Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr O'Brien]

The hon. Lady raises an issue about whether combining business risk and new green sources of energy is inevitably risky, with failures likely along that track. I understand her concerns, but she should not overlook the enormous progress made in developing economic growth and business potential in these countries, along with the drive towards green energy production and the need to ensure that these countries have an opportunity to leapfrog many of the technologies we have in the western world.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

8. What development support he is providing to Burma.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

The coalition Government have doubled British aid to Burma. If progress on political reform continues, we will be able to do much more.

[Tony Baldry]

Does my right hon. Friend consider that there is sufficient substance to the reforms in Burma? Is he confident that money provided by DFID for humanitarian relief is getting to the areas where it is needed, such as the Chin state?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend poses the key question of whether these reforms are real. The fact that the regime in Burma has now released nearly all its political prisoners—particularly Min Ko Naing whom many Members campaigned to see released—is an enormously encouraging sign. The real test will come with the 48 by-elections due to take place before April. We will see how those elections are conducted and whether they are free and fair. If they are, that will be the most eloquent possible answer to my hon. Friend’s question.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 7th December 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Let us have a bit of order for the former Chairman of the International Development Select Committee, Mr Tony Baldry.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend is the first UK Minister to have visited Burma for a very long time. Will he please take this opportunity to update the House on the outcome of that visit, particularly on his discussions with Aung San Suu Kyi?

[Mr Mitchell]

It does appear that the political tectonic plates are moving in Burma. The Government of Burma have made it clear that they are committed to releasing the political prisoners—in particular, Min Ko Naing, one of the leaders of the students of 1988—and also committed to the 48 by-elections proceeding. Aung San Suu Kyi and her party have said that they will stand in those elections. We await credible elections with fair and open results.

Food Security and Famine Prevention (Africa)

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I spent time with Oxfam in Ethiopia during the famine of 1984. It is difficult to describe the horror of famine—its scale, one’s helplessness, the Martian-headed skeletons of marasmus, the swollen bellies of kwashiorkor, and the glassy eyes of children one knows, notwithstanding all efforts, will be dead by tomorrow. Then and now, these famines of biblical proportions kill fellow human beings slowly, painfully, and desperately. It is the death of their humanity and a collective test of ours.

I want to make three points in the short time available to me. First, we need to do more to enhance and improve food and crop production in the horn of Africa and elsewhere in Africa. It is not sustainable to seek to keep alive millions of people in the horn of Africa in the hope of yearly grain surpluses from Nebraska, Australia or elsewhere. The UN estimates that $2.4 billion is required to meet immediate humanitarian needs until this December. As my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) observed, there is a funding gap of $1 billion, and no funding for ongoing needs and recovery. This is simply not sustainable. We need to enhance agricultural production in Africa and the horn of Africa.

Secondly, we have to face up to the reality of population growth as a development issue. If a country’s economy is growing each year by 3% and its population is growing each year by 7%, then each year its sustainability is going steadily backwards. For example, the population of Ethiopia is now twice what it was at the time of the 1984 famine. Here is the wake-up call: in Ethiopia, even in a good harvest year, aid agencies are still feeding the same number of people as the number who received food aid in 1984. It is difficult to cultivate large parts of Ethiopia because of endemic malaria. Elsewhere, land is exhausted by over-use. Up in the Simien mountains, I have seen farmers with oxen and ploughs seeking to cultivate ever more marginal rocky outcrops, desperate for any extra land. The situation is unsustainable. Along with Lynda Chalker, I represented the UK Government at the UN population conference in Cairo in 1994. That conference, held over 15 years ago, was the last attempt by the international community to address the issue of population growth, and it needs addressing again.

Thirdly, the deliverers of the apocalypse ride together: hunger, illness, death and conflict. As the right hon. and learned Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) made clear in her very welcome contribution, Somalia is a failed state—a basket case. It is a liability to itself and to its neighbours, viz the recent murder and kidnapping in Kenya: a personal tragedy and a broader tragedy for the Kenyans’ tourism industry and economy. Al-Shabaab has brought chaos to Mogadishu and terror to the rest of the region. The African Union deserves our support in seeking to bring stability to Somalia, but that process needs focus, concentration and consistency. For far too long, so-called Somali warlords have been ripping off the west in phoney peace talks in the luxury of Nairobi resort hotels, running their businesses from the comfort of Kenya while pretending to try to find peaceful solutions for Somalia.

Nor should we forget that the one part of Somalia that is stable, peaceful and potentially productive is what was once the British Somaliland Protectorate and is now Somaliland. For 20 years, Somaliland has had repeated democratic elections, a functioning presidency, a functioning Parliament and defined borders, and it has been wishing for and wanting de jure recognition by the international community. At the first consultative meeting on ending the transition, which was held recently in Mogadishu, I observed that it had delegates from all sorts of places, including the EU and the UN, but, as far as I am aware, no invitation had been sent to Somaliland for observer status or to take part in those discussions. Of course we need stability in Somalia, but the international community also needs to resolve the legal status of Somaliland. Unless we resolve the conflict in Somalia, we will never have peace in the horn of Africa, and until we have peace in the horn of Africa, we will continue to have famine.

Sudan

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Westminster Hall

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

As always, it is a pleasure to follow the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke) who, over the years, has contributed insightfully to debates about international development.

My age is such that when I went to school, quite a lot of the atlas was still coloured pink. The Sudan was interesting because it was hatched pink and green to reflect the condominium of Egypt and the United Kingdom over it in the years immediately prior to its independence. The de jure Sudan was left as an uncomfortable nation, with a north that was basically Arab and Muslim, and a south that was essentially African and Christian. The two have effectively been in conflict pretty much ever since.

The referendum that was held was a considerable step forward, as was the south being able to declare that it would become a separate de jure state. However, as the right hon. Gentleman indicated, a number of crucial issues remain outstanding, the most important of which is the question of Abyei, a part of the country that was to have a separate referendum to decide whether to go to the north or to the south. Where should Abyei be? There have been concerns about the intimidation of the local population. Reports in February and March suggested that as many as 25,000 people had been displaced from the region, with other people moving in, so it is extremely difficult to work out who should be the electorate.

