Queen's Speech

Baroness Flather Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Flather]

My Lords, I am delighted to see the noble Lords, Lord Howell and Lord Astor, on the Front Bench. We have been friends and colleagues for a long time and it is a great pleasure to see them both on the government Front Bench. Secondly, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, for what she said about women. I am very pleased that she was appointed a special representative to look after the interests of women. I am delighted and hope she will continue to do that in her capacity as shadow Minister.

I will speak also about rats and Poles, and human rights. I am not impressed by the frankly ridiculous example of these Poles eating rats. I am sorry that the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, is not in his place. Everybody talks about human rights but they forget that half the population of developing countries have no human rights. That is what I want to make clear. Who and what are we talking about today? As far as I know, nobody has mentioned women except the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock. They are half the population of developing countries but they have no rights and no life. One woman dies in childbirth every minute of every day. Sixty-five thousand die in botched abortions.

When I went to the conference in Addis Ababa—the latest of those which started with the Cairo conference—the Saudis and the Holy See refused to allow the term “women’s sexual health” into the communiqué. If men had to give birth at least once they would not have done that. Whose sexual health is important? Men do not have those problems. It is only women who have such problems with sexual health. Many women who do not die suffer all their lives from problems which arise from childbirth because they have no access to the services that we have access to. Professor Fathalla, a director of the WHO, said a long time ago that women were dying of diseases not because we could not cure them but because we do not think they are worth treating. Is it not time for men to start thinking about such women? It cannot be left to women; women cannot do it. We have been trying to tell men about these poor women for many years, but we have not been able to get their support or the power—which they have and we do not—to help us.

When Gordon Brown returned from his first visit to Africa, he said that women are the agents of change. Indeed they are, but they have not been treated as such. They have not been given the opportunities to be agents of change. They are not only agents of change but at the heart of everything. They are at the heart of population increase because 41 per cent of women have no access to family planning.

In 1950—60 years ago—this planet had 2.6 billion people. In 60 years the population of this planet has risen to 6.8 billion and is expected to go up by between 2 and 3 billion more by 2050. Where is the water to come from? Where is the food to come from? Nine million children already die before they reach the age of five. Another thing that Gordon Brown famously said was that if you do not save the mothers, you cannot save the children. You have to save the mothers to save the children. You have to help them to have control over their own fertility. If they do not have control over their own fertility, how can they stop having children who then die of hunger, disease and malnutrition? India has the largest number of people with malnutrition. Forty per cent of Africans go to bed hungry every night. Those are the facts you should keep in mind. Of those 40 per cent of Africans, you will find that 30 per cent are women.

Seventy per cent of Africa’s agriculture is looked after by women at barely subsidence level. If somebody had the sense to go there and set up small co-operatives, they would feed Africa. Why is the money not being spent on those things? I agree that we have to have defence but we are all on the same planet. If we do not do something, we will all suffer. We talk about climate change and this, that and the other. The poor do not consume very much—that is the way it is put. The Americans consume because they have the stuff to consume. The poor do not consume because they have nothing to consume, but whatever they have, they consume. Trees are being cut and the land is being turned into—I have forgotten the word, but it does not grow anything. We have to think about those things. That is the future—children and women dying of malnutrition and diseases and nobody cares at all.

We heard about South Africa where the World Cup will be held. Have you seen how many women get raped in South Africa? Most women get raped possibly at least once a week. It is just endemic. That is the world we are looking at and that we have to change. It is only 30 years since DfID—it was the ODA then—started building the gender factor into all its projects. We have to see what we can do for women because they will do the rest for all of us.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Gilbert]

The Oval Office, is it? Thank you. Actually, the relationship between our intelligence services is rather more important than where Churchill’s bust is. The reason why Admiral Blair was not allowed to proceed is perfectly simple: the United States does not trust the French but it trusts us. There, I said it. That is the fact of the matter, and that is wherein reposes a considerable part of the special relationship. I am delighted that it continues to be in the forefront of Her Majesty’s Government.

I was pleased with the appointment as Defence Secretary of Dr Fox, whose Atlanticism is beyond question. I was also pleased with what the Prime Minister had to say on his visit to Europe.

