Queen's Speech

Earl of Sandwich Excerpts

Wednesday 26th May 2010 Lords Chamber

[The Earl of Sandwich]

My Lords, I shall speak mainly about Africa, but first I warmly welcome all our new Ministers to the Front Bench, especially the noble Lord, Lord Howell, who has stood behind the Dispatch Box on both sides for many years, demonstrating great skill and patience. I do not envy any of the new Ministers, who will regularly have to face such a line-up of well informed and sometimes forceful speakers. I am thinking especially of the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, whom we also welcome back to the Front Bench, albeit on the other side.

I am pretty confident that the Minister and the noble Viscount share the view expressed by my noble friends Lady Cox and Lord Alton that the House has a considerable number of experts in foreign affairs and development who could be effectively deployed in a Lords Select Committee on specific issues without antagonising or duplicating the work of the Commons. That is matter for the House, but I am sure that those noble Lords will add their voice to this argument when the time comes and it is discussed in the Liaison Committee.

The Minister said that, in conflict areas, international development, foreign policy and defence often have to work together and be carefully co-ordinated. Afghanistan is the most prominent example of that, but there are three countries in Africa—Sudan, Kenya and Congo— where I know from personal experience that DfID and the FCO have had to be careful not to tread on each other’s toes. At some point in this Parliament—I hope that it will be soon—we are bound to have a full-scale debate on international development. Now that the DfID budget is, we assume, ring-fenced by both coalition parties, I hope that the Government will be careful not to upset the departmental balance.

I welcome the new emphasis on civil society and the funding of smaller NGOs, as has already been recognised by charities. In the coalition manifesto I noticed a sentence, which is potentially disturbing, about stabilisation and reconstruction in Afghanistan. I hope it will not lead to any rebranding of development projects that appear to be more in our own strategic interests than in the interests of that country. The noble Baroness has mentioned that.

The coalition faces a troubled and unstable world in which, I suggest, internal migration is always a key factor. I concur with much of what the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, has just said. The latest figures are not encouraging. We now have the highest number of internally displaced people ever, growing from 17 million in 1997 to more than 27 million worldwide. The region most affected is Africa, with 11.6 million. It is significant that Sudan has the highest number of IDPs in Africa, with 4.9 million, more than half of them in Darfur. That excludes nearly 400,000 refugees from Sudan who are abroad. Taking just the most recent numbers, only eight countries account for 90 per cent of the 6.8 million people displaced in the world last year. Of those, 3 million are in Pakistan, 1 million are in Congo and more than 500,000 are in Sudan. These figures come from the Norwegian Refugee Council’s displacement monitoring service.

While world security after 9/11 focused on the Pakistan frontier, relatively little attention has been paid to Africa, particularly the region of southern Sudan and the Great Lakes. One reason for this is that although some of Africa’s more vigorous refugees make it to the Mediterranean ports, migration to the UK chiefly derives from Europe and south Asia so, as a nation, we tend to be more concerned about direct threats to ourselves. We are therefore much less aware of the effects of conflict in east and central Africa, unless we happen to follow closely the work of the humanitarian agencies. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, mentioned Congo. I hope the Minister will confirm that we will support the extension of the vital UN MONUC force there.

This is the year of reckoning in Sudan. In spite of continuing violence, the comprehensive peace agreement has held sufficiently to enable the Governments of north and south to prepare for fundamental change and a referendum next January that is likely to lead to secession. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, referred to the all-party group’s report on Sudan, launched by the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, on 18 March. It argued that, because of the elections, there have not been enough preparations for the referendum. It seems vital that north and south draw up contingency plans now. Even if they separate, the south will continue to depend on the north for natural resources and, more specifically, for revenue from foreign oil companies in the south, which still goes through Khartoum and is unequally shared in spite of the injunctions of the peace agreement.

Nearly half of our bilateral aid to Sudan is in humanitarian assistance. A further 37 per cent is in governance, so not much is left for on-the-ground development. Those figures speak for themselves. Without emergency relief from countries such as ours, and without the strengthening of government in the south, the country would be even more destitute. The vast tracts of scrub and savannah in the south are among the least hospitable on earth but, given stability of government, there is potentially sufficient fertile land to feed, house and educate the population, even without oil revenues. DfID and the Government of south Sudan must try to decentralise their assistance away from Juba further towards the states and regional centres where security allows. I wholly endorse what the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Salisbury said about the role of churches. It is essential that aid agencies make the best use of civil society and the latest techniques of self-reliance to ensure that the south has a secure future after the referendum.

There will undoubtedly be diversion of funds, corruption and a lack of accountability; this is a sine qua non of working in the very poorest countries of the world. However, a new LSE study—I notice that the noble Lord, Lord Judd, was behind some of its work—says that a legal education and enforcement of the rule of law will ensure, in a country such as Sudan, that even a highly traditional tribal society can build up the necessary structures to make development work. Even after years of civil war it is possible to reach agreements based on the latest models of conflict resolution derived from experience in other countries. This strategy is also true of Afghanistan, if only we could follow it.