businesses trying to raise capital. The regulations are currently being revised, as the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, declared them null and void as they had not gone through Cabinet.
Many commentators would argue with much justification that, despite the economic achievements in Zimbabwe since February last year, there is unlikely to be any meaningful change until President Robert Mugabe leaves office. At the age of 86, and with his health deteriorating, especially in the past few months, it is conceivable that one of his main reasons for not wanting to step down is the fear that he may be charged by the International Court of Justice for the abuses dating back to the Gukurahundi massacre of the Matabele way back in 1982. There is some justification for that theory after the arrest of Charles Taylor in Liberia a few years ago. I encourage our Government to promote a constructive dialogue to try to agree a smooth exit for Robert Mugabe from power within ZANU-PF, which would pave the way for a peaceful transition to allow for free and fair elections to be held in that country.
I now touch briefly on the rights of women in Zimbabwe. In a country where women constitute 52 per cent of the population, it is alarming that only a few hold influential positions in Zimbabwe society. Of the 69 Cabinet Ministers, Ministers of State, Deputy Ministers and Provincial Deputy Ministers, only 12 are women. I was interested to read the feedback of Mary Robinson, the former President of Ireland, who, following her visit to Zimbabwe a few months ago, noted that the representation of women in the Zimbabwe Parliament has increased from just 10 per cent in 2005 to 15 per cent in 2008. That is far short of the SADC goal of 50 per cent representation of women in political decision-making in southern Africa by 2015. Sadly, the human rights of women in Zimbabwe are all too often violated. I sincerely hope that there will be greater participation of women in the consultation leading to the new draft constitution.
I am sure that the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, with his vast experience in the field of human rights, will address the problem of human rights abuses and the need for more proactive pressure to be put on the Government there to address that problem. I refer only to one report, which is the Human Rights Watch report published in June last year on the human rights abuses in the Marange diamond fields in Zimbabwe. The Marange diamond fields continue to be one of the sources—perhaps the major remaining one—of financial support for propping up Mugabe’s ZANU-PF. I am sceptical of the recent report recommending that the Kimberley process’s minimum requirements have been met.
My time is up. In conclusion, hyperinflation spelt the end for ZANU as well as Robert Mugabe. In the past decade, Africa has been the second fastest growing region in the world, with GDP growth of 4.7 per cent. Between 1997 and 2008, GDP grew from $327 billion to $1.6 trillion. Sadly, however, GDP in Zimbabwe has declined from $9.5 billion to $3.5 billion in the same period.
I have been accused in your Lordships’ House of being too optimistic about Zimbabwe. I believe that the time has now come for change. I believe that there should be African solutions to African problems. A successful Zimbabwe further undermines the hardliners. I look forward to the Government’s response. I beg to move.
Lord Sheikh
My Lords, I thank the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, for securing this debate. Africa is a continent close to my heart. I was born in Kenya and spent my childhood in Uganda. His Excellency the Ambassador of Zimbabwe is in the Chamber, and I welcome him to your Lordships' House.
About three weeks ago, I was asked by my Chief Whip to attend the sixth Consultative Assembly of Parliamentarians for the International Criminal Court and the Rule of Law, which was held in Uganda. I chaired and spoke in the session where the main speaker was the chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court. We discussed the situation in Sudan, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya and Uganda.
I am a businessman who cares greatly about humanitarian issues. As a nation, Zimbabwe has fallen short of expectations since gaining independence from the United Kingdom in 1980. Zimbabwe was once a prosperous state. However, civil unrest, which still hinders the nation’s progress, has largely contributed to its unfortunate descent. Democracy and the rule of law have been overlooked in favour of tyranny. The penal system does not always function fairly and there have been many incidents where justice has been lacking. Farms belonging to white citizens have been seized and are being seized as I speak. This brings back memories of the situation when General Amin seized the assets of us, the Asians, in the early 1970s, and there was mayhem in the country until he was removed.
In Zimbabwe, prisons are overcrowded, prisoners are severely undernourished and the lack of adequate sanitation contributes to the spread of disease among inmates. The recent arrest and alleged torture of gay rights activists is wholly unacceptable. The Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe has described same-gender couples as “lower than dogs and pigs”. Last December, I raised this issue in your Lordships' House when I referred to a Private Member's Bill in Uganda that seeks to criminalise same-gender couples. There has also been a well documented case of a couple in Malawi who were sanctioned for that reason. The rampant homophobia in certain African nations is a huge concern for us. Will the Minister tell the House what steps the Government are taking to address this issue in African countries that are members of the Commonwealth?
Although there are many areas where Zimbabwe needs to make swift improvements, it is important to recognise the recent progress made by that nation. The acquittal of Roy Bennett, the treasurer-general of the Movement for Democratic Change, is a testament to developments in the Zimbabwean judicial system. The decision to remove the ban on independent newspapers is a momentous step forward for Zimbabwe: the media have a right to exist without fear of intimidation. This development is all the more significant, as it was made by the new media licensing authority formed by the coalition Government. Following a High Court ruling, the South African Government have been asked to release a report on the disputed 2002 Zimbabwe elections. I welcome this decision, as there were widespread allegations of intimidation and irregularities. It is in the best interests of both nations to address the discrepancies in the statement made by the international observers and the then South African Government.
Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth has the potential to make a significant contribution to the nation’s economic recovery. However, there have been many deaths and human rights abuses at Marange diamond field in particular and at others in the east of the country. What steps will Her Majesty's Government take to investigate the widespread allegations that profits from the diamond trade are fuelling hostilities in Zimbabwe? In Sierra Leone, the international community witnessed the use of precious minerals in the pursuit of power to devastating effect.
We have a moral duty to ensure that Zimbabwe does not follow this path and is certified by the Kimberley process to sell diamonds. It has seen a marked recovery in manufacturing, mining, agriculture and tourism. Its economic growth suggests that it is meeting the requirement of the Southern African Development Community to work towards achieving economic liberation, as stated in the Lusaka declaration. It achieved a gross domestic product of 5.9 per cent in 2009, which strongly suggests that the economy is starting to show signs of long-term recovery. I welcome the African Union’s efforts to enforce good governance with proposals to sanction heads of state who engage in unconstitutional behaviour. Greater interaction among African nations could contribute to stability and economic growth on the continent.
The result of studies published by the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa, the African Development Bank and the African Union reveals that trade among African nations accounts for just a maximum of 12 per cent. The African Union has a greater role to play in fostering better regional integration. South Africa, as the largest investor on the continent, can play a leading role in ensuring that this becomes a reality.
The Commonwealth, too, can play a prominent role to encourage trade among the member states. I would like plans to be put in place to ensure that this becomes a reality and that active trade is generated between the various countries. It is estimated that every day close to 300 Zimbabwean migrants cross the Limpopo river into South Africa seeking asylum, and there are close to 3 million Zimbabweans in South Africa as a result of the dire social and political situation in Zimbabwe. The high number of Zimbabwean migrants has exerted great pressure on South Africa, which in turn has created social problems that have resulted in violence and death. Constructive dialogue is needed between the Governments of South Africa and Zimbabwe to address this mass migration.
The terms of the global political agreement include requirements that Zimbabwe must produce a new constitution and has a duty to hold democratic elections by next year. It can be argued that this latter requirement can be met only if international observers are allowed to carry out their duties in the absence of bribery or coercion. Although I would like Zimbabwe to gain readmission to the Commonwealth, this should be granted only on the proviso that the ruling coalition can meet the terms of the global political agreement.
Commonwealth countries can be more actively involved in conflict resolution in member states. We all appreciate that the Commonwealth is a unique organisation that values equality, and that the spirit of commandership can be utilised to settle disputes. At present, the Zimbabwean healthcare system is underresourced and underequipped. HIV and AIDS are endemic. Zimbabwe has become one of the most affected countries in the world. Commentators have attributed this to a number of reasons, including a lack of resources and community awareness. The Zimbabwean Government have not shown adequate leadership in addressing prevention and care in tackling the HIV epidemic. What plans do Her Majesty's Government have to assist Zimbabwe to combat this deadly affliction? The Zimbabwean people have suffered violence and degradation for far too long. It is the duty of regional partners and the international community to ensure that these abuses and impunity for the perpetrators of these abhorrent crimes are brought to an end.
The battle against apartheid in South Africa and the support of neighbouring states given to those involved in the internal struggle for justice was paramount to achieving freedom against oppression. The people of Zimbabwe deserve the same consideration in their quest to lead their lives free from intimidation and oppression. The social and political changes which face this country can be resolved with combined efforts from a democratic Zimbabwean Government and other countries, most notably with help from South Africa. We have historic ties with Zimbabwe and we can play a vital role in achieving the objectives.
Lord Hughes of Woodside
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, on raising this important topic. I especially echo his tribute to our late colleagues, Lady Park of Monmouth and Lord Blaker. We did not always see eye to eye on our approach to Zimbabwe, but I never doubted for one second their commitment to a free and democratic Zimbabwe. We certainly shall miss them.
The document The Coalition: Our Programme for Government mentions Africa only twice. Page 22 states that the Government,
“will support pro-development trade deals, including the proposed Pan-African Free Trade Area”,
and page 20 states:
“We support reform of the UN Security Council, including permanent seats for Japan, India, Germany, Brazil and African representation”.
I can see that those are important objectives, but the document is entirely silent on the programme for Africa, which I find extremely disappointing.
Zimbabwe remains a pressing problem. In the debate on the Commonwealth introduced by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, in December 2009, I urged for greater urgency and stimulus to move forward the process of securing the democratic future of Zimbabwe. I regret to say that there are no signs of any push within the Commonwealth, which is where we should try to achieve that.