The other crucial issue that has not been resolved is how oil revenues will be shared between the north and the south. I do not know whether anyone has analysed how much of the world’s oil reserves are in countries of conflict or difficulty, but oil is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing in that it may provide great income, but it is a curse if the parties concerned cannot agree how the revenues will be shared. Bearing in mind the length of time that the comprehensive peace agreement has been in place and negotiations have been ongoing, it is a matter of real concern that the north and the south have not yet agreed how to distribute oil revenues, particularly as much of the oil is located geographically in what will become de jure south Sudan.

It is important to emphasise that—through no fault of its own—there is lack of capacity in Juba and the south. Some years ago, when the International Development Committee visited south Sudan, it was striking that this area of the world had apparently been abandoned by many for a long time. We met the then transitional Government of south Sudan, which was mixture of two sorts of people. Those who had been army commanders in the bush and fought in the war against the north—they were referred to as commanders—seemed to hold about half the posts in the Government. The other half of the posts seemed to be held by people who had managed to get out of Sudan. Many of them had come to the UK to do something such as reading chemistry at Bradford, and they had since returned and were making a contribution. Civil society and the structure of governance in Juba, however, are unbelievably thin.

I want to make a suggestion to the Minister. Given that the issues concerning Abyei, oil reserves and so on are so critical, I hope, as with the drafting of the constitution and other matters, that Her Majesty’s Government will consider the extent to which it would be possible to help with the process by lending capacity in terms of people and officials, as well as resources, to the south Sudan Government. I never thought that I would suggest sending lawyers somewhere, but this is an instance when there is a requirement for those who are used to drafting treaties, putting things in square brackets, and the whole process of deciding how to negotiate agreements. What has tended to happen is that the leaderships in the north and the south have got together from time to time for a set-piece meeting, usually in Khartoum, but nothing is decided and there is then a long gap. The danger is that the longer the issue continues unresolved, the greater the risk of armed tension, a complete collapse of trust, and friction, with the result that much of what has been achieved will fall apart.

It is right that the people of south Sudan put an enormous amount of trust and hope in the United Kingdom. Perhaps I may share with hon. Members part of a statement entitled “Statement on Behalf of the Episcopal Church of the Sudan to Her Majesty's Government”, which is signed on behalf of the Anglican bishops to Sudan by the archbishop, who is also the bishop of the Juba diocese. It states:

“I would like to take this opportunity to thank Her Majesty's Government for its tremendous commitment to the Sudanese people to date. With millions of pounds in funding through Department for International Development…you have successfully built schools and health facilities; you have fed and treated the most desperate. The Government and the ordinary people of the United Kingdom have advocated and lobbied to the highest level on behalf of”

the people of

“the Sudan for which we are very grateful. This has all contributed to the greater effort of many that is slowly improving the lives of Sudanese. We can all accept…that the challenges ahead of us remain great.”

The statement goes on to outline some of the issues that I have identified, but it is clear that the people of south Sudan are looking, apart from to the African Union, to the United Kingdom to help them through the transitional process. They are of course grateful for funds that the Department for International Development may provide for schools and health facilities, but there is also a fundamental issue of how they get through the next few critical months of governance and deal with drafting a constitution, sorting out the remaining issues of the referendum in Abyei and the oil reserves.

I am glad that many colleagues wish to contribute to the debate, so I shall conclude my remarks to allow them to speak. The resolution of the issues in south Sudan and the creation of a new de jure state in Africa make it almost unarguable that Somaliland should be given the opportunity to have a referendum so that it can decide whether it wishes to remain part of de jure Somalia, or whether it is able to become a de jure state in its own right. The whole House will know that Somaliland is on the boundary of what was formerly the British protectorate of Somalia. It has been a de facto country for some 20 years with its capital in Hargeisa. For a considerable period, the people of Somaliland have wanted to be a de jure state. The African Union has argued that it does not want new countries emerging in Africa, but a new country has emerged in south Sudan, so that argument is no longer sustainable as far as Somaliland is concerned. I hope that, where appropriate, we will be able to support the people of Somaliland to obtain the independence that they want so much.

As the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill said, these are days of hope for south Sudan, but there are serious obstacles ahead, and if matters in the next few months are not sorted out properly, it will be easy for the whole thing to disintegrate back into mistrust, bloodshed and a serious loss of life.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr O'Brien]

My hon. Friend makes a powerful and important point. I was going to come on to his list, which was a shopping list rather than a too-difficult-to-do list, a bit later. He is right. There needs to be a clear delineation of who is meant to be doing what in order to achieve a co-ordinated and comprehensive approach, so that the benefits can feed off each other. Often in aid delivery, there has been a need to think about how to put the inputs in, rather than recognising what combined results we want at the end. The reason why his point is well-made is that, at a democratic and governance level—but also at the level of delivering good developmental aid—that is what might be termed as the post-CPA framework. Where will the governance levers be? Is it going to be a question just of donor agencies, NGOs and the UN talking about south Sudan, or is it going to be a question of south Sudan talking to them about how we all helped to contribute to their initiative, to deliver it on the ground and to embed it?

It is fair to say that it is not yet clear what form the post-CPA framework will take, but the main objective is to agree as much as possible—as was identified in the debate—where all the areas of difference lie. While they sit there, whether it is Abyei or the three areas, there remains the tension that does not allow the space through which that kind of co-ordinated consensual approach can take place. We are absolutely determined to do our best to foster that resolution of the differences, because we will get effectiveness and value for money, which is part of the transparency answer, only providing we have that consensual opportunity. While there is a dispute, people will seek to gain an edge off the other and that is where we get disunity. I am glad to have the opportunity to underscore that point, which is why it is so important that we agree as much as possible before the CPA expires on 9 July. That will obviously change the dynamics dramatically.

