§ Mr. Stephen Dorrell (Loughborough)Part of the charm of the House of Commons is that one has the most unlikely bedfellows in debates. I now ask the House to raise its eyes from Cornwall's housing problems to the importance of population programmes in the overseas development budget. When listening to the hon. Member for Truro (Mr. Penhaligon), I realised that perhaps the two subjects were not far divorced. He mentioned the problems caused by the increase in population growth and age distribution in Cornwall. Both will crop up in this debate.
I must restate the terrifying context in which any debate on population policy takes place. My right hon. Friend the Member for Sidcup (Mr. Heath) refers to that whenever he speaks about the Brandt report. He highlights the problem as one of the factors in the pressing state of emergency facing the world when dealing with development and economic reorganisation for the rest of the century.
In 1900 the world's population was just over two billion. Whether one is a creationist or an evolutionist, by 1975 the figure had doubled to four billion. The experts agree that it is inevitable that between 1975 and 2000 the world's population will have increased by a further two billion. That means that in the last 25 years of the century the world's population will have increased by an amount equal to the total population 80 years ago. That is inevitable because of the age distribution in the developing world. One of the most terrifying statistics is that 50 per cent. of the population of the developing countries is under 15 years of age. Even if all the people born had simple replacement families of two children per couple, by the year 2000 the world population would top six billion.
Whenever people talk of such statistics the danger is that the figures become like telephone numbers. I should like to put the statistics on a more human level so that we understand what they mean. The World Bank produced figures two years ago predicting the population for the biggest cities in the world by the year 2000. The World Bank suggests that the population of the largest city in the world, Mexico, will have increased from 12 million to 32 million. That is an increase of 20 million in the population of one city in 20 years. Put another way, in the year 2000 the population of Mexico City will be the same as the population of Spain today. It surely does not require much imagination to envisage the social, political and infrastructural problems that such growth will impose on such cities. Mexico City is the largest, but there are many other cities in a similar position.
One of the stark facts about the list of the 10 largest cities in the world is that in the year 2000 the smallest of those 10 will be larger than the largest of those 10 today. It does not require much imagination to envisage the strains and the social, economic and human resource problems that growth will impose. It is not possible to provide for the proper infrastructure, even by the standards which prevail in those countries today, to meet that growth in population. I believe it is a major problem on which anyone interested in the future stability of the world must spend some time concentrating.
Even worse than the simple question of numbers is the thought of the effect of that increase in population on the 1308 world's resources. If in the last 25 years of this century the world's population is to increase by 50 per cent. we shall have to increase the world's production of food by 50 per cent. merely to have the same distribution of food resources that we have today. We know now that 800 million people in the world do not have a minimum standard of nutrition. Merely in order to maintain the same average food consumption per head, we will have to increase world food production by 50 per cent. in the last 25 years of the century.
If it is true of food, it is true of all the other resources that extra human beings will demand. As the years go by, the call in the developing world for a more equitable distribution of the world's resources will, to put it at its mildest, not reduce. It is far more likely that it will increase. The demands on extra resources, and the extra demands on finite resources, will be acute. Nowhere is the principle of mutuality of interests, which was set out by the Brandt commission, more clearly visible, nowhere can we see our own interests more clearly aligned alongside the interests of citizens of the developing world, than when we examine the effect of the world's population on the distribution of resources.
I began my speech by emphasising that the population problem is a world problem, and that it is not isolated in particular countries. I suggested that we should look at the problem in the context of the overseas development budget because it is clearly in the developing world that the largest numbers and the greatest problems exist. The fastest growth rate of population exists in the developing world. Empirical evidence has shown convincingly that there is a close link between the level of development and the rate of increase of a country's population. There is a circular link, as in all interesting questions, between population growth and development. It is impossible to say whether the decline in population causes the improvement in development or whether the improvement in development causes the decline in population. What we do know is that they go together.
In initiating the debate and in concentrating the attention of the House for a few minutes on the importance of population programmes in the overseas development budget, my principal thesis is that if we can make progress on bringing the world's population growth under control we shall also be making progress in promoting the development of the poorest countries. That is an essential part of our political priorities both in promoting the development of our economy as part of the world's economy and as part of underwriting the stability of the world's political systems in which this country, as a great trading nation, has a vital vested interest.
There cannot be any other programme in the overseas development budget which is more cost-effective than the resources that we commit to population policy. India has a population of 680 million and the Indian Government have a budget commitment to their population programme of £60 million. That may sound quite a lot of money, but it is chickenfeed compared with the benefits that come from an effective population policy. Surely there is no comparison between the cost of saving an unwanted birth and the cost of maintaining an unwanted child. That is what the argument on cost and population policy is all about. It is a supremely cost-effective way of promoting the development of some of the poorest countries.
