Ethiopia

HC Deb 14 November 1984 vol 67 cc667-9

4. Mr. Home Robertson

asked the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will seek to pay an official visit to Ethiopia.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Malcolm Rifkind)

My right hon. and learned Friend has no plans at present to visit Ethiopia, but my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development hopes to go out later this month to look at relief operations.

Mr. Home Robertson

One hopes that this relief operation will be making headway. As the Foreign Secretary will eventually have to carry the can for the cuts in the real value of the foreign aid budget announced by the Chancellor earlier this week, is the Minister prepared to give the House a clear, categorical undertaking that the aid programme for Ethiopia and other famine-hit areas will be expanded in line with the clearly expressed demand of the nation?

Mr. Rifkind

It has already been made clear to the House that any recent decisions involving public expenditure will not affect humanitarian aid to Ethiopia.

Mr. Baldry

Would it not be better for my right hon. and learned Friend the Foreign Secretary to go to Brussels, rather than Ethiopia, and take a firm lead in the Council of Ministers to persuade the other nations of the Community that, at a time when our granaries are groaning with grain, it should cut through the budgetary red tape and ensure that sufficient supplies reach drought-affected Africa?

Mr. Rifkind

I am aware that my hon. Friend has returned from a trip to Ethiopia, during which he saw many horrors, and his views are listened to with great care and attention. The British Government, in the person of the Prime Minister, have already taken an initiative within the Community, and, thanks to that initiative, since October the Community has already agreed on £35 million-worth of food aid to go to that country.

Mr. Kirkwood

The monetary figures being bandied about as being the prospective cuts in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office budget for next year are similar to the figures that would provide the 600,000 to 750,000 tonnes of grain required for basic feeding over the next 12 months. Will the Minister bear that in mind when he, or his right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development, visits Ethiopia?

Mr. Rifkind

The hon. Gentleman, and the House as a whole, will appreciate that such is the scale of the problem faced by Ethiopia that it is necessary to pursue an international response. Britain has shown a willingness to make substantial contributions, and we have taken the initiative in multilateral and international organisations. It is through international co-operation that the greatest impact can be made.

Mr. John Townend

Will my hon. Friend ask our right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development, when he visits Ethiopia, to point out to that Government that if they spent on food the vast amounts of money that they spent on celebrating the Marxist revolution and buying arms from Russia fewer people would be starving? At a critical time such as this is it not appalling for the United Nations to be proposing to spend £15 million on building a conference centre in Ethiopia?

Mr. Rifkind

My hon. Friend makes a valid point. A country that finds it impossible to provide basic food requirements for its population should think carefully before using its resources on what many would consider to be less essential matters.

Mr. Andrew F. Bennett

Having assured the House that there will be no cut in the short-term food aid, will the Minister assure the House that there will be no cuts in long-term aid? He will recall that most people in the world said, after the appalling famine in Ethiopia in 1972–73, that it should never be allowed to happen again. Is it not true that unless we give such countries long-term aid during the next few years we shall face further crises? Is it not as important for us to give them long-term aid as it is for us to give them immediate emergency food aid?

Mr. Rifkind

I accept that the long-term problems of Ethiopia require more than just emergency food aid. The hon. Gentleman, who has just returned from that country, will agree that the immediate problem on which the international community should concentrate is that of the many thousands who face imminent starvation unless there is an adequate international response.

Mr. Bowen Wells

Is it not a matter for congratulating the Government that they have provided emergency relief and food aid to Ethiopia, not just in the past few months, but over at least two years before that? Under the definition of continuing humanitarian aid to Ethiopia, will my hon. Friend be able to sustain development designed to offset the effects of drought in Ethiopia and other countries if the budget of the Foreign Office is not compensated for exchange rate changes and inflation rate rises overseas?

Mr. Rifkind

My hon. Friend is right when he says that British aid to Ethiopia began not just in the past two months. In the past two years no less than £13 million worth of food has been given directly by the United Kingdom to help overcome the problems of starvation in Ethiopia.

As for the longer term, I am sure that my hon. Friend will accept that it will be for my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development to look at the competing claims of Ethiopia and other countries for assistance via our general overseas aid policy.

Mr. Healey

Does the Minister agree, first, that the scale of the human tragedy in Ethiopia is such as to make ignoble and unworthy the sort of political point scoring into which he was tempted a moment ago, and, secondly, that the scale of the existing tragedy in Ethiopia far dwarfs the amount of aid which is being given by Europe and the United States? The famine in other African countries, notably Sudan and Chad, which border Ethiopia, is fast approaching the same scale. Therefore very much more humanitarian aid is needed immediately. If similar disasters are to be avoided in future years, development aid must be vastly increased above the level that Her Majesty's Government have so far found fit to provide.

Mr. Rifkind

I acknowledge at once that when the right hon. Gentleman speaks of political point scoring he does so from a position of great experience.

On the wider issues that he raised, I think he will accept that long-term economic aid for Ethiopia or any other country takes account of considerations which go far beyond the relief of immediate suffering and potential starvation. I am sure he will accept that my right hon. Friend the Minister for Overseas Development will be applying the usual developmental criteria in deciding how to use the available resources.

Mr. Healey

rose—

Mr. Speaker

No. I am afraid that the right hon. Gentleman may ask only one supplementary question.