Hurricane Dorian

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Monday 9th September 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord, Lord Collins, has partly answered my noble friend’s question—this does not come under ODA eligibility. Indeed, the funds that we have allocated have been set up specifically for that reason, so I can give my noble friend that reassurance.

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, we have heard admirable amounts offered by way of support to the victims of this terrible storm. However, perhaps I may ask a question about the modalities for distributing the aid and the extent to which it involves local people with local knowledge, bearing in mind that those who administer what is given might reach wiser conclusions about the distribution.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord is absolutely right to raise that, and I refer to my response to the noble Baroness, Lady Northover. We have been working with regional partners and, most importantly, with CDEMA, the aid agency that responds to these issues in the Caribbean. We have been bolstering its responsibility and investing with our key partners. I assure the noble Lord that my conversation yesterday with the Foreign Affairs Minister of the Bahamas focused specifically on ensuring that the technical support and the reports that we are getting reflect the type and focus of the assistance that can be provided. For example, we are working with American colleagues on ensuring that the airport is functional so that more aid and support can be provided.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Lab)]

My Lords, I rise with some diffidence to follow the impassioned speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. I am sure that I speak for the whole House when I say that I would not want him to think for a moment that any of us think that he should have spoken in any way other than he did about a cause that is so engraved on his heart and a people to whom he gave a significant part of his energy and life. It is indeed tragic that we find ourselves today pretty much where we have been for a long time. It is extraordinary to me to be cast as number two in this debate when someone who has lived, worked, lived and breathed for Bosnia-Herzegovina and his friends there and saw certain things begin to emerge that have been stopped in their tracks should be followed by someone who has made one visit.

For other reasons, I have wanted to contribute to this debate, and that will come out a little later in my speech. From my one visit, which was extensive and in-depth, I drew many of the same conclusions as the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown. I stood at the Golgotha of Srebrenica, saw that massive graveyard, talked to the people crying their eyes out for memories still so raw of people they lost in that dreadful massacre and could only imagine where people are stuck and could not imagine how they get unstuck from it.

Susan Sontag put on a few performances of “Waiting for Godot” in Sarajevo in 1993. It could only be done during the daytime; nobody dared to go out at night. She reports that in the long, long pause in Samuel Beckett’s play, when Estragon and Vladimir have just been told that Mr Godot is not coming today, after all, he may come tomorrow, she, Susan Sontag, radical filmmaker and campaigner, broke down in tears in that silence. The only noise came from the streets outside: the thunderous noise of a UN armoured truck on the one side and sniper bullets on the other. This is a people who have weathered those storms and many others, too.

Because this debate was cast in the light of the recent elections, I really have made an effort to look at the statistics and data to see whether I can understand them. I am bound to say that they are taxing for a bear of little brain like me. There is the National Assembly, the federated Parliament, the Parliament of Republika Srpska, all the communes, cantons and elected officials, and so on. It is so extraordinarily complicated, and as the European Court of Human Rights has pointed out, it is cast in such a way that minorities such as Jews, Roma and Ukrainians are often excluded from the possibility of running for public office. It is a complicated issue and to hear the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, say that it is pretty much the same bunch of politicians being elected now as were there before makes me wonder why I bothered to read the results of the elections with such care. It is clear that things are cast in such a way that the populations of Bosnia are kept apart from one another. Separation is the name of the game, so it seems that any initiative that can undermine or erode those realities is to be welcomed. It is to that subject that I want to devote the core part of my speech.

I have been working for a number of years with a friend of mine who has been trying hard to bring a delegation to this country from Srebrenica. He had succeeded in forming such a group that would have men and women and be half Bosniaks and half Serbs. It is so easy to say those words, yet people from Srebrenica crossing that divide and coming together for such an experience really would be a radical achievement. It had just about been pulled off; an imam and a Serb Orthodox priest were to accompany them. Today would have been the day that they sat in this Chamber. We had arranged space for them to meet, and we hoped to have approached Members of your Lordships’ House to talk with them about how our systems and institutions worked. That has not come to pass because our immigration authorities refused to give visas to half of the group. I have said that the group was half Serb and half Bosniak and I leave it to your Lordships’ imagination to ask which of those groups was denied the visas—well, it was the Serbs.