We are working with Thabo Mbeki and his high-level panel on precisely that. It is more likely to be achieved—a point that I think was hinted at by the opening speaker—if this is not seen to be a somewhat old-style solution of the international community talking about another country, and particularly a new country, but the family of African countries coming together themselves to produce something that might be regarded as an African solution. That is much more important, which is why Thabo Mbeki and his high-level panel are important and crucial to the process. We are encouraging all those parties to maintain as much momentum as possible in advance. I shall come back briefly to some of those issues.

I was talking about the financial commitment and the results that we are hoping to achieve. That was also partly in answer to the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith, who wanted to know that we were in it for a sustainable, predictable period so that people could plan with some confidence. The financial commitment to Sudan represents a large amount of British taxpayers’ money. It is a priority for us to ensure that it is spent well, represents, of course, good value for money, and brings real benefit in terms of building peace and delivering assistance to those affected by conflict and extreme poverty. We are determined to ensure that our aid reaches the people who need it most. We do not give any money directly—let us be absolutely clear—to the Governments in Khartoum or Juba. All our funds are routed through NGOs, private sector firms and multilateral agencies, which have robust financial management systems in place. That is part of the due diligence and the tendering process and the real, tough hurdles that they have to get across. We require a detailed narrative and financial reports from all our partners, as well as audited statements. DFID staff also conduct regular monitoring of progress and formal annual reviews in line with our own project management procedures.

The UK is committed to its relations with north and south Sudan. We recognise that sustainable peace in Sudan can only be delivered by addressing the root causes of conflict, and we continue to urge the north and the south to take the steps needed to resolve the outstanding issues from the comprehensive peace agreement by 9 July. Those include the issues of Abyei, border demarcation—as was discussed and raised by a number of contributors to the debate—and arrangements for the conclusion of the inclusive popular consultations in Blue Nile and South Kordofan. It was interesting to note that while Blue Nile is moving ahead at a reasonable step, South Kordofan is giving more cause for concern. Of course, we come to the issues of distribution of oil wealth and citizenship, both subjects that need to be resolved. We will continue to press for full implementation of the CPA ahead of its conclusion in July, and for agreement on wider arrangements that have to be equitable and just between the north and south.

I will come on to some of the other issues in a moment, but on the issue of Abyei, in addition to Thabo Mbeki and his high-level panel, who seek to broker these solutions, we welcome the ruling of the Permanent Court of Arbitration and the way in which that may help to support the outcome. That is an important point to put on the record.

[Tony Baldry]

I entirely understand the point my hon. Friend makes about Thabo Mbeki’s high-level group and the need for that to be seen as an African solution, but is he confident that the Government of south Sudan have the necessary capacity and support to be able to actively engage with all the parties, which is necessary to bring matters to a successful conclusion?

[Mr O'Brien]

One of the central points my hon. Friend made in his excellent speech was about whether we could lend capacity to help, particularly in south Sudan. One has to recognise that this is having a disruptive effect on north Sudan as well. While I do not want to sound as though I never want to make a decision by being too even-handed, at the same time we need to recognise that this is not just south Sudan. We also have to enable, through our aid, north Sudan to be functional as well. It will lose a huge amount of its country, and that is where the citizenship issue has become so difficult to resolve. I hope that some of the suggestions that have been made in this debate will be listened to carefully, because they sounded both visionary and like possible resolutions of that difficulty.

On lending capacity such as the human resource of experts—more than just money and the expectation of the results that that will buy, which was a point reinforced by my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds—we have already made certain offers, some of which have been taken up. We have moved beyond—with confidence, I hope—any sense of guilt as the former colonial power. Many years have passed, but we recognise that we still have expertise in matters such as mapping, with surveying technology as well as knowledge from the past. Some offers have been taken up, although not all of them. We must build confidence and relationships, but I assure my hon. Friend that such offers have been made. There is more to be done, but it would be nice if some of those offers were taken up with more alacrity.

Part of accepting such offers is also accepting, to a degree, the basis for a resolution of disputes such as the Abyei demarcation or allocation. Any such resolution will be on the basis of maps and surveying—what was originally marked, or the contours of the land—rather than of what at the moment is a sense of tribal identity, or pastoralists’ right to transit across certain lands without crossing a border. Those complex issues remain to be negotiated, but the main point is to get the parties into a negotiating frame with such capacity building, as my hon. Friend said.

That gives me the opportunity, tangentially, to give credit to what was mentioned in the opening of the debate: the importance of some of the Church groups, such as the Episcopal Church mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). I was pleased that he referred to the Archbishop of Juba, whom I had the privilege to meet, not only to hear his generous thanks but his recognition of the deep thought on how assistance and support should be given in order to achieve that negotiating framework of trust and respect, which has enabled us to have a real role.

Without being explicit, the debate touched on the visit of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State to Sudan shortly, as part of the troika. All three will be travelling together, which is an important and powerful signal of unity and consistency of approach that has taken many years to bring about. Their message will be to encourage the various bodies to resolve the difficult issues, rightly building on the recognition of reasons to have trust and respect, and we can have a role in that. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for The Cotswolds for making that point.

I am conscious that I have not yet had a chance to cover some of the other points. How long does the debate go on for, Mr Walker?

Ivory Coast (Humanitarian Situation)

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 31st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. There is understandably a lot of interest in this subject, but there is very heavy pressure on time today, so single, short supplementary questions and brief replies from the Treasury Bench are vital.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I commend the fact that the UK Government are in the vanguard of funding the relief effort for Liberia and Ivory Coast, but is it not important that we encourage the African Union not just to engage to try to find a peaceful solution to disputes such as the one in Côte d’Ivoire, but to develop the logistical capacity to do more in these humanitarian situations in the future? It is fine for the G7 countries to fund the effort, but there needs to be more capacity within Africa to sort out the challenges that Africa faces.

[Mr O’Brien]

My hon. Friend, who has great experience of these matters, raises an important point about capacity building behind what is indeed the good political intent and the increasingly consensual process of the African Union, which is making its best efforts to find a peaceful solution. I am sure that his comments will be widely heard. He raises an important point for the future; in the meantime, we have to tackle the immediate issues.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The UK will soon be spending 0.7% of GDP on international development. Following the recent review all of DFID’s money is committed, so if people want more money spent somewhere in the international development framework, it behoves them to explain where they want that money taken from in the DFID budget. We cannot have continuous requests for more and more spending unless people are prepared to acknowledge where they want spending reduced.

