Zimbabwe

Mark Lazarowicz Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mark Lazarowicz (Edinburgh North and Leith) (Lab/Co-op)]

I join the hon. Members who have thanked the Committee for this excellent report. It has given us a good foundation for our debate today, and I am sure that the House will agree that we have had a particularly well-informed debate because of the expertise shown by many hon. Members across the House, both from their work on the Committee and from previous work experience in Africa and elsewhere.

The key question which faces the Government, and which faced the previous Government, was how we can provide development assistance to Zimbabwe and support for reform and a return to democracy while at the same time ensuring that we do not provide succour for the hard-line repressive elements of the regime. That is a delicate path to tread, but it is our view that the only way forward is to pursue that twin-track approach. We must seek to help the people of Zimbabwe who have suffered so much in recent years, but at the same time we must maintain the pressure for reform, democratisation and an end to brutality and terror by those in the Government who want to maintain their power and corrupt rule.

In the debate, hon. Members have spoken about the poverty, the degradation of the health service, the state of the economy and the political repression in Zimbabwe. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) spoke about the repressive legislation over many years. My hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) reminded us that the UN human development report placed Zimbabwe last out of 169 countries in its most recent index. The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) reminded us that the unemployment rate in Zimbabwe is between 80% and 90%. The hon. Member for Central Suffolk and North Ipswich (Dr Poulter), using his experience and expertise, told us of the collapse of the health infrastructure, which has caused a massive increase in the maternal mortality rate. My hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Kate Hoey) reminded us of the continuing intimidation of the opposition media in Zimbabwe despite the global political agreement.

As several hon. Members have said, Zimbabwe did not need to be in its present position. The cause of the people’s suffering is the actions—and sometimes the inaction—of the regime. The country still has the potential to be one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, as the hon. Members for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and for Tiverton and Honiton (Neil Parish) reminded us. It is because of the magnitude of the problem that the Labour Government instituted a substantial programme of assistance to Zimbabwe. In 2009 UK aid was worth £60 million, the largest ever programme of UK aid to Zimbabwe. As the right hon. Member for Gordon, (Malcom Bruce) who chairs the Select Committee, reminds us, that assistance and those programmes of assistance from other countries have produced results. He told us of his visit to a hospital that had begun to operate very effectively as a result of the assistance given under the programmes. My hon. Friend the Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) also reminded us that with investment and improvements in the infrastructure, the education and health systems could once again provide an effective service in many parts of the country.

The Committee report refers to the protracted relief programme supported by DFID, which—it points out—has already reached millions of vulnerable people in Zimbabwe and has been praised by the NGOs who take part as an “innovative flagship programme” of which DFID should be proud. The Committee recommends that the Department explore the option of scaling up the programme in Zimbabwe, and we support that recommendation.

The report also raises some questions about the operation of the protracted relief programme and makes some recommendations to make it even more effective. I note that that Government’s response says that they will consider those issues in their annual review of the programme, and we support that, but it should not be taken as detracting in any way from the overall achievements of that successful programme.

Alongside direct development assistance, the UK has also provided support to the office of the Prime Minister, Morgan Tsvangirai, to enable him and his office to fulfil the functions set out in the global political agreement on policy design and implementation. Again, the Select Committee proposes that such support should continue, and we agree with the recommendation. We also agree with the recommendation that such support should be offered to other reforming ministries in the Government.

There are, of course, many question marks over the future of a power-sharing agreement in Zimbabwe, not least because ZANU-PF has substantially retained much of its hold on power. The Select Committee report points out that Mr Mugabe and ZANU-PF have not fulfilled their undertaking and have sought to undermine the MDC’s ability to deliver even in its limited areas of Government. Nevertheless, as the report also points out—and as has been made clear by a number of hon. Members—there has been some progress since the agreement. That is one of the reasons why it is right to continue with the DFID programme of assistance in Zimbabwe. That programme should be along the general lines of the existing programme, although we could make changes to it to draw upon the experience of the programme to date.

I note, for example, that the Select Committee raises the issues of maternal and child health, and suggests that the Government should consider the need and the opportunity for more support to rebuild the health system to provide improved quality of care, especially for pregnant women and children under five. That support would certainly be most welcome. It would be useful to hear from the Minister how the Government will consider implementing the recommendation relating to that aspect of the Select Committee report.

One suggestion that I would certainly commend to the Government is that DFID should commit itself to help to fund the removal of user fees for health services in Zimbabwe. That has produced amazing results in places such as Sierra Leone. We must also consider ways of supporting civil society organisations more directly, particularly in the run-up to the planned referendum on a new constitution. It must be emphasised that there has to be real progress towards that constitution, which was a crucial element of a global political agreement. A new constitution should have been adopted before new elections were held, and that should certainly still be our objective.

One other question that the Minister might be able to answer is that raised by the Select Committee about the Multi-Donor Trust Fund. Again, that has been widely recognised as providing a way of giving assistance without the risk of funds being diverted away from their intended purpose. The Government do not say anything specific about their attitude to the future of the fund in their response to the Committee’s report. I hope that the Minister will confirm the UK’s continued support for that type of initiative.

In my opening remarks I said that there must be a twin-track approach. The first track is to provide direct assistance to benefit the people of Zimbabwe and to ensure that that does not in any way provide sustenance to the hard-line repressive elements in the regime. That type of direct assistance must continue, and we endorse the Select Committee’s recommendation that the UK should give a high priority to Zimbabwe not only through the work of DFID but through that of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and other Departments where relevant.

Given the obvious reluctance—to put it mildly—of ZANU-PF to share power in a genuine way, the second track is to ensure that pressure for change is maintained. As a number of hon. Members have pointed out, a key role has to be played by Zimbabwe’s neighbours. The Zimbabwean Government must comply with the rulings of the Southern Africa Development Community tribunal. The economic decline and instability in Zimbabwe has damaged all its neighbours in southern Africa, and we hope that those neighbours will continue their efforts to bring about reform and the full implementation of a power-sharing agreement. I would be interested to hear the Minister say, if he can, what recent contacts he has had with SADC tribunal members to make the point about the need to provide continued pressure on the Zimbabwe regime.

The entire world community must also play its part. We certainly endorse the recommendation of the Select Committee that

“progress on human rights and democracy must be demonstrated before all the EU’s restrictive measures placed on named individuals and organisations…can be lifted.”

I agree with what my hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall said about that. There needs to be a flexible approach to the application of such measures, and they need to be kept under review to ensure that they are targeted most effectively. One example concerns the export of diamonds. Hon. Members have raised concerns that the proceeds have been diverted into the pockets of leading figures in ZANU-PF. That situation, and the evidence of forced labour and of the torture and harassment of miners, means that it is right that Zimbabwe should not be allowed a full resumption of the export of diamonds at this stage.

As I have said, ordinary Zimbabweans have suffered awfully over the past decade. We know that not just from what we see in the media or from the conclusions of reports such as the one that we are discussing today, but from speaking to Zimbabweans who have come to the UK. Like most Members, I meet them in my constituency. The hon. Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry) made some important points about the role that they could play while they are resident in the UK. Zimbabwe has all the potential to become once again an economic and agricultural powerhouse for southern Africa. We believe it right for the UK not just to provide humanitarian assistance in the short term, but to assist with the reconstruction of the country. However, that can be achieved only once there is genuine political reform—a democracy in which all parties compete on a level playing field, a free press, an end to the abuse of power and to violence, and the firm establishment of the rule of law.