The UK’s Relationship with Africa

Hugh Bayley Excerpts

Thursday 19th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[Hugh Bayley (York Central) (Lab)]

In view of your requirement for brevity, Madam Deputy Speaker, I have thrown away half my speech. I had intended to speak about the excellent report that the all-party group on Africa recently published, “Democracy Soup”, and some issues to do with conflict, but I will focus my remarks on the latter so that there is time for others to contribute to the debate.

I am a Europhile, but also an Afrophile, if that is the word to use, and I greatly welcome what the chairman of the all-party group, the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge), had to say about the need for optimism about Africa’s future. It matters to us because Africa is our nearest neighbour and because of the great trade opportunities in both directions between our country and Africa.

There are problems of organised crime and people trafficking. Some 5,000 African women are trafficked to Europe every year. We have a Bill to deal with the problem of modern slavery, and this is modern slavery because the vast majority of those women end up against their will as sex slaves in the sex trade.

Our Government have wisely decided to earmark 30% of our bilateral aid to conflict and fragile states, because they rightly take the view that conflict undermines development. According to the latest International Monetary Fund World Economic Outlook, Africa’s four poorest states are the Central African Republic, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Liberia, and they have all experienced conflict in recent years.

It is not just poor states that face conflict, however. Libya, of course, was engulfed by civil war a few years ago, and it is one of the richest countries in Africa with a per capita income of over $10,000 a year.

I welcome the Government’s focus on conflict. Trying to avoid conflict is a good thing for its own sake. The United Nations’ responsibility to protect places an onus on countries to intervene where the Government of a third country fails to secure the safety and human rights of its own citizens. One should respond initially by non-military means where one can, by using soft power—aid, UN Security Council resolutions and sanctions. The use of military force should always be the last resort.

Sometimes, however, a very low level of military commitment can make an enormous difference. I remember going some years ago with the right hon. Member for Banbury (Sir Tony Baldry) to Rumbek in southern Sudan just one week after the signing of the comprehensive peace agreement that led to the independence and separation of South Sudan some five years later. A small contingent of six or 10 British servicemen with a couple of Land Rovers were doing an immensely valuable job, keeping hundreds of Government of Sudan soldiers and hundreds of Sudan People’s Liberation Army fighters apart. Perhaps I should add in this World cup week that they organised football matches between the two teams to try to deal with male testosterone, while a peace framework was constructed.

There are also enormous risks in deploying hard power—military force—however. We know from recent campaigns in Africa and elsewhere that for a well-equipped and well-trained military such as ours, or those of other NATO countries, winning a military victory is usually easier than building a sustainable peace.

In Libya, faced with an imminent threat made by Muammar al-Gaddafi against civilians from his own country in Benghazi, the UN Security Council passed a resolution permitting a coalition of the willing—led by NATO, but including other countries, including Arab states—to use military force to protect civilians in Libya. This force eventually toppled the Gaddafi regime, which led, not through our willing it, to the killing of Gaddafi himself. Almost three years later Libya is still awash with militia and state-sponsored armed groups, who refuse to disarm and who are intent on grabbing a share of power and a slice of Libya’s immense oil wealth.

In September 2012 the United States ambassador and three of his staff were killed. In October that year Libyan Prime Minister Ali Zeidan was kidnapped, threatened and forced to change his policy. The country still has no national army. Prime Minister Zeidan subsequently left the country and went into exile. His successor, Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani, appeared to resign after gunmen attacked his house, but then different gunmen attacked the Parliament to prevent his being replaced. For a time, Libya ended up with two Prime Ministers: al-Thani running an Administration in eastern Libya and Ahmed Maiteg, an individual who is close to a number of Islamist groups, running an Administration in Tripoli until his election was ruled unconstitutional by the supreme court. Now, former general Khalifa Haftar is using military force to try to take over the country, but the security situation is clearly deteriorating. Benghazi is once again a war zone and a curfew has recently been introduced.

When the United Kingdom—and the international community—engages in military action, I believe we have a responsibility after the action is over to help pick up the pieces, and I do not think we have heard enough from the Foreign Office about post-war reconstruction and development in Libya, so I suggest to the Minister that we should have regular, perhaps quarterly, reports on the political situation in Libya and on what the UK and other institutions, including the European Union and NATO, are contributing to that. They could, perhaps, be written reports—I am not necessarily saying they should be statements to the House—but I do think we need to be kept more informed than we currently are.

I also want to say a few words about Mali. It was once seen as a beacon of democracy in Francophone west Africa, but in 2012 it faced three interlocking crises. First, there was a Tuareg rebellion in the north of the country, fuelled by arms which many Tuareg mercenaries who had worked for Gaddafi in Libya brought back to Mali when the Gaddafi regime fell. Secondly, there was a political and institutional crisis precipitated by a military coup against the then President. Thirdly, there was an influx of extremist Islamist groups into the northern regions of Gao, Kidal and Timbuktu, which established very harsh and abusive rule in those parts of Mali.

