Sub-Saharan Africa (Report from the International Relations and Defence Committee)

Lord Oates Excerpts

Wednesday 8th September 2021 Grand Committee

[Lord Oates (LD)]

My Lords, I declare my interest as co-chair of the All-Party Group on Zimbabwe and vice-chair for southern Africa of the Africa APPG. I join other noble Lords in commending the noble Baroness, Lady Anelay, and her committee for an excellent and comprehensive report, although I must admit that when I read it I felt a mixture of despair and anger, because it confirmed everything I feared and have often observed—the lack of strategy or consistency, the counterproductive policies and the missed opportunities.

I had the privilege of working in southern Africa as a teacher in a rural secondary school in the late 1980s and subsequently have been an adviser in South Africa’s first and second democratic Parliaments in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Since that time, I have travelled irregularly back to the region and remain in contact with many of my former pupils, as well as with politicians and others whom I came to know in South Africa. What is most striking to me is how our significance in the region has waned over that period, not just among political elites but in the eyes of ordinary people. It is, in part, a consequence of the lack of consistency, strategy or even sometimes apparently any real interest in Africa highlighted in this report.

However, as the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, said, Africa remains important to Britain and Britain still has the chance to remain important to Africa. The noble Lord, Lord Hague, pointed out in the Times last month that, over the next 30 years, Africa’s population is expected to grow by more than 1.1 billion people, meaning that the continent will host three times the population of Europe by 2050. As a result, he argued:

“The future of Africa will … be one of the decisive factors in world affairs”.


Yet there seems to be no real understanding in government, at a political level at least, of Africa’s central importance economically and politically. Perhaps that is in part because of the fact highlighted in the report and referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, that since the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, was Minister for Africa for a period from 1989 to 1997, no Minister has been in place for more than two years. The noble Baroness’s effectiveness as a Minister was not just because she was an excellent Minister, which obviously she was, but because she had been there, was known by people, had the expertise and was highly respected. With the best will in the world, that cannot be achieved, however good or bad our Ministers might be, if they are reshuffled every few months.

China understands the importance of Africa. Even Russia, with its much more limited resources, understands the importance of Africa. But they seem to have some sort of strategy, where we seem to have a series of knee-jerk reactions. Somebody described it to me as if we are playing a chess game: they are sat there looking at the board and we in the meantime are watching TV and shouting at the kids to be quiet. Every now and then, they say, “Your move”, and we look up, look at the board and make a move. It is not surprising that it is not very strategic.

Nowhere could our lack of strategy be clearer than in the approach we have taken since the beginning of Covid. We have hit African economies with a triple whammy. First, not content with the big cut that our aid budget would have faced anyway as a result of the Covid-related reduction in our GDP, we savaged it yet further, cutting off assistance to millions of people at their time of greatest need.

Secondly, we cornered the market in vaccines for ourselves while African countries have gone wanting. We are talking about booster programmes at the moment, when some of the most vulnerable people in Africa do not have access. Where national programmes have managed to get above 20% vaccination rates—for example, in Zimbabwe; not a country or Government that I normally commend, but they have—it is largely led through Sputnik and Sinovac, because they have provided the drugs. People do not forget such things. We have compounded that by helping to spread the erroneous belief that AstraZeneca was ineffective against the beta variant, something that has been proved not to be the case, but we still seem to spin.

Our final coup de grâce has been to cut off the African tourist economy at the knees by putting every African country on the red list and requiring that even double-vaccinated tourists have to quarantine on their return. There is no rationale for such a blanket approach: the US does not take such an approach; Germany does not take such an approach; Switzerland does not take such an approach. I hope that, in his response, the Minister will explain why we take such a different view from them.

We talk about tourist travel as non-essential travel, but it is essential to those economies. It is estimated that tourism provides £160 billion to Africa’s GDP and £18.3 billion to South Africa alone, supporting 1.5 million jobs. Travel bans are literally a death sentence. Of course we have to protect our people, but we must have a coherent rationale in how we go about it. If we do not correct this policy by the time of the southern hemisphere summer season, we will further devastate the economies of many countries, driving desperation and compounding political instability. I hope that the Minister will give us some comfort in that regard.

A number of noble Lords have raised the issue of visas, the excellent report from the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Africa and other all-party parliamentary groups which also fed into this report. When I sat on the governing council of the International Planned Parenthood Federation for three years, our African youth representatives could never come to this country: they were never granted visas. That was shocking, and it was of course noted. We made many representations to the British Government, but they would not treat it on a sensible, rational basis because the embassies and high commissions no longer had any discretion in these matters.

My final point is on climate. While I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Lilley, on the importance of electricity, I also say that the importance of getting African countries to work as part of the COP 26 process has been fatally undermined by our reduction of aid. I hope the Minister will also address that.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

I am very sorry if the noble Lord missed it, but I did address the points that many noble Lords raised about visas. I noted that my honourable friend the Minister for Africa responded to the committee about that and gave the reassurance that he had raised the points mentioned in your Lordships’ report with Ministers at the Home Office as we implement our new visa arrangement, which welcomes people from around the world, based not on the continent they come from but on the skills they provide and the contribution they can make. I repeat what I said earlier: we welcome further discussion with the committee and the experiences of the people with whom noble Lords come into contact as they use the new system. We want it to enjoy the confidence of all those who use it.

I also outlined the Government’s approach to trade vis-à-vis Africa with the investment summit and the work we have been doing with the trade envoys, which continues, but I will certainly revisit the official record and, if I have missed some of the points that the noble Lord, in particular, raised, I will ensure that he gets the response he wants.

[Lord Oates (LD)]

On a point of clarification, can the Minister assure the Grand Committee that the MoU with the Africa trade area will be referred to your Lordships’ International Agreements Committee and will be published? I declare an interest as a member of that committee.

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

If the Committee will permit me, I will take that back and provide a response once I have been able to discuss it with colleagues at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. I will ensure that the Committee has an answer on that point.

In conclusion, the Government greatly value the interest of your Lordships and the committee in our relationship with sub-Saharan Africa and ensuring that Africa is a key part of the long-term approach of global Britain. We recognise the enormous potential that comes with the continent’s young demographic and growing markets. We are very grateful for the report and this debate, which has been a welcome opportunity to discuss it in depth and to cover some new ground as well. I know that the debate will continue, but for today I end by again thanking everyone for their participation and my noble friend for the way that she opened the debate.