There will be elections in August next year. Is that optimistic? It is hoped that a new constitution will be in being by then, which will have to be approved by a referendum. I do not think that it will be ready in time. There is even talk that the elections might go ahead under the current constitutional arrangements. I believe that that would be a disaster. We know what happened the last time there were elections. There was widespread intimidation and fraud. It was only because of a great deal of internal and external pressure, some of which was from South Africa, that we got a result capable of sustaining itself.
The situation is changing, which we should welcome. There are useful signs for the future. I am authorised to say that Voluntary Service Overseas is intending to introduce volunteers to Zimbabwe before the end of this year, pending completion of registration in the country as a non-profit organisation. It has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the Zimbabwean Government and, following completion of the process, will be able formally to announce placements with partners in Zimbabwe. This is very good news. We should commend VSO for that and wish it well.
There are also good signs, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, mentioned, for press freedom. Some papers have been newly published and some republished. Although street vendors have been arrested for disturbing the peace when selling newspapers, some of the show trials have been abandoned. That again is good news and we ought to be happy about it.
On the other side of the coin is the fact that intimidation still goes on. The trade union movement is under persistent attack for its outspoken criticism of what is happening. Trade union leaders, such as Gertrude Hambira of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union, have been forced to flee the country for their own safety. Also, a great many human rights violations carry on.
In all the discussions about the future position of Zimbabwe, the Southern African Development Community and the position of President Zuma in particular are absolutely critical. SADC has appointed South Africa to mediate on its behalf, but I regret that there is no evidence that South Africa is approaching the matter with any great urgency. We have to see signs of progress. The former President of South Africa, Thabo Mbeki, was roundly condemned, castigated and derided for his so-called silent diplomacy. Of course we know that megaphone diplomacy does not necessarily work, but I am concerned that there does not seem to be any real sense of urgency about the situation. SADC is due to meet in August this year and, although Zimbabwe will be on the agenda, it will not be the only topic. I fear that that may mean that the whole matter is sidelined. Some commentators are calling for SADC to be convened for a special meeting to decide how to deal with Zimbabwe. Again, I have to confess that I do not know whether that is necessarily the right approach, but it shows that there is a definite push to get something happening.
How are we going to deal with this? What are the Government going to do? Are they going to adopt what might be called the “in phrase” of the coalition and “consider matters afresh”? I do not quite know what that means, but it sounds good. However, there has to be a lot more than that. We need to discuss the situation urgently with President Zuma and the Government of South Africa. Has the Foreign Office made fresh approaches to President Zuma? Are there to be official discussions or is the matter simply to be left to drift?
The Conservative part of the Con-Lib Dem coalition has a special responsibility towards Zimbabwe. Perhaps I could gently remind the Minister that it was a Conservative Government who convened the Lancaster House negotiations and concluded the agreement that eventually led to the independence of Zimbabwe. That was fine, except that they also bequeathed to Zimbabwe the repressive Smith laws, which President Mugabe, when he came to office, seized on with glee to oppress his own people. I hope that the Minister recognises the historical duty that the Conservative part of the coalition has towards the people of Zimbabwe.
A lot has happened since our debate in December last year. At the time, I spoke about the publication of the report Land in Zimbabwe by the Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group, which has already been referred to. The introduction is headed, “Past Mistakes and Future Prospects”. The report makes four serious recommendations. The Government of the day, under the then Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander, gave their response on 3 February 2010, which broadly welcomed the recommendations, especially recommendation 4, which sets out plans for the future. Douglas Alexander also referred to the fact that the World Bank was carrying out a special study of the land question in Zimbabwe and that the former Government were looking forward to seeing that report. Have the present Government looked at the report of the all-party group and discussed what is happening with the World Bank? I understand that they have not been in office for long, but I do not recall them giving the then new Government in 1997 the benefit of the doubt, saying that there was plenty of time to sort things out. I hope that, when the Minister comes to reply, he will decide to show a real sense of urgency.
It has been said in some parts of Africa that we in Britain do not understand the land question. I had occasion to tell a high commissioner from southern Africa that the Scots certainly understand the land question, because we have long memories and we remember the 18th and 19th-century Highland clearances, when people were thrown off their land in order to provide for sheep. It was certainly as brutal as, if not more brutal than, the farmers being thrown off their land in Zimbabwe, although I do not seek to excuse what has happened in Zimbabwe by saying that. Our problem with the land has always been that the land is there to produce, and the greatest sin of the Mugabe Government in regard to the land seizures is that they took fertile land and turned it into wasteland. Land is not of value in itself; it is of value in a productive capacity to feed people. It is important and we recognise it as such.
I conclude by repeating what I said in our earlier debate:
“If we are to keep the stimulus—which is absolutely necessary—going, then unilateral action”,
by the British Government, will not be enough. I continued:
“I understand perfectly well that … the UK … has no prescriptive right to dictate to Zimbabwe what its future should be … I believe that multilateralism, within the Commonwealth especially, can move things forward ... If the Commonwealth is to be true to its goals”—
if the present Government are to be true to their goals—
“it must put a huge effort into moving things forward”.—[Official Report, 10/12/09; col. 1181.]
I commend this debate to the House.
Lord Avebury
My Lords, we are all grateful to the noble Lord, Lord St John, for giving us an opportunity of hearing what the policies of the Government are on Zimbabwe. One point which the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, may have missed in the coalition programme is that:
“We want to strengthen the Commonwealth as a focus for promoting democratic values and development”,
and that the aid budget will be used,
“to support … local democratic institutions, civil society groups, the media and enterprise; and … efforts to tackle corruption”.
That sentence could have been written with Zimbabwe in mind and I hope that it gives some comfort to the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, who wants the Commonwealth to be more involved in solving these problems.
It remains to be shown what value could be added by the Commonwealth per se to the work of the Friends, which is an organisation that includes richer Commonwealth states and SADC, the body of neighbours led by South Africa. Surely they must continue to exert the main political influence needed to accelerate progress towards full implementation of the global political agreement. With all its flaws, if the GPA was honoured by ZANU-PF, it would be an enormous improvement on its present arbitrary exercise of power, with the active collaboration of the military.
As my right honourable friend the Member for Gordon said when introducing the report of the International Development Committee in another place recently,
“violence and intimidation, bad government and destruction of the economy have forced millions of people to leave Zimbabwe”.
We have heard about the 3 million who are refugees in South Africa. He continued:
“Many others have been displaced from their homes and are now refugees in their own country”.
The Zimbabwe Peace Project recorded an increase to nearly 1,000 incidents of politically motivated violence in April, many of them related to the constitution-making process, which had been stalled but should now move ahead as the EU has provided $6 million towards the funding of local consultations throughout the country on the details. What guarantee do we have that the people will be able to express their views freely and that ZANU-PF will not attempt to manipulate the outcome by threats and intimidation? Is there a timetable for the process, and will the referendum be monitored by the United Nations? If there are clear divisions of opinion on contentious issues, will people be offered choices in the referendum? The noble Lord, Lord St John, said that hardliners were already doing their best to frustrate the process. I look forward to hearing what the Minister says about the safeguards against that.
The Select Committee says that two models are being considered: the Kariba draft, which gives the President substantial executive powers and a more “people-driven” approach called for by civil society. The committee wants DfID to provide more information about the support that it is giving, jointly with other donors, to the constitution-drafting process. I presume that that would be via the multi-donor trust fund administered by the African Development Bank with support from the World Bank. The Friends’ meeting last week pledged to increase this fund, but reiterated its concern over the,
“lack of respect for the rule of law, protection of fundamental freedoms and the slow pace of progress in improving governance”.
What amount of additional funding is being made available? Do specific benchmarks have to be satisfied before the disbursements are approved? The referendum on the new constitution would be a possible trigger for releasing some of the purse-strings, particularly if the associated Bill of Rights addresses crimes committed by Mugabe such as the forcible eviction and internal displacement of 700,000 poor people in Operation Murambatsvina—“clean out the trash”—five years ago and the displacement of an additional 36,000 people at the time of the election in 2008. The African Union called on member states at a meeting in Addis Ababa last week to ratify the AU convention on internally displaced people. It would be useful to know whether there has been any response from Harare.
As has been said, we miss Lord Blaker from these debates, remembering that, as his obituary in the Times said,
“it was his clear conviction that the causes of peace and democracy required a muscular approach”.
That certainly applies to my late friend Lady Park as well. We miss both of them in these debates. If we soft-pedal on human rights—and if the donors fail to make aid to the Government, as opposed to aid to the Prime Minister’s office and to NGOs, conditional on rectifying the gross abuses of the Mugabe years—we would jeopardise even the few advances already achieved. They include, as has been mentioned, the licensing of free newspapers and the establishment of the Human Rights Commission, sworn in at the end of March. Let us remember also that Mugabe has failed to honour benchmarks in the past, such as those in the Cotonou agreement between the ACP Group of States and the European Union. So there needs to be a period of compliance, not just a signature, to test the good faith of ZANU-PF. We certainly should not trust an Administration who are as susceptible to influence of the military as are the current regime, and the talks between the MDC and ZANU-PF should be expanded to cover this problem.
The Friends urged Zimbabwe to,
“adopt IMF policy recommendations and move towards establishment of an IMF staff-monitored program as a step toward forgiveness or rescheduling of US $7.2 billion external debt”.
