Cyclone Idai

Lord Elton Excerpts

Tuesday 19th March 2019 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord Elton]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what response the UK is making to help address the impact of Cyclone Idai in parts of southern Africa.

[Lord Elton (Con)]

My Lords, I beg leave to ask a Question of which I have given private notice. In so doing, I declare my interest as a member of All-Party Parliamentary Group on Zimbabwe, with friends in Zimbabwe.

[Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)]

My Lords, this cyclone disaster is shocking and devastating and our hearts go out to all those impacted by it. Her Majesty’s Government have formally approved the provision of £6 million to DfID to alleviate the situation. We have deployed a team of DfID experts, aid supplies are on the ground, the UK is leading the donor response and we stand ready to scale up our support in any way we can.

[Lord Elton]

My Lords, my interest was first sparked by the fact that the cyclone struck three countries: Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe. There was no mention of Zimbabwe, either in the report in the Daily Telegraph or on the BBC’s website. Zimbabwe is not a member of the Commonwealth, but it remains part of the human race and the suffering there is appalling.

I will read a little bit of an email I received this morning from a friend of mine in Chimanimani in Zimbabwe:

“800 mm of rain in one day caused a huge mudslide … at 7.30 at night … swept away our sawmill, workshops, tree nursery with most of this year’s avo and mac trees for planting and all of next years and most terrible of all 37 out of 39 x 8 room workers rooms killing 5 with another 15 odd missing presumed dead and masses injured”.


One washed up six kilometres away. It went on:

“Fields that were full of nut-laden … trees now look like dry river beds just rocks not a spoonful of earth”.

[The Countess of Mar (CB)]

My Lords, I am sorry to interrupt the noble Lord, but this is a Private Notice Question and should be treated as a Question, not as a Statement.

[Lord Elton]

I am sorry. I thought my question was self-evident from the start. What is being done to ensure that this aid is distributed throughout the three countries and not pinned down to two of them through favouritism?

[Baroness Stedman-Scott]

I assure my noble friend that the Government will not be treating countries in an unbalanced way. In Zimbabwe, we have already carried out satellite mapping of affected areas to assess damage and provided hygiene kits, cholera kits, essential medicines, tracing and psychosocial support for children, and water sanitation. Before I came into the Chamber, I had a telephone conversation with two of the DfID aid workers in Mozambique. I did not think I would be able to say that without getting very emotional. Their stoicism and what they are doing are amazing. I assure my noble friend that money will be allocated to Zimbabwe, and we will know how much in the next 24 hours.