§ Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Lennox-Boyd]
10.31 pm§ Mr. Andrew F. Bennett (Denton and Reddish)I am grateful for the opportunity to bring the House back to discussing United Kingdom aid to Ethiopia.
The horrors of the famine in Ethiopia have been in world headlines for three months. The response of the people of Britain in raising money for aid and of the charities to use that money effectively has been remarkable. The United Kingdom Government and many others have mounted a massive campaign to get short-term aid to Ethiopia. I believe that the Ethiopian Government, its people and other groups in Tigré and Eritrea have also made tremendous efforts to tackle the problems of the famine; but in Tigré and Wollo in Ethiopia, people are still dying at about the same rate as in October. There are more people in relief camps in Ethiopia and the Sudan and, if anything, the need for aid is growing rather than diminishing. Increasing numbers of people are being driven from their homes and villages in Ethiopia by the famine. Sadly, the massive effort has not resulted in the matter getting better. We can only claim that it has not got worse much more quickly.
The horrors that were reported on television in October, which I and other hon. Members and the Minister saw in November, are the result largely of the failure of the 1983 harvest. We now face the problems of the 1984 harvest. If we are able to get only 90,000 tonnes of food into Ethiopia through the port of Assab each month from now until October, we shall only hold the crisis at bay. If we can get only 20,000 tonnes of food into Ethiopia each month through the Sudan, we shall also only be holding the crisis at bay. All we are doing is preventing a horrific position from getting worse. It is against that background that I want to put specific questions to the Minister on what the Government are doing to try to improve conditions.
I hope that the Minister will be able to give the House up-to-date information about the pledges on food grain. Can he go back to his answer of 4 December and update the table on pledges for food grain and supplementary food for Ethiopia? What are the expected dates of arrival of those pledges in the port of Assab? Is he satisfied that enough has been promised for the next nine months to ensure that at least the present standard of aid can be continued?
Can the Minister explain to the House and to the country why the United Nations and the world food programme denied in November that there would be a shortage of grain in the port of Assab in December whereas, as I understand it, for almost three weeks there was insufficient grain in the port to keep the relief operation going at full force? What steps are the Government taking to try to sort out what appears to be a great deal of complacency and incompentence in the United Nations and the world food programme? Is he satisfied that the United Nations has got its co-ordination working?
Is it true that there is still insuffiicent food promised for delivery in April and May? What are the Government doing to ensure that sufficient food will be provided? Can the Minister tell us how much of the EC aid promised at the Dublin summit has been committed to Ethiopia and 1002 how far that has got into a programme for delivery from specific countries? Can he assure us that that aid earmarked for Ethiopia will get there at specific times?
Is the Minister satisfied that a steady supply of aid is planned to arrive at the port of Assab in the months from April to October? Is he satisfied that sufficient food has been promised for delivery through the Sudan to Western Tigré and Eritrea? Is he satisfied that there are sufficient vehicles to transport it on that route?
I am sure the Minister will agree that the RAF played a major role in moving the grain from Assab during November. It is still fulfilling that role. Can he tell us if the Government will ensure that the RAF remains there beyond the end of this month? I think that the initial promise was that it would be there for three months. Many people said from the start that it would be needed for much longer. I hope that the Government can promise now that the Hercules planes and the RAF will remain in Ethiopia for at least a further five or six months.
What steps have been taken to improve the handling capacity at the port of Assab? How many vehicles have our Government supplied; and are we in a position to increase the handling capacity of that port? Are we able to speed up the transport of grain by road into Wollo and Tigré?
Can the Minister tell us about increased supplies of supplementary food? When one talks to the relief agencies one finds that there is considerable concern that there are not facilities in some of the relief camps to mill grain and that some of the grain is not put to the best use because it is difficult for young children to eat it in the form in which it arrives. Can the Government say anything about the possibility of increasing supplementary food and helping the Ethiopian Government to process food if it does not arrive in a suitable form for young children.
Can the Minister tell us what is being done to improve accommodation in the camps, particularly if the small rains come in late January and February, to ensure that people are not out in he open?
This brings me on to medium-term aid. What are the Government doing to try to ensure that the people in the affected areas of Ethiopia will be able to return to their villages and plant crops in June, July, August and September if the 1985 rains come? What are we doing to help with the supply of seed and draught animals for ploughing? Are we able to give any short-term aid to ensure that the water is effectively trapped, to reduce the amount of soil erosion that results from some of the storms, and to help improve cultivation? What aims do we have to try to get sufficient food into the relief camps so that people can take three months supply of food back to their villages when they return to cultivate the land?