Does this mean full budgetary transparency and therefore an end to shady ventures such as the exploitation of the lucrative diamond fields at Marange, which were operated originally by a UK-registered company, African Consolidated Resources, until its lease was arbitrarily cancelled in 2006? They are now controlled by the military and high-ups in ZANU-PF, at enormous cost to human rights in the region, as the noble Lord, Lord St John, said. ACR won a court case to recover possession, but it has been unable to enforce the judgment. The Supreme Court ordered that mining activities cease and that diamonds in the possession of the state entity that annexed the mine in 2006 be handed over to the Reserve Bank pending its judgment on the claim. Has that happened and, if not, what measures can be taken to enforce the Supreme Court’s judgment? Meanwhile, the Kimberley process monitor, Abbey Chikane, paid a further visit to Zimbabwe at the end of May, and has reported his findings in quick time. He sees only what ZANU-PF and the army want him to see, and one would never guess from his report that uncertified diamonds are flooding across into Mozambique. However, he confirms that enormous diamond resources are at stake.
As an aside, I ask the noble Lord, Lord Howell, whether the Government have taken note of the allegations by the arrested Zimbabwe diamond researcher, Farai Maguwu, who alleged on SW Radio Africa that he was set up by the Kimberley process monitor. He has now abandoned his post as director of the Centre for Research and Development, which had been investigating human rights abuses at the Chiadzwa diamond field. What steps can we take to investigate these allegations and, if possible, to get Mr Farai Maguwu restored to his important post so he can continue his investigations of the abuses in the diamond fields?
The Finance Minister, Tendai Biti, acknowledged in a Reuters interview on 25 May that, while the dispute with ACR remained unresolved, it cast a shadow over diamond mining, the one immediate prospect of rescuing Zimbabwe's fragile economy from bankruptcy. Yet he added that the legal process would be a long one. It has been estimated that if Marange was regularised, it could generate as much as $200 million a month in revenue, so why do the Government not settle? The answer is that, as the Times reported, this is one of the last cash lifelines of Mugabe and his cohorts and they are determined to amass as big a fortune as possible before the boss dies. But that is all the more reason for donors to insist that the High Court's ruling be upheld, and that the ZANU-PF criminals who committed 200 murders, and beat and tortured locals, including children, to act as their slave labour in the Marange fields, are brought to justice.
When the Secretary of State visited Zimbabwe last September he said that,
“once Zimbabwe is on a clear path to democracy and the rule of law, then a Conservative government will lead the Commonwealth and the international community in a development programme to galvanise Zimbabwe’s private sector to rebuild and rehabilitate that beleaguered country”.
He went on to promise that the UK would help refurbish and redevelop Zimbabwe's 7,000 schools, employing local plumbers, builders and electricians. We are not quite there yet, but the people of Zimbabwe can see that in the UK they have a staunch and generous friend. It was so under the previous Government and the coalition is equally determined that, whatever our own economic difficulties may be here at home, we shall never let them down.
Lord Best
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord St John of Bletso for initiating and leading this debate. I declare my interest as a trustee of the Phoenix Fund for Zimbabwe, set up in 2007 by the late Lady Park of Monmouth, to whom reference has already been made. The fund is now chaired by Shane Lunga, with David Banks as our secretary. Lady Park was a formidable champion for the well-being of Zimbabweans, and I know that she would not forgive me if I failed to contribute to this important debate.
The Phoenix Fund for Zimbabwe exists to assist Zimbabwean refugees and asylum seekers in the UK to pursue courses of professional development, placements and vocational training that will equip them to participate in reviving the economy and institutions of Zimbabwe when circumstances allow them to return home. The trustees of the fund believe that the Zimbabwe of the future will depend on the skills of people like these to rebuild that country in the years ahead. For those talented people who come here as asylum seekers and are not allowed to work, it must be better for them and for Zimbabwe for their skills to be enhanced and their morale sustained than for them to sit on their hands in compulsory idleness.
This debate offers the opportunity to explore the value of equipping Zimbabweans here with the capacity to make a difference in their home country when the time is right. The background to this question is of course the past decade of disastrous economic policies, political violence and social upheavals that have led to some 3 million Zimbabweans fleeing abroad, out of a population of 12 million. Mostly this has affected neighbouring countries in the region, and as a consequence relations between Zimbabwe and its southern neighbours, South Africa and Botswana, have deteriorated, as noted by the International Development Committee in another place. The International Crisis Group reported to that committee that,
“instability in Zimbabwe is profoundly destabilizing to its neighbors. Zimbabweans fleeing economic hardship and political abuses have flooded across borders, overwhelming the social services and the good will of South Africa, Botswana, and other neighbors”.
The flight of Zimbabweans into exile has also of course made a considerable impact here in the UK. Last year more Zimbabweans sought political asylum in the UK than any other nationality. There were 7,420 applications—more than double the number that applied for the next country on the list, Afghanistan. Naturally, the Home Office and its UK Borders Agency are keen to see more Zimbabweans returning home. There are some small projects assisting voluntary return under the auspices of the International Organisation for Migration, but they deal with relatively insignificant numbers.
The approach of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Department for International Development is more cautious in pointing to the ongoing problems and suggesting that it may still not be safe to go to Zimbabwe at this time. While it is often desirable for many Zimbabwean migrants, whether in the Southern African Development Community region or here in the UK, that they return and contribute their skills and expertise in their own country, the sad reality is that safety is a major concern for many, and with unemployment still at perhaps 90 per cent, opportunities may not be readily available.
In terms of encouragement for voluntary returns to Zimbabwe, those who have received grants from the Phoenix Fund and signed an agreement to return when conditions are right may be well placed to make fact-finding trips without undermining their refugee status if they feel it necessary to return to the UK to see if it would be safe for others to return permanently to Zimbabwe. They could visit different parts of the country where conditions differ and report back to the Zimbabwean community here.
With tens of thousands of Zimbabweans now in this country, many of them living unproductive lives, I ask the Minister whether the retraining and reskilling of returning migrants should not be a key element in the UK’s support for the economic recovery of Zimbabwe. Could the UK give a lead to Zimbabwe’s neighbours in devising, as part of our international aid programme, a training scheme for members of the Zimbabwean diaspora who find themselves here in the UK and who wish to return to Zimbabwe? Such an initiative has the small but significant example of Lady Park’s Phoenix Fund for Zimbabwe, with its grants for courses and training to those who have signed a pledge to return when they can safely do so.
Lord Luce
My Lords, my noble friend Lord St John has tremendous experience of southern Africa, and we should be grateful to him for taking the initiative in launching this debate on Zimbabwe, taking on the mantle, as he and so many noble Lords have already said, of the late Lord Blaker and Lady Park, who were persistent in raising the problems of Zimbabwe over a long period.
My own interest in Zimbabwe goes back to the 1970s when I was a shadow spokesman in the other place, and later as Minister for Africa when the Lancaster House talks took place and independence was eventually agreed. That of course was exactly 30 years ago, but I want to talk about the future not the past. It is worth stressing that independence was 30 years ago and that the empire is long since over. Attempts to blame colonialism for the problems in Africa are long since past. Equally, we in this country no longer have any right to take a patronising attitude to our former colonies.
Of course, Zimbabwe—Rhodesia, as it was—was an anomaly in the sense that it was not part of the conventional colonial arrangements. In 1923, the British Government decided that there should be internal self rule, which eventually led to the predominance of the white population running that country, unlike in Kenya, where in the same year, it was declared that African interests should be paramount. Zimbabwe has paid a heavy price for that. Kissinger said in the 1970s that Rhodesia had power without legitimacy and Britain had legitimacy without power. A heavy price has been paid.
In today's debate it is important to assess the progress that has been made since the global peace agreement of 18 months ago and the formation of the National Unity Government. My noble friend Lord St John and other noble Lords have given their own assessment of the progress that has been made. To summarise: the economy is gradually improving, there is no longer hyperinflation, the shops are fuller of goods and produce, there is less political violence and there is some progress on governance. But at the same time, there is a very long haul indeed. If we look at life expectancy, which is at half the level of this country—it is just over 40 in Zimbabwe and just under 80 in this country—we see the dilemma and the tragedy that that country still faces.
My noble friend Lord St John was right to highlight the remaining problem of the hardliners in ZANU-PF, not just President Mugabe. The way that we—the Commonwealth but above all the National Unity Government—deal with this problem will be critical. If we are to learn from other countries such as the Soviet Union or Iraq we see that if we drive extremists into a corner it makes the situation far more difficult. We must learn that particular lesson.
I will make my remaining remarks on the issue of the Commonwealth. For my part and I am sure that of many others, I must say that I welcome the appointment of the noble Lord, Lord Howell, with his special responsibility for the Commonwealth, and knowing of his passion and commitment to the Commonwealth. Quite apart from anything we can and should do on the humanitarian side in our bilateral arrangements, we ought to assess very carefully the role of the Commonwealth in terms of its ability to be constructive and to give encouragement to the people of Zimbabwe.
Although Zimbabwe is not at present a member of the Commonwealth, it has every opportunity, if it fulfils certain conditions, to rejoin it. I am glad that in the summit meeting of the Commonwealth Heads of Government in November of last year, the global peace agreement on power-sharing was welcomed and the summit looked forward to conditions being created for the return of Zimbabwe to the Commonwealth. The next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting is in autumn next year and that could be a target for the power-sharing Government to try to fulfil a sufficient number of those conditions to enable Zimbabwe to be invited to join.