The grounds upon which the Serbs were denied the visas are so extraordinary. It was assumed that they were coming with a hidden agenda to remain here and prey upon our welfare and other benefits. That was not the case. No effort had been made to look at the group as a group or the exercise as an exercise. A very complicated itinerary had been set up with visits to mosques, such as the Finsbury Park mosque in Islington, and the Serb Orthodox cathedral here in London. They were to end up in the conflict resolution centre in Coventry Cathedral. It was an imaginative programme; a tiny thing against the problems that the noble Lord has described. Yet this sort of thing perhaps symbolises the work that has to be done and the road that has to be travelled—and to think that it was our immigration authority which made it impossible for it to happen.

When I saw that this debate had been put down I definitely wanted to contribute to it, not because I have wise things to say but because a small initiative that might have been set against the prevailing trends, or spoken the language of hope, was thwarted in this rather jejune way. I will leave that on the table as my contribution and I thank once more the noble Lord, Lord Ashdown, for his passion as well as his commitment.

Older People: Their Place and Contribution in Society

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Friday 14th December 2012 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

My Lords, I rise after a speech like that and can only add to the mediocrity that I am capable of. A 62 year-old—for he has confessed his age—is moving into semi-retirement at Magdalen College, giving himself the opportunity to write and regale us with the riches of his mind, which he will go on doing for a very long time.

Half the reason I am here on a Friday morning when I have a thousand other things to do is of course to pay my tribute to the most reverend Primate for all that he has been for the nation at large. I doubt that there are many people who, like him, speak around the country and can command an audience that fills every hall where he speaks. Politicians would die for an ability to command such audiences. I know I embarrass him by going on in this way but it is tough—he will have to deal with that. He is younger than I am and made of stouter stuff. He has endured a great deal more than that in the past 10 years. I simply say that his capacity to engage with disciplines other than his own makes him a man apart. The speech he made today was an illustration of that. I just wish that his own church had been as generous to him as the British public at large feel towards him. I pray that one day soon the church may wake up and become more generous.

Let me move to the point. This business of the contribution of older people preoccupies all of us. The most reverend Primate has laid his thinking out before us in publications over the years. One that I prize a great deal is a little book called Lost Icons. It has about five chapters and each could furnish a debate of this kind. In the last chapter, “Lost Souls”, the most reverend Primate tries very hard to identify what it is that makes each individual essentially human and says that it is in some way to retain a sense of selfhood. He argues, very potently, that two things allow a person to maintain contact with their essential self. He goes on later to develop the theological dimension of that and is prepared to call it a soul but perhaps for this debate we may call it the self so that those without religion feel that they can identify with the argument, too.

The most reverend Primate argues that we maintain contact with ourselves as long as people do not take from us the right to face the ambiguities of life with a certain amount of freedom to see the nasty as well as the good, or the way that we resolve such tensions into our story. That is one of the ways in which we maintain ourselves. The other is love. That is not love in a Mills and Boon sense—that is fun but it is not quite that. It is really the idea that someone else is interested in me, someone who has had the opportunity to know me with all my faults and maintains that interest and gladness in my presence despite all that life throws at us. That is love: disinterested and directed towards me, maintaining my sense of selfhood.

I have done bare justice to a rich chapter in that particular book, but if there is truth in these arguments and that line of analysis, it seems to behove us all to remember it when people move into the last stages of their lives and we meet people with declining powers and fading faculties. It is at that stage that we need always to remember that the person in front of us has a self and to deal seriously with the material that we put in front of them—not to save them from the difficulties they are in but to help them to weather a storm or retain contact with their basic humanity. Love will certainly go on being interested in people in their last phase, right to the end.

The most reverend Primate and I share a pastoral ministry. A great proportion of my life has taken me to geriatric wards—as we used to call them—or other places where long-term care is offered. It is the very dickens of a job in such circumstances to be with a person who has a self but has been institutionalised out of having contact with it. If only we could activate the British public, ourselves included, to go on believing that the people we visit, who are sometimes going through dreadful times, are still human beings in the fullest sense—and, as the most reverend Primate and I would say, still have the image of God in them.

