§ Miss Emma Nicholson (Torridge and Devon, West)Perhaps six weeks ago, Mr. Jan Eliasson, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations with special responsibility for humanitarian affairs, resigned. His resignation became public immediately, although it will not take effect until the end of January 1994. It is a matter of such importance that I believe strongly that it should be marked by a rigorous analysis in this Chamber of the reasons for Mr. Eliasson's resignation, of the genesis of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs itself—a very recent part of the United Nations—and of the way forward, because of the value of the department in helping the neediest of the needy worldwide.
The start of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs was perhaps the Gulf war and the tragedies that lay in its wake, with the uprisings in the north and south of Iraq against the great dictator Saddam Hussein. At a G7 meeting in Houston in May 1991, the Department of Humanitarian Affairs was suggested and set up. Its purpose was to scrutinise the humanitarian work of the agencies of the United Nations, to increase the accountability of those agencies, and to bring transparency of operation to their role.
How was the structure proposed? It was planned that there would be the classic pyramid structure and that the department would have a direction role, that the agencies would, in effect, report to the department, and that the department would direct their work. On the location of the new department, it was suggested that, for policy, it had to be in New York. However, Geneva is the humanitarian capital of the world, so it had to be there as well. The House quite properly endorsed the creation of the new department. In early-day motion 538 in January 1992, the House welcomed
the appointment of a single humanitarian aid co-ordinator by the United Nations who shall have the authority to deal with governments that deny assistance to suffering peoples, and those that use humanitarian relief for political ends".I am afraid that the wording was just wishful thinking. Indeed, to see the real way in which the department was in fact set up, we need to look at the General Assembly resolution of 30 October 1992, the general overview of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, the 47th session agenda item No. 37, the report of the Secretary-General entitled
Strengthening of the co-ordination of humanitarian and emergency assistance of the United Nations".It is an important document, in which the Secretary-General tells us:New demands for emergency humanitarian assistance underline the need to assess the scope of international response and continue to refine the modalities for co-ordinating it. The establishment of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs (DHA) was designed to strengthen a co-ordinated and coherent system-wide approach.He goes on to tell us:The new Department was staffed through the redeployment of resources, combining the former Office of the United Nations Disaster Relief Coordinator (UNDRO) in Geneva with other existing capacities within the United Nations. The Department, both in New York and Geneva, is also supported by seconded staff made available by the World Food Programme … by … (UNICEF), by the Office of the United Nations High Commission for Refugees … and the … (UNDP).The Secretary-General stated: 1421The secondment has enabled the Department to benefit from the experiences of these organisations in its day-to-day work, thus enhancing its capacity to coordinate and to achieve a system-wide approach in response to emergency situations.The Foreign Affairs Select Committee also reported on the DHA. Its report for the Session of 1992-93, ordered by the House of Commons to be printed on 23 June 1993, entitled "The Expanding Role of the United Nations and its Implications for United Kingdom Policy", suggests:
The old constraints … against interference in matters which are "essentially" domestic are no longer accepted. The change is a very recent one and has occurred in response to two very different emergencies: in Somalia and in Iraq after the Gulf War. Decisions to intervene militarily on humanitarian grounds have not been taken according to a clear set of guiding principles, but in response to sudden emergencies. The UN has not so intervened in other humanitarian disasters of perhaps comparable scale—such as that in Sudan.The report goes on:Better criteria, which are internationally accepted, need to be drawn up to determine the circumstances in which armed intervention for humanitarian purposes is acceptable.Earlier, the report talks about the need for intervention and about the way in which the United Nations has responded through the formation of the DHA.On a critical matter, the Foreign Affairs Select Committee made the critical statement:
Perhaps the most complex and difficult problem with which the UN is currently grappling is this: under what circumstances is humanitarian intervention by the international community justified?The report goes on to state correctly:the number and diversity of humanitarian crises have increased sharply over the past few years and enhanced media coverage has heightened public awareness of the suffering involved and increase expectations of the abilities of governments and of the UN to respond. Not only are there more concurrent crises, they are becoming more complex, with civil conflict inextricably linked with the need for humanitarian assistance … Humanitarian intervention does not always … involve use of the military … It has happened to protect aid convoys … distribute food directly … to protect areas designated as safe havens or safe areas (as in Iraq and now in Bosnia) and to help rebuild a civil society (as in Somalia).Since May 1991, therefore, a new United Nations department has existed in response to the need that a Select Committee discussed and reported on eight or nine months after its inception by the Secretary-General in the General Assembly report. The problems, however, were clear from the very beginning. Indeed, as I read out those statements, it could be seen that they conflicted at once, that the expectations that the creation of the new department brought with it were immediately thrown up in sharp relief against the actual support that the G7 countries and other members of the United Nations gave its new child.