[Mr O'Brien]

My hon. Friend makes an important point, particularly in relation to bilateral programmes. Of course, opportunities are provided through challenge funds, not least the global poverty action fund, and other funds that are available for those with an interest to continue to apply to. That will allow them not least to influence the way in which the multilaterals deploy their resources to which we contribute.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I cannot believe that I accused the hon. Gentleman of anything because I had absolutely no idea who he was. While we are at it, we promised that we would keep the winter fuel payments and we have kept the winter fuel payments. We promised that we would keep the cold weather payments and we have kept the cold weather payments. We promised to uprate the pension in line with earnings and we increased the earnings link. We said that we would keep the bus passes and the TV licences—we did all those things. Yes, he did mislead his electors at the election.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Q11. Queen’s award-winning Norbar Torque, rally-winning Prodrive and global award-winning CTG—Crompton Technology Group—are all manufacturing businesses based in Banbury. They are all doing so well that they want to move into larger premises, but they also have immediate skill vacancies that they need to fill. What collectively can we do to try to ensure that people who are unemployed elsewhere in the country and who have skills know of the skills they—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, but we do have other Members to accommodate.

UN Women

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Eleanor Laing (Epping Forest) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House recognises that around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender; notes that underlying inequality between men and women is the driving force that results in 70 per cent. of the world’s poor being female; recognises that empowering women will drive progress towards all the Millennium Development Goals; welcomes the launch of UN Women, the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women, on 1 January 2011; recognises that the agency is an example of UN reform to improve efficiency and co-ordination; and calls on the Government to provide support to the new agency to ensure it has the resources required to end the discrimination that keeps millions of women in poverty.

May I begin by thanking the Backbench Business Committee, and in particular its Chair, the hon. Member for North East Derbyshire (Natascha Engel), for choosing to hold this debate in the week in which we celebrate not only international women’s day, but the centenary of the first international women’s day? Some Members of this House and people further afield have questioned the need for this debate, and have suggested that there is not much interest in the subject. The fact that you, Mr Speaker, have put a time limit of eight minutes on speeches, and the number of Members I see in the Chamber prove simply and beyond doubt that those people are wrong. We need this debate. I am the first to say that we will not change the world by having a debate in the House of Commons, but it is our duty to ensure that the issues before us are kept high on the political agenda in the United Kingdom and across the world. That is what I hope this debate will achieve.

In 1911, on the first international women’s day, women in Britain were still fighting for basic rights, including the right to vote, as we all know. I like to think that if I were 100 years older, I would have been an ardent suffragette, although I am pretty sure that I would not have been an ardent socialist suffragette. I would have needed my own movement to separate the two. I am sure that every Member in the Chamber this afternoon, and not just the women, would have supported the suffragist movement.

I was privileged in New York three years ago to be one of the UK Parliament’s representatives to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. When I met and listened to the presentations of women from all over the world, it struck me forcefully that the problems that our great-grandmothers struggled with at the time of the first international women’s day a century ago are still faced by most—not some, but most—women across the world today. As the motion states,

“around the world women continue to suffer discrimination and injustice simply because of their gender”.

I welcome the setting up of UN Women, which is properly called the UN Agency for Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women. I congratulate our Government on their support, particularly through transitional funding, for the new organisation. We all know that the United Nations has not always been the most efficient of organisations, but we must recognise that the new agency is an example of UN reform and is intended to improve efficiency and co-ordination. I welcome the Government’s approach to that aspect of the UN. The agency will not be just a talking shop. It is through empowering women that we, as an international community, will drive progress on all the millennium development goals, which everyone in this House supports.

I applaud the appointment of Michelle Bachelet, the former President of Chile, as the first executive director of UN Women. Most Members will agree with what she said when the agency was launched:

“Think of how much more we can do once women are fully empowered as active agents of change and progress within their societies”.

She said:

“My own experience has taught me that there is no limit to what women can do.”

[Hon. Members: “Hear, hear.”] I heard a little, “Hear, hear.” [Hon. Members: “Hear! Hear!”] Thank you very much. Every woman, and indeed most men, in this House will agree with that statement—there is no limit to what women can do. To put joking aside, I never say that women can do everything that men can do.

I will be careful in my remarks, Mr Deputy Speaker, to respect the rules on parliamentary language. As I heard Jenni Murray, the excellent presenter of “Woman’s Hour” on the BBC, say earlier this week, “I will be very sparing in my use of the F-word. I will try very hard not to mention feminism.” [Interruption.] I am being goaded into mentioning feminism. I will mention it and I will also mention equality. However, although the concepts of feminism and equality are good to talk about, they are not what this debate, the motion and our aims are really about. I prefer to talk about empowerment. The point of empowering women, rather than just helping them or saying that they ought to be equal, is that doing so and giving them the practical skills that they need can make a difference in the societies in which they live and operate. It may come as a surprise to know that women earn only 10% of the world’s income, even though they work two thirds of the world’s working hours—and I bet that does not include looking after the children. Evidence shows that when women earn and manage their own money, they are more likely than men to spend it on educating and feeding their children.

I am not being narrow-minded and concentrating on feminism, and I do not argue that men have got everything wrong and that women can put it all right, but I do argue that wasting the potential skills and abilities of half the world’s population because of discrimination is simply appalling. If we really want to help developing nations, as well as continuing to help our nation, Europe and the western world, we must recognise the role of women.

I do not have time to develop all the details of the work that has to be done, but the House knows them well and many speakers will develop these points this afternoon. We have to tackle violence against women in all its forms, here in our own country and especially across the world and the horror of such violence in war zones. We have to tackle trafficking, forced labour, the fact that women are deprived of education, the fact that women need to control their own fertility to have any chance of empowerment or being able to contribute to their society, and the fact that women’s health is ignored in so many parts of the world. There is also, of course, the continued fight for democratic representation. I look forward to hearing what many colleagues will say on those and other subjects this afternoon.