I am a former chairman of an organisation called the Commonwealth Foundation, which is the non-government side—the people side—of the Commonwealth, dealing with professional organisations, cultural bodies and civil society. I am pleased that the foundation has devised a Commonwealth special programme for Zimbabwe. It goes back to two or three years ago when the late Lord Blaker, the late Lady Park, other noble Lords and I got together with the foundation and others to see what the Commonwealth could do. I am delighted that the director of the foundation, Mark Collins, has taken a lead on this. Last July he convened a round table in Johannesburg between Commonwealth organisations and civil society in Zimbabwe. The civil society people agreed that the Commonwealth should play a positive role, particularly on constitutional reform, the rule of law, democratic governance and the role of the media.
Now we have a special programme that is part of a dialogue between the Commonwealth associations and civil society. It is a good demonstration of what the Commonwealth can do in helping countries to reconstruct. We have already heard mention of the media commission that has now been set up in Zimbabwe, which has licensed a number of new publications and is designed to strengthen independence and the freedom of the media. We have heard of the Human Rights Commission and, now, the Electoral Commission, which has been established to ensure that future elections are well managed and to minimise intimidation. Civil society is involved in that work as well.
I am delighted that the Commonwealth itself has set up a network of national election management bodies, co-ordinating the supervision and monitoring of elections in the Commonwealth. Then there is a move in hand to involve Zimbabwe in the Commonwealth Scholarship and Fellowship Plan, another way of helping that country to move forward.
I am delighted that the Commonwealth Foundation highlighted something raised by my noble friend Lord Best: the position of the diaspora. I do not think that we should underestimate its importance. Since the Second World War, 20 million Africans have left Africa to live mainly in the western world and Commonwealth countries, and have now acquired skills in all sorts of fields. The Commonwealth Foundation would like to help the diaspora to focus their attention on education, health and agriculture. There is an important role to be played here, and I am delighted that there is now a Council for Zimbabwe of the diaspora, based in New York but covering mainly Commonwealth countries. Its job is to try to work with the 4 million Zimbabwean diaspora to see what contribution they can make to their country of origin.
From 1998 to 2000, 18,000 nurses, 100 doctors and hundreds and hundreds of academics left Zimbabwe, so there is much to be done. I am glad to say that the Council for Zimbabwe is working vigorously with Zimbabwe to help meet humanitarian, development and reconstruction needs. Zimbabwe now has a national migration management and diaspora policy. The evidence shows that the diaspora want to help shape the policy and conditions in their country of origin. Everything should be done to encourage their work. It is a real challenge for the Commonwealth, let alone for the National Unity Government in Zimbabwe, to provide the people in Zimbabwe with encouragement and hope for the future and to encourage the Zimbabwean Government to work for conditions that will enable them to return to the Commonwealth.
In addition to anything that we can do bilaterally, Britain’s most helpful role today is to be an active and equal partner with the Commonwealth and SADC in helping the people of Zimbabwe. My noble friend Lord St John referred to Mbeki’s great cry that there must be African solutions to African problems. We must give the people of Zimbabwe a chance to live a more prosperous and free life again. The potential is enormous, particularly in agriculture. They have suffered enough and deserve a better and more stable future.
Lord Triesman
My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, on securing the debate, which keeps Zimbabwe at the centre of our attention. I, too, miss Baroness Park and Lord Blaker. I also congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, on his ministerial appointment.
On leaving the FCO in 2007, I thought it right to avoid debates on the geographical areas with which I had been most directly concerned. Ministerial life is hard enough without having your predecessors wandering over your turf. However, it left me with several unanswered questions and thoughts which, had I expressed them at the time, would have led me to stray still further from government lines than I was already prone to do. Perhaps I can explore some of them today, precisely because I believe that Zimbabwe was the country where our impact was far less than it should have been. I do not say this because I think Zimbabwe is a convenient metaphor for a wider African malaise. On the contrary, Africa is a continent, not a country; it is culturally, linguistically and economically diverse. Indeed, it is diverse in every way. It has great successes, often in spite of the hand dealt to it by colonialism.
However, Zimbabwe has not been one of Africa’s beacons. Its modern history was scarred by the appalling and racist leadership of Ian Smith in Rhodesia, who—with apartheid South Africa—destabilised the entire region to ensure that there were no bases for anti-colonial forces. All in all, the UK role was not what it could or should have been. We turned a blind eye to sanctions-busting, particularly oil bound for Rhodesia. We played a less than proper role in the 1971 talks, where our proposals would have prevented democratic development in Zimbabwe for many decades and were rightly rejected by all black and progressive Africans. This has made it harder to get a sympathetic hearing in Africa.
None the less, Zimbabwe emerged as a productive land with a wealth of resources. The leader who emerged, Robert Mugabe, gradually set about the imposition of a one-party state—always his goal—after nominal observance of the Lancaster House agreement for seven years. Then, freed from any obligation, he suppressed the opposition, killed many of them, and instituted terror in Matabeleland. And so he has continued, election after election; win them or lose them, he remains essentially the sole power in every meaningful sense. Perhaps the noble Lord, Lord St John, is too generous in thinking that the crisis only started in 1997, and perhaps too optimistic in general. I mean no discourtesy in expressing the point. ZANU-PF’s leaders remain to this day a watchword for corruption and violence among many Africans. I will not go through the soaring inflation and plunging life expectancy; we are all familiar with the facts. More than 3 million refugees were forced to cross the Limpopo in search of food. Whatever South Africa’s non-intervention was intended to achieve, one consequence was a tsunami of desperation, now costing South Africa $3 billion a year.
Where is the Zimbabwean economy now? Without the excellent resources of the FCO, I can only estimate from 2009 data. I recognise that things have changed since the exchange mechanism changed. I can see that there is promise; I understand the point. However, there are significant doubts about what has fundamentally changed. Today, the power sector is in a parlous and deteriorating state. Demand exceeds supply by two and a half times. Nothing has been done to infrastructure in more than 20 years. Power lines are ancient and 5,000 kilometres of power cable have been stolen. If you cannot generate power, you cannot make things, run hospitals or light homes. Water and sanitation are still in a persistently dangerous state. Cholera killed 4,000 people in 2008 and early 2009. The regime puts health, agriculture and production at risk every day, just from the crisis in managing water properly, even if there have been some developments in the supply of fresh water.
The 88,000 kilometres of road have been neglected. There are no materials, modern machines or basic skills aside from those brought in by incoming Chinese investors where those are directly connected to their investment, and which are frequently removed when the building work has been done. That building work is infrequently carried out by African labour. Seventy per cent of the road network has decayed. Railways, in what was the strategic hub of south central Africa, are in much the same state as the roads. Goods and people cannot be moved to markets with any ease, so few markets operate and economic conditions for regeneration are poor.
The information and communications system has declined and now ranks marginally above those of Chad and East Timor. Mining has declined with the flight of skills. Gold mining stopped in 2009 for lack of recapitalisation although I acknowledge that it has now restarted and there is some progress. Diamonds and platinum offer hope if properly managed and not used for improper outcomes, but those who wish to invest in that mining are concerned that they should make their investment against a background of greater political stability.
I doubt whether anything more needs to be said in this House about the decay of commercial and communal agriculture, which still remains in so poor a state. Manufacturing has declined by 10 per cent a year since 2000. Today, it barely exists; nor do financial services or a credible central bank. Tourism had potential yet the World Economic Forum recently ranked Zimbabwe 121 of 133 travel destinations. Few tourists will venture to a country in which there has been so much brutality and which simply leaves people enfeebled by HIV and AIDS on Harare’s municipal rubbish dump.
We in this House have all expressed our outrage and have urged, and achieved, limited EU sanctions on some individuals. We have opposed relaxation of IMF rules on debt and have rightly supplied extensive food aid to the innocent victims of the Mugabe regime. We have placed cautious hope in Morgan Tsvangirai and the MDC, who have had every conceivable difficulty placed in their way in trying to form some sort of government who can move forward, despite the fact that they won the previous general election. However, our response was far too limited. Our expectation of political intervention by the African Union and SADC was unrealistic. The AU, with few staff and limited finance, has been expected to shoulder massive tasks right across Africa from Darfur to Mogadishu to the DRC. Neither the AU nor SADC had the political will on all occasions, and most certainly did not have the capacity, to fulfil such a remit, even had it wanted to. Both would have had to ignore the most powerful regional leaders. It is obviously right—I subscribe completely to this view—to want to build the political authority of multinational institutions in Africa, but it was wrong to pretend that such authority was already there.
I was told time and again by exceptional African administrators that while it was vital for Africans to take ownership of African problems, they could not make bricks without straw. I ask with suitable circumspection, as I am self-critical in this regard, whether the Government have a view of what can be achieved by greater engagement with the AU and SADC, and especially with South Africa? It would surely be negligent if we did not take on that task. Hardliners are certainly seeking to frustrate the process and they may very well succeed as they have succeeded more often than they have failed. Optimism is okay, but if things go badly what should we do next? I am often told that we should be cautious because we do not want to take steps which gratuitously endanger excellent FCO and local staff in Harare. That is a genuine concern and I share it. However, is the Minister satisfied that they are safe and can provide help for the domiciled retired British population in Zimbabwe who are themselves at risk? The consequence of our caution was that we sought sanctions, and sanctioned ZANU’s leaders, only if we were confident of EU backing, which we did not always have. I could not agree with that approach because I thought that we should push far deeper through the ranks of criminality in the regime. Would the Government be prepared to act unilaterally if necessary, because that may be the consequence of what I am saying?