If we look, for example, at the problems of structure, we can see immediately that to have such a new department split up already into two places gave a management problem of large proportions. If we look at the siting of other United Nations humanitarian agencies, we can also see at once that Geneva is undoubtedly the humanitarian capital of the world.
Geneva is home to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Mrs. Ogata, a truly remarkable person, leads UNHCR, with an annual budget of $1.2 billion. Geneva is naturally the site of the International Committee of the Red Cross. It is also home to the Federation of the Red Cross and Red Cross Societies. The World Health Organisation is in Geneva. So 1422 is the International Labour Organisation. The World Food Programme, which I have already mentioned, is only down the road in Rome. It is left to the United Nations Children's Fund and the United Nations Development Programme among the major aid agencies of the United Nations to be based in New York.
Therefore, at once it can be seen that there is inter-agency competition, if only for attention. But, of course, competition goes much further than that. Funds are scarce always, even for the best of purposes—humanitarian purposes. Therefore, the budgetary problems needed to be addressed at once if the new department was to be successful. The appropriate budgets were not forthcoming. The DHA was given a very modest budget indeed, and a small number of staff. It has been noted already that those staff were drawn from other agencies.
The underpinning of the funding needed to make the department a success was not thus provided. As the department straddled the globe, or at any rate the Atlantic, core operating budgets were needed and were not forthcoming. The staff of the DHA in Geneva have worked immensely hard in mobilising expenditure funding.
Here I pay a special tribute to Mr. Gerhard Putnam Cramer, who is head of the Geneva office with special responsibility for Iraq. He and his staff mobilised $1 billion for Iraq alone for the United Nations agencies to spend. But that is not funding that belongs to the DHA. It is funding that he and his staff have managed to attract through diligent hard work for the United Nations agencies to spend in Iraq—generally in northern Iraq.
Indeed, the modality of the operating programme under the leadership of Mr. Putnam Cramer is excellent. The operating promgrammes in the field in Iraq alone at the practical level have been exemplary. Daily meetings have been co-ordinated with all the agencies involved in northern Iraq.
Within a short time, the DHA has made its mark in many areas of the world. Programme work has been carried out already and is continuing in the horn of Africa, southern Africa, Somalia, Mozambique, Angola and Luangwa, for example. In addition, thematic issues have been addressed. The department has responsibility for United Nations reaction to natural disasters. It has taken over responsibility for relief co-ordination from the United Nations Disaster Relief Organisation. It has the overriding responsibility for United Nations action in disaster prevention and mitigation, and for de-mining.
What a programme. What a responsibility. Surely carefully designed terms of reference are needed to carry out such a vast programme. Not only does the new department have to attract funding to support itself and for its organisations—the agencies of the United Nations—to spend, but it must offer sensitive support and strong leadership to those agencies. I believe that the true weakness of the United Nations is reflected in the fact that the correct and proper terms of reference for the DHA were not created. The G7 gave birth to the new department, which was a wonderful concept, but did not support it properly.
When the responsibility was given to Dr. Boutros Boutros-Ghali in the totality of his overall United Nations responsibility, he did not give the DHA full and proper support, either. Thus, the 100 staff in Geneva and the 50 staff in New York who make up the 150 full-time 1423 staffing of the DHA, have been left without leadership or proper terms of reference to fulfil their massive and crucial task.
My first conclusion this morning has to be that Mr. Jan Eliasson is the victim of that lack of will and managerial effectiveness within the United Nations. The role of the DHA was not properly defined. Mr. Eliasson, the key architect of resolution 36182 which created the Department of Humanitarian Affairs, has been the victim of a lack of practical support by the leading officials of the United Nations.
In the wake of the Gulf war, Prince Sadruddin Aga Khan, the special rapporteur for human rights in Iraq, resigned because of the enormous difficulties of trying to affect positively humanitarian matters inside Iraq. Now we have the resignation of Mr. Jan Eliasson, whose task was co-ordination, management and direction and who attempted a hands-on policy to effect the necessary resolution of the conflicts and the reconstruction of human rights in Iraq and other places.