At the end of 2012, those northern armed groups moved very quickly towards the capital in the south, Bamako, and the French launched Operation Serval, supported militarily by the UK, the United States and others. It swiftly defeated the uprising, creating conditions for a new President, President Boubacar Keita, to be elected, and set about retraining Mali’s army. I have seen British soldiers engaged in training—jointly, as it happens, with soldiers from the Irish Republic, which must be the first time British and Irish soldiers have worked together in a single military unit for many years.

Mali faces many long-term development challenges, including the need for job creation, for security sector reform, and for tackling trafficking and organised crime, which funds the activities of the insurgents and extremists. A year ago, there was a pledging conference, where some €3.25 billion was pledged by donors to fund Mali’s plan for sustainable recovery. The UK was a very small player because we do not traditionally have a bilateral programme in Mali. The trouble with our bilateral aid programme is that it is largely built around countries. In parts of Africa, we need to complement those country programmes with regional bilateral development programmes. Ever since decolonisation, many Africans and indeed Europeans have pointed out that Africa’s national borders make little sense; they were imposed as a result of colonisation with little reference to local and regional languages, ethnic differences, kingdoms or even religions.

The Islamists who created such a threat to Mali have been dispersed by Operation Serval, but many of them have slipped over the poorest borders and are regrouping in southern Algeria.

[Mike Gapes (Ilford South) (Lab/Co-op)]

Will my hon. Friend give way?

[Hugh Bayley]

I think, as so many Members are trying to get in, I will continue.

The point I made to the Minister is that to confront the problems that we face in the Sahel, we need to have a transnational response—a transnational response to transnational terrorism and transnational crime—and to promote growth across the region. We should be working with regional African organisations such as the Economic Community of West African States and the West African Economic and Monetary Union. I wish to see a proportion of British aid to Africa being allocated regionally, so that much of the money, though continuing to be spent by national Governments, could be spent on transnational projects, such as road and infrastructure, trade promotion, training and joint international security arrangements. The Department for International Development’s special areas of expertise in health education and water could be brought to bear in Francophone countries, and other countries’ expertise could be brought to bear in those former Commonwealth countries where most of our bilateral programmes remain.

Finally, the Africa all-party group submitted evidence to the last UK strategic defence and security review about security risks from Africa. A new review is imminent, and I hope that, within it, there will be a chapter looking at the African security risk. Indeed, there have been two military operations embarked on during this Parliament, both of which have been in Africa, and so those issues require some attention in the security review.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)]

It has been interesting to listen to so many informed speeches by hon. Members, not least that of the hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn). If I have a concern about this debate it is that at times we have been far too congratulatory about the progress that is being made in Africa, far too uncritical of the tools that our Government are using to assist people in Africa and far too confident of the progress that we believe Africa will make over the next few decades.

I speak as someone who, before becoming an MP, spent almost all of his professional life living in other countries that were at different stages of development. I have become a firm believer in and, I hope, a passionate advocate for political liberty and freedom, and economic liberty and freedom. There is nothing more powerful than seeing someone who has never been able to vote go and cast their vote. There is nothing better than seeing someone who has lived and worked in an industry throttled by monopolistic powers or corruption starting their own business and building a future for themselves, and nothing better than reading a press that is free rather than craven before its political masters. I believe passionately in those things, and as a British citizen I am proud that I can go around and say that I am from the United Kingdom, and that we as a country will stand up for those values wherever they need to be supported and nurtured.

However, I speak also as someone who has to validate to my constituents the expenditure of 0.7% of our GDP on international development. I applaud our Prime Minister for accomplishing that goal, and I support it, but I naturally have to ask some tough questions on my constituents’ behalf about whether that money is being spent effectively. That is particularly important when we examine the record in sub-Saharan Africa.

Over the past 20 years, a substantial amount of the resources sent from this country to Africa has gone through our aid budget. World Bank statistics show the impact of that aid: in 1990, 56.5% of people in Africa were living on less than $1.25 a day, whereas today the figure is just under 50%. For the billions of pounds that have been spent in aid, that is a very poor return on investment. Our Government need to challenge that by seeing where that money is being spent effectively and how we can be better.

[Hugh Bayley]

Will the hon. Gentleman give way?

[Richard Fuller]

I will not, because the hon. Gentleman has had his chance to speak and time is critical. I know that you want to move on to the closing speeches, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Aid is often incidental to, rather than responsible for, much of the progress that is made. I do not doubt the role of aid agencies, but I want to look critically at whether their tools and their role are what is needed to achieve the next level of development. I am also concerned to ensure that our Government support Africans with what they want, not our aid agencies with what they want for themselves. I am concerned that too often, we rely on institutional inertia: we carry on doing what we have done and lose sight of the original goal and how people’s lives and environments have changed. We need to change how aid is used, and I am proud of some of the changes that the Government have made recently.

Collier, in his book “The Bottom Billion”, which many hon. Members will have read, said that overseas development is not well suited to overcoming some of the challenges of the bottom billion in the world’s economy.