I have been talking about women across the world, but let us not pretend that we have conquered the problems here in Britain. We can look around us, because 22% of MPs are women. I am sure other Members will agree that when we meet people at UN meetings and other international gatherings, they are astounded to hear that in Britain, just over a fifth of Members of our precious and much-respected House of Commons are women.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

My hon. Friend is sounding a bit like a vicar we used to have when I was a child, who constantly used to blame those who were in church for those who were not.

My experience, having sat on a selection committee, is that some of the people who are hardest about not selecting women candidates for Parliament are, perversely, women on selection committees.

[Mrs Laing]

Absolutely right; my hon. Friend is totally correct. We have all been through it, and I have seen it. I know that it happens in our party, and I hear anecdotally that it does in other parties, too. He is also right to say that those in church are blamed for those who are not there. We need more women to come forward to be part of the democratic process, but we need to make it possible for them to do so. If I were to cover the points that I have made many times before on that subject, I would take far more than the five minutes still left to me, but I hope that other Members will address it this afternoon.

We have a long way to go, but I also say to the House—and I mean it—that the percentage of women in the House is not what really matters. What matters is making our voices heard when we are here. What matters is punching above our weight, and let us face it, our weight is generally much lower than that of our male colleagues. There is now a critical mass of women in this place that there was not when I first came here 14 years ago, and it is up to us to make our voices heard. That is exactly what we are doing this afternoon.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

I wholly endorse what the hon. Lady says: clean water is indeed essential for communities and we should work with women to bring it about.

I believe that the differences I mentioned can be seen at two ends of the society—first, in small communities through women’s commitment to their families; and secondly, in government through women gaining significant representation. I do not underestimate the commitment of men to their families; it is just that they often show it in a different way. Let me illustrate that with the example of the Barefoot college at Rajasthan in India.

As some colleagues may know, the Barefoot college is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1972. It is a solar-powered school that teaches illiterate women from impoverished villages to become, among other professions, solar engineers. The college takes women from the poorest villages and teaches them the necessary professional skills without requiring them to read or write. For the past five years, it has focused on women who have come over from Africa in order to take the skills back to their native countries.

The point about focusing on women is that, as this NGO’s experience shows, they go home again and take their skills to their families and communities. The Barefoot college chooses to train for this particular solar energy course only women aged 35 to 60 who will want to keep the skills and the benefits in their community. I am afraid that the college describes the men as “untrainable”! The women, it says, are less likely to use the training as a means to move into a city or build up skills to take away from home. A certificate is not required at the end of it. The founders deliberately focus on women to make sure that the skills go home with the trainee.

The college trains women to build, install, maintain and repair solar electrification systems for off-grid electrification. Training takes six months. Once the course is completed, the equipment, along with the women who built it, is sent back to the villages where it is used to electrify the houses and schools. After five years of solar training since 2006, 97 villages in Africa have been electrified by their own trained women—a fantastic result. This initiative provides women with employment, confidence and purpose and it deliberately focuses on women as the natural supporters of their families.

[Tony Baldry]

I do not know about untrainable men, but my hon. Friend is making a really important point—that countries that fail to invest in the education of girls and women are denying themselves 50%, or half, of their own natural resource. It seems to me crazy that countries such as Afghanistan are not willing to invest more in women’s education. It is just self-defeating for the country as a nation.

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution and I thoroughly agree with him. A similar point was made by our colleague, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who argued that this is not a trivial issue to be put at the bottom of the list, but one that should be at the top for the benefit of the whole of society, for the economy and, above all perhaps, for peace.

Trained, empowered women—illiterate or not—are more likely to have the confidence to raise their voices, and getting more women to participate in government is essential. Women such as those I have described at the Barefoot college will have the confidence to make an important contribution and perhaps get into local politics and eventually, we hope, national politics. There are many routes to getting more women involved in the business of government—education, mentoring, and, yes, even quotas—but it is essential to remove the barriers that stop their involvement.

Women may have some different priorities, views and interests from men. As we know, women are more than half the population and they need to be represented in Governments internationally. I welcome the UN Women initiative to promote that. It is essential to achieve it not just for equality as a human rights issue, but to get the best outcomes for everyone and particularly for women. In some countries, if women are not included in the conversation, they can be ignored or worse. As one east African woman politician succinctly put it to me: “We worked out early on that if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The United Nations special war tribunal in Sierra Leone has established that the use of rape as a weapon of war is a war crime, as is the enlisting of child soldiers. I can tell the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart)—who made a powerful speech—that Select Committees do discuss these issues, and that over the years the International Development Committee, among others, has pressed for a recognition of the emerging norm of responsibility to protect and to ensure that the international community bears down on those who commit war crimes and crimes against humanity. The challenge for Governments and, indeed, for the House of Commons is often how and when to intervene effectively, and I suspect that that challenge will detain the House over the coming weeks in the context of Libya. Tragically, as the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran) pointed out, one of the longest-living UN agencies is the agency for displaced Palestinians. We need to have regard to all these issues.

Those of us who have been privileged to make visits overseas will recall being humbled by the sight of women involving themselves in projects. Listening to the hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse (Jim Fitzpatrick), I was reminded of a visit that I made to Bangladesh. Women had taken over the central reservation of a highway—public land—and planted mahogany trees. They would have to look after the trees for 20 years before they could harvest them, but they were confident that between them they could make the project work, and that it would give them a community asset. All of us, wherever we have been in the world, have seen projects like that, in which women have taken on the burden of looking after communities and leading initiatives at the same time. Whether the projects are agricultural or involve looking after HIV/AIDS orphans or community bakeries, women are often at the forefront.

The hon. Member for Poplar and Limehouse made all the comments that I wanted to make about UN Women and the need for the Government to support it, so I shall not repeat them. During the most recent session of International Development questions, the Secretary of State said that Ministers wanted UN Women to do for women what UNICEF has done so successfully for children, and it would be fantastic if it could indeed do that. We all recognise that DFID’s budget is finite, but I hope that it can find some resources for UN Women.