Perhaps I may share the view that it would be helpful to make sure that we are as fully engaged with South Africa and its new leader as we can be. I wonder if this is not the moment to try again to achieve a more formal plan for long-standing political and economic change in Zimbabwe, building on what might be the seeds of its beginnings. The new President of South Africa, Jacob Zuma, as my noble friend Lord Hughes said, has considerable authority. He has committed himself to poverty reduction and he may be unwilling to bear the unnecessary costs of a difficult northern neighbour. I know from his state visit that he is a tough pragmatist and that he is the key leader in southern Africa. He may be willing to reopen the kind of holistic approach that Kofi Annan so often and so eloquently advocated. He has surely reflected on the decades of so-called quiet diplomacy from South Africa which were wholly ineffective. The need now is for a comprehensive approach to rehabilitation on the basis of the sort of plan that Kofi Annan outlined. A new opportunity would require careful preparation, but does the Minister, on behalf of the Government, see any advantage in assessing this new window of opportunity? I hope that as he does, he will not feel it necessary to give people a “get out of jail free” pass, whatever kinds of crimes they have committed.
Finally, I do not accept the point that has often been made that if we say anything about President Mugabe it will make it easier for him to denounce us among other African leaders. Many people in this House will have reasons for their criticism. I know mine. My political generation grew up as anti-colonialist, not as covert colonialists. My politics were formed in the 1960s, much by the close friends who were then exiled in London with the ANC. My understanding of Mugabe’s probable trajectory came from Oliver Tambo and Govan Mbeki, not from any apologist for Ian Smith. I do not accept that those serving the previous Government or indeed today’s new generation in government should allow themselves to be characterised by the politics of 40 years ago.
Lord Chidgey
My Lords, I, too, congratulate the noble Lord, Lord St John, on securing this debate so early in this new Parliament and so soon after the formation of the new coalition Administration. As always in this Chamber, we have benefited from a broad range of knowledge and opinions on the subject. I listened intently to the somewhat hard-edged contribution from the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, which was very solid, and compared it with the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Luce, and his optimism regarding the role of the Commonwealth. I particularly enjoyed his contribution, given that I am the chair of the international board of the Commonwealth Policy Studies Unit. I endorse his views in that regard.
This is a valuable opportunity for Members of this House to raise some very pressing concerns about developments that have taken place recently in Zimbabwe—and, unfortunately, concerns in some areas about the apparent lack of developments. This is also a very useful opportunity for us to hear from our new coalition Administration about the approach that they will adopt alongside our partners in the region and among donor nations on finding ways to assist the people of Zimbabwe in their struggle for democracy, justice, human rights and economic progress.
Before I became a Member of this House, when I was in the other place, I was a member of the Foreign Affairs Select Committee, and we spent a considerable amount of time on a series of detailed inquiries on Zimbabwe. More recently, as vice-chair of the Africa All-Party Parliamentary Group, I was engaged in the inquiry mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Hughes, into land in Zimbabwe. It concluded among other matters that the UK had a particular obligation to Zimbabwe and that once there was political stability, Britain should seek to re-engage with the Zimbabwean Government on the issue of land reform, but with an appropriate degree of caution.
Our then Government conceded, as the report noted, that one of the major challenges facing Zimbabwe in the coming years will be how to devise a land reform process that takes account of the lessons from the past, but avoids polarisation on historical rights and wrongs. I appreciate that there have been steps towards real progress and that the political landscape has changed. However, I am struck by how many of the concerns that we grappled with six or seven years ago, underlined in our more recent inquiry, remain the same today.
When President Zuma of South Africa came into office, he appointed an impressive and very able team to facilitate the continuing negotiations around full implementation of the global political agreement. The GPA, which was signed in November 2008, led to the formation of a Government of national unity, or GNU, in February 2009. Earlier this year when President Zuma paid his state visit to this country, it was clear that he and the Ministers and officials accompanying him had the crisis in Zimbabwe and the impasse over the GPA high up on their agenda. It was encouraging to hear President Zuma speak in detail about the negotiations and also that the Minister for International Relations and Co-operation found time to come for an extensive dialogue on the issue with members of the Zimbabwe All-Party Parliamentary Group.
Very shortly after his return to South Africa, President Zuma travelled to Harare and spent two and a half days on an intense round of meetings with political leaders and other figures in Zimbabwe. Together with his negotiating team, he was appointed to facilitate negotiations between the three political formations represented in the Zimbabwe Parliament—that is, the MDC faction led by Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, the MDC faction led by Deputy Prime Minister Arthur Mutambara, and the ZANU-PF, led by President Robert Mugabe. What is frustrating is that, despite clear timetables and deadlines being set, weeks, and now months, have slipped by with little progress. I hope that the Minister will tell us what soundings have been taken within the region about how the process of implementation might be expedited.
It is important to bear in mind that economic restructuring, investment in industry and many other initiatives vital to the welfare of the people of Zimbabwe are to a large degree in suspense while there is uncertainty around political progress. It seems to me that there needs to be a far greater sense of urgency over these matters within the region. Although there will be protestations to the contrary, this is a legitimate matter of concern to this House and to the people of this country. The bill for humanitarian aid and, in due course, the huge amount of aid needed to rebuild the infrastructure and economy of Zimbabwe will be drawn very substantially from DfID—that is, from UK taxpayers. Perhaps the Minister will be able to tell us what assistance we are able to offer directly, and through the EU and the Commonwealth, to strengthen the Parliament in Zimbabwe.
Both Houses of the Zimbabwe Parliament adjourned in March for three months to allow MPs and Senators to participate in the outreach consultation on a new constitution. However, the outreach exercise failed to start on time and, when it does eventually start, it is expected to take more than three months rather than the two months that had originally been planned. This means that valuable parliamentary time is being lost when it could be used to introduce important legislation and a repeal of repressive measures. These delays undermine confidence in the whole process of reform, they affect the confidence of donors and investors, and they deter Zimbabweans in the diaspora from returning home. Meetings between President Mugabe, Prime Minister Tsvangirai and Deputy Prime Minister Mutambara have been delayed time and again. This in turn means that the vital progress report on the implementation of the global political agreement that President Zuma is due to make to SADC has also been very seriously delayed.
In a reflection of the frustration felt among grassroots Zimbabweans, the National Council of the MDC met on 16 May and called for SADC immediately to convene a summit to resolve the outstanding issues, as well as to discuss the road map to an election and guarantees of the legitimacy of this election. Similarly, a statement following a recent meeting of the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, the ZCC, and the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance, the ZCA, expressed grave concern that, two years on from signing the GPA, it is still not fully implemented.
Among the urgent concerns that the churches say need to be addressed are deepening and widening poverty, the inaccessibility of food to the majority of Zimbabweans due to lack of income, the high unemployment rate of more than 90 per cent, which has been referred to in previous contributions, the failure to create new jobs and the seven-month delay in the constitution-making process.
In a communiqué the ZCC and the ZCA call upon the SADC heads of state summit to be held in Namibia in August 2010 to prioritise addressing,
“these concerns from the people of Zimbabwe”.
The communiqué also called on the Government to respect people’s natural rights, the security and integrity of persons and to dismantle all structures that perpetuate political violence. The church leaders urged the Government to reform the country’s security sector as a,
“critical component of creating a peaceful transition”,
and to create the mechanisms necessary to enable independent commissions to function effectively and ensure that free and fair elections are conducted by the end of 2011.
The news this week is not encouraging. On Tuesday the MDC issued an alert accusing ZANU-PF of unleashing a targeted crackdown on MDC officials and supporters across the country. This comes just as the national outreach consultation on a new constitution is about to begin on Tuesday of next week. In the past week scores of MDC officials and supporters have been arrested on spurious charges such as undermining the President. The alert says that there is an upsurge in persecution, intimidation and arbitrary arrests, especially in the volatile provinces of Mashonaland East, West and Central.
The MDC sees this as an attempt by ZANU-PF to cow the population and recreate the violent environment that caused Morgan Tsvangirai to withdraw from the presidential run-off in June 2008. In this context it is important to reflect on concerns expressed a week ago at the Oslo meeting of major donors and international financial institutions known as the Friends of Zimbabwe. This is only the latest in a series of meetings that this donor group has convened and I know that the UK has played a key role throughout. The communiqué issued after the Oslo meeting underlines the fact that several long-standing concerns remain, including a continuing lack of respect for the rule of law or protection of fundamental freedoms and the slow pace of progress in improving governance.
It urges the parties to accelerate the implementation of their outstanding commitments under the GPA and stresses that the lack of progress hampers full re-engagement with Zimbabwe by the international community. Donors also stressed the concern shared with the private sector, both international and domestic, about the negative consequences of the recently published regulations on indigenisation for the already fragile investment climate. That point was made by the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso. The communiqué reaffirms support for genuine empowerment and says that the return of millions of skilled Zimbabweans to their homeland is best achieved by respect for the rule of law and the creation of an enterprise-friendly environment. That includes respect for bilateral investment protection and promotion agreements. It urges Zimbabwe to pursue the extraction of its natural resource in a manner that benefits its citizens. I hope that in this context the Minister will tell us what options are open to the UK and other donor nations to hold the Government of Zimbabwe to their obligations under the Kimberley process certification scheme for rough diamonds, including their obligation to implement the joint work plan agreed to in November 2009.
The concerns expressed in Oslo echo to a large extent the anxieties expressed in March by the International Development Committee of the House of Commons in its report on DfID assistance to Zimbabwe. Paragraph 61 of the IDC report notes that member states of the Southern African Development Community—SADC—are the guarantors of the global political agreement—GPA. The committee recommends that the Government should urge SADC collectively, and South Africa in particular, to continue to work with the Government of national unity towards full implementation of the GPA. Finally, it seems to me that this is something that the SADC heads of state might be encouraged to address in the forthcoming summit in Namibia. I hope that the Minister will reassure us that in our diplomatic dialogue with SADC member nations, and with South Africa in particular, these concerns will be fully expressed.
