UK-West Africa Relations

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 25th January 2017 Westminster Hall

[James Duddridge]

I have great respect for my hon. Friend’s views on health, and he hits the nail on the head. It is ludicrous for DFID to promote health when there is vast expertise in the Department of Health that we should leverage. The same goes for the Department for Education. We can do a lot more. We must also support parliamentarians. I recently met the Sierra Leonean Select Committee on health through the good offices of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. It was clear that it was not getting the leverage in its Parliament to move things forward and propose changes.

I have recently started engaging on tuberculosis, which I had really associated only with being a by-product of HIV. The World Health Organisation estimates that more than 800,000 people in west Africa fell ill with TB in 2015, and nearly 300,000 people died. The mortality rate in west Africa for TB is around 36%, which is double the global average. I am keen to work with the Global TB Caucus, and I encourage other hon. Members to do so. Parliamentarians can play a great part in dealing with TB, and that caucus mobilises parliamentarians from across Africa. Will the Minister see whether his good offices in west Africa—ambassadors and high commissioners—can be used alongside the Global TB Caucus to encourage parliamentarians of those nation states to get more involved and collectively work with us to deal with this issue?

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I am most grateful to my hon. Friend for mentioning TB, which is absolutely vital. Does he agree that tremendous progress has been made in west Africa in the past 15 years in reducing both the incidence of malaria and mortality from it, not least given the support from DFID and the UK Government more generally? There is a real issue in the Sahel with intermittent malaria, which DFID is trying to tackle. As Nigeria is one of the two countries in the world where malaria is most prevalent, it is vital that we continue that support.

[James Duddridge]

My hon. Friend has a great reputation on those issues and on international development more generally. He is entirely right gently to reprimand me and say that we must look at the successes as well as the problems. The successes show that the aid budget works and that we should do more of it—they do not show that there are so many problems even after we have done all that work. Aid works and we should do more of it.

I turn to the perennial subject of Donald Trump—he pervades even a debate about west Africa. Will the Prime Minister raise the subject of Africa when she meets Donald Trump? I think she should. We should find out his views about Africa and aid in Africa. We have heard his views about family planning, and there may be a vacuum that the UK and other countries will need to step into, but what is his view of AFRICOM, the US’s African command? What is his view about stepping in if things deteriorate in places such as Burundi, where the Americans would have been well placed to offer support if regional forces did not? Will the Americans be prepared to step up? What discussions has the Minister had with his French and American counterparts about the global effort if there is a need to surge forces into Africa?

There were many places that I did not get to visit. I encourage the Minister to travel the road less trodden and visit the likes of Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso and Niger. I wish I had gone to Gambia. If one has visited some of those smaller countries, when things kick off—for want of a better word—and there is a problem, one sometimes has a rough idea and can pick up the phone and speak to people. The UK Government’s understanding, knowledge and penetration of Africa means that they are able to do that.

I have taken far too long—I apologise to Members—but in summary, I ask the Minister to do three things: help Nana in Ghana, look to set up a Francophone group of businesspeople, and lobby for structure of government changes so that Africa is better represented by HMG here in the United Kingdom.