I therefore felt that it was of large importance to discuss this important matter today. I wish to take as a critical example of the need for the DHA, the work that it has carried out in Iraq. I give once more a summary of the background. I take it from the United Nations inter-agency humanitarian programme in Iraq co-operation programme document for 1 April 1993 to 31 March 1994. The background statement says:
The United Nations Department of Humanitarian Affairs has continued to provide coordination of the Humanitarian Programme in Iraq through the Inter-Agency Relief Coordination Unit in Baghdad and the Special Unit for Iraq in Geneva Since October 1993, IRCU has expanded its role by providing stronger field coordination in the north through field delegates located in Arbil, Dohuk and Suleimaniyah.Mr. Putnam Cramer, under Mr. Jan Eliasson, gave us the implementation report of 1993, when he laid out for us the ways in which various agencies under his co-ordination had delivered their aid. I commend that work and those two reports to the House.I have already displayed to the House the difficulties that the new department has faced and the ways in which it has not been strengthened or supported, tasked correctly or supported by proper terms of reference to enable it to fulfil the role that was laid out for it. Perhaps I should turn for a moment to the need for the department to continue, to be properly strengthened and co-ordinated and to have a proper budget. We know that it is always very easy for non-governmental organisations and similar United Nations outgrowths to spring up without proper need.
Indeed, it could be said that, with the resignation of Mr. Eliasson, we should accept that the move of the G7 in May 1991 has failed, and that perhaps the new department is not needed. Perhaps that is why it has essentially failed to attract and gain the support that it says it needs. I think not.
Permit me to spend a few moments considering the need, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Just a few days ago, on 13 December, the European Parliament passed on the nod a resolution on human rights violations by the Iraqi Government against the Iraqi Shi'ites. The draft resolution reads:
"The European Parliament
Appalled by the findings of Max van der Stoel, the UN Special Rapporteur for Iraq, in his latest rapport, on the continued Attacks on the Marsh Arabs,Drawing attention to the Special Rapporteur's statements that the Government of Iraq is responsible for continuing 1424 indiscriminate shelling of civilian settlements on a large scale, despite the creation of a no fly zone by the coalition powers on the basis of UN Security Council Resolution 688,Drawing attention to the Special Rapporteur's statement that the Iraqi Government by various measures is denying the marsh dwellers access to food and health care,Drawing attention to the Special Rapporteur's conclusion that the Government of Iraq is responsible for the draining of the marshes and so for the consequent destruction of the traditional ways of life of the indigenous people,Points out that this drainage is detrimental to the environment of the marshes and has a negative impact on the neighbouring regions,Points out that the findings of the Rapporteur are in line with the report of Middle East Watch,Considers this action by the Iraqi authorities a flagrant violation of its international obligations,Taking into account that due to these actions thousands of Shia's have fled to Iran where they live in refugee camps in extremely poor conditions,Recalling its previous resolutions on the subject,Calls upon the Council in the framework of the Common foreign and security policy of the EU to take all necessary steps which might bring an end to these murderous campaigns by the Iraqi Government,Warns that further delay in bringing these atrocities to a halt might cause an escalation of violence in the region,Urges the Commission to provide emergency aid to the refugees in Iran and use all possible means to send food and medical supplies to the people in the marsh lands,Sees as one of the conditions to lift the international boycott against Iraq the fact that all actions against the Marsh People should be stopped,Requests its President to transmit this resolution to the Council, the Commission, the members of the UN Security Council and the Government of Iraq.The very fact that that resolution was passed on the nod surely displays the European Community's understanding of the deliberate destruction of the south of Iraq.I shall now mention the north, and I am indebted to the Kurdish Information Centre in London, which yesterday sent me its new year appeal for action on Kurdistan. The letter reads:
Dear Emma Nicholson … We are writing to you to request your urgent support in raising attention once again … What appears as a peaceful situation to the outside world is far from being so.The main threat is firstly still posed by the Iraqi Government which maintains a constant military presence just a few kilometres away from most of the main centres of habitation. Attacks are still feared and Saddam's agents keep the people living in suspense by carrying out bomb attacks in public places.The second threat comes from the Turkish Government's control of the only open border into the Kurdish region, which is the lifeline for all supplies coming in. The Turkish Government is frequently imposing difficult conditions on the Kurdish Administration in exchange for keeping the route open. For example, asking the Kurdish Administration to assist them in their war with their own Kurds, leading to Kurds from Iraq being forced to fight Kurds from Turkey against their will … It is very well known that the Turkish Government is no friend of the Kurdish people, as it is destroying Kurdish villages and massacring the people. In Turkey there are no rights for persons who claim Kurdish origin … There is the extraordinary difficulty caused by the fact that Kurdistan is still subject to the UN embargo because it is a part of Iraq … The Iraqi regime is refusing to allow any electricity to be supplied to the entire governate of Dohuk, where the people have been without power supply since August this year. Although the power is actually generated from the Kurdish region … it is routed through government controlled areas. It can be supplied directly by installing local supply stations. This is not costly, but it is currently impossible due to the embargo.".I must again put on record a fact that I have mentioned to the House for many months. Most international aid for Iraq—most of that aid is for Kurdistan—is routed through 1425 Baghdad, and 95 per cent. of it is benefiting Baghdad and not the Iraqi people who depend on it. The Iraqi Government profiteers on the exchange rate and a huge amount of money is being lost by the aid agencies, including the UN and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, in that way. That is a most important point.
