42. Mr. Adleyasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will list the political criteria which she takes into account in making a decision on which countries should be in receipt of overseas aid.
§ 43. Mr. Tebbitasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will list the political criteria taken into account in decisions to give or deny aid to developing countries.
§ 48. Mr. Kinnockasked the Minister of Overseas Development what political criteria she employs in her decisions to grant aid or other assistance to foreign countries.
§ 49. Mr. Carter-Jonesasked the Minister of Overseas Development if she will indicate all the criteria taken into account in making decisions to provide overseas aid.
§ The Minister of Overseas Development (Mrs. Judith Hart)The major criteria are the relative economic need for aid and its developmental value for the people of the country concerned. As was the case with my predecessor, any decision involving political criteria is taken on its merits.
Mr. AdleyI welcome that answer, but can the right hon. Lady give an assurance that the political complexion of the prospective recipient, be it Chile or Uganda. is not the governing factor in these decisions?
§ Mrs. HartIt is true to say that the political complexion of a Government is not a major criterion. Actions involving events which offend the attitude of many 1145 people in many parts of the world can be, but that is rather separate from the political complexion of the Government.
§ Mr. KinnockWould it not be a reasonable criterion to employ, to use the words of my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary, to say that we are no longer a great Power, that we must dissociate from the dictators and that when the barricades go up we must know which side we are on? We know what side Opposition Members are on, which is also a useful guide. Would it not be reasonable to employ democracy as a major criterion in the granting of aid?
§ Mrs. HartThat was probably implicit in what I said to the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley)—that it is not so much the political complexion of Governments as when Governments, clearly by their actions, arouse tremendous emotion. I can think of instances when my predecessor took similar action—Uganda was one, and another concerned the more limited action that the Government took, which we supported at the time, in relation to Pakistan and Bangladesh when events in Bangladesh deeply concerned many people here. Those were not precisely political criteria, but they were instances where conscience was affronted in relation to democracy and other aspects.
§ Mr. TebbitFirst, will the right hon. Lady accept my congratulations on her sturdy even if silent support for her Government's policy of help, even if not aid, for Chile by the export of warships? Secondly, does she agree that one of the criteria she should take into account, if she is taking political criteria into account in these matters of aid, is whether there is freedom for journalists to come and go to a country and whether British subjects are held in prison without trial in that country? Will the right hon. Lady look at our policy on aid towards countries that indulge in these practices, imprisoning British citizens without trial?
§ Mrs. HartTo take the last point of the hon. Gentleman's question first, in all these cases my right hon. Friend the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary is always assiduous in protecting the rights of British subjects. To take the middle part of the hon. Gentleman's question, while one is prepared to accept and welcome the free visits of journalists to 1146 see all that is to be seen, I cannot accept that in any of the journalistic reports of recent events in Chile there has been such freedom of reporting. On the first part, it comes a little amiss from the hon. Gentleman, who has opposed the suspension of aid to Chile, to welcome anything that may or may not be done by this Government in other respects towards Chile.
§ Mr. Carter-JonesIs my hon. Friend aware that successive investigations by all-party groups in the House have consistently said that the first criterion must be the needs of the people of the area? Will she please stick to that?
§ Mrs. HartThe needs of the people can be properly met only by a Government whose basic policy is to care for them. The trouble in Chile has been that the intervention in democracy—the overthrow of democracy—has prevented this criterion from being satisfied.
§ Mr. WoodDoes the right hon. Lady remember criticising the merger by the previous Government of the Ministry of Overseas Development and the Foreign Office as totally bad and foolish—they were strong words—on the ground that it would introduce foreign policy considerations into the question of aid? Can she say when she decided to modify that view and why?
§ Mrs. HartThe right hon. Gentleman and I have had a similar exchange on this matter before. I suggest that he is not totally aware of my views. I should be happy to send him one or two examples of what I have written explaining those views fully.
This is a serious question and there is no doubt that it stretches far beyond the question of Chile. What the Ministry of Overseas Development should be concerned about is the development of interests related to the poverty and the needs of the people we are trying to help. To some extent that means inevitably that we must be concerned not with the nature of government, but with what Governments are doing. Some Governments are carrying out radical reconstruction of their societies designed to help the people in most need. That is bound to come into the question of criteria for benefiting the people in greatest need.
§ Sir G. de FreitasIn looking at the question of aid, will the Government consider our special obligations to the countries that were our former colonies in Africa and Asia which happen to be particularly large and which have suffered greatly from the high cost of oil which is required for transport?
§ Mrs. HartAs I think my right hon. Friend knows, the bulk of our aid goes to Commonwealth countries in Africa and Asia. I am keenly aware, as I expressed to some of my colleagues in the Council of Development Ministers in Luxembourg yesterday, of the particular needs of the Asian Commonwealth countries in that respect.