When thinking about the population policy it is important that we should not see it as a Malthusian attempt 1309 to restrict family growth, to deny family rights and to divide a constant cake between a small number. That is the opposite of what I consider to be an effective and sensitive population policy.
A successful population policy must be sensitive to the wishes and rights of individuals as human beings. We must not say to individuals "You cannot have a larger family than two or three children". We must say "If you have a family of two or three children, the benefits that will accrue to you are as follows …". In other words, the policy must be positive and not negative. The policy must not suggest that the rich countries are saying to the poorer countries "Restrain your populations and then there will be more to go round for us all."
We must argue positively that a benefit will accrue to those in the poorer countries and to other citizens on this planet if the population policy is successful. We must concentrate on the real benefits to the individual as a private citizen and to his family.
The benefits are real. One of the greatest benefits that come from an effective and sensitive population policy is the enhancement of the status of women. In a society where the woman cannot control how many children she has because she does not have access to family planning facilities, there is a terrible tendency that she will become the woman of the Victorian caricature who is concerned only with housekeeping and bringing up a family. She will have no rights outside the home and no role in society as a whole. If she has the opportunity to make a choice about how many children she wants in her family, the likelihood is that she will be able to choose whether she wants to spend more of her life as a more general member of society. We must present the women of the world with that choice because it is part of their rights as human beings that they should have the choice, and because it is in the interests of the rest of us that that choice should exist.
Some of us had lunch yesterday with the man who is responsible for running the Indian Government's population programme. He defined his objective in a phrase which I thought was telling. He said that the objective is an informed change of behavioural patterns. It is not an imposed policy. It is an attempt to inform people of the opportunities if they pursue a different course. That is the aspiration of those who want to see a positive population policy. That is not only my view. It was a view endorsed by the Brandt Commission when it said:
We believe that development policies should include a national population programme aiming at an appropriate balance between population and resources, making family planning services freely available and integrated with other measures to promote welfare and social change.The view was also endorsed by a conference of parliamentarians that was attended, among others, by my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Information Technology. They called on Governments to take deliberate steps to promote and strengthen the integration of population programmes in all development activities. The view was also accepted by this Government in that my right hon. Friend the Member for Chesham and Amersham (Sir I. Gilmour), when he was Lord Privy Seal, said that he intended to launch a new programme for drinking water and sanitation. He said:We shall do more to promote better use of energy … We shall expand our activities in agricultural research. We shall contribute more to international population programmes. These four areas deserve special attention. Much can be achieved by 1310 relatively small amounts of public money and they will especially help the poorer countries."—[Official Report, 24 July 1981; Vol. 9, c. 730–31.]My right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development, who is to reply, in a foreword to a booklet produced by the Overseas Development Administration reporting on population and drawing together its information on population, saidIt must be clear to everybody that the problems arising from the increasing population of the world will be among the most pressing, not only for governments but for the people themselves for as far ahead as we can see.The Ottawa summit last year, which was attended by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister and President Ronald Reagan, also endorsed that view. President Mitterand, Mr. Trudeau and Chancellor Schmidt were also present. That group was not what one might describe as the annual general meeting of the aid lobby. Paragraph 20 of the communiqué stated:We are deeply concerned about the implications of world population growth. Many developing countries are taking action to deal with that problem, in ways sensitive to human values and dignity, and to develop human resources, including technical and managerial capabilities. We recognise the importance of these issues and will place greater emphasis on international efforts in these areas.So there is an international consensus. As I was compiling that list of those who agreed with my view, my scepticism got the better of me. I wondered if whether all those international leaders were in favour, was there a hitch somewhere? However, I believe that that high powered endorsement is right. I now wish to discuss our performance against the yardstick that has been set in those statements. I unreservedly welcome part of our recent record such as the increased resources made available this year to the United Nations fund for population activities and the International Planned Parenthood Federation, both of which are multilateral agencies.I am pleased to say that the argument as to whether we should give aid through multilateral or bilateral channels did not obscure the valuable work that those multilateral agencies do. Both their budgets have been increased since last year—the IPPF to a record level and the UNFPA back towards the level it held at the end of the 1970s.
I also warmly welcome the extra £0.25 million allocation made earlier this year to the world fertility survey, another mulilateral agency. That money is well directed.