I shall now move from the north to the south, and remind the House of the terrible situation of the Iraqi Shi'ites.
The marshlands of southern Iraq, as a unique habitat, are ceasing to exist. Perhaps within a few weeks, that damage could be irreversible. They have been drained in an exercise that has used civil engineering as a weapon of environmental terrorism. An eco-system that dates back to biblical times will soon cease to exist and the implications will feed through to the ecological systems of Europe and western Asia. The damage to wild life is incalculable—an area larger than the state of New Jersey is being made a quagmire of stinking mud.
Prince Charles has called that
an utterly inhuman policy of cultural genocide.Those were his words in his introduction to the leaflet of the appeal by AMAR, Assisting Marsh Arabs and Refugees, an humanitarian aid agency which I chair, more than a year ago.I remind the House that Saddam Hussein has diverted almost the entire flow of the Euphrates into a large drainage canal, known as the third river. Earlier this year, the UN human rights commissioner, special investigator Max van der Stoel, stated that two thirds of the water which normally flowed into the marshes had been prevented from doing so. That work has continued since his report. I have visited the area several times since it was written, and 80 or 90 per cent. of the water may now have gone and the people cannot live without water.
I remind the House that the International Wild Fowl and Wetlands Research Bureau believes that the marshlands are the most important wintering site for migrating birds from western Eurasia. The habitat has supported several million birds a year. By the end of this year, and certainly by the beginning of next, it will have disappeared into history.
The effects on the people have been devastating. Perhaps the House recalls that Wilfred Thesiger wrote a wonderful book called "The Marsh Arabs" and introduced the English-reading nations of the world to their way of life. They have been almost wholly destroyed. It is not merely their environment and their habitat that have been destroyed: the marsh Arabs as a people have been destroyed, because, without water, no human being can exist.
Thousands of marsh Arabs and other refugees have fled to Iran. Millions have been killed or imprisoned throughout the south of Iraq, which has suffered continuing bombardment and an increase in assaults of all types, including chemical weapons. The evidence given by myself and others to the United Nations on chemical weapon assaults led to a mission to Iran and the Iraqi marshlands, but it will be some months before we see the results of that.
It is difficult to prove that chemical weapons have been used anywhere. We were slow to accept that they had been used in Kurdistan in 1988 and even slower to recognise 1426 that they had been used in Iran in the early 1980s in the Iran-Iraq war. Subsequent conclusions by eminent scientists proved to them that chemical weapons had been used. Events that will come to light in the south of Iraq will prove conclusively that chemical weapons are continually used by Saddam Hussein's forces as normal weapons. Other nations that adhere to the 1925 Geneva convention do not use such weapons in that way.
The plight of the people in southern Iraq has for many years been abominable. Recently, the House was good enough to allow me to stage an exhibition from the AMAR appeal archives of the past two years. We showed photographs of the plight of the people and our most senior doctor, Dr. Al-Hariri came to speak. The exhibition was opened by my noble Friend Baroness Chalker, and the British Government have been generous and kind in enabling the AMAR appeal group to try to support survivors who have entered Iran.