Can the Minister say more about the Government's attempts to negotiate long-term aid schemes with the Ethiopian Government? I am sure that on his visit he realised that it was not sufficient to provide only short-term aid and that we must look to long-term aid.
I am tremendously impressed by the efforts of the British people, be they school children or others, to raise money for Ethiopia. It is clear that my constituents and the people of this country want the starving to be fed now, and many feel strongly that this situation should not occur again. As I have said before, many people died in the affected areas of Ethiopia in 1965, they died in large numbers in 1973, and they are dying now. Now that the Minister and other hon. Members have been to see for 1003 themselves, we have an absolute responsibility to ensure that this does not happen again. The only way we can do so is by turning to long-term aid.
I hope that the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry) will catch the eye of the Chair, after which I look forward to the Minister's reply.
§ Mr. Tony Baldry (Banbury)I am grateful to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) for allowing me time to participate in this debate. I support the general thrust of his arguments.
I wish to concentrate on one or two brief points. Since the House debated this matter just before Christmas, there have been increasing allegations that the Ethiopian Government have been using food aid to feed their troops and that food aid donated by the West and other agencies is going astray.
This is not the first time that such allegations have been made. On each and every occasion that they have been investigated, the allegations have been found to be without substance. In July 1981, a European Parliament delegation visited Ethiopia and reported that the country was making responsible and effective use of the food and other aid provided by the European Community and that there was no evidence to suggest that food was going astray. Again, in June 1983, another delegation from the European Parliament visited Ethiopia and satisfied itself that food aid was being properly used and, contrary to allegations, had not been diverted from its intended purpose. That was confirmed by a later report of the Commission of the European Community.
Neither Save the Children Fund nor Oxfam, which have teams in the Government-controlled areas of Ethiopia, have seen any evidence of relief supplies being diverted to the Ethiopian army, and the relief agency teams monitoring their own relief programmes have been able to confirm that money donated by the British public and others reaches its intended target. I have no doubt that the present Ethiopian Government have many faults, but I do not believe that the abuse of food aid is one of them.
It is a sad fact that, added to the continuing tragedy of famine in Ethiopia, there are now allegations of food aid going astray, based on propaganda arising out of the consequences of civil war. I fear that these allegations will only reduce the amount of food aid which Ethiopia as a whole receives.
As a consequence of these allegations, it has been requested that there should be a new international commission to supervise and control the relief offered. Already a number of the United Nations agencies have been involved. For example, the Food and Agriculture Organisation, the world food programme, to which reference has been made, and the United Nations High Commission for Refugees are already involved.
What we need is not a new commission but better coordination of the existing international agencies. I understand that the United Nations Secretary-General specifically appointed an Assistant Secretary-General, Kurt Jansson, to supervise the relief operation and to coordinate information from donor countries and agencies as to the food relief being sent. I should like to ask my right hon. Friend whether the British Government are satisfied that Kurt Jansson and the United Nations and its various 1004 agencies have now got a grip on the situation in order to ensure that relief aid is being distributed through their agencies to all parts of Ethiopia.
§ The Minister for Overseas Development (Mr. Timothy Raison)The House is indebted to the hon. Member for Denton and Reddish (Mr. Bennett) for raising the subject of British aid to Ethiopia and also to my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Baldry). Both the hon. Member and my hon. Friend have followed the course of events in Ethiopia very steadily and persistently over the last year or two. We know of their very great concern about the subject. It is valuable that once again they should have come back to the topic. We know that the situation in Ethiopia is still very grave. The hon. Member for Denton and Reddish was right to stress this point. I hope he will forgive me if I do not answer every single one of the string of pertinent questions which he put, but I shall try to answer by correspondence those that I am unable to tackle this evening. However, the hon. Member, as has my hon. Friend, reminded the House that there are very many important points which we have to keep closely in mind. I agree with what the hon. Member had to say about public opinion. Clearly public opinion has been aroused by this tragedy and will not suddenly forget all about the problem. It is deeply engraved in the minds of very many people.
It is sometimes implied that until last autumn we had done nothing about Ethiopia. Some people had never thought about Ethiopia and assumed that nobody else had thought about it, either. In fact, during the last two years our assistance to Ethiopia had been stepped up, and on a dozen or so occasions we had responded to appeals from international organisations and voluntary agencies for help in the worsening situation. In the period up to October 1984 the help given has cost the aid programme £15.5 million, half being our share of help provided through the European Community, in support of six separate actions.