The Earl of Sandwich
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend and I pay tribute to the work of two experienced parliamentarians who did so much for our understanding—Lady Park and Lord Blaker. Not only do we miss them personally but their absence means that we will have to redouble our efforts to keep this issue high in the public mind. In that context, I welcome back the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, whose hard-hitting approach is very much needed on these occasions. All eyes are on South Africa and the World Cup, and it is tragic that, because of an incompetent dictatorship dressed up as a power-sharing arrangement, tourists who should be benefiting Zimbabwe’s economy are largely avoiding the country. However, I know that the more determined game parks and resorts are doing their best to attract attention.
The Foreign Office’s country profile for Zimbabwe reports,
“a reduction in the level of political violence”,
following the formation of the cross-party Government in 2009. There is a widespread perception that the return to the US dollar and an upturn in the economy have also helped to create improvement in household incomes. My noble friend mentioned investment, which is increasing. However, that analysis bears close examination, especially in relation to the more vulnerable and low-income groups. The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, mentioned the decay in services and communications. The country profile report also contrasts with reports from human rights organisations and the media that white farmers and MDC activists are still being targeted and, in many cases, victimised. One activist in Mashonaland had his house burnt down only a week ago. A local chairman in Harare was abducted while a rally that he was to address was disrupted. As the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said, most of those attacks are coming from ZANU-PF, but sometimes the police or even the army are directly involved.
The court’s release of Roy Bennett last month was the latest example of the political cat and mouse game. He is a senior member of Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai’s MDC and he was due to become Deputy Minister for Agriculture when he was arrested in February 2009. The Government, knowing that such an appointment would wreck their pretence of power-sharing, will appeal against the decision, but their manipulation of the courts makes a farce of the judicial process.
Meanwhile, white farmers are being constantly harassed. Although some are returning, many are being arrested and detained on spurious charges or are still being evicted in favour of pseudo-farmers and ZANU-PF party squatters. Charles Taffs, the Commercial Farmers’ Union vice-president, said last week that eviction of white farmers had intensified over the past 10 days, further threatening Zimbabwe’s fragile food security. He said that Zimbabwe was producing less than 10,000 tonnes of wheat, which is one-third of national requirements, because of the lack of security, farm evictions and electricity blackouts on the farms.
Farm workers are the subject of a telling recent survey by the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers Union of Zimbabwe. It may not be representative, but it provides a glimpse of the suffering of those workers, showing the true savagery and oppression of the Mugabe regime. Of the sample surveyed, 24 per cent of farm workers had been held hostage and three in 10 had been abducted. Twenty-five per cent had seen their pets maimed or killed. In 29 per cent of cases, children were forced to watch beatings and a similar percentage of adults were required to intimidate their colleagues. Forty-four per cent had been assaulted. More than half had received death threats. Two-thirds were severely ill treated or psychologically tortured and a similar proportion forced to join ZANU-PF. On one farm alone, farm workers reported a fractured skull, broken feet, abductions, one man being thrown into a fire, bad bruising from rifle butts from police, imprisonment and torture. Some had been in hiding. Some had had their houses looted and others had watched their houses burn down. Those facts, which come from reliable sources, speak for themselves. More than l million farm workers, estimated to be more than half the population on commercial farms, have been displaced over the years by this violence.
While we watch football games and applaud the sporting achievements of many African states, people are suffering silently in Zimbabwe out of sight of the media. Many are destitute, many live in poor housing in Harare and many more have fled to South Africa. In Harare, hundreds of thousands are still displaced following the senseless mass evictions five years ago. Amnesty recently appealed on their behalf for improved conditions and the UN is helping a limited number with legal advice and emergency aid.
The UK is a key donor to the World Food Programme, besides directly assisting British humanitarian agencies such as Oxfam and Save the Children, but could we be doing more? There are more than 3 million refugees and migrants in South Africa, which has benefited from Zimbabwean labourers working on construction sites during the run-up to the World Cup, but the temporary camps are phasing out and there are fears that many people will be forcibly returned. There is always a risk of xenophobic violence. We have already seen examples of it.
The UN has drawn up a programme to resettle up to 60,000 returnees this year and has opened a new office in Bulawayo. Does the Foreign and Commonwealth Office share these anxieties and have they been expressed in Pretoria? I support what my noble friend Lord Best said about the situation of refugees in the United Kingdom, about which I hope we will have time for a debate.
Having worked for non-governmental organisations, I have a particular concern that NGOs in Zimbabwe, including church groups and even student bodies, are being targeted as though they were militant opposition groups. Funds belonging to NGOs that were frozen by the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe in 2008 have still not been released and several NGOs report problems in obtaining employment permits. Is our embassy speaking up for local NGOs as well as for international NGOs? The UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, John Holmes, warned recently that in countries such as Zimbabwe funding shortfalls are,
“jeopardizing the ability of humanitarian organizations”,
to operate.
Human rights NGOs are also being squeezed if they dare to expose corruption. I have a current example, which has been mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, and other noble Lords in the context of Marange diamonds. Last week, Zimbabwean police arrested the head of the Marange-based Centre for Research and Development, Farai Maguwu. The centre has regularly provided information about ongoing human rights abuse to the Kimberley process, which monitors companies in order to prevent trade in blood diamonds. Mr Maguwu is, in effect, being accused of exposing the close relationship with the Government of Mr Abbey Chikane, the Kimberley process monitor. South African firms such as Mbada and Canadile, which have little mining experience, are being used as fronts by the Mugabe Government, but they cannot officially sell the diamonds until Zimbabwe meets the terms of the Kimberley process. Mr Chikane is widely expected to give the green light before the end of this month. Diamonds are reaching Antwerp via Mozambique even now, so the certification scheme, which is highly regarded in Africa, is in danger of being discredited. This story is well documented and is being widely publicised this week. The MDC has called for Mr Maguwu’s immediate release. Will the Government endorse that call and repeat their assurance that they will not support the export of diamonds from Zimbabwe until they are satisfied that there is no evidence of human rights abuse in the mines?
Finally, knowing that the Department for International Development has taken a close interest in constitutional issues and has considerable expertise in this field, and given the possibility of imminent, and even snap, elections immediately after the World Cup, how will the UK Government step up their support, alongside the European Union, for the democratic process that is already under way under the GPA and how will they help to bring confidence to a potentially healthy and constructive civil society?
Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean
My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, for introducing this debate and for doing it so very well. It was a real tour de force. Like him and so many noble Lords who have spoken today, I regret the sad loss of Lady Park and Lord Blaker, who made such well informed contributions to our debates on Zimbabwe in the past.
Zimbabwe has been of particular concern, especially in your Lordships' House, for many years. The opportunity to discuss the current situation there and how it may develop is therefore very welcome, because, as we have heard from so many who have contributed to the debate, there are some signs that change is under way. That creates an opportunity for a better future for the people of Zimbabwe, and indeed for the British relationship with Zimbabwe. There are obvious political changes in Zimbabwe with the formation of the Government of National Unity, as well as changes in the leadership of Zimbabwe’s most influential neighbour, South Africa. In the United Kingdom’s relationship with Zimbabwe, too, we must consider the implications of the change of government in this country. New Governments anywhere can, if they are sufficiently imaginative, create real opportunities for change if the circumstances merit it, and the British coalition now has the challenge of how it will respond to some of the changes that we have been discussing and begin to make a real step change in the way in which Zimbabwe relates to the United Kingdom.
In all the years that I have been part of the debates on Zimbabwe in this House, concern has centred on four main destructive and interrelated crises. First, there has been the economic crisis. Secondly, there has been political deterioration in the country and in its relationships with many countries overseas. Thirdly, there has been the HIV/AIDS crisis. Finally, there has been the humanitarian crisis, which has been the inevitable consequence of the first three crises.
As we have heard today so graphically from the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, for years Zimbabwe’s economic and social indicators painted a really alarming picture. Over half the country required emergency food aid and other humanitarian aid simply to survive. The contrast with the former years of plenty as the breadbasket of Africa was indeed stark. The United States aid department calculated that over that period more than a third of the adult population of Zimbabwe was HIV positive, and that more than 10,000 people were dying every month from AIDS. Meanwhile, the GDP was in an unstoppable downward spiral, and inflation was way out of control. Official figures for unemployment were in excess of 60 per cent, and shortages in medicines and fuel as well as in food were evident everywhere.
Most people with marketable skills left the country as soon as they could in the early years of this century. As the noble Lord, Lord Best, said, there were teachers, health workers and many with professional skills who simply moved away and did not return. The noble Lord, Lord Luce, emphasised the importance of the diaspora and asked how they might now be encouraged to return to Zimbabwe. This is a scarred and miserable story with which we are all only too familiar. The analysis of why this happened has varied. From Mr Mugabe’s point of view, the blame is placed squarely on Britain’s shoulders as the former colonial power, although Zimbabwe never had a colonial civil service; it had its own internal service. Meanwhile from the point of view of many commentators outside the country, the blame lies with ZANU-PF for running a regime that totally failed its own people in terms of economic competence, political inclusion and social cohesion. Others, notably South Africa, have been for many years very ambivalent. They have been unable to criticise the self-evident shortcomings of Mr Mugabe’s Government and have impeded some of the efforts of the international community to deal with human rights abuses and disease control, not only in terms of HIV/AIDS but also, latterly, in terms of the cholera outbreaks.