The European Community has been wonderful in helping us to assist those still surviving in the marshes and on the borders. Dr. Al-Hariri, Dr. Mussawi and Dr. Amin, the three most important members of the AMAR appeal medical team in Iran, spoke to us, and I should like to quote from Dr. Al-Hariri's speech:
Iraq has suffered a lot under the aggressive regime of Saddam in the last 27 years. We Iraqis will never forget the bitter experience of what happened in Iraq. We have lived through the tragic era of Saddam's rule, we have witnessed the suffering and devastation of the two destructive wars. When we tell about the intimidation and torture that has happened in Iraq, nobody can believe. In Iraq one can be executed for his political or religious belief. Large numbers of people have met the same fate because they have refused to be involved in the past in the two destructive wars. The heart-rending view of manslaughter in our country will never be forgotten. Complete villages have been wiped out from the map in a short time because they said no to Saddam's rule.What has happened in the marshlands is the most recent and perhaps the most horrible thing of all. Dr. Al-Hariri said:
He has violated the environment not only in Iraq … all the world witnessed what he did in Kuwait, now in the marshlands against his own people.What has happened has been a disaster of unparalleled proportions. Dr. Al-Hariri said:What happened in the marsh was really a disaster, an event that caused great harm and damage to the environment and to humanity. Half a million people have had their water turned off. The place in which they have been surviving for more than 6,000 years has been dried out. This will lead to the extinction of a civilisation that has existed almost untouched for centuries. The drying out of water means the end of these people. Saddam will do everything in order to stay in power. He will not hesitate to kill all the Iraqi people if that will allow him to stay in power.Iraq is now facing destruction and the sanctions affect the poor people because Saddam will not use his power to give them food and medicine. Dr. Al-Hariri says:
The intimidation, the artillery, firing at random at villages and people, setting villages and farms on fire, polluting the environment, launching operations of mass arrest and deportation by forces have led his people to flee the area. They have been forced … to leave everything behind if they have left alive. They have been forced to leave everything behind, to leave a place and a civilisation that they have lived in for the last 6,000 years. Those new victims of Saddam Hussein came to the border of Iran in a miserable way. They were … suffering epidemics of diseases … polluted was all that they had to drink. Their survival was only a matter of chance.I now believe that Saddam Hussein is in serious trouble. United Nations sanctions are biting, the Iraqi dinar has plunged to an historic low, and the butcher of Baghdad has embarked on the slaughter of Takriti kinsmen who underpin the security of his regime. It is surely a measure 1427 of the Iraqi dictator's insecurity that, for the first time, he has started to pick on members of his own tribe, one of the country's four sources of power. The others are the army, the Iraqi branch of the Ba'ath party, and the internal security apparatus.
In western countries, people and politicians niggle about the intrusion of the media, but in the context of the destruction of southern Iraq and the marshlands and of the horrors continually perpetrated in the north of Iraq in Kurdistan, I have nothing but praise for members of the press and of television and radio who have consistently tried to do the almost impossible—to bring out the news.
Shyam Bhatia of The Observer made an epic and historic journey, risking grave personal suffering and danger in the marshes nearly a year ago. Reporters from The Sunday Times have also been consistent in trying to trace stories in a different way. Managing editor Michael Williams has kept his attention focused on this important matter. The BBC has been especially remarkable. Recently, two senior people from its evening news team came with me to southern Iraq and to southern Iran.
However, all our advocacy is not enough, and if we are to help these people in Iraq and other places, we must look to the future of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs of the United Nations and to the major UN agencies. UNICEF has just published a book entitled "The State of the World's Children 1994", which shows that, in recent years, significant progress has been made against some of the major threats to the health and well being of the world's children.
Social goals reflecting the possibility of reducing child malnutrition, disease, disability and illiteracy show that such ills could be drastically reduced by the year 2000, and those goals have been agreed by a majority of the world's political leaders. Experience shows that national progress in health, nutrition and education depends not on economic development alone but on sustained commitment to improve the well-being of the poor.
Despite the great generosity of the European Community, its peoples and its Governments, arid the people of other countries, only a small proportion of international aid is devoted to nutrition, primary health care, basic education, safe water supplies and family planning. It is clear that if we concentrated on those important goals, the state of the world's children would vastly improve.
