I am glad to be able to introduce this important debate, because in the face of difficult economic times, a hitherto united front in favour of the Government’s international development programmes is perhaps beginning to crack—not, I hasten to add, in Parliament, but among the public at large. As all politicians look towards cutting the vast budget deficit that we have run up in the past couple of years, some of our constituents—I suspect that this applies as much to Harrow, West as it does to the Cities of London and Westminster—are beginning to ask why we are reducing significantly assistance to British citizens when we continue to channel taxpayers’ money into international development.

I have received several letters from constituents asking why this country continues to provide aid to countries such as South Africa—£78.5 million last year—to India, which received more than £400 million last year and to China, which received £118 million, particularly when the latter two nations are running huge budget surpluses. This is an apposite time to have the debate, because it is appropriate in these times that British taxpayers demand full value from our international development budget.

This is a very important debate. Like the hon. Gentleman’s constituents, my constituents question why we give aid to India when it is buying up British companies such as Jaguar and British Steel or Corus. Does he now suggest that the policy should be that we withdraw from giving aid to India?

On the contrary. I hope that my speech will make this clear. I think that it is all the more important that the case for international development and, more specifically, for microfinance is strongly made, in the light of what I suspect is becoming a more conventional view among many of our constituents across the country. People are entitled to question whether Britain should continue to have the same duties to the developing world now that our own economy is under pressure, and whether, in a new global landscape, developing nations’ regional partners should perhaps bear slightly more of the brunt.

Politicians from these shores should not shy away from that emerging debate. For that reason, I am particularly delighted that my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell), who has spoken so effectively for my party in the shadow Cabinet on these issues during the past four years, is here personally to reply to this debate. That is the clearest possible indication of the Conservatives’ commitment in this area.

If we are to make the case that international development remains vital to our national interests, we need to show that Department for International Development money is being channelled to effective projects and that our people overseas work vigorously to reduce the flaws in existing programmes, rather than hiding behind a shield of good will that has until now shamed people into not asking tough questions. Aside from that, the Department might also consider the expertise that it could bring to poverty reduction in this country, where people living in poor communities might benefit from some of the techniques used to help those in the developing world.

A good place to start much of that debate is in the field of microfinance. Despite the debilitating effects of the financial crisis on the developed world, I believe that broadly, the growth of financial institutions has done more than anything to spread wealth across the globe. The most pronounced poverty continues to be in the communities that are most excluded—indeed, excluded entirely—from the financial system. Microfinance can help poor people to protect themselves from risk, to escape debt and to live sustainably by creating small enterprises. It is not and cannot be a cure-all. It has not even proved sustainable or effective in all the communities in which it has been used. However, as a development technique that encourages responsibility and independence, microfinance is a form of assistance that is more likely to garner the support of the British taxpayer, especially, as I said, if it is put to work in some of the UK’s own poorest communities.

Many commercial activities in the developing world are not monetised, with trade conducted through means of exchange such as livestock. Banks are rarely tempted to change that. There is always a break-even point in providing loans or deposits, below which banks will lose money on every transaction. With poor people depositing or borrowing only small amounts, banking operations in such areas can quickly become commercially unviable. The poorest people also tend to have the fewest assets that can be secured by a bank as collateral in the event of default. That can leave the poorest ill prepared for life’s day-to-day risks. Paying for education, weddings, childbirth, health care and the impact of natural disasters—as we have seen particularly in the past two or three weeks with the terrible events in Haiti—can be an unbearable struggle, particularly in countries where there is no established welfare system. When forced to borrow, the poorest are often left to rely on family members or local moneylenders with extortionate interest rates. In those circumstances, microfinance can play a crucial role in preventing the development of a downward spiral.

Although the idea of small-scale credit as a means of poverty alleviation is a relatively old concept, it was properly developed by a Bangladeshi economist, Muhammad Yunus, in the 1970s after he discovered that very small loans to poor women in the village of Jobra could make a disproportionate difference to their lives. Yunus found that, given the chance, the poor tended to repay borrowed money, often by establishing micro-enterprises. By 1983, a pilot for a fully fledged microcredit bank was established and, in October 2007, the Grameen bank could claim to have distributed $6.5 billion in loans, boasting a loan recovery rate of 98 per cent.