As we have heard from many noble Lords in this debate, there have been real changes in the economy. I am sure that all of us welcome the fact that at long last there is real improvement in what the IMF has to say about the Zimbabwean economy. In its announcement on 26 May, it recorded that for the first time in more than a decade there has been economic growth. The gross domestic product rose by 4 per cent last year, which was the first expansion for 11 years. At the same time, prices rose by 6.5 per cent. In previous years, as we have often remarked in this House, inflation was measured in millions of per cent and the economy regularly shrunk year on year by 5 per cent to 10 per cent.
The IMF attributed the improvements to strong taxation policy and strong administrative measures following implementation of its own advice. It went on to stress the importance of further strengthening of financial management with the World Bank’s assistance and noted that, sadly, many social programmes in Zimbabwe are still grossly underfunded and in danger of failing completely. I agree with my noble friend Lord Triesman that years of neglect cannot be righted without a huge effort within Zimbabwe and from its friends.
What is the British Government’s assessment of the IMF report? Is the UK coalition now able, or willing, to give bilateral advice to the Zimbabwean Government on the future strengthening of such things as their manufacturing and service industries, and very particularly on the budgetary messages that need to be put in place in the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe?
I am sure we can all express pleasure that Zimbabwe’s eligibility to use the resources of the IMF’s general resource account have been restored, which is good news and significant. What does the Minister think the practical impact of the restoration of such eligibility will be? It is clear that the economic policies have improved significantly, but what assessment have the British Government made about the way in which the improvements are sustainable or whether the recovery is too fragile to survive without further important policy changes in the economic outlook in Zimbabwe?
I turn to what I described as the political crisis. The continuation of the Government of National Unity is the bedrock of providing the stability necessary for any continued economic improvement. The IMF was pleased that during its visit in March its meetings with Prime Minister Tsvangirai and other Ministers were matched by access to representatives from the diplomatic and business communities, and, very significantly, in its meetings with civil society organisations as well as trade unions. The IMF noted the improved respect—its own words—for property rights and for the strengthening of labour markets. Today we have heard about the welcome licensing of the newspaper industry, which is another significant move.
The points made by the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, about the recent acquittal of one of Prime Minister Tsvangirai’s allies, the former white farmer, Roy Bennett, also need to be noted. I think that we all hope that this acquittal will ease some of the self-evident tensions in the Government in Zimbabwe. On the charges of terrorism against him, Mr Bennett said that,
“the judgment gives hope that we are returning to justice and the rule of law”.
Can the Minister give us the British Government’s assessment of the current state of stability in the coalition; that is to say, whether Mr Bennett’s judgment that this was a significant move in consolidating the coalition is one with which they can agree? Also, is he able to tell us whether Mr Bennett has now been installed as the Deputy Minister for Agriculture, as was originally mooted?
Can the Minister comment on the issue raised by the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, regarding the new law requiring all companies owned by foreigners and racial minorities to cede 51 per cent of their shares to indigenous people? There seems to be genuine confusion on this point. Some Zimbabwean Cabinet Ministers have said that the law is still firmly in place, but of course the Prime Minister’s own spokesman has given a very different point of view, saying that the whole of that law is now under revision.
I turn to the AIDS/HIV epidemic, a matter that was not raised by many noble Lords during the debate, but which nonetheless plays an important part in achieving stability in Zimbabwe. Is the Minister able to give us up-to-date figures for mortality rates? The figures were very high a few years ago and I wonder how they have changed, or indeed whether they have changed at all. Further, is he able to tell us what the United Kingdom is currently doing in terms of providing aid to combat AIDS and HIV in Zimbabwe? Clearly we are not alone in this: Japan, Sweden and the Netherlands have also made significant contributions, but in recent years there has been some reluctance on the part of other Governments to deal with the issue.
The humanitarian climate seems to have improved at least in some measure, although I was concerned by the remarks of the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, regarding the points made by the Friends of Zimbabwe and about what the Zimbabwean churches have had to say. I am sure that many of us were pleased to see the ban on all diamond exports until senior politicians accused of human rights abuses are cleared of any wrongdoing. In its assessment made on 17 May this year, the IMF said that the humanitarian situation had improved, with schools and hospitals opening, better food security and a declining rate of cholera around the country. But the IMF continued to emphasise the importance of the enforcement of property rights and the maintenance of the rule of law. As the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, pointed out, the abuse of gay people is absolutely unacceptable and needs to be addressed urgently.
The fact is that these are all bedrock issues. Democracy without the rule of law tends to become the licensed tyranny of the majority over the minority, and human rights are the hallmark of any decent and civilised government. As the noble Lord, Lord St John, remarked, the drawing up of the new constitution will be a key element, but as many noble Lords, including the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, said, many questions are being raised in relation to whether the constitution will indeed get a fair hearing and whether in the end there will be a fair vote on it.
The Minister has a terrific record on his support of the Commonwealth, and as the noble Lord, Lord Luce, said, in the past he has been a persuasive supporter of it. Given that, is he able to say anything about how he sees the future role of the Commonwealth in relation to Zimbabwe? In short, can he tell us how the UK Government intend to respond to all these changes? As my noble friend Lord Hughes of Woodside pointed out, the coalition document supports better trade with Africa. Is the Minister able to tell us in what ways this might be done? Would it be through, for example, help with small businesses and for entrepreneurship, and programmes of assistance such as those that were provided by British Executive Services Overseas? In particular, do the Government have any practical ideas for ways in which to help Zimbabweans in this country return to their homeland in the way suggested by the noble Lord, Lord Luce?
We have had a wide-ranging debate. The question I leave with the Minister is whether he believes in the picture that has been painted by the IMF, taking into account all the difficulties raised by noble Lords in terms of human rights? Does he believe that the future of Zimbabwe is now set on the right course and that it has a sustainable and secure future planned ahead for its people?
The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Lord Howell of Guildford)
My Lords, this has been a debate rich in expertise and knowledge of the Zimbabwean situation, the like of which is not replicated in any other forum, in this country or elsewhere, and certainly not in any other legislature. An enormous range of expert comments and questions have been raised. It would be physically impossible for me to answer every single one in the 20 minutes allotted but I shall try answer a great many of them. Most of them it would be possible to answer, but not in 20 minutes. I shall simply do my best.
I, too, begin by thanking the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, for the opportunity to have this excellent debate. Secondly, I echo what other noble Lords have said about our sadly departed friends: my very good friend Lord Blaker and the wonderful lady, Lady Daphne Park, who made huge contributions and played huge parts in our discussions of Zimbabwe over the years. I thank also the opposition spokesman, the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, and the former opposition spokesman, the noble Lord, Lord Triesman, with whom I have debated over the years. Indeed, I began to feel that this was a kind of “This is your Life” debate as comments from the past arose. We have been looking at these matters together for almost a decade and I hope that our joint contribution will carry forward understanding and create an effective policy on these matters in the future.
I asked officials in my department, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—as I believe should be the case when new government Ministers arrive—just why, looking forward, there is so much concern and interest—and what are the interests of our nation—in the developments in Zimbabwe? Whatever the links of the past—of which we must be aware—I asked the crude question: “Where do we go from here? What is the importance for our nation of what is happening in Zimbabwe?”. Their answer was very clear: it is directly in our national interests that this major African country of wonderful potential should become again within the region a zone of law, justice, peace and democracy, and of the economic prosperity which goes with those things and which tends to disappear if they are absent. When I say “democracy”, I mean the word in the deepest, broadest and wisest sense, not in the superficial way in which it is sometimes interpreted around the world, including, I am sad to say, even within this country.
The Government intend to do everything they can to support the aspirations of the Zimbabwean people for a prosperous and stable Zimbabwe. Their objective and ours is to overcome the years of misrule and bring back Zimbabwe once more to its place as a beacon of hope for Africa’s future and as a land of plenty as it once was.
In my allotted time, I want first to deal with the precise questions that noble Lords have raised with great insight and effectiveness—although I shall not be able to deal with them all—and then to make some broader comments which, in turn, will cover some of the issues that noble Lords have raised.
The noble Lord who introduced the debate made an interesting speech. He described himself as an optimist. We all want to be optimistic about the future but it is very hard in some cases. There is much wrong and much to fear and worry about still in Zimbabwe, but that is the right stance. He asked about the International Criminal Court and whether it could, as it were, catch Mr Mugabe. I am advised that as Zimbabwe is not a signatory to the Rome statute—that is the ICC statute—he can be referred to the ICC only by Security Council resolution. I think that that is the right procedure, but if he were so referred, we would be in no position to protect Mr Mugabe from any of the consequences. That should be clear and on the record.
The noble Lord spoke equally effectively about the rights of women in Zimbabwe, a matter to which we should return again and again as we press for a better future for that country. The noble Lord had many other comments to make as well, which I shall cover in my general remarks.
My noble friend Lord Sheikh made a very fine speech about human rights in Africa, which should always be to the forefront of our thinking. Many of these areas are, as many noble Lords said, African matters for African solutions and they demand African action. However, it is our duty as a nation to help and support in every way we can.
My noble friend raised the diamond issue, as did other several other noble Lords. My noble friends Lord Avebury and Lord Chidgey and the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, all touched on it. We deplore the human rights abuses that were reported at the Marange mine and we will encourage our EU partners who lead in the Kimberley process to secure reform of the Zimbabwean diamond mining industry. That is all I can say on that at the moment, but behind those words are some strong intentions to ensure that the Kimberley process works.