I ask my hon. Friend the Minister to ponder thoughtfully and carefully on the problems of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs. I pay special tribute to Mr. Eliasson, who has made his mark. I ask my hon. Friend to examine some of the difficulties that the department has faced in its first two and a half years—the lack of co-ordination, and in controlling its field operations in Iraq through Baghdad.
Those are tough political issues, but if they can be addressed positively, our Government should be a leader—if not the leader, because of our country's experience—in improving the state of the world's children internationally. Rescuing child and adult victims in Iraq could still be within our grasp.
§ The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. David Heathcoat-Amory)This is an important subject, but this cannot be said to be a 1428 particularly full House. It does not do justice to the seriousness of the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West (Miss Nicholson). It reminds me that, when I began my maiden speech, I found myself addressing three hon. Members. When I ended, only the Speaker and myself were in the Chamber. On this occasion, at least there is an hon. Member on the Labour Front Bench, together with a Whip—my hon. Friend the Member for Harrow, West (Mr. Hughes)—to hear what must be a brief winding-up speech.
I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Torridge and Devon, West not just for her speech today but for all her work in drawing attention to humanitarian tragedies that beset the world, and particularly for her work—often at first hand—in drawing world attention to the plight of marsh Arabs in southern iraq.
Unfortunately, we live in a world in which the number and complexity of humanitarian disasters are increasing in scale. We have not only our normal share of natural disasters—drought, famine, earthquakes—but a number of deep-rooted political and unresolved ethnic conflicts, human rights abuses, and so on. They all create vast numbers of refugees and people displaced in their own country.
Money alone cannot solve those problems. They require huge political effort and co-ordination between all the agencies and non-governmental organisations involved. I think sometimes that we ask too much of the United Nations. We expect it to be the world's development authority, foreign affairs Ministry and, in some cases, Ministry of defence. It cannot take on all those tasks across the globe. However, we must do our best at local and international level.
The founding of the Department of Humanitarian Affairs described so well by my hon. Friend was an important initiative. It was established two years ago, largely in response to an initiative by Britain and Germany, and led to United Nations General Assembly resolution 46/182. Despite some disappointments and mistakes made by many people, the Department has been a force for good, and we will certainly not withdraw our support from its concept.
Whoever is appointed to take on the role vacated by Mr. Eliasson will have our support, and I hope that the right man or woman can be found. The job specification is daunting. The appointee must have a knowledge of humanitarian concerns and be a substantial and respected figure on the world stage, and must also be an effective manager of the agencies and financial resources that many Governments are committing to the problem.
The aims of the British Government and of the United Nations can be summed up in the observation that we all want humanitarian aid to be provided quickly, to the right people, and on a cost-effective basis that avoids waste and misappropriation. That last point is important, because if that is not done, humanitarian efforts risk being discredited. Any story of scandal and duplication undermines in the mind of the public the very aims that we are pursuing.
I pay particular tribute to the efforts of my hon. Friend in Iraq, and emphasise her remark that responsibility for the continuing suffering there lies with Saddam Hussein and with no one else.
§ Mr. Mike O'Brien (Warwickshire, North)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. I draw your attention to what I consider to be an abuse of the procedures of the House in the answering of written questions. I put down a question to a Home Office Minister after the Police Federation, to which I am a parliamentary adviser, received the information that the number of officers in the Metropolitan police area was reduced by more than 400 in the first eight months of this year.
The Home Office replied that it would answer in a letter, which will presumably reach me after the House adjourns for the Christmas recess. Should not the House be provided with such serious information in a written answer in Hansard, rather than in a letter?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe content of answers has nothing to do with the Chair.
§ Mr. Alex Salmond (Banff and Buchan)On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. Has the Chair received any indication from the President of the Board of Trade that a statement will be made this morning on the Stock Exchange announcement just made by British Gas about a a major restructuring that will possibly involve the loss of 20,000 jobs and the elimination of the regional tiers of management of British Gas Scotland and British Gas Wales?
The House has been awaiting a statement from the President of the Board of Trade in response to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission inquiry, which has apparently been delayed a number of times—as recently as this week. If British Gas has gone ahead with its restructuring, that would indicate that it knows the content of the President's announcement before the House, or does not know the content but does not care two hoots. May inquiries be made to establish whether there is any vestige of influence left over that powerful, over-mighty company?
§ Mr. Deputy SpeakerThe Chair is not aware of any such information, but no doubt the hon. Gentleman's remarks will be noted by the occupants of the Government Front Bench.