The microcredit movement has tended to loan mainly to women, who are thought to be more likely to use the money to benefit their families. Since the concept’s expansion in Bangladesh, microfinance has been used as a tool to reduce poverty in developing countries worldwide, often to great effect. Let us go to another continent. After years of struggling to support seven children by working as a seamstress, Jennifer from Uganda took out a small loan in 1997 to buy her own sewing machine. That enabled her to expand her sewing business, which in turn led her to diversify into other areas—first, opening a motorcycle taxi business and later purchasing land to build rental properties. Today, she employs 57 people and has taken on the care of five AIDS orphans. Meanwhile, her natural leadership skills led to her election to the town council.

I first became interested in the idea of microfinance—as is often the way for Members of Parliament—when a constituent approached me about the concept as long ago as 2003, spurring me to write a paper on free trade and aid that made the case for distinguishing free trade from fair trade. I wrote at the time:

“The way forward should be the way of free and fair trade where the word ‘free’ (or perhaps I should say ‘open’) is as important as ‘fair’. There is a strong ethical case for supporting trade in preference to aid in promoting development in poorer countries because it makes each nation sustainable. However, I believe that where aid is the right solution, we should support direct, locally distributed aid, such as micro-finance, that preserves incentives for the citizens of those countries to achieve self-sufficiency.”

More than six years later, microfinance has returned to my consciousness by virtue particularly of the efforts of two constituents involved in the field: Louise Holly, who works for RESULTS UK, and Rev. George Bush of St. Mary-le-Bow in the City of London. RESULTS was started more than 25 years ago in the United States to empower and encourage ordinary citizens to create the political will for change in international development. Today, there are RESULTS organisations in seven countries, with the UK branch co-ordinating groups across the country from a little national office just off Regent street in my constituency.

Rev. George Bush, whose politics, I should add, are about as far removed as possible from those of his slightly more famous namesake, is involved in the establishment of a microfinance fund in the City called Arcubus. The fund aims to raise £1 million by issuing a five-year social investment bond with a zero interest coupon that will return donors’ money while channelling the interest from the collective pot into four microfinance non-governmental organisations. They will consider providing formal banking services and micro-loans to those unable to access mainstream bank loans; expand and enhance existing microfinance operations by improving efficiency and sustainability; and arrange short-term placements for City professionals at microfinance institutions in Africa.

At his ministry at St. Mary-le-Bow on Cheapside, Reverend Bush is putting in place a phenomenally important way to help people who might not otherwise understand the connections between microfinance and finance in the City of London, and the initiative provides a tremendous opportunity to open the eyes of opinion formers. Ideally, projects under the Arcubus initiative will eventually create a mixed portfolio of complementary microfinance initiatives that British individuals, companies and Churches can support.

Only three weeks ago, I returned to the home of modern microfinance, Bangladesh, to lead a delegation in my role as the vice-chairman of the all-party group on Bangladesh. We visited Dhaka, the capital, and Sylhet, from which many Bangladeshi Britons hail. One of our stops was the national football academy, which is sponsored by Canary Wharf and none other than the Grameen bank—a mark, again, of the expansion of Muhammad Yunus’s vision.

I also met our high commissioner in his residency. Having spoken to him, I am concerned that we are trying, perhaps perversely, to do too much with the £150 million annual development budget that DFID spends in Bangladesh, and if the Minister will hear me out, I will try to explain what I mean.

We currently invest in 40 different schemes in Bangladesh, but given the obvious constraints on manpower in DFID’s organisation there, it is difficult to see how we can properly supervise all those schemes. We should perhaps look to spend our DFID money in a slightly more concentrated, accountable way on fewer, higher-profile projects. I accept that political issues, and particularly regional issues, in Bangladesh perhaps make it easy for us to spread ourselves a little too thinly, but if we are to get as much of a bang for our buck as we can and derive a benefit from the taxpayers’ money that we spend, we must try to do a little less through smaller and, in some cases, longer-term schemes that we can see through to the end—currently, schemes tend to last for about three years. Despite the guarantee of a large pot of £150 million a year, there is a worry that we are not making as much of our money as we should be, and I hope the Minister will consider that.

As a way of maintaining public support for the Government’s microfinance initiatives abroad, we could adhere to the adage that charity begins at home and show that tools such as microfinance can help British people who are unbanked.

Is the hon. Gentleman aware of organisations such as Street Cred, which works with the Bangladeshi population in the east end?

It is very rare for me, as a Conservative MP, to be accused of anything to do with street cred, but the organisation that the hon. Lady mentions has just recently come on to my horizon. Obviously, I know of the tremendous amount of work that the hon. Lady does on this issue, and I hope she will understand when I say that we need to link microfinance to what we do in this country so that it is regarded as being not only of relevance overseas, but of great relevance—particularly, but not exclusively—in inner-city communities in this country.

Thanks in part to our welfare system, very few people, in truