§ Clare ShortI have no plans to visit Montserrat. The hon. Lady may know that the Foreign and 359 Commonwealth Office has lead responsibility for the dependent territories and for co-ordinating the work of all Departments that assist Montserrat and the evacuees. I am therefore very pleased that my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was able to visit Montserrat recently.
§ Mrs. MayDoes the Secretary of State accept that her decision not to visit Montserrat could be seen by the islanders as a snub? Does she further accept that the Government have lessons to learn from their handling of the issue of Montserrat, not least whether the Department or the Foreign Office is leading? Will she commission a full, frank and impartial report on the lessons that the Government have to learn from their handling of the problems in Montserrat?
§ Clare ShortNo, I do not accept that for a minute. In fact, a junior Foreign and Commonwealth Office Minister and my own junior Minister have visited Montserrat three times between them. The Foreign Secretary has also visited Montserrat, whereas the Foreign Secretary in the previous Government did not. There are 2,800 people left living in Montserrat. My Department has spent £55 million on this complex emergency. We have responsibilities to poor and needy people all over the world. We have done much to improve the efficiency of the administration of Montserrat: we inherited from the previous Administration an inefficient system with many layers of decision making, but we have put much of that right.