St Lucia: Hurricane Tomas

Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, my noble friend raises an important point. However, our DfID programmes are concentrated mostly on a regional presence and are there to assist in climate change, disaster and risk management, and to tackle crime and insecurity. I will take back my noble friend’s question. However, we are doing quite a lot of constructive work through multilateral agencies.

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead]

My Lords, does the Minister agree that we should acknowledge the importance of €200,000 in humanitarian aid that the European Union is contributing, the considerable funding that goes towards disaster preparedness in the Caribbean, and the disaster management programmes there?

[Baroness Verma]

I absolutely agree with the noble Baroness. She has summarised concisely what we are doing.