Central and East Africa

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Mark Field

Monday 25th January 2016 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Doughty]

The right hon. Gentleman, who knows a lot about this issue, makes a crucial point, and all of us who care about Somaliland want to see that progress and stability continue. It has a vibrant political scene with active political parties. I have met representatives from a number of the different parties in recent weeks and they all want to see this go forward. We must play whatever role we can in ensuring both voter registration and elections go ahead.

Lastly on Somaliland, I want briefly to touch on the talks between Somalia and Somaliland being held under the auspices of the Turkish Government. There were some important high-level talks in Turkey between senior representatives of the Somalia federal Government and its Somaliland counterpart in 2014, and there were various contacts over a series of confidence-building measures and practical issues that could be addressed around aviation and telecommunications and so on. However, there has been a fall-back since those talks, and I would be interested to know the Government’s view on the status of the talks and whether they see them as having any value. If not, could other confidence-building activities take place between Somalia and Somaliland, in the light of their very different positions, to encourage contact between the two countries?

The hon. and learned Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham rightly highlighted the wider trends in security and development across eastern and central Africa, and I want briefly to mention a few countries that are of great concern to me and to other hon. Members. We had an excellent Adjournment debate here in the Chamber a couple of months ago on Eritrea, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Matthew Pennycook). The debate rightly highlighted the grave situation in that country and the many human rights abuses that are occurring there. I know that the Government share those concerns, and I would be interested to hear from the Minister how he sees that situation developing. I am also deeply worried by the activities of Eritrean Government representatives pursuing Eritrean citizens here in the UK for payment of taxes, and for other reasons, in allegedly intimidating ways. We do not want to see those kinds of activities on these shores; they certainly do not contribute to the fostering of good relations between the Eritrean diaspora and the country itself.

Many concerns are also being expressed about the situation in the Central African Republic. The Minister for Africa—the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), who sadly cannot be with us this evening—answered a question from me recently in which he made it clear that the security situation in the CAR was grave and that outside the capital, Bangui, violence, looting, hostage-taking and human rights abuses continued to occur with relative impunity. These countries do not always make the headlines here or globally, but these matters should be of concern to all of us here in the House as humanitarians and as proponents of development, democracy and good governance around the world. We cannot just pay attention to the countries that make the headlines. If we are concerned about these issues, we should be concerned about them wherever they occur. Similarly, great concern has been expressed about the situation in Chad, and we have also heard at length about the fears about the way in which the situation in Burundi might develop.

All those situations underline the fact that it is crucial that the UK Government continue to pursue a joined-up approach to development, diplomacy and defence and security issues in their relationships with this region. I was pleased to hear the announcement by the Secretary of State for International Development on further investment in fragile and conflict states. I know that the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) also pursued this matter while he was in office. Indeed, it was started under the last Labour Secretary of State for International Development, Douglas Alexander. I worked in the Department at that time, and we certainly felt that it was important to focus on that issue.

We need to be putting more resources into these situations in order to do preventive work, rather than simply responding to conflict. That could include supporting the development of democratic governance, the rights of women and girls, elections and electoral processes, low-level security measures and justice measures. All those things give confidence to populations and enable us to get on to the important issues such as health, education and the wider development that is absolutely crucial. Our development assistance plays a crucial role in that.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I suspect that he would agree that the Government have got it right in this regard and that the new aid strategy is a definite step forward in trying to integrate security, intelligence and defence with what one might call the slightly more traditional aid and international development goals. Does he agree that we have got the balance right in ensuring that roughly 50% the Department’s budget goes into those fragile nation areas, rather than repeating what happened in the past, with un-earmarked amounts of money finding their way into more general budgets that could not be properly accounted for?

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Doughty]

Yes, I agree with the hon. Gentleman in principle. It is important that we focus on those fragile countries that are affected by conflict, but I would gently make two points. It is important to support Governments directly, albeit with important criteria attached. Unless we support the development of strong governmental systems—for example, in healthcare and education—we will not see the necessary consistency and co-ordination of approach involving the non-governmental and international organisations operating in the country. In this country, it was only through forming the national health service and a unified education system that we were able to make the necessary progress in our own history. So I would not want us to move completely away from providing Governments with support, but it is important that it should be properly scrutinised and accounted for.

It is also important that considerations such as human rights should be taken into account. I remember a particular example that the previous Labour Government were involved with, when the then President of Malawi was proposing to spend an awful lot of money on a presidential jet. It was made very clear that that was not acceptable, and the money was subsequently funnelled through alternative channels to ensure that it got to the people who needed it rather than being used for that sort of corruption.

[Mark Field]

It is probably fair to say that virtually everyone here in the Chamber tonight is a great supporter of the Government’s strategy of allocating 0.7% of GDP to international aid. However, we should also accept that there is probably a silent minority in the House, and a rather less silent majority in the country at large, who do not buy into that idea. Having a strategy along the lines of the one that the Government have put in place will therefore make it easier to sell the idea, not only in our own self-interest but in recognition of the fact that there is a dangerous and uncertain world out there, and that the security and defence aspects of our policy have an important part to play and need to be integrated into our entire development budget.

[Stephen Doughty]

I agree with the broad point that the hon. Gentleman is making. When I am speaking to my constituents about these matters, I regularly make clear the links between what happens in those countries and what happens on our own streets. We have historic links with those countries, but there have also been tragic occurrences involving, for example, young men from my constituency trying to travel abroad to fight for al-Shabaab and an individual who had studied in Cardiff going to Nigeria to become involved with Boko Haram. What happens in those countries can have a direct and serious impact on what happens on own streets. It is always been clear to me that development is primarily a moral duty for us, but it is also in our common interest across the piece. It is in our common global interest and in the common national interest of this country, and I am never afraid to make that point.

The hon. Gentleman made an important point about co-ordination across Departments. Again, I agree with that in principle but I have experience of certain figures from certain Departments, such as the Ministry of Defence, looking at the DFID budget with an eagle eye and saying, “Well, you can have so much for this and so much for that.” There is sense in having co-ordination and co-operation, but they should not be seen as a way of hiving off chunks of funding and re-labelling them as something else. I know that those on the Opposition Front Bench will be doing an awful lot to scrutinise these matters and to ensure that we see real co-operation rather than the hiving off of parts of budgets for other purposes.