On the long-term side, to which both the hon. Member and my hon. Friend referred, we have also been able to take the first steps towards restoring normal aid relations with Ethiopia. Twelve months ago we were happy to agree to provide support for postgraduate medical training at Addis Ababa which the Ethiopian Government saw as their highest priority. In addition, one of my educational advisers visited Ethiopia three months ago to assess training needs. We are currently considering her recommendations.
In July 1984, following the settlement of compensation for Mitchell Cotts, my hon. Friend the Minister of State, the Member for Edinburgh, Pentlands (Mr. Rifkind), paid the first visit to Ethiopia by a British Minister for many years. While he was there he offered the Ethiopian Government the cancellation of repayments on outstanding aid loans, worth about £2.5 million. In recent months we have also agreed to fund a resumption of volunteer activities in Ethiopia.
So even before the intensification of interest in Ethiopia over the last few weeks we had in fact seen some building up of what I might call the normal development programme. But obviously in the last three months our efforts have necessarily been concentrated on providing emergency assistance for victims of the famine. As the scale of the human tragedy became more apparent, not least through the harrowing scenes shown on our television 1005 screens, the Government have increased the help that they are giving, which now totals a further £14 million. In doing so, we have taken particular care to listen to the British agencies active in Ethiopia and to the views of our ambassador to ensure that our assistance is spent on equipment and supplies which quickly and directly help the relief operations.
To that end, as well as providing new Land-Rovers and dumper trucks, we have provided spare parts to get other vehicles back on the road, and mobile workshops to help keep them there so that supplies can be kept moving.
Through the voluntary agencies, we have provided two drilling rigs along with trucks and associated equipment; four Land-Rovers, five 30-tonne trucks; grain mills, tents, blankets, seeds, tools, polythene sheets and either the chartering of planes or the cost of airfreight for some of these and other items supplied by the agencies.
Our relief supplies have included 50 km of cable and rope and 500 tarpaulins. We have also provided grain conveyors and other items to help improve the handling facilities at the port of Assab—a question which has just been raised. As I saw for myself during my visit at the end of November, the operations there are now much more efficient, for which credit must go to the Relief and Rehabilitation Commission and the Marine Transport Authority of the Ethiopian Government.
During that visit, as I think the House knows, I went to the feeding centres at Korem and Mekele. They are as desolate as one would expect, but even the most starved-looking children can usually recover with food and care. Those visits brought home to me vividly the need for tents, blankets and medical supplies and, at my request on my return to this country, my officials sent further supplies of these items.
I should emphasise that we have been able to respond quickly in conjunction with the voluntary agencies. That was demonstrated again early in December when, following unexpected heavy rains at Alamata, we provided more tents and polythene sheeting within a very few days.
As the hon. Gentleman said, a particularly significant element of British assistance has been the detachment of two RAF Hercules together with a support team. These aircraft have been helping to move large quantities of relief supplies from Addis Ababa and the port of Assab to the areas of greatest immediate need. As well as food, they have transported medical supplies, clothing, blankets and vehicles. To date, they have moved over 4,000 tonnes working seven days a week including Christmas day.
In keeping with the best tradition of the service, the RAF responded to the request for help quickly—indeed, ours was the first foreign Government to set up an airborne famine relief operation—and the efficiency, friendly cooperation and professionalism with which it operates has won widespread praise from the relief agencies and the Ethiopian Government. That was made clear to my right hon. Friend the Minister of State for the Armed Forces and also to me when each of us visited Addis Ababa.
I have been asked how long the airlift will continue. The initial commitment was for three months, but we are considering whether to extend that, taking into account the latest assessment of needs provided by the Ethiopian Government and the intentions of other donors. We must consider how we can best use the available resources and whether it is best to continue with the air operation or to concentrate on other things.
1006 The individual items that I have described are important, but the greatest need is for food, particularly grain. In recent weeks, we have agreed to provide a further 21,500 tonnes of grain, and the first shipment of 6,500 tonnes arrived at the port of Massawa just after Christmas. However, the scale of the human disaster in Ethiopia clearly requires relief supplies, especially food, to be provided on a massive scale over a prolonged period.
That is why, at the end of October, we took the initiative in urging our partners in the European Community to make a significant response to the needs of Ethiopia and other drought-stricken countries in Africa. In the year to the end of October 1984, the Community had already made available 125,000 tonnes of grain and other food for Ethiopia. It then agreed on 6 November a further special programme of food aid and transport assistance, costing £35 million, for drought-affected countries in Africa. Ethiopia will be receiving 45,000 tonnes of cereals and about £8 million in other emergency relief from that programme.