When I was a young man, I worked for a while as a male nurse in a mental hospital. For long periods of the day, when we had administered the drugs, I had washed and shaved the men and done all those sorts of things, I was left alone with my charges. I would talk to them. Generally, the mere fact that I had time to talk to them brought from some very disturbed people some very human responses. That was a mental hospital in the days when people were kept locked up in such places for extremely long periods. That is no longer the case but it makes the point that we remain capable of receiving love, care and attention even when, to the observer at a superficial level, it simply seems as if the lights have gone out. If we could develop a culture where we perhaps practically respond to human beings in that caring way, we would be a better society for it.

I say to the most reverend Primate and my friend—I dare to call him that across the Chamber—that, as he moves into fresh fields and pastures new, we wish him well. We wish, too, that he will continue to regale the country with his wisdom and not deprive us by disappearing into an ivory tower of all the goodness of heart and generosity of spirit that he has shown so lavishly over these past 10 years.

Commonwealth Parliamentary Association

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 8th September 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

My Lords, I, too, add my word of delight to the noble Baroness for bringing forward this timely debate and offer congratulations, for what mine are worth, to the parliamentary association for surviving this long. Perhaps I might also say how much I respect the role of Her Majesty the Queen as an ingredient in the curious chemistry that has kept that body going, and being so lively for so long.

It is under the part of the Motion about the continuing role that I wish to offer my remarks. I would have wanted to spend a little time on and discuss further, for example, the place of Caribbean studies in our universities. I come to this debate from a meeting on that subject in my office. When I was pursuing doctoral studies in the area of Caribbean studies, there were at least half a dozen universities with vibrant departments looking at subjects that arise from that interesting part of the world. Now there are none. This is a source of great concern to those who live in significant areas within this country whose populations have large numbers drawn from those Commonwealth countries in the Caribbean.

In the few minutes available, I want to concentrate on what ongoing role the Commonwealth has towards countries that it has suspended from its membership. Suspension cannot be a self-justifying end in its own right. I have in mind particularly the case of Fiji. The Fijian Government have been suspended until they meet certain norms. Sanctions by Australia, New Zealand, the European Union and others have been placed on the present Government. However, they have taken terrible measures against the Methodist Church. They have refused to allow its annual conference to meet for three years and gave only 24 hours’ notice this year in ordering the church not to meet in conference. This takes away the economic basis of the Methodist Church in Fiji, where the finances for the whole year are gathered at its conference. Not only that but women’s prayer fellowships, choir practices, house groups, midweek communions and youth fellowships have all been banned. The Methodist Church is the only church against which the Fijian Government have taken such draconian measures.

Your Lordships may have a certain view of the minority place of the Methodist Church in Great Britain, but I bring the matter to noble Lords’ attention to remind them that, in Fiji, Methodism constitutes pretty much the DNA of the country. I myself preached at the institution of a president of the conference on the princely island of Bau not so long ago, in the very place where chief Cakobau was converted to Christianity in 1853 and where the baptismal font was carved out of a rock upon which previously the heads of those about to be eaten were crushed. Methodism has been part of the emerging Fijian country, and a wonderful place it is. However, at the moment, Methodism is being suppressed.

This is important because it means a very important part of Fijian society is being marginalised. The fabric of society is being weakened. Many of the council of chiefs, which operates alongside the legislature in Fiji, are themselves drawn from Methodism. The indigenous peoples are dominated by Methodism, too. Methodism has played a large part in bringing the Indian population, who are still landless—and that is another problem that has to be addressed at some stage—into the mainstream of life. I wonder what the Commonwealth can do to put further pressure on the Government of Fiji. The Pacific Islands Forum has already sort of excommunicated Fiji from its fellowship. I am hearing messages—texts and the rest of it—that, on the streets of Suva in Fiji, there are beginning to be the sorts of demonstrations that, who knows, could lead to things that we have seen in other parts of the world in recent times.

Prevention is better than a cure. Are there ongoing relationships? Does the Commonwealth have a continuing role? Should we be trying to do more and to be more proactive in creating conditions out of which conversations and pressure can be placed upon the Government of Fiji? All this is urgent. The Commonwealth must, therefore, be congratulated not only on the very proper range of activities it fosters and relationships that it engenders but also on the role it might play in keeping peace in troubled parts of the world. The Fijian Government are setting up an alternative Methodist Church to do their will, just as President Mugabe has done with the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe. Let us put in the cautionary note. Let us delight ourselves in the presence of the Commonwealth, and hope and pray that it can play some part in bringing decency and dignity back to the people of Fiji.

