§ 7. Ms Julia Drown (South Swindon)What assessment he has made of the time scale for the implementation of the heavily indebted poor countries initiative. [125830]
§ 14. Mr. Tony Colman (Putney)If he will make a statement on his discussions with the IMF on debt relief for the heavily indebted poor countries. [125839]
§ The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gordon Brown)The funding available for debt relief is proceeding this year. Five countries—Uganda, Bolivia, Mauritania, Mozambique and Tanzania—have already reached their decision points under the enhanced initiative agreed at Cologne last year. Another four—Senegal, Burkina Faso, Honduras and Benin—are expected to come to the boards for their decision points before the G8 Summit in Japan next month.
To speed up the timetable, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development and I wrote to the managing director of the International Monetary Fund and the chairman of the World Bank suggesting a joint implementation unit; that has now been set up and has begun its work. This week, we sent two officials to Washington to work with it.
We shall continue to work closely with our G8 partners, the IMF and the World Bank to ensure that what the whole world wants is achieved—further progress on debt relief for those countries where poverty reduction is essential.
§ Ms DrownI thank my right hon. Friend for that reply. Although the Government deserve much congratulation for leading the way on debt relief, thousands of people in this country expected more debt relief to have been 445 achieved by now. I ask my right hon. Friend to be a little more specific about the concrete proposals that the Government will take to the Okinawa summit, so that we can hope—in this new millennium—for the debt relief needed to ensure that the huge waste of life that we see at the moment becomes a thing of the past.
§ Mr. BrownI thank my hon. Friend and colleagues in the House for their work in publicising the international debt issue. We have agreed that there will be £100 billion of debt relief, and we have set up the implementation unit in the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to consider the issues affecting individual countries. It is unfortunate that 11 of the potential recipients of debt relief are now in civil war or in conflict. That makes it difficult to agree solutions to their problems and to have the guarantee that the money will go to poverty reduction. However, we are continuing with our efforts to make progress on this matter and new proposals will be made at the Japan summit.
I can inform my hon. Friend that the funding problem, which was the immediate blockage last year, has been solved for this year. We must now ensure that countries that are ending or moving out of civil wars can get debt relief as quickly as possible and that those that are not in civil war can get through the process with speed. That is our aim.
§ Mr. ColmanI wish to mention a country that is not in civil war and that has recently returned to democracy. Does my right hon. Friend agree with the leader in the Financial Times of 19 June which argued for Nigeria's inclusion in the HIPC initiative—a call that was backed up from the United States by Larry Summers and from the Commonwealth by Chief Emeka Anyaoku, who this week returns to Nigeria? Will my right hon. Friend use his considerable influence at the IMF and the World Bank to press for the inclusion of Nigeria in the HIPC initiative? There is a crucial need for Nigeria to be backed on its return to democracy, given its importance to the region.
§ Mr. BrownI am grateful to my hon. Friend for his interest in Nigeria. Since Nigeria returned to democracy, we have taken an interest in trying to help it speed through the process of both debt reduction and economic recovery. Two proposals are being worked through at the moment. The first is to achieve agreement on the IMF programme that would provide help to Nigeria in the short and the long term, and the other is to move forward with the Paris Club creditors to secure the necessary debt relief.
As my hon. Friend knows, the scale of the debt problems in Nigeria is enormous. The problems that have built up over the years are difficult to solve, but the two initiatives, in which Britain has led the way since Nigeria's return to democracy, will be pursued vigorously with the rest of the world community.
§ Mr. Andrew Rowe (Faversham and Mid-Kent)The Chancellor deserves congratulations on following with such energy the precedent set by the former Prime Minister on the debt relief operation. Will the right hon. 446 Gentleman assure us that, when debt relief is given, the monitoring of whether the money thus saved is duly spent on health and education, as is the intention, is robust?
§ Mr. BrownI am grateful to the hon. Gentleman. I support everyone on both sides of the House who has made the effort to make debt reduction a central issue for the world community.
The conditionality is that the money that was previously spent on debt should go to health, education or anti-poverty programmes. It is because we have now agreed, as international institutions, that countries must sign up to a poverty reduction strategy that it is possible for money to be spent in that way, and to monitor how it is spent. For example, Uganda has promised that, when it receives the debt relief, it will use it to halve the pupil-teacher ratio in its schools from 100:1, which is an appalling rate for a country in any part of the world, to 50:1. We want the countries that receive debt relief to introduce such measures.
§ Mr. Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (Cotswold)I, too, welcome the Chancellor's announcement about the further progress made by the original 10 countries to meet the HIPC conditions. However, what personal representations have the British Government made, either directly to the countries or through the World Bank, to ensure that countries in civil war meet the conditions of good governance? They should be able to see how, by meeting the conditions of good governance and getting rid of the problems of civil war, they could be helped into the HIPC initiative, and that would improve the standard of living of their peoples.
§ Mr. BrownThat is exactly the message that has gone out, particularly from my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development, who should be praised for making fighting corruption as well as good governance a central issue with every country that she talks to about debt relief and poverty reduction. The Government have also offered countries that are either moving out of conflict or simply trying to solve debt relief problems specific help in making representations to the IMF and the World Bank and, indeed, in convening as a group of countries so that they can make far greater progress with international institutions. I am determined that we use this year to make as fast progress as possible, because that is one way in which we can respond to the massive expression of public opinion which demands that we have a solution to what has been an intractable problem for years.
§ Mr. Michael Clapham (Barnsley, West and Penistone)My right hon. Friend's initiative in persuading the G7 countries to reduce the debt of heavily indebted poor countries is greatly appreciated, but globalisation is steaming on and poorer countries are not sharing in the wealth thus created. Today, Oxfam will report that 200 children an hour are dying in poorer countries, and that we are unlikely to reach the Copenhagen target of reducing the number of child deaths in the poorest countries by two thirds by 2015. Will he, as a matter of 447 urgency, attempt to persuade the G8 countries to act to cut debt and to make more resources available, so that poverty can be tackled?
§ Mr. BrownIt is true that 30,000 children die unnecessarily every day as a result of our failure to tackle poverty and malnutrition. Around the world, 200 million people, adults and children, can barely move their bodies because of hunger and suffering. It is incumbent on us to take a lead as a Government and as a country.
In the longer term, we need to replace the vicious circle of debt, poverty and underdevelopment with a virtuous circle of debt relief, poverty reduction and economic development. To achieve those three aims, the IMF and the World Bank have been persuaded to have poverty reduction strategies for each of the poorest countries and to help those countries to make the transition to economic development. That is what my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development is trying to do. As everyone knows, there is a world target to halve poverty by 2015. That is not enough in itself, but that is the target that we have set and we are determined to take action to meet it.