In addition, as the hon. Gentleman has reminded us, the European Council, which my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister attended in Dublin, agreed on 4 December that the Community and its member states will provide 1.2 million tonnes of grain to drought-affected countries in Africa, including Ethiopia, during 1985.
The Community has since agreed to allocate £47 million from the emergency provision of the Lomé convention, and to transfer £53 million to the emergency provision of the 1984 Budget to finance the first 500,000 tonnes.
Such has been the reaction of the international community in recent weeks that more than 20 countries are now contributing to the relief efforts in Ethiopia, and the role of the United Nations co-ordinator, Mr. Jansson, is, therefore, of particular importance. He has already started to pull things together, in collaboration with the Ethiopian authorities and donors, and held a useful meeting in New York on 18 December.
We see one of Mr. Jansson's tasks, perhaps his most important task, as establishing the needs of Ethiopia in the next 12 months, and we hope that progress on this will be made in the next few weeks. It is clear that his task is difficult. Until now, the authorities have not really known what is due to arrive when. There have been instances when supplies have been overestimated and others when they have been underestimated. It is crucially important that the United Nations representative should have a full grasp of what is happening, and to do that he must have accurate and effective information from donor countries.
I was asked to give an assessment of needs, particularly after the month of March. I must in honesty say that it is difficult to say exactly what the flow will be after March. We have seen figures for the immediate period, for the first three months of this year, and they show that a substantial quantity of grain is on the way. In addition, substantial pledges have been made. There has been the generous response by way of promises from the Community, the United States and other countries.
It is important that not only should food come in in enormous quantities but that the pipeline should be properly managed, and that is a matter in which we shall take a close interest, although the responsibility for that lies with Mr. Jansson, with the world food programme and so on. It is extremely important that there should be coordination. I am concerned by recent reports which have 1007 suggested that more food may arrive at the Ethiopian ports in the next two months than they have the capacity to handle, even though the capacity has been much improved.
§ Mr. Andrew F. BennettIt is important to keep the airlift there, because it played a crucial part in November in speeding up the handling of grain through the ports. If there is any surplus of grain, it is important that the airlift is kept going so that the supplies may be moved on as quickly as possible to the places where they are needed.
§ Mr. RaisonThat is obviously a factor, but unloading is also a factor. I believe that the supplies to be allocated in the coming immediate period should be enough. They are substantial quantities which should be sufficient—and, if anything, too much — for the time being. Difficulties will be imposed if there is too much grain in the ports, not merely because of the handling difficulties but because of problems with storing it. The lesson to be learnt, therefore, is that while it is better to have too much than too little, we want a properly planned, steady, flow of grain in the period to come.
It is essential to ensure that relief supplies reach victims of the famine wherever they may be. As I told the House on 18 December, we have urged the Ethiopian Government to ensure that food and relief supplies reach all those areas, including Eritrea and Tigré, where it is needed and to ensure that military operations do not interfere with the movement of food and civilians. We believe that the best way to get the food there is to work through the voluntary agencies and the international committee of the Red Cross.
There is a peculiarly difficult situation, including the movement of refugees into the Sudan for which, as the House knows, I have in recent weeks announced further assistance totalling £1.85 million. We have made it clear that food must go where it is most needed. However, we 1008 firmly recognise Ethiopia's international frontiers, and we cannot support secession as part of the whole imbroglio. The organisations which have taken up arms against the Ethiopian Government cannot escape the fact that they have also contributed to the difficulties which exist in getting food where it is most needed.
Of course, if there were less fighting, if the Ethiopian Government did not devote their energies and foreign exchange to the purchase of arms and if there were more resources, more energy would be available for the country's development. We are bound to ask whether the Ethiopian Government could not do more to secure the willing consent of all the peoples of Ethiopia to their rule. All those interested in the welfare of Ethiopia are bound to observe that Ethiopia's internal difficulties inevitably hinder relief and development for the region as a whole
On the question whether food is failing to get through—a point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury — it is fair to say that, although there are difficulties and although there have been reports of supplies being misappropriated, I believe that it would be quite wrong for the public to reach the conclusion that the money that they subscribe on food aid is a waste of money. The overwhelming bulk of the money both from the people of this counry and from the Government is reaching the right destination, and will continue to do so. I hope that no one is put off by the scare stories, although I accept that we have to watch the position carefully.
I should have liked to have said a little more about the longer-term because that, ultimately, is the answer to finding ways to prevent the recurrence of the famines. However, time does not permit that. I conclude by thanking both hon. Members for raising this topic. I hope that they will continue with their interest in it, because that is what the country expects.
Question put and agreed to.
Adjourned accordingly at one minute past Eleven o' clock.