Zimbabwe

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

My Lords, I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for bringing this matter to our attention and giving us this opportunity today. For more years than I remember, and probably more years than he cares to remember, he has brought such matters to the attention of your Lordships’ House and made sure that we debate these things properly.

I come to this debate as a person concerned for the well-being of all Zimbabweans, those living in their own country and those scattered around the world and here in the UK because they have had to flee their own country in fear of what might happen to them and their families. I come to this debate also as a Methodist minister. Methodism has had a long relationship with Zimbabwe and with Rhodesia before that. The earliest missionaries from the British church followed the 1891 pioneer column and, by the end of that year, bases for outreach had already begun in Salisbury and in Epworth—named for the place where John Wesley was born, of course, and now a high-density suburb of Harare. Later Methodists from the American church came to the country and focused their efforts especially on its eastern fringe. The relationship between Methodists in Britain and Methodists in Zimbabwe has weathered many difficulties, the creation and subsequent break-up of the Central African Federation, UDI and the war for black majority rule. The Methodists in Zimbabwe now form an autonomous and vibrant church with which we still have close ties. Indeed, where I work, my colleague is herself British Methodism’s special envoy to the Methodist Church in Zimbabwe, and we have contacts all over the land with whom we are in regular touch.

Zimbabwe is a country with great resources, wonderful landscapes, and above all a diligent, hard-working, resilient and extremely hospitable people. As with others we long for the day when the country can once again hold its head high in the community of nations. As the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, reminded us, the current situation in Zimbabwe gives us very little cause for hope. The global political agreement signed in 2008 between ZANU-PF and the two parts of the MDC—one of which is itself terribly fragmented—which led to the formation of an “inclusive Government”, has for the most part not been implemented. Indeed, 24 articles have never been implemented, especially those that relate to security and the media. Technically, the lifespan of the GPA was over on 11 February 2011, so it ought to be behind us. Renegotiating it seems necessary, with seeking the implementation of all its articles as part of that negotiation.

According to our sources, the economic situation has seen some improvement with a reduction in inflation, largely the result of an abandonment of the Zimbabwe dollar in favour of the US dollar and other currencies. The relationship between the parties in the inclusive Government is largely characterised by mistrust, and ZANU-PF still controls the vital ministries dealing with security, the police and the media. Prime Minister Tsvangirai has still not been able to do something as basic as moving into the official prime ministerial residence.

At its last party conference at the end of last year, ZANU-PF chose Robert Mugabe—aged 87 years—once again as its presidential candidate, and is eager to have elections as soon as possible. I wonder why. June this year would be its favoured time. Its hope is to gain an outright election victory and dispense with the GPA altogether. We have already heard eloquent arguments as to why such elections or proposals for elections should be held off until all the things mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, are in place. Elections this year and in the current circumstances could certainly not achieve a free and fair election acceptable to the majority of Zimbabweans and it is my strong conviction that Her Majesty’s Government should do all in their power to support and encourage those groups in Zimbabwe, in the region and in international organisations working for a postponement of elections until proper procedures and safeguards can be put in place. I hope that the Minister can give us some assurance on that when he winds up.

South Africa and the countries of the southern African region are crucial in working on a road map towards elections, and it is in that area that we in Britain might best offer our support and, if requested, technical expertise. A new constitution, mentioned again by the noble Lord, was an essential pillar of the global political agreement, but has still not been achieved despite some half-hearted attempts at consultation. That needs to be in place before any election. More pressure needs to be exerted to bring about a full implementation of all the other articles of the GPA. A new electoral register needs to be produced, as was again mentioned by the noble Lord. I do not apologise for repeating matters mentioned in a previous speech, something that I normally find offensive, because the more we say this thing, the better. There needs to be an open media that will give coverage to all shades of political opinion. Contacts across Zimbabwe inform us that there is already a great deal of violence and intimidation around the country because people, by virtue of the last conference of ZANU-PF, are on election alert already. Therefore, the population is already, once again, in a state of fear. It is important that SADC and African Union missions be in place now and in the run-up to elections, and not leave their presence or activity too long.

