HC Deb 28 January 1998 vol 305 cc339-40
9. Mr. Bayley

What are her Department's priorities during the EU presidency in respect of EU-wide aid policy. [23866]

Clare Short

During the UK presidency, our top priority is to agree the EU negotiating mandate on the future of the Lomé convention, which governs the trade and development relationships between the EU and 71 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries. We shall also seek to secure commitment to the international development targets across all the EU development programmes and to increase the effectiveness of such programmes.

Mr. Bayley

I thank my right hon. Friend for that answer. May I tell her that people throughout the development lobby in Britain have warmly welcomed the tough targets that she has set for the UK aid programme on poverty reduction, literacy, primary health care and child deaths? Given that 30 per cent. of our aid budget is channelled through the EU, will she make it a high priority to get the same targets agreed by all the other EU member states, both for EU aid and, as far as possible, for their domestic aid programmes?

Clare Short

My hon. Friend is right. The EU spend is £4.5 billion and our total budget is £2.2 billion, of which one third goes through the EU, so efforts to make the EU contribution more effective are enormously important. The beauty of the international poverty eradication targets—if we can get the institutions of the world to take them seriously—is that they can provide a framework for all our international work and enable us to measure progress, year on year and in every country, in health, education, clean water and so on. That is one of my overriding objectives for the EU presidency and we are holding a seminar on 17 March to try to get the member countries, the Commission and the European Parliament committed to that objective.

Mr. Faber

Will the right hon. Lady confirm that the conditions attached to the European Union aid programme to Zimbabwe, negotiated by Mr. Jens Laerk, head of the EU delegation, will only delay, not cancel, the proposed seizure of farms by the Government there? Will she explain why, in our role as president of the EU, we are happy to promote the tying of aid to Zimbabwe on condition that farmers there can seek redress through the courts, but refuse to stand up for those very same farmers' democratic rights ourselves by insisting on similar conditions for our own bilateral aid programme?

Clare Short

I am surprised at the hon. Gentleman's question, as we discussed the subject at the last Question Time, when I made it clear to him that we have said that we think that there is a need for land redistribution in Zimbabwe, but it needs to be properly organised, transparent, relocated—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman would let me answer, instead of hectoring, he might learn something.

I have discussed the subject with Commissioner Pinheiro, and the European Union is taking exactly the same position as us on land redistribution. There have been separate talks with the International Monetary Fund and the World bank—and we are in communication with them. We believe that, if we can get everyone to hold together on a sensible land redistribution strategy that complies with Zimbabwe law—that means that compensation has to be paid, as that is the law of Zimbabwe—we can pull Zimbabwe back from the brink of what might otherwise happen to its economy.