I echo what the hon. Gentleman said about the work of Voluntary Service Overseas. I too have had the privilege of working with VSO in Nepal, and helping Dalit women to draft amendments to the Nepalese constitution. Dalits are at the bottom of the pile and Dalit women even further down than that, but VSO enabled them to help and empower themselves, which I think is very important. This year, I am due to go to the Thailand-Burma border to help and support some women’s projects there. The Voluntary Service Overseas Volpol scheme is a brilliant initiative, and I urge any Members who have not yet had the opportunity to avail themselves of the opportunity to investigate it, as we learn an enormous amount from such experiences.

Because of the general election, the Conservative Party Human Rights Commission’s report of last year did not get the coverage it perhaps deserved. Although I was chair of the commission at the time, the report team was chaired by Fiona Hodgson and its members included my hon. Friends the Members for Oxford West and Abingdon (Nicola Blackwood) and for South Thanet (Laura Sandys). The full report can be found at conservativehumanrights.com. The evidence to the commission about women human rights defenders yielded numerous examples of women who were abducted, tortured, and sexually and physically abused, and whose families had been brutally attacked and threatened. There were also examples of such women being labelled as whores and witches and having been ostracised from, and stigmatised within, their families and communities because they wanted to advance human rights not just for women and children but for the community as a whole.

As Amnesty International has observed, while many human rights defenders endure risks across a spectrum of gravity, because of women human rights defenders’ gender and the particular rights they defend, they confront additional risks that can carry the gravest of consequences. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) made clear in what was an excellent opening to the debate, women make up two thirds of the world’s 1 billion illiterate population, half a million women a year die from pregnancy complications, women make up 70% of the world’s poor and perform 66% of the world’s work, but have 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property.

The commission made 22 recommendations and I will not detain the House by going through them all, but I encourage Members and others who are interested in these issues to visit the website and take a look at them. We suggested that the Government should seek to raise public awareness of the work of human rights defenders and the specific dangers faced by women who fight for human rights, including gender-based violence, family reprisals, cultural stigmatisation, and loss of property rights. There are a number of positive and constructive recommendations, including that the Government should honour and implement the commitments made under international treaties and conventions on the protection and promotion of women’s rights, including those in the universal declaration of human rights, the millennium development goals, the Beijing platform for action and the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women. We also wanted support to be given to the work of the UN special rapporteur and promoting the new UN agency for women.

Aid Reviews

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The Under-Secretary of State for International Development will be visiting Wales shortly. I reciprocate the comments of the hon. Member for Vale of Clwyd (Chris Ruane) about St David’s day. In regard to Lesotho, we think that there are better ways of supporting that country than through a bilateral programme, for the reasons that I set out earlier. When my hon. Friend goes to Wales and meets Members of the Welsh Assembly, I am sure that this is one of the matters that can be discussed.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend make two things clear to the NGOs? The first is that they have a shared responsibility with us to make it clear that international development is a moral obligation as well as being in our national interest? The second is that, given that international development aid is now at 0.6% of GDP and will soon be at 0.7%, if people want more aid spent on a specific topic or area, it behoves them to explain which part of my right hon. Friend’s programme they want money to be taken away from, because the Department has now reached the maximum amount of funds that it is going to have during the course of this Parliament.

[Mr Mitchell]

I will certainly pass on my hon. Friend’s message to the NGOs. They also have a strong agenda of accountability and transparency, and we encourage them strongly in that. The workings of the Global Poverty Action Fund will greatly simplify the way in which NGOs access taxpayer support, and will also be very effective in driving forward that agenda.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Sharon Hodgson (Washington and Sunderland West) (Lab)]

6. What plans he has to provide support for the new UN Women agency; and if he will make a statement.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

9. What plans he has to provide support for the new UN Women agency; and if he will make a statement.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

The coalition Government strongly support the new UN Women agency, which has the chance to make a hugely positive impact on the lives of millions of girls and women in the developing world. I look forward to receiving its strategic results plan, which will allow us to decide on funding by the British taxpayer for future years.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

We expect to see a strategic plan from UN Women probably in June this year, and as soon as we see it, we will be able to make decisions about British support for the agency. I am sure the hon. Lady and other Members will understand that I want to see the plan first, before committing hard-earned British taxpayers’ money to it.

[Tony Baldry]

From the experience of the many visits my right hon. Friend has made across the world, does he agree that very often it is women who are the agents for change in development? Just as UNICEF has helped to support the focus on children, so it is to be hoped that UN Women can help support women as agents for change and development.

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We cannot even begin to address development without realising the centrality of girls and women in every aspect of what we do, and we share his aspirations for the role of UN Women within the international structures.

Zimbabwe

Tony Baldry Excerpts

Wednesday 8th December 2010 Commons Chamber

[Malcolm Bruce]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. The vast majority of Zimbabweans who are not in Zimbabwe would rather be anywhere except where they are. They would like to be back in Zimbabwe, but, for a variety of reasons, it is difficult for them to go back. It is not just a question of whether they are under threat, whether they can return to any assets that they have, or whether those assets are still there; it is a question of whether they can do anything functionally or economically useful.

We found that some doctors and teachers who had left the country had come back, but they were working for a fraction of the money that they could obtain in neighbouring Botswana or South Africa, let alone the United Kingdom. They were returning because they wanted to help, but they were making sacrifices. Perhaps the Minister will say something about that. One of DFID’s activities was trying to supplement those people’s salaries, just to add an extra pull, but that still left them earning well below the market rate for the southern African region.

I have no doubt that if only peace and normality could be returned to Zimbabwe, within a very short time the people would come back, economic activity would return and, indeed—this is what is surely so frustrating for everyone—Zimbabwe could provide a shining example for the rest of Africa. People have the capacity to bring that about, given the chance, but clearly they are not being given that chance.

Obviously I want to focus predominantly on DFID’s activity, but the ambassador has highlighted the difficulties that were apparent in February and are plainly still in existence. There has been very little progress towards any kind of constitutional settlement, and there are mutterings about when an election may take place. The ambassador made it clear unequivocally that

“The constitutional process needs to be completed in an orderly and well-paced way”.