It is perhaps an irony that President Zuma of South Africa should have come out so clearly in favour of removing President Mubarak from one country in Africa when his country has played relatively little role in seeking the removal of President Mugabe from Zimbabwe. Messages coming from Zimbabwe indicate that the MDC is being banned by the police from holding meetings in the run-up to its own party congress, let alone any election that might be in the offing. Church people—Anglican bishops and the general secretary of the Council of Churches—have had death threats issued against them, as no doubt have others from civic organisations who are working for cases of harassment and violence to be investigated and for the individuals responsible to be brought before the courts. We can highlight the plight of these people; perhaps we ought to. These are real things, happening right now. The noble Lord, Lord Avebury, mentioned other instances of violence against people and the creation of a climate of fear. We should keep mentioning that to keep it before the public eye; then perhaps our Government can put pressure in the appropriate places to get assurances and action that will minimise these instances.

I shall finish here at home, with a word that may need to be said. We need to be conscious that the security situation in Zimbabwe has not improved greatly and that refugees and asylum seekers should therefore not be pressurised to return home prematurely. Perhaps we can put a little bit of muscle behind the coaxing—if it can be done with muscle—of the UK Border Agency and other authorities towards that end. Instead, the good work of agencies in this country in preparing and training Zimbabweans to go home when things are settled and to take their rightful places in rebuilding their country should be continued and expanded. Zimbabwe has slipped down the news agenda. It has gone on for so long that thresholds of patience, tolerance and interest have been exhausted but the situation there is important. The people there need our best attention and any efforts that this Parliament can put behind making things better for them.

Latin America

Lord Griffiths of Burry Port Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2010 Lords Chamber

[Lord Griffiths of Burry Port]

My Lords, I am delighted that my noble friend—although he is sitting on other Benches he is still my friend—has brought this issue to our attention and given us this opportunity to debate it. When our newspapers this morning tell us that England must dispose of Argentina and Brazil if they are to lift the world cup, clearly it is a topical and timely debate.

I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Liddle, on his maiden speech. We are sitting at the same level and I hope that my speech will attain something like the same level as his.

Others have spoken in general terms about the economic aspects of our relationships with Latin America; I want to speak in a more particular way. If it is a long time since Latin America has figured in our debates here, it must be forever since Haiti figured in them. This is a rare opportunity for me to hang some thoughts about Haiti on the back of the debate, with the permission of the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery.

Latin America and the whole world owe far more than they think to poor Haiti. We celebrated recently the abolition of the slave trade 200 years ago, but not much was said about the fact that the slaves in Santa Domingo took their freedom from the mighty French armies by their own efforts under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture. That needs to be lauded as having set the scene and created the atmosphere for later and rather more timid efforts on our part.

However, it is only when the first President of Haiti was approached by Simon Bolivar as part of the drive for independence in Latin America that we see the linkage between Haiti and the great continent beyond it. Simon Bolivar found himself without provisions and called in at Port-au-Prince, where the President at that time, Alexandre Pétion, supplied him with victuals and materiel for the struggle in Venezuela and other places. Bolivar was duly thankful but did not express his thanks practically when, at the Congress of Panama in 1826, which was intended to give some kind of unity to the newly emerging free nations of the Americas, he colluded with the United States of America in excluding the President of Haiti from that congress because he was black. Simon Bolivar therefore has, I am afraid, a bad mark in my book as well as all the obvious good ones.

Then there was a grudging recognition of Haiti’s independence—from Denmark, the United Kingdom and eventually France—but with a huge indemnity that Haiti went on repaying until the early part of the 20th century. After that there was recognition, even more grudgingly, from the Vatican in 1860 and from the United States in 1863, but only because the civil war had caused a re-evaluation of the place of black people in society there. Haiti was the first black republic in the world.

For the remainder of the 19th century Haiti endured gun-boats and an assassination of character. The Germans, the British, the French and the Spanish all had their go at poor Haiti and perpetuated its image as a primitive nation. This culminated, of course, with the arrival in July 1915 of the USS “Washington” and the 20-year occupation by the American, black-hating Marines—rednecks—to look after Haiti’s affairs, but really to safeguard the approaches to the Panama Canal. So much is owed to Haiti that the deprecatory words which so easily fall off the tongues of all kinds of commentators need to be qualified against the facts of history. The weight of history hangs heavily around the shoulders of those who deprecated a country which got rid of its slaves at a time when the nations around it were anxious to keep theirs, We need to re-evaluate history in the light of those circumstances.

