HC Deb 20 June 1973 vol 858 cc687-9
Mr. Frank Allaun (by Private Notice)

asked the Minister of State for Defence if he will respond to the request by President Hamani of Niger for the urgent use of Royal Air Force planes to deliver 2,500 tons of food a week to stricken areas of West Africa.

The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Richard Wood)

I have been asked to reply.

The request from the President of Niger was addressed to the European Community and repeated to member governments. The Sahelian area is one which we do not know particularly well. In view of the seriousness of the situation there, I therefore decided that the most effective and speedy response Her Majesty's Government could make would be to contribute towards the relief operations being undertaken by the Community and the Food and Agriculture Organisation.

As I said in my reply last Wednesday to the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell), I am also urgently considering what other help we can make available, particularly by providing aircraft to move food into the areas most severely affected. With the agreement of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence, a reconnaissance team from the Royal Air Force will leave tomorrow, if the necessary visa and other formalities can be completed. Its task will be to assess the most effective way in which British aircraft could be used for the relief of the stricken areas. I hope that its report will be available very shortly.

Mr. Allaun

I very much welcome that reply. I hope that RAF planes will be used, and used speedily, because of the urgency of this situation.

Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many hon. Members believe that this is the best possible use of the Armed Services and that it would be a good thing if a permanent force could be set up by earmarking part of the Armed Forces for deliberate and special use in emergencies should they occur in future?

Mr. Wood

The hon. Gentleman will be aware that operations of this kind have been conducted in many different parts of the world. As soon as the report is available it will be studied by my right hon. Friend and myself and we shall then reach a decision about what should be done.

Sir J. Tilney

Could we also collaborate with our friends in Nigeria, the neighbouring country, in this aid scheme?

Mr. Wood

Certainly, I think that we would like to co-ordinate our efforts as far as possible not only with neighbouring countries but with our European partners, to whom this request has been directed.

Mrs. Hart

While welcoming very much what the right hon. Gentleman said, may I ask whether other EEC countries are also contributing help with transport in the way that we are proposing?

Secondly, may I ask what is the precise extent of the food aid that we have decided to make available?

Lastly, a more far-reaching question, may I ask how far the situation in West Africa has come within the ambit of the new disaster agency created by the United Nations? This bears on the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Salford, East (Mr. Frank Allaun) about the need to have available from every donor country transport and other help for meeting disasters of this kind. One would hope that the disaster agency would be able to move in on matters of this kind. I should be grateful to know how far it has been involved in this instance.

Mr. Wood

As I understand it, the other European countries are considering the appeal that has been made to us collectively and individually by the President of Niger. As I told the hon. Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell) we have so far contributed £300,000 to the FAO Sahelian Special Fund and nearly £500,000 to the Community programme. In addition, as the right hon. Lady knows, we are contributing to the World Food Programme which is active in that area.

The machinery that has been referred to will take time to build up, and probably disasters of this kind, in the existing state of the situation, are best answered by the kind of reconnaissance and possible later action that I have announced.