I also welcome the fact that in my right hon. Friend's foreword, to which I have alluded, he gave a firm undertaking when he said:
I have instructed that a population component should wherever possible be incorporated in new development projects financed by ODA.That is an important commitment by the Minister in charge of the ODA budget to the practical application of an overall population policy.Those of us who are interested in the issue have become anxious over the past few months about the scale of resources in the ODA budget committed to population programmes. I know that my right hon. Friend has not committed the Government to a specific target and that he sees the aim as desirable, but not monitored against a specific target by the Department. But unless he can explain why the figures have emerged, the situation causes us anxiety. In 1980 we spent 1 per cent. of our budget on population programmes but the figure has now fallen to 0.6 per cent., according to Lord Skelmersdale in a debate in the other place, although the figures in the speech are 1311 unclear and my interpretation is open to correction. It may, in part, be due to underspending on the programmes in Orissa and Egypt.
As a member of the Select Committee on Transport I have been party to fairly acute criticisms of the Department of Transport for underspending its roadbuilding budget. The same reasons may apply to the ODA budget. But we should put in an element to allow for underspending.
My right hon. Friend's record shows a clear and welcome commitment to the issues that I have raised. But in the recent figures from the ODA there is uncertainty about whether it is putting into practical effect the priorities that he has set. I hope that he will respond to the anxiety. I do not expect replies today. Indeed, my right hon. Friend cannot reply positively from the Dispatch Box without having given the matter thought.
Two ideas came out of the lunch with the Indian population people. The first is a long-term suggestion so that we do not get into the underspending position that I suspect we have got into recently. Will my right hon. Friend assure the House that he is thinking about the major population projects that will come into the development budget when the Orissa and Egypt projects are exhausted? I suspect that the Indian authorities have not done much work on the matter. One certain way to avoid underspending is to ensure that plans for the next project are ready before the previous project is exhausted. I hope that work is being done so that when the time comes we shall not be told that the plans were not properly prepared.
My second suggestion is on a short-term programme. If my right hon. Friend has a little to spare in his budget, it may beneift not only developing countries but this country in the short term. When we asked the Indian authorities how they would use a relatively limited amount of money that would be available quickly, they said that there was a machine called a laproscope. I had not heard of it before, but I have since talked to a Harley Street gynaecologist who has had some experience of it in India. The machines are already in use in India. They are an effective and relatively cheap means of simplifying the sterilisation of women. They cost about £2,000 each, and each machine is capable of 2,000 operations a year. About £400,000 would enable 400,000 sterilisations to be performed each year for three years.
I make this point in seriousness, because it is an important one. Often, when I talk about the developing world as a trading partner for this country, I am asked what it is that the developing world can buy that we can make at the right price for it to be able to afford. This kind of machinery is something that I am told is not available in India. If it is not available in India, it is not likely to be available in any developing country. Therefore, it is something that they need to import from the West. The machinery is made here and uses the up-to-date, "whiz-kid" technology my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Information Technology promotes. It is the kind of developing industry that we need to provide jobs, and at the same time it plays a vitally important role in the recipient country, in this case India.
The world has a vital common interest in pursuing an effective population programme. It is the most cost-effective development that we can make. I welcome the commitment shown by Her Majesty's Government, which 1312 I share. I hope that my right hon. Friend will be able to re-enforce what has become a slightly wavering commitment. I hope also that one or other of the two proposals that I have made will be examined and accepted as a means of underlining that commitment, not only to the principle, but to the practical steps to put it into effect.
§ Mr. Eric Deakins (Waltham Forest)I congratulate the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) not only on his choice of subject, which I put in for myself, but on having the great good fortune of being selected for the second debate. This is one of those rare parliamentary opportunities when other right hon. and hon. Members can share in the good fortune of one of their colleagues. I am grateful to the hon. Member for ensuring that the debate has come on at this reasonably convenient time and not, as it might have been, at four or five o'clock in the morning. We have all had that experience, and it is sometimes off-putting, particularly if one has to sit through many other debates before getting to one's own subject.
The hon. Member for Loughborough and I, together with three of our parliamentary colleagues, went to India last year as guests of the India Family Planning Association and the Bangladesh Family Planning Association, sponsored by the International Planned Parenthood Federation. We were there to study population policy and birth control facilities in those two vast countries, which have vast populations and vast population problems. I came back feeling slightly pessimistic. Although there was a great deal of effort by national Governments, State governments, local governments, the medical profession, voluntary organisations and so on in helping to ensure that there were appropriate population policies, one felt, when one saw the dimensions of the problem, whether in the urban slums of Bombay, Calcutta and Bangalore or the rural areas outside Bangalore or Dacca in Bangladesh, that all the time they were running as hard as they could and were yet going backwards, in spite of all their efforts.