He said that the Zimbabwe electoral commission and the other commissions needed “to be capacitated”, and that

“technical changes need to be made to the voters’ roll”

—and to, for instance, the electoral Acts—

“as well as the putting in place of thorough and comprehensive monitoring arrangements. All this is going to take time if it is going to be held as it should.”

This is the crunch:

“If a poll was held prematurely, it would be most unlikely to be either free or fair”.

It is important for the House to take note of that fresh advice from our ambassador.

We are in a position of compromise—a sort of limbo. The Library note refers to “limping along”. However, the position is better than it was. Few analogies stick for very long, but a slight comparison can be made with some of the hiccups along the way in Northern Ireland. The longer even a small improvement continues, the harder it becomes to go back to the situation as it was previously. There is no guarantee, however, and the big fear is that too many people in powerful positions in Zimbabwe would like to take the country back and they have the capacity to do so. We need to rely on the genuine friends of the people of Zimbabwe, and although the United Kingdom stands among them, I acknowledge that we have a difficult role to play and that we have to play it from a distance. We need to work discreetly and to recognise the legitimate role of the neighbours in Africa, especially South Africa, but also the Southern African Development Community states. In this context, it would be nice if SADC became a more effective and coherent organisation. The fact that the tribunal judgments of SADC have been denounced and ridiculed by Zimbabwe, which says it does not recognise SADC, is clearly a weakness to the south African states in the region.

The continuing situation in Zimbabwe is not only a disaster and a frustration for the people of Zimbabwe; it is a drag anchor for the whole of southern Africa. If the situation is not resolved, the capacity of many other countries in southern Africa to fulfil their potential will be comprehensively weakened. That is perhaps understood more than it was, and the mood is changing, although perhaps too slowly.

We made some specific points in our report, and I would be grateful for an update on them from the Minister. I am sure he will tell us about current DFID activities in the country. The figure was $100 million, much of it spent on health. Has there been any change in that, or any consideration of whether we could, or should, be doing more on education, or do we feel that others are doing that satisfactorily? Also, do we feel we have the capacity to increase funding?

I think the Committee was in agreement that where we saw funds being effectively spent, they were delivering real results. If we could find comparable projects on a wider scale, we would certainly support additional funding. Again, I would appreciate the Minister stating the Department’s view on that. So far as we were able to gauge, the money was going precisely to where it was intended. Great precautions were taken to ensure it did not get into the wrong hands and was not misappropriated, and that it delivered results.

The point about precautions raises the issue of the mechanism or agency used. A number of the partners, both international, local and national, said it led to bureaucratic delays, and to inflexibilities and extra expense, which for some small organisations were disproportionate to what they were trying to achieve. There was an understanding of why the precautions were in place, but if anything can be done to simplify the process and make it more flexible without losing the certainty that money is not being misappropriated, that will be widely appreciated by the partners with whom we are engaging.

There was considerable concern about the extraction of diamonds and the ownership of those diamonds by people very close to the President, and the apparent inability of the Kimberley process to function. One or two of the interlocutors we engaged with said this might be the single issue that would give ZANU-PF the mechanism to destroy the Government of national unity and to re-establish itself as a dominant one party in control, so it is important that they—whoever they may be—are unable to trade illegally in illicit diamonds and thereby secure funding for programmes of expropriation and violence that threaten the state itself. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister could say what action is being taken if not to enforce the Kimberley process, then to isolate the illicit diamonds from Zimbabwe and deny them access to the markets, where they could be used to fund the undermining of the current arrangements.

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

The House has been done a great service by the Select Committee’s report. What my right hon. Friend has just mentioned raises a dilemma for everyone involved with Zimbabwe. We want to persuade the international community to start to invest in Zimbabwe and to get financial institutions to start to engage with it, but responsible companies, investors and financial institutions are clearly going to be very concerned about engaging with the extractive industries and some of the other key industries in Zimbabwe, for exactly the reasons that he just outlined. How does the Committee see us squaring that circle of encouraging responsible investors to get back into Zimbabwe but doing so in such a way as not to prop up or enrich those who would continue to subjugate Zimbabwe for their own political glory?

[Malcolm Bruce]

That is a very relevant and pertinent question. The practical thing that people can do is talk to our ambassador, because he has both views on this and indications about what to do.

The next item that I was going to discuss was investment and selective sanctions. The first thing to make clear is that it suits the ZANU-PF dimension of the Zimbabwean Government to make out that the economic failures of Zimbabwe are entirely a result of the application of selective sanctions and that they are targeting the poor people of Zimbabwe and preventing economic activity. The point that the ambassador made is that only one in 70,000 Zimbabweans is at all affected by the sanctions. Of course, he also points out in his statement today that the economy of Zimbabwe has been growing since dollarisation was reinstated. So that particular argument has been nailed. I shall return to my hon. Friend’s question, but I just wish to say to the Minister that I understand that some dialogue with the EU is taking place about selective sanctions and it would be helpful if he could update the House on the current position and what the UK’s engagement is. My impression is that there is no general view, apart from among the obvious sources, that those sanctions should or deserve to be lifted. However, to be fair, Morgan Tsvangirai said that they were a constant source of friction when he was trying to engage with his ZANU-PF co-Ministers.

There is no restriction on investment in Zimbabwe. There is nothing to prevent companies from outside Zimbabwe investing, apart from one thing that was introduced earlier in the year: the “indigenisation” of business. Again, it would be helpful if the Minister could update us on the position that has been reached. That measure fundamentally said that people could not do business in Zimbabwe other than through a company that was 51% owned by Zimbabweans—those Zimbabweans would, of course, be those approved by the stronger part of the Government. That may not be a total cast-iron restriction, as there is a Government of national unity and there are Ministers who are trying to offer, with some success, a growth strategy, a development strategy and a rebuilding strategy for Zimbabwe. Businesses may therefore have opportunities to find partners who are not going to subvert the money, but clearly nobody could invest in Zimbabwe without having an assurance. The Minister may be able to provide that or our excellent ambassador may be able to give advice. My instincts are that doing business is difficult, but may not be completely impossible.

