Malawi

Lord Steel of Aikwood Excerpts

Wednesday 20th July 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

I come back to my original Answer. I reassure the noble Lord that we have not cut back on aid but are redirecting the aid that was going through budget support to the health and education sectors, so we will be providing even more support by directing the aid to those sectors and having better oversight of where that money is being spent.

[Lord Steel of Aikwood]

My Lords, I appreciate the real difficulty that the Government have with the increasingly autocratic President of Malawi, but can the Minister give us any indication of whether relations are on the mend following the expulsion of our high commissioner?

[Baroness Verma]

My noble friend knows that while we have difficulties, we are continuously working on improving relationships. It is key that our relationship with Malawi is maintained and strengthened. The negotiations will continue but we will not stop our programmes from being delivered, because at the heart of everything that we are doing is the delivery of aid to poor people.