I do not wish to follow the hon. Member for Loughborough's statistics about the general world population programme which, although well known to those who take an interest in these things, are still not well enough known in countries such as Britain, or in many other parts of the world, particularly in countries which give large amounts of aid overseas, as we do. I wish to refer briefly to the India experience because one can broadly generalise from that. In terms of population, India is the second largest country in the world. It is the world's largest democracy and its experience will often be vital in determining whether the world population will continue to expand at the frightening rate that it has recently achieved.
The census last year in India shows that the population was rather more than had been thought—just over 680 million. We were told yesterday at lunch by the experts from Orissa that by the end of the century the population of India would rise from roughly 680 million to 950 million, and that at some time in the first half of the twenty-first century, it would stabilise at 1.3 billion. Those figures sound frightening, but what is even more frightening is that the figures are based on certain assumptions. Those assumptions are that all the targets—for fertility, mother and child health care, provision of health facilities, clinics, and so on, where 1313 people get birth control supplies and have sterilisation—are met and have the desired effect. With the best will in the world, those targets will not necessarily be met, so they will not necessarily have the desired effect. So the figures that I have given for the population of India in the year 2000, and by the year 2030 and 2040, will be underestimates.
If that is the experience of India, where the central Government and the State Governments are doing their best to tackle the problem, helped by the aid from the Minister's Department in places like Orissa, the prospect for the world as a whole is bleak. Many countries are not putting the same effort into population policies nor are we as a Government playing such a part in giving aid and concentrating it on matters such as family planning.
Several of us went recently to the offices of the World Fertility Survey in London, which is funded partly by the Minister's own Department. I was astonished by the preliminary results of what is unquestionably the largest social survey undertaken in human history. In dozens of countries, hundreds of thousands of women were asked detailed questions in various languages, with appropriate quality testing, and so on.
I shall read two summaries of the results under two headings. A number of headings are of interest—age at marriage, fertility, breast feeding, family planning, fertility intentions, socio-economic differentials and policy implications. I shall refer briefly to two. The first is fertility. I quote from the document which is a summary of the conclusions of this vast world survey:
Current fertility levels far exceed those required to attain moderate population growth; fertility would have to be sustained at the 'replacement' level of 2.2 to 2.5 births per woman for up to 60 years before annual births and deaths would come into balance.Secondly:Current fertility levels are highest in Africa ranging between 6 children per woman in Sudan"—that is the lowest in Africa—to 8 in Kenya.That is the highest in Africa. In fact, it is the highest in the world.Current fertility is only slightly lower in the Middle East and most countries in Asia, and is lowest in Latin America".Those findings are quite frightening.Even more astonishing, in my view, are the survey's findings about fertility intentions:
Nearly half of the current married fecund women said they wanted to cease childbearing.That is to be welcomed, butThe average desired family size was high: over four children for most countries in Asia and Latin America, but over six children in most Arab countries and seven in Africa".That is astonishing, because it means that, in addition to providing appropriate population policies through aid budgets, and so on, and family planning facilities, contraceptive facilities, and so on, we still have the problem in the poor countries that the desired family size on the part of most women in the child-bearing ages is far higher than the replacement rate that is necessary to achieve some stability in the world population at around perhaps 8 billion to 10 billion compared with today's 4.4 billion, by the end of the next century.However, there are some encouraging features in the finding on fertility intentions. Less than half the women who want no more children are using contraceptives and that shows a large unmet need for family planning services throughout the world. As has been pointed out, in many 1314 developing countries the birth rate would fall sharply if all unwanted births could be prevented. Those are the statistics and I shall not labour them.
What are the consequences if we cannot achieve more effective action, particularly in the developing countries, than we have done so far to limit the rate at which the population is increasing? It will be a century or more before we can even think in terms of bringing down the world's population. It is bound to continue growing in the meantime.
The Brandt report made it clear that there could be many adverse consequences. The hon. Member for Loughborough pointed out some of those. People need food to eat, water to drink, land to live and grow food on, transport, roads, education, housing, basic medical facilities, and they need, as we in Britain know to our cost, jobs.
Every birth beyond the replacement rate lowers the average living standards of the people already in the world. The days are past when, as perhaps in the eighteenth and nineteenth century, we could look forward to extra children because they would add to national output, increase the gross national product and so on. Children born beyond the replacement rate are making matters worse. Of course, they cannot help that, nor can their parents, but we must try to do something about it. The adverse consequences of the population problem will not necessarily be confined to the Third world. They will affect every person living in Britain and, indeed, in every rich industrial country in the world.
As Brandt pointed out in his report, it is in our interests to take action to prevent matters from getting worse. That is why the work of the Overseas Development Administration is so important.
