Burma

Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean Excerpts

Thursday 18th November 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I agree; indeed, the UK is one of the largest bilateral donors to Burma. We have significantly increased our humanitarian assistance from £9 million in 2007-08 to £28 million in the current year. Our aid focuses on health, basic education, rural livelihood, civil society and helping the refugees. I add as a personal observation that China is deeply involved in Myanmar, getting more involved all the time, pouring in vast sums of money for schools, infrastructure, and so on. We have a real problem considering aid—which is right—against the apparent determination of the People's Republic of China to have a massive involvement in Myanmar in every conceivable way.

[Baroness Symons of Vernham Dean]

My Lords, I am very pleased to hear about the Prime Minister's call; that is something to be very well regarded. Can the Minister tell us whether other EU leaders have made similar calls to Aung San Suu Kyi? Can he also tell us whether there is now an EU resolve to re-engage with the ASEAN countries? After all, they value the EU-ASEAN relationship very highly, and were the countries of the European Union really to make a push on that at the moment, there might be a realistic possibility of getting more positive engagement.

[Lord Howell of Guildford]

I certainly hope that that will be so. It obviously makes complete sense that the EU must be extremely vigorous in such an approach. As to who has been making telephone calls to Aung San Suu Kyi, I have absolutely no idea; but I bet people have.