HC Deb 17 January 1994 vol 235 cc525-6
39. Mr. Pike

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs what will be the main change in direction in the use of the resources available for overseas aid in the year 1994–95.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

The priority objectives for the aid programme for 1994–95 were set out in the speech of my right hon. and noble Friend the Minister for Overseas Development at Chatham House on 18 October 1993, copies of which have been placed in the Library of the House.

Mr. Pike

In that speech, the Minister for Overseas Development said that the poorest nations were unable to benefit fully under the Trinidad terms and that there was a need to extend and improve those terms. In the year ahead, do the Government intend to do that for the poorest and most needy nations in the world?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

This is an area of policy in the world in which Britain has always led. We launched the terms in 1990. Eighteen countries, including 13 in Africa, have so far benefited. We have also relieved developing countries of £1 billion of aid debt burden. We are continuing to examine debt relief in conjunction with the Paris club.

Mr. Lester

Does my hon. Friend agree that both the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have committed themselves to the Trinidad terms and argued strongly at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting and the World bank meeting in Washington for not only the Trinidad terms but the extended Trinidad terms, to which the Government are also committed?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

I heartily endorse what my hon. Friend has said. The British Government, and in particular the two members of the Government to whom my hon. Friend referred, can take the fullest possible credit for the Trinidad terms. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister launched the Trinidad terms himself. I agree with the sentiments expressed by my hon. Friend.

Mr. Tom Clarke

If everything in the garden is so lovely, will the Minister explain why only last week we had an announcement of 47 redundancies of scientific personnel at Chatham? Does he accept that is a direct result of the real cut in overseas aid by the Government, including a cut confirmed in the last Budget? Given that 47 people are to lose their jobs and that some of the poorest countries in the world benefit from their crucial scientific research, where is the Government's strategy for any development for the poorest of this universe?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

I cannot accept that the job losses at Chatham are a direct result of some suggestion that the Government's aid programme is not substantially increasing. It has increased by 10 per cent. in real terms in the past six years. Of course, there will be redeployment within the aid budget and I suspect that that is what is happening at Chatham. I or my right hon. and noble Friend will write to the hon. Gentleman to give him further briefing on that.

Mr. Brandreth

Has my hon. Friend had the opportunity to read UNICEF's latest report on the state of the world's children? It reminds us that, while much progress has been made, disease still claims some 8 million children's lives each year. That is far more than famine or warfare. Will his priorities include the UNICEF priority of the elimination of disease, especially diarrhoea and pneumonia in children?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd

The British aid programme is concerned with the elimination of disease, with particular emphasis on assistance to the poorest countries.