The noble Lord, Lord Hughes, spoke about links and dialogue with South Africa. That is ongoing and continuous and regarded as urgent. Talks were held with the president when he visited here; there have been further and constant links with South African officials. There is a sense of urgency, but it must be balanced, as the noble Lord will be the first to recognise because he is expert in these fields, with a degree of timing, so that we do not stumble into giving advantages to those who do not wish well of Zimbabwe or want to prolong the present difficulties.
My noble friend Lord Avebury characteristically produced an enormous list of very expert insights and questions. I cannot answer them all, but he spoke about safeguards for electors in the moving of the constitutional process up to a referendum. These are things that we must watch for very carefully, and we shall do our very best to overcome, although it is not easy, some of the open and blatant abuses that have gone on in the past. There are some other questions on which I want to write to my noble friend. He raised, as did the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, the IMF report and engagement with the IMF, the World Bank and the African Development Bank on economic reform. We see that as critical, and are working to encourage and develop this engagement. The IMF has identified in its report a number of policy improvements to be made by the Government of Zimbabwe in order to move towards a staff-monitored programme. We hope that the IMF and the Government of Zimbabwe will work together to implement these changes. It is a very important report, and the procedures which could flow from it will be valuable as well.
The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, mentioned also the Commonwealth, a matter, as other noble Lords have been kind enough to observe, which is dear to my heart. Zimbabwe was a member of the Commonwealth; a time will come when the Commonwealth network, with its skills, its focus, its values and its practical help, will be able to play a vital part in the rebuilding of Zimbabwe. Of that, I am convinced. When that time comes, I cannot say at the moment, because I cannot see, as noble Lords cannot, exactly how matters will develop. But I am quite sure that the Commonwealth’s role in the future piecing together of Zimbabwe will be vital and leading.
The noble Lord, Lord Best, raised the interesting question of reskilling Zimbabweans in the Zimbabwean diaspora. We share the noble Lord’s wish to see Zimbabweans able to return home to contribute to the rebuilding of their country when the time is right. The noble Lord referred to the funds available to Zimbabweans who return home under the assisted voluntary return scheme, which includes funding that can be used for reskilling or setting up a business. I can tell him that officials are in discussion with the diaspora on how that can be made most useful, so I hope that that meets his very valid point.
The noble Lord, Lord Triesman, I think, raised a number of vital issues, among which was the issue of the UK people domiciled in Zimbabwe. We had a voluntary resettlement scheme, because I am advised that there are actually 12,000 British nationals in Zimbabwe—that seems a large number—most, it is said, long-established and self-sufficient. But I am quite sure that there are some difficult cases as well, and we must keep an eye on them. The voluntary resettlement scheme has now ended, I am advised, so I do not know whether it is operating to help those people. It is obviously an issue that we must watch very closely.
The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, with his usual expertise, who also mentioned the diamond issue, turned to the whole question of rebuilding Zimbabwe and how investment confidence can be mobilised, and so on. I intend to make further comments on that in a few minutes, if the noble Lord will allow me.
The noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned the huge refugee problem, with literally millions of people housed or camped in South Africa as a result of the refugee exodus. These are very serious problems, which we are discussing with the South Africans all the time, and which will create more challenges in future that we have yet to solve. But we are very much aware of them.
The noble Baroness covered the broad sweep of these matters, as one would expect, and asked for a number of responses, which I think that I shall cover in the next few minutes before I close. She asked about HIV mortality; I have not got the answer and shall have to send that to her. Nor do I have a really detailed assessment, because it is not actually very clear, as to whether the 51 per cent ownership of projects or incoming investment is still valid, or whether it ever was—whether it was just a statement from President Mugabe and was never enacted in law. I do not know the details, but I shall supply them to the noble Baroness, because they are rather crucial in creating the atmosphere in which funds begin to flow into Zimbabwe again.
Having covered those areas, I shall address one or two more questions and put the matter in more general terms. The troubled history of Zimbabwe in recent years is very well known to your Lordships. It is also known that its essence is rotten governance and the collapse of prosperity, along with the appalling violence that characterised the elections of 2008. Like your Lordships, I am encouraged that there has been some progress on economic stabilisation since the formation of the inclusive Government last February following mediation by the Southern African Development Community—SADC. Thanks to the inclusive Government, Zimbabwe is for most people a safer and better place to live today than it was in 2008. Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai made a very brave decision to enter into an agreement for the sake of the Zimbabwean people. We should therefore do as much as we can to help make a success of the inclusive Government arrangements. That is not to say that Zimbabwe does not face continuous and enormous challenges, some of which are worsening, as we have heard. But at least the inclusive Government are there, even if they do not turn out to be the underpinning of the long-term solution that we all want to see.
There have been some successes, however, most notably in economic reform. Just over a year ago Zimbabwe faced the greatest hyperinflation in economic history, the shops were empty and productivity had collapsed. Now urban shops are full again and the IMF predicts modest growth of around 2.5 per cent this year—the sort of figure that we could do with here. Not everyone is in a position to benefit from this improvement, but economic regeneration has provided some local employment and enabled the Finance Ministry to benefit from modestly increased revenue. In recognition of the progress achieved in creating the conditions for greater macroeconomic stability under Finance Minister Tendai Biti, the UK supported the restoration of Zimbabwe’s voting rights at the IMF.
As noble Lords observed, a year ago our newspapers were full of horrors about the cholera epidemic when 4,000 people died. Now, thanks to the inclusive Government and the support of donors, including our own DfID, doctors, nurses and teachers are being paid and the schools and hospitals are open again. Donor efforts to improve sanitation have helped to avoid a repeat of the epidemic. Far fewer Zimbabweans now require food aid, but difficulties remain. Parents struggle to afford school fees or meet charges for health services and unemployment is extremely high, but the situation is undeniably better and we should applaud the efforts of the reformers who have driven this progress.
Our own support has played a key role in enabling the reformers to improve service provision and improve prospects for the people of Zimbabwe. I will not have time to go into all the aspects of DfID’s £60 million investment in Zimbabwe last year but that was its largest aid package ever, and it has gone to improve the supply and availability of food for up to 3 million people by providing seeds and fertilisers to boost smallholder farming. It has also gone to basic education. All of this assistance has gone to the people who need it most. DfID has also supported activities that more directly support reform through a contribution to the process to develop a new constitution for Zimbabwe, and to improve budgeting and wider financial management.
Although it is the economic and social recovery that is the more noticeable, there have been some limited political reforms. Your Lordships may be surprised to know—I certainly was—that there are now no convicted political prisoners in Zimbabwe. All those who were imprisoned before the creation of the inclusive Government have now been released, although regrettably many are on bail with their prosecutions pending. There have been notable acquittals, noted by your Lordships today, including those of human rights defender Jestina Mukuko and Deputy Minister designate Roy Bennett—I do not quite know whether he has been reinstated in his position, as the noble Baroness asked me, but I can find out. Human rights, electoral and media commissions have also been established, with the potential to create conditions for credible elections. I would make more comments on developments regarding newspapers, which the noble Lord, Lord St John, mentioned, but I do not have time to do so.
There have been tinges of political reform, but of course the pace of that is very disappointing. A great deal of work remains to be done. We welcome the granting of licences to independent papers; it is equally important that journalists should be able to report freely and without fear of unjust prosecution. True friends of Zimbabwe should therefore hope to see the Government of Zimbabwe take further steps in this regard, including the repeal of repressive legislation. Relatively few Zimbabweans have access to newspapers but many have access to radio and, in towns, television. It was therefore disturbing to hear reports of recent attempts by so-called “war veterans” to control access to radios in rural areas. It is vital that Zimbabweans have access to a wide range of political views for the constitutional reform process to develop an effective way.
There are challenges, too, on the economic front, as the noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and others said. Investor confidence will return only if transparent, accountable government and the rule of law are established. It will remain low while arbitrary, violent farm seizures continue and foreign businesses are deterred from investing as a result of an ill conceived indigenisation programme. Let me make it clear that it is the means by which indigenisation is achieved rather than the end that is of concern to potential investors.
I have much more to say, but time forbids. This has been a powerful and effective debate. Successful and sustainable elections alone can free Zimbabweans to build a prosperous, stable and democratic future. We look forward to Zimbabwe once again providing inspiration across the continent and serving as a force for stability and economic growth. I thank noble Lords for their lively and profound contributions to this debate. The Government look forward to working closely with both Houses in pursuit of our shared goal of a better Zimbabwe.
Lord St John of Bletso
My Lords, I am extremely grateful to the Minister for his comprehensive reply. I am also pleased that he mentioned at the outset why Zimbabwe is such an important subject for this country.
I apologise for overrunning my speech; I rather naively thought that I had more time and got rather carried away. I am extremely grateful to those noble Lords who have spoken with their vast experience and expertise. They certainly covered all the key issues, including respect for the rule of law, transparency and good governance, land reform, the role of the Commonwealth—I sincerely hope that one of these days Zimbabwe will rejoin the Commonwealth—and of course the important subject of the Zimbabwean diaspora. I fear that until dual citizenship is allowed to Zimbabweans living abroad, many will be prevented from returning to their home country. Other subjects were the challenges of infrastructure—specifically power and water—and the IMF report, which the noble Baroness, Lady Symons, mentioned. I am delighted to see her speaking from the Front Bench again.
I was also pleased that the Zimbabwean ambassador, Gabriel Machinga, was able to join us today, as well as David Banks, who has played such an important role for the Zimbabwe All-Party Parliamentary Group. I hope that we will continue to have constructive dialogue to promote change in Zimbabwe. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.