There was then, of course, puppet government after the occupation. The creation of an intellectual black hole was bound eventually to be filled by a dictator who looked something like Papa Doc Duvalier, and in the end resembled him exactly. I went to Haiti and lived there in the time that he was the dictator. I met him a couple of times and he died a month later. I do not think there was a causal relationship.

After the Duvalier dynasty in the 1980s—Baby Doc had gone in 1986—at a time of great turmoil when Haitians were looking for some kind of accountable government, what happened? The IMF came in and insisted on an economic package that eventually crippled and stifled the new revolution at birth. It was so irresponsible.

After a meeting in Chile, in Santiago in 1991, all the Foreign Ministers and Heads of Government of the Americas came together to promise themselves that if there were military government in any of their territories thereafter they would all rally round the cause and win back the lost independence. Three months later, a junta displaced the democratically elected President of Haiti and for three years and two months he was in exile in the United States. What did the Latin American continent do? Nothing. The Organisation of American States appointed an envoy, who came and went—leaving a carbon footprint the size of 40 football pitches—and nothing was done. Proximity talks in New York eventually secured some kind of future for Haiti but meant the end, effectively, of accountable government with the departure of President Aristide and the rebellion that came thereafter.

I rehearse these facts to secure on the record of the British Parliament the nature and the extent of the indebtedness of the rest of the world to the trail-blazing activities of Haiti. I hope that does not get either a sneer or a laugh. I have laid out the case, but it will not end there because there are some very encouraging things happening now.

I was in Haiti in February, just two or three weeks after the earthquake there. It was as bad as the news media showed it to be. People whom I had taught had been killed; the whole population of the university was decimated. I talked to survivors and people who were dreadfully mutilated. To know where to begin to reconstruct or to develop a future for Haiti in the light and the aftermath of that disaster is very difficult for the imagination.

But what did I find? In earthquake-stricken Port-au-Prince, I found that the lights worked and the electricity was 24 hours a day. I thought, “That was never the case on my previous visit. What on earth has happened?”. I found that the Government of President Chavez, much reviled by many in Venezuela, had seen to it that a power station and cheap oil was ensuring that the Haitian capital had its electricity. It had survived the earthquake and was still supplying its energy as appropriate to those properties that were not destroyed. Then, I was on air myself, being interviewed about Haiti and my impressions of it after the earthquake in a studio with people from Médecins Sans Frontières. We all admire them; they get there first and they like to tell us they get there first. But there were hundreds of Cuban doctors there before them who never got interviewed anywhere. That those two countries—Cuba and Venezuela, which do not count for much in the eyes of many commentators—should practically have reversed Simon Bolivar’s denial of the Haitian president all those years ago seemed to me to be an extraordinarily wonderful and generous thing.

I am delighted to say that a man whom I introduced to Haiti and provided with a network of friends is now taking it much further himself. One of London’s finest architects, a specialist in urban regeneration, is taking on responsibility for much of the reconstruction of Port-au-Prince. Seriously good things are happening there: an expo is about to take place in the next couple of months, from which tenders will be invited to provide model communities and rehouse displaced people around the capital of Port-au-Prince. He himself, our London architect John McAslan—I am proud to mention his name and honour it here in this assembly—has approached the private sector to gain the necessary funds to rebuild the marketplace in downtown Port-au-Prince. He has started not with the presidential palace but with the place where everybody goes to get their supplies. It is wonderful thing. We hope that, by December or January, that will be up and functioning, and all that trading will take place again. So there are signs of hope.

What do I want Her Majesty's Government to take note of as I mention Haiti in this way? Her Majesty's Government, whatever party is in power, are not known to take much heed of what happens in Haiti, but I shall offer my five-pennyworth. It is that Haiti should figure a little in the councils of our Government, and that we should see in Haiti an opportunity to do something that might have practical and beneficial outcomes. I go further and say that if we cannot crack the problem of Haiti, there is not much hope for some of the more problematical areas in the world that worry us to death.

I am very glad to ride on the back of the noble Viscount, Lord Montgomery of Alamein, and give my five-pennyworth of hurrahs for Haiti, and hope that perhaps it will figure a little in our thinking in the future.