§ 38. Mr. BowisTo ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what are the latest figures for aid and other financial support for the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States.
§ The Minister for Overseas Development (Mrs. Lynda Chalker)Britain has pledged more than £80 million in bilateral aid to the former Soviet Union and is contributing through the EC budget about 18 per cent. of Community technical assistance and food aid which totals £595 million. The Community has also agreed a programme of food credits worth £1,225 billion.
§ Mr. BowisWith other hon. Members, I recently visited Russia and the Ukraine. Does my right hon. Friend accept that we returned with an impression of economic chaos—and the impression that, although aid from this country and others is welcomed, it is feared that too much is being siphoned off on to the black market? Above all, the need is for the west to encourage economic development trade with export credits and, indeed, joint ventures such as the one that we saw with one firm—Tambrands—in Kiev.
§ Mrs. ChalkerMy hon. Friend is absolutely right. If the former Soviet Union and all the republics are ever to put the situation right, the most urgent job is to bring about economic reform. That is why we have ensured, through our know-how funds and all the other means at our disposal, that we are providing economic advice and sound advice for training members of the former republics to get on with the job of economic reform.
I note what the hon. Gentleman said about the siphoning off of food aid. I have said from the beginning that we and other donors, including the European Community, must have arrangements to guard against misappropriation. That is why, to date, food has been available through only a limited number of channels. I have pressed the EC, however, and we have now secured agreement that it will expand the number of outlets in Moscow and St. Petersburg from the 60 shops that were operational in January and February to 150. Later this week, further missions will be sent from the EC and from this country to ensure that food is getting through.
It is interesting to note that other countries are now copying our know-how funds because they have been of such help to the former Soviet Union and other eastern European countries.
§ Mr. WinnickI was on the same delegation to Russia and the Ukraine. Would it not be very short sighted of the western democracies—not simply Britain—to allow the countries which now make up the Commonwealth of Independent States to drift into such a state of anarchy that a dictatorship could well return? Given the 74 years of 16 Communist dictatorship and the long period of Tsarist dictatorship before that, is it not essential to provide aid and assistance so that at long last Russia and the countries associated with the former Soviet Union can become stable democracies?
§ Mrs. ChalkerI agree very much with what the hon. Gentleman says. That is why Britain was the first country to give £20 million worth of feed grain. Medical supplies are going in from this country not only to help Moscow and St. Petersburg, but to go as far as Ekaterinburg, Tymen, Novokuznetsk, the Kiev oblast, the Donetsk oblast, and further afield. We have help going in alongside the United States and German Project Hope airlift, and we have £50 million for the know-how fund. Everywhere we go, we have been told that the British help is extremely well appreciated. We are considering what more we can do and it is up to some other donors to do likewise.
§ Mr. SoamesI warmly congratulate my right hon. Friend on her excellent work in co-ordinating the aid, but does she agree that the words of the hon. Member for Walsall, North (Mr. Winnick) are correct? We need a kind of Marshall plan which will bring to those poor suffering countries aid such as was brought to continental Europe when it lay prostrate at the end of the second world war. Is it not time that we tried to co-ordinate an effort on that basis to enable the Soviet Union to pick itself up and start taking a proper role in the world economy?
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe size of the problem is comparable, but I do not believe that the post-war reconstruction programme in Europe is a good model for what is required in the Commonwealth of Independent States. More than anything else, the CIS needs economic and agricultural reform. The responsibility for that lies not with the west, but with the CIS itself. Through our International Monetary Fund membership, we have pushed forward the idea that the CIS countries should come under the IMF. In Moscow tomorrow we shall discuss with the Russian authorities the way forward on a number of difficult economic questions.
§ Mrs. ClwydI listened to the Minister's words with interest. Is she aware that when my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Mr. Campbell-Savours) and I visited Moscow last week and questioned Russian officials about food aid, we found stacked away in a third-floor warehouse what we were told was the whole British contribution of beef to Moscow, which had been there for a month? We were told that the reason for that outrageous situation was that, unlike the meat from all the other EC countries, our consignment was not colour coded. The labels were in English and no one could read them. Downstairs in the warehouse, French pork was being offloaded from vehicles and immediately reloaded for distribution in Moscow shops.
When we asked Russian officials whether the beef was having any impact on meat prices in Russia, we were told that it was not. As the Minister said, there are too few outlets, which she intends to do something about. There is also a shortage of EC monitors. Does the Minister intend to increase the number of monitors? Are we not faced with the same old story of a badly managed project with inadequate monitoring—in other words, Government incompetence?
§ Mrs. ChalkerThe hon. Lady could not be more wrong. Of course I am aware of what she found in Moscow. The beef that went to Murmansk was used immediately, and the beef that has gone to St. Petersburg has been used. [HON. MEMBERS: "Moscow."] I know that there has been a problem with beef in Moscow. I also know that the EC arrangements for labelling were not adequate. That is why the goods for which we are responsible are being labelled in Russian when they go to the former Soviet Union. We have asked the Commission for greater consistency in labelling and colour coding for the beef, and we have told Moscow that it is vital that the meat is released on to the market straight away. The problem is not the incompetence of this country. The EC simply had not got matters organised. The way in which we put our food over there actually got it to the places for which it was intended.