Another reason why it is important for us to tackle the population problem, particularly through the aid budget as the Minister is trying to do, is that a rich country such as Britain can give increasing amounts of aid 10 the developing world only if it has the tacit support, or at least the neutrality, of the British people. If there is a strong move against overseas aid, the minority who believe passionately that it is one of the areas in which we must expand our assistance, will have a harder job.
If, in the next 20 years, people see more and more of our aid going to countries the populations of which are increasing, not to increase average living standards of the existing population in that country but merely to stave off disaster and, if possible, to preserve present living standards for a larger number of people, there may come about on the part of some British people and those of other rich countries which give aid, a revulsion against giving that aid on the ground that it is being wasted. Of course, it will not be wasted, but it will not serve the purpose that many of us have been preaching in Britain for the past decade or more.
Where does that leave the Government and the ODA? The ODA started doing a good job, but, in looking to the future, we must consider three parts of that job. First, the ODA funds various international bodies such as the International Planned Parenthood Federation and the United Nations fund for population activities. The hon. Member for Loughborough pointed out that amounts to those bodies were increased earlier this year.
We know from those bodies that the organisations that respond to requests throughout the world for facilities for family planning and advice on population policy cannot 1315 cope with the demand. Their budgets do not allow them to meet all the demands in the Third world for those facilities. They could do with more money. It is not only Britain that should give more money. We are one of many donors. Nevertheless, this is one aspect of the ODA's operations in which we should hope for a rising amount of money each year, even perhaps within an unchanging aid budget. However, like many hon. Members, I would argue strongly that we should have an increased aid budget each year, over and above the rate of inflation. Even if the aid budget were, unfortuntely, to remain at its present cash level, a case could be made for increasing the small proportion that goes to such eminent and worthwhile international institutions.
The Department could respond to requests from developing countries for advice and assistance—as in the case of Orissa, in India—on population policy, mother and child health care, clinic building, and the provision of contraceptive facilities and so on. All those things are good, but the Minister's instruction or directive—I am not sure what it is called—that there should be a population component in all aid projects represents an important step forward.
Some of us are a little worried that the Minister's enthusiasm—or at least his recognition of the problem's importance—may not be entirely shared by his officials. After all, the Department is quite big. There are projects all over the world and new ones come up all the time. With no disrespect to anyone, people have their own ideas. Even when one is dealing with others in the Third world, it is a sensitive subject. I hope that the Minister will be able to reassure me on that point.
I turn to the third area in which the ODA and, in particular, the Minister can help. It does not involve money—although that is important in the first-two cases that I mentioned—as much as international conferences and gatherings. The ODA has done a good job. I am not so sure about the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, of which the ODA is a part. At the preliminary meeting of Foreign Ministers last year, before the Cancun summit, I asked one of them whether population policy would be on the agenda at Cancun. I received a rather dusty answer, to the effect that, although that might be a good idea, the agenda was more or less fixed and one must have regard to the sensitivities of other countries.
I was pleasantly surprised to see in the summary issued after Cancun by President Portillo of Mexico and Premier Trudeau of Canada that there was a distinct reference to the importance of population policy. It certainly took me by surprise and I imagine that it also took Ministers at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office by surprise, although it may not have taken the right hon. Gentleman by surprise. As the hon. Member for Loughborough pointed out, since then there has at other international conferences always been a small reference to the need for appropriate population policies. It is a major achievement of the past year that the subject is now at last on the agenda at major international conferences on the world economic situation, the North-South dialogue, the Brandt report and so on.
To have the problem acknowledged is an important first step. I hope that the fact that it is being acknowledged and that the subject will recur will give the Minister more power, when arguing, in particular, with his colleagues in the Treasury to obtain more money, under the headings 1316 that I have mentioned, to deal with a problem that will adversely affect us in the not too distant future. I hope that the Minister will give us an assurance that he will do his best to fight for an increased share of the budget and an increased total cash level for population programmes under the various headings. I also hope that he will do his best to ensure that even if officials in his Department have mixed feelings about some of the implications involved, they will buckle down to the task as good civil servants and follow the firm directive that I believe he has already given them.
§ Mr. Charles Morrison (Devizes)I was talking recently to a visiting elected representative from an African country. He was a huge man and most encouraging to talk to because he laughed at everything one said. I thought that I should be more serious, so I said "I suppose the main problems in your country must be population growth and the need to increase food production." He said "Oh no, we do not worry about population. We can produce as much food as we want." I was surprised by his reply and continued the discussion in a rather desultory manner and realised that my remarks were falling on somewhat sterile ground. I changed tack and asked him whether he was married. He said "Yes." I asked whether he had any children and he said "Yes." I said "How many children have you?" He said "Thirty-six, I do love the little ones."