That raises an interesting dilemma in the whole issue of development. We engage in states where there is conflict, in post-conflict states and in states with dysfunctional regimes, and the easiest thing is to say, “Let’s have nothing to do with them.” Yet the one thing that might just break the cycle of poverty, repression and tyranny is some kind of economic opportunity. I do not have an answer to that point, but I am sure that we should not say that there should be an absolute block on doing businesses with countries with dubious regimes. We should find out whether there are ways of doing business that are reputable and safe.

Let me make a somewhat exaggerated comparison. People do business in Russia, which has huge question marks over it and vies with the Democratic Republic of the Congo in terms of corruption. There are probably business opportunities in Zimbabwe that have less risk and they might be worth exploring.

I believe that we should ask people to understand that there will not be a quick and easy solution in Zimbabwe. The Committee’s observation was that, imperfect though it is, engagement with the Government of national unity was able to deliver health, education and infrastructure improvements to significant sectors of the people of Zimbabwe who were denied them before. Frankly, that Government are the only thing that stands between Zimbabwe and chaos and we must use whatever influence we have to try to persuade people, wherever they are, that there is a better place for Zimbabwe to head for than back to where it was.

We might need to acknowledge that not everybody in ZANU-PF is entirely self-seeking—we met one or two of them—and that some of them realise that their country has a place to go and that they need to be part of it. That was the other issue that was made quite clear to us. Experience in government, knowledge, contacts, communication and political capacity are mostly controlled by ZANU-PF and not by the MDC. The MDC’s members might have learned something in the past year and a half—I hope and am sure they have—but if Zimbabwe is to have a longer-term future, some of the people who have been part of the problem must be part of the solution.

That point was made to us on a few occasions and at the same time it was pointed out that, for example, every Minister was allocated a 24/7 personal “bodyguard” appointed by the President. I am quite certain that that was not an entirely comfortable experience. Interestingly, one politician said that the funny thing about that was that it created a dialogue between two groups of people who had had no connection or communication with each other before and some started to understand that the other side had a more multidimensional aspect. The avenues of communication are only beginning to open. The report from the ambassador today does not suggest that things have changed very much, and they could get worse.

What is clear is that we should not collude in any early rush to an election. An early election would almost certainly bring the present inadequate partnership to an end in favour of something worse. It could not be free and it could not be fair. The measured words of the ambassador disguise the fact that there is no electoral register, which means that those who control the polling stations can write their own register. That is no basis for any kind of election. It would be a total fiction.

In conclusion, the Committee came away impressed that good things were being done that were bringing real benefits, that it was possible to reach people, that the longer we could create such space the more chance there was of people seeing a better future, and that we had to put up with setbacks, pitfalls and compromises and not walk away. Nothing can be guaranteed, but we must do nothing that allows this troubled partnership to be brought to an end and the re-establishment of a one-party state. That would set back not just Zimbabwe but the whole of southern Africa for another generation.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)]

I should like to make three points to the House in the closing moments of the debate. First, it was extraordinarily helpful that the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), the Chair of the International Development Committee, brought the House up to date with the views of our ambassador in Harare. That is a good precedent. Some time has passed since the Committee visited Zimbabwe in February, and it would be helpful if in future ambassadors or high commissioners shared with the House an open letter or report to bring the House up to date on their views before such debates. We are now much more used to open diplomacy, and I would have thought that that would be a genuine benefit to the House.

Secondly, the views of the three members of the Committee who went to Zimbabwe were also a great benefit to the debate. Sections of the Poujadist press seek to portray any overseas visit by right hon. and hon. Members as some sort of a jolly, but having spent a Parliament chairing the International Development Committee, I must say that there is nothing jolly about witnessing other people’s chronic and enduring poverty, or seeing people suffering from HIV/AIDS, or talking to people about the deplorable conditions in which they live because of poverty. The House benefits enormously from the first-hand experience and testament of those who have witnessed—in this case—Zimbabwe. The work done by members of the Committee is much to be appreciated, because when they go to places such as Zimbabwe they spend a week away from the House and are unable to do their constituency work, so when they return, the burden on them is even greater.

My third point has not been touched on in the debate, which is why I am keen to make it. I suspect that many right hon. and hon. Members have not insignificant Zimbabwean communities in their constituencies. Many of those people have for some time been in limbo. Comparatively few of them were granted refugee status, but for perfectly understandable reasons, successive Home Secretaries decided not to order those who were refused refugee or asylum status to return to Zimbabwe. Those people have therefore been here in limbo, and many have been unable to take up work.

I am sure that other hon. Members know of people in the same situation. I am talking about teachers, trade unionists and farmers—people who have real skills. One tragedy of conflict-affected countries is the flight of intellect, as much as the flight of capital. Such people could make a real contribution to life in Zimbabwe again. I therefore hope that Ministers will consider this proposal. There will come a time—hopefully—when those people will increasingly want to return to Zimbabwe. I do not think that we should look at my proposal in terms of giving people money to go home, because those people have real skills. Given that the total aid budget for Zimbabwe is $100 million, will my hon. Friend the Minister consider the possibility of an endowment fund, whereby talented Zimbabweans resident in the UK could apply to DFID for an endowment to return to undertake a specific project or work, whether health care for nurses, teaching for teachers, or farming for those with farming skills? That would be a positive encouragement to people. Their talents could be acknowledged and recognised, and they could go back to Zimbabwe with the finances first to give them the confidence to return, and secondly, to make a real difference.

Otherwise, we—the NHS and so on—will benefit from their talent, skills and education, but for a generation all that talent, knowledge and expertise has effectively been stolen from Zimbabwe. That is another piece of collateral damage inflicted upon Zimbabwe by its political situation. I suspect that many of those who are here—especially as they have not been granted refugee status, and given the continued unsettled nature of their lives here—would welcome the opportunity to make a contribution in their own country. I hope that my hon. Friend the Minister and colleagues in the Home Office will give some creative thought to how we can enable Zimbabweans to return to Zimbabwe to make a positive contribution, rather than feel that they have to cling on here because they have no future back home.