43.
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs if he will make a statement about future levels of aid to Kenya.
Our gross bilateral aid programme in 1990—the last year for which figures are available—was £44 million. The future programme will depend on further political and economic reform.
Why have not the British Government been much tougher with regard to the provision of aid—as the Americans and some of our European partners have been —to ensure that the democratic changes in Kenya towards the first free, multi-party elections genuinely take root, to ensure that there is a fair system of voter registration and an independent electoral commission and to ensure that there are international observers from the United Nations or the Commonwealth? Surely the British Government must insist upon these points as a condition of the provision of future aid?
We are not out of line with other donors. All donors have agreed that new pledges of balance of payments support should await further economic and political reform. But, as is only right, we are continuing project and technical assistance activities to help the poor. I can accept a good deal of what the hon. Gentleman says about how the election should be conducted. Of course there must be free and fair elections. I only wish that the hon. Gentleman had taken the opportunity to make those points to the Kenyan Foreign Minister. An appointment was arranged for him when he was in Kenya last December.