What he said emphasised two points: first, the continuing lack of understanding of the problems of population growth that exists in many developing countries, in some cases among the more educated sections of the people; and, secondly, that education about family planning is just as necessary for men as it is for women.
After the excellent speeches that have been made by my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) and the hon. Member for Waltham Forest (Mr. Deakins), I shall not take much time. I find the forecast for population growth almost beyond imagination. A depressing picture has been painted. I am glad that the subject of population aid programmes has been raised again. I believe that the world is only beginning to scratch the surface of the problem with which it is faced.
It is not unfair to say that it takes an effort of will for the House to look beyond the end of a Parliament. Sometimes it is rather an effort of will to look beyond the end of a year, and, unfairly sometimes, it is said that the Whips Office finds it difficult to look beyond the end of a week. I have long felt that population growth is the biggest threat to the future of our children, grandchildren and all later generations. It is a pity that many well-meaning but misguided unilateral nuclear disarmers do not expend more of their energy on the far greater threat to the world posed by population growth. One can say the same about some of the more unrealistic conservationists. It will be the sheer numbers of people that will pose the greatest threat to the future of the environment.
The statistics are fearsome and almost beyond comprehension. My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Waltham Forest referred to the world picture. In spite of the current slight drop in the fertility rate, the world population will double within 40 years. There will be 700 million more workers by the end of the century. The population of China is 1317 increasing annually by 11.1 million people, Egypt's by 1.1 million, India's by 14.3 million and Kenya's by 590,000. Kenya has the fastest population growth rate in the world and it is estimated that the population will double during the next 18 years. Almost every African country now has a population of which more than 50 per cent. ia aged under 21.
The problems of providing food, housing, education and jobs for the vast numbers of people who will flood the Third world are mind-boggling, but if they are not solved there will be constant famine, disease and hardship, which will create social and political reactions which can lead only too easily to war or internal strife. If we care about the future, we have a duty to do all that we can to limit population growth.
It is encouraging that, out of 143 countries with populations of more than 250,000, 86 support the provision of family planning services and 35 of those countries have the reduction of the rate of population growth as their objective. Support for family planning services is still growing, but international population organisations continue to report that the need for funds for family planning is in excess of resources. We must ask ourselves, as we are a trading nation with many investments in Third world countries, whether we should give more help, whether existing help is properly directed or whether more money in our aid programme should be directed to population control.
My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough drew attention to the fact that the Government regard population programmes as worthy of special attention. The additional £250,000 allocated to the World Fertility Survey is welcome. However, it is important that a proportion of the aid programme should be spent on population control. The allocation has fallen consistently from 1978 until 1981, so that today it is almost at the 1974 level. That is contrary to the Government's intentions. Perhaps my right hon. Friend can tell the House whether that is true. If so, why is it happening?
My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Waltham Forest asked questions that I shall not repeat. My hon. Friend stole my quote from the Brandt report. Are we playing our part in helping developing countries to achieve an appropriate balance between population and resources? Has our support been increased as much as it should be? I support the hon. Member for Waltham Forest, who asked for more money from the Treasury. I am not sure that we are living up to our duty, but I hope that my right hon. Friend can reassure me.
§ Mr. Terry Davis (Birmingham, Stechford)I congratulate the hon. Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) both on his initiative in asking for the debate and on his good fortune in being chosen to speak so early in the evening. I also wish to congratulate him on his speech. It is rare for me to agree with almost every word of a speech from the Conservative Benches, but on this occasion I agreed with the hon. Gentleman. I hope that it will not embarrass him too much, because his support for the Government has become rather lukewarm, but on this occasion he has my warm support.
I too had the good fortune to meet the delegation from Orissa. I emphasise one point that the hon. Gentleman put to the Minister. I was much impressed by the account that 1318 the delegation gave of the work taking place in Orissa, particularly the work funded by the Government. It is a source of great satisfaction, if not pride, to the Government that the money that is being given to the Government of India for the project in Orissa has been put to such good and practical use.
I should like to add my plea to the Minister on a suggestion that was made by the hon. Member for Loughborough. The delegation said that, if money could be provided for it to purchase laporoscopes, it would enable it to expedite the programme of family planning in Orissa, particularly the districts with which we are associated. That extra equipment would be of immense value to the programme. Like the hon. Gentleman, I do not expect the Minister to reply to that suggestion when he answers the debate, but I hope that he will give us an undertaking that he will consider a request for that equipment if it comes from the Government of India.