Unfortunately, two of the three people who made the best speeches in today’s debate are not in their places, but I am glad to say that the noble Lord, Lord Owen, is. It always worries me when I agree so much with the noble Lord. I hope that I do not embarrass him when I say so, but on reflection I think I agree with everything that he said today, particularly his commentary on the speech by the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell.

The noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, makes brilliant speeches here of immaculate, impenetrable logic—I should say “irrefutable” rather than “impenetrable”—and I could not agree with him more. There is no place for British schadenfreude in what is going wrong in the Eurozone; on the other hand, that should not lead us in any sense to be prepared to give any more of the sovereignty of this House to European institutions. We should help them but we should remain fiercely independent. Thank God—this is one of the few things for which I am grateful to the previous Prime Minister—he kept us out of the euro.

I hope that there will be one change in this Government from what was the practice in the Government that I supported. When people went to see Mr Blair about defence expenditure, he would say, “You have persuaded me, now you have to go and persuade Gordon”—I see that the noble Lord, Lord Eatwell, has come in; I have been saying some nice things about him, but he can read about them tomorrow—to which the answer should have been, “No, Prime Minister, it’s your job to go and persuade Gordon”, but I am afraid that none of them ever had the guts to say that.

I shall say one or two things about the noble Lord, Lord Burnett. He gave a very good speech. I disagreed with only one thing in it: he seems to want to live in a nuclear-free world. I have no desire whatever to live in a nuclear-free world. I am very grateful that nuclear weapons were invented, that they were invented when they were invented and that they were invented by the Americans and not by the Germans. I have got that off my chest. If you like to think of a world without any nuclear weapons whatever—where no one has cheated—try living in Israel and see how comfortable you feel. I could think of one or two other places. As Jim Schlesinger says, nuclear weapons are in use every day of every year and they are keeping the peace. I, for one, was extremely glad when India and Pakistan both acquired a nuclear capability. The result we have seen: for the first time the Pakistani Army has been prepared to pull back considerable sections of its troops from the Indian frontier to go and deal with the Taliban threat in the north. You cannot ask for more convincing evidence of the stabilising effect of a nuclear bounce.

[Baroness Flather]

Will the noble Lord give way?

[Lord Gilbert]

No, I do not have time. I am sorry.

I was going to talk about C-17s, C-130s and the A-400M. Your Lordships will know my views on the A-400M and I merely say that this a marvellous opportunity to cancel the damn thing. I also have some views on the last tranche of the Eurofighter but I shall not detain your Lordships on that subject. I hope—this is a question for the Minister—that we can have a guarantee that the contract for the seventh C-17 will go ahead because I consider that to be extremely important. I hope also that, if the Government cannot get out of the A-400M contract, they will at least look very carefully at flogging off the aeroplanes as soon as we get them so as to minimise the penal cost to us.

My complaint about the A-400M is not that it is several years late, not that it is up to 20 tonnes overweight, not that it is millions of pounds more than its original cost, not that its engines are unsatisfactory and not that it does not meet its original specifications; it is quite simply that we do not need the thing. In a Written Question, I asked Her Majesty’s Government,

“whether they have asked the United States Air Force how it performs the roles that Her Majesty’s Government envisages being performed by the A400M aircraft”.

I received a brilliant Answer from the noble Lord, Lord Drayson, which stated:

“The US Air Transport requirement is satisfied by various marks of C-130”—

that is the Hercules—

“C-17, C5”—

the old Galaxy, which is going out of use anyway—

“and the recently introduced C27J”—

which is a very small tactical transport aircraft. It continues:

“While the MoD has not undertaken detailed analysis of the US fleet mix, our understanding is that the capabilities we envisage A400M will provide are largely met through use of C-130s and C-17s, albeit using C-17”.—[Official Report, 25/1/10; col. WA 288.]

I rest my case.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Flather]

I would like to point out that the India-Pakistan fighting has stopped because, first, Pakistan has realised it cannot win a war with India because of the difference in size. Secondly, Pakistani terrorism in India is still going on. Noble Lords will remember that just recently we have had two incidents.