European Community

HC Deb 08 February 1993 vol 218 cc679-80

38. Mr. Mullin

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what percentage of United Kingdom aid is given via the EC; and whether he expects this to change in the next five years.

The Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. Douglas Hurd)

In 1991–92 approximately 20 per cent. of British aid to developing countries was provided through the EC. During the period up to 1996, covered in the Chancellor's autumn statement, this proportion is likely to increase, but it is too early to make predictions.

Mr. Mullin

Is the Foreign Secretary aware of concern among aid agencies that as the European Community's aid budget increases, there will be a corresponding reduction in the bilateral aid budget, and that since bilateral aid is one of the most effective ways to dispense aid, and the EC is one of the less effective ways, that is a cause for concern?

Mr. Hurd

I have seen the Christian Aid statement to which the hon. Gentleman is perhaps referring. Of course, it is true that part of our aid is multilateral, since it goes through the European Community or the United Nations and its agencies. It is important that multilateral aid should be as effective as we can help to make it, but it all runs together. For example, the programme in Bosnia of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees is financed partly by the European Community, which is the largest single contributor, and partly by programmes such as our own, but it all goes to the same purpose.

Mr. Anthony Coombs

Will my right hon. Friend confirm the principle that he laid down in a speech two years ago—that non-humanitarian aid to developing countries will depend on their human rights record? Will he consider the question of non-humanitarian aid to Ghana and Indonesia, as the latter annexed East Timor five years ago and is oppressing the population there?

Mr. Hurd

Yes, we apply that principle and my hon. Friend knows of examples where we have done so, especially in Africa. I have nothing to say about aid to Indonesia, but I was in Ghana recently and think that President Rawlings needs and deserves encouragement, in particular because of his economic policy and his proclaimed intention of opening the door to consultation with the opposition.

Mr. Meacher

How does the right hon. Gentleman justify his policy of cutting the aid budget to Africa substantially in real terms during the next three years while sharply increasing aid to eastern and central Europe? How does he justify using aid moneys to pay exorbitant consultancy fees to the former Soviet Union this year, and to justify the press release issued by the Overseas Development Administration this week with the headline, "Britain gives £1.5 million to help with Polish mass privatisation"? We have always known that the Tories never favoured aid in the first place, but is that not the most dishonest and disreputable distortion of the aid budget that can possibly be imagined?

Mr. Hurd

The hon. Member is hopelessly out of date. He cannot have been in eastern Europe lately. The know-how fund has been one of the most successful forms of British aid in recent years. Because of the success of our privatisations, the sort of programme that the Poles and others most desperately require from us is help with theirs —they are after privatisation and not nationalisation.

Mr. Bowis

Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the rules governing aid from the European Community are no less stringent in relation to human rights? In that context, what pressure is the Community, as well as Britain, able to exert on the Government of Sudan to ensure that the record on human rights in the south of that country meets the requirements of those rules?

Mr. Hurd

I agree with my hon. Friend, and this is something on which we agreed in the Community. Alas, we have felt bound to suspend virtually all our aid to the Sudan, except humanitarian aid, in an effort to show that country that its present record on human rights and good government in general is not acceptable either to us or to our friends.