§ The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Neil Marten)I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough (Mr. Dorrell) for raising this important subject. He, like other Members who have spoken an the debate, is a member of the British Parliamentary Group on Population and Development. I am most grateful to him and his colleagues in the group for focusing attention on this important subject. Since I have been Minister, that group has made a big impression on me and has brought to my attention the details that I should have known but did not. For that I am truly grateful.
I hope that my hon. Friend and the other members of the group are in no doubt as to the importance that the Government attach to population activities within the aid programme. That importance has been increased by the work of the parliamentary group. I do not dissent from most of the remarks that have been made in the debate. I cannot necessarily agree off the cuff with all the igures that were given fbecause they need checking. I would not say that they were all right. I did not disagree with many of the themes in hon. Members' speeches.
My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough referred to my hon. Friend the Minister for Industry and Information Technology going to the Colombo conference on population control. After that, and before I became Minister, I had a long conversation with him about that at a Commonwealth parliamentary conference where that subject was discussed. He told me that one of the conclusions of the conference was that the higher the standard of living in a developing country, the lower the birth rate. That is probably accepted doctrine. Our aid programme as a whole has as a top priority the raising of the standard of living in the developing world. That in itself contributes towards a lower birth rate. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough said, national leadership is required in the countries that we are trying to help because without such leadership such a programme does not take off, however much one might try at local and national levels.
Our concern with the need to take population issues into account in the aid programme started in a modest way about 20 years ago. Since then, our efforts have grown until in 1980 we provided more than £7.5 million in aid funds to this sector. We hope that that will grow to about £11.3 million in the current year. I shall explain the reasons for that jump in a moment.
1319 My hon. Friend talked about population figures. I think that he said that the population of the world today was 4.4 billion. It is interesting to look at the natural population growth rate: an average of about 3 per cent. in Africa, about 2.5 per cent. in Asia, 0.2 per cent. in Northern Europe and Western Europe, and 0.7 per cent. in North America and Japan. Within the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries it is about 0.5 per cent. That illustrates the problem that the world faces.
The hon. Member for Waltham Forest (Mr. Deakins) quoted some figures, which I think were for family sizes and do not necessarily match the figures that I have just given. He also mentioned international conferences, and in particular was pleased to see the mention of this subject in the Cancun communiqué. I cannot remember whether it was on the agenda. I tried in various ways to get it put on, but, as I remember, the agenda was fixed by Mexico and Austria, and we did not have the final say on what was discussed.
The hon. Gentleman also asked about feelings within the Overseas Development Administration and whether population was taken into account in planning our aid. I think that it is. People probably vary in their enthusiasm for it. Some people may have a religious feeling about it. Broadly speaking, everybody tries, but we cannot do it on all occasions. In an answer that the hon. Gentleman will receive tomorrow I deal with Zimbabwe, a case in point where we cannot do it at this stage. I shall have a word with the hon. Gentleman afterwards and tell him why.
Before I review our performance in more detail, I should like to explain that we do not have a sectoral allocation for aid to population activities. We do not say that our aid budget is £1,000 million and that 1 per cent. or 2 per cent. will go to population activities. There is no pocket of funds within the aid programme labelled "Population", nor any target for population aid. That is how the budget framework is worked out.
The aid that we give in this sector encompasses a broad range of activities and is represented in all the major types of assistance that we give. The largest proportion of our population aid is given in the form of contributions to the multilateral organisations operating in the population field. Last September, at the United Nations conference on the least developed countries, I was able to announce increases in the contributions that we intended to give to these agencies, to £5 million in 1981–82 and £6 million in 1982–83. I hope that the House will agree that that will be money very well spent.
From within those sums we have now pledged £2.4 million in 1982–83 to the United Nations fund for population activities, which works with Governments to develop and run population programmes; £2.4 million in 1982–83 to the International Planned Parenthood Federation, which works at the grass roots level providing family planning services through its affiliated family planning associations; £950,000 in 1982–83 to the World Health Organisation's special programme on human reproduction, which is concerned with world-wide research into safe and acceptable methods of contraception; and £250,000 in 1982–83 to the World Fertility Survey.
The second largest type of activity that we support is our bilateral programmes and projects. They are agreed on a Government-to-Government basis. Our spending in this 1320 sector depends on requests from recipient countries and the speed at which prospects are implemented. We are sometimes held up, not so much through lack of co-operation from the country concerned but because of the inability to get on quite as fast as we can in Britain because of administrative problems. Because of that, spending in that important part of the programme can be variable.
For example, here I refer to a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and other hon. Members made—spending on bilateral projects fell from £1.54 million in 1980 to £1 million in 1981. That was to some extent responsible for the overall decline in the proportion of aid going to population activities from 1 per cent. in 1980 to 0.6 per cent. in 1981. This was not through any lack of interest on our part but simply because of unavoidable delays in implementation of our two largest bilateral projects in Orissa State and Minya, in Egypt.
My hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough and the hon. Member for Birmingham, Stechford (Mr. Davis) mentioned the sterilisation machinery. I would rather not reply on that sensitive subject now. One must remember the unhappy example of India some years ago. If a project is put to us, we will always examine it, but we must be diplomatic.
We expect the bilateral projects to be more than made up in 1982, when we will have continued spending on the two large projects that I mentioned and on new projects in Kenya and Pakistan. We are not halting, as the hon. Member for Waltham Forest said. We have two other projects. If all goes well, we expect to spend more than £4 million on bilateral projects this year. I hope that that will go some way to satisfy my hon. Friend the Member for Loughborough.
In addition to these large-scale activities, we fund several smaller but no less important schemes. In the past year we have continued to work with voluntary agencies under the joint funding scheme. Population is a development sector in which much can be and, in some countries, is being achieved by non-governmental organisations. We recognise that. Population projects under the joint funding scheme receive 100 per cent. support rather than the 50 per cent. that is usually applied in other sectors. It sounds odd to be paying 100 per cent. to a joint funded scheme—one would have thought that it would have been 50–50—but, in view of the importance of the subject, we still call it joint funded as we work together on it, although we provide 100 per cent. of the funding.
We have continued our support for the overseas section of the Centre for Population Studies at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and at the David Owen Centre for Population Growth Studies at University college, Cardiff. Perhaps I should point out to those who are not acquainted with the subject that that centre has nothing to do with the right hon. Member for Plymouth, Devonport (Dr. Owen).
Those two organisations provide valuable training in demography and population dynamics and population studies with special emphasis on population and development. We have also continued spending on population research. Under it, we support a wide range of programmes of practical relevance to developing countries.
I hope that the activities that I have outlined will give the House a clear indication of the important place of population programmes in the aid programme. However, 1321 we must not lose sight of the role of the developing countries in this sector. Much has been achieved since 1974, which, with the convening of the world population conference in Bucharest was a milestone in the international community's consideration of population issues.
In the early 1970s the world's population was growing at an alarmingly high and increasing rate. If something had not been done, disaster in terms of human misery and over-exploitation of the earth's resources would be a good deal closer than many believe it is today. The slackening in the rate of global population growth at the end of the 1970s represented an achievement for developed countries, international aid agencies and non-governmental organisations working in the population sector. Most of all, however, it was an achievement for those developing countries which saw the threat that increasing populations presented to their economic and social development and the pressure that more people would put on already over stretched education, health and social services, and then included national population programmes in their development policies.
What, then, is the challenge for the 1980s?
To use a common cliché, we certainly cannot afford to be complacent. I think that everyone will agree with that. During the course of this debate thousands of children will be born, mostly to mothers in developing countries. Ten per cent. of these babies will die before their first birthday. The actions that the world community takes between now and the end of the century will determine whether the year 2000 will herald another period of rapid population growth.
We must encourage and help those countries that have already recognised that population components need to be taken into account when designing and implementing general development plans to translate their policy statements into effective programmes and to devote 1322 sufficient resources to them. We must continue to educate and encourage those countries that have not yet accepted the need for population policies—there are, I am pleased to say, relatively few in the developing world—and we must make an effort to understand the reasons for their reluctance, whether they be political, cultural or religious.
Ultimately, the responsibility for population growth must lie with national Governments. Developed countries and the international community can help, but their assistance is worthless without the political leadership, moral and financial commitment of the countries concerned.
In this debate, we have focused on the levels of spending within the aid programme on population activities alone. However, in order to reduce the global population growth rate it is necessary to create in the developing world a social framework that is conducive to fertility regulation.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Mr. Morrison), in his very interesting speech, asked whether we were playing our part as a nation. I think that we are. It is up to all the nations of the world—the developed and the developing—to play their parts, but I think that this country is doing a good job and I hope that it will be even better as the years go on. This means helping the developing countries relieve poverty and raise living standards. It means reducing infant mortality rates so that parents can be sure that their children will survive. It means educating people to understand the advantages of family planning and to be able to make informed decisions on how many children they want and how to space them. It means improving the status of women. It means improving the quality and quantity of managerial manpower in the developing world to ensure that population programmes are well run. Those are aims that run throughout the aid programme and are not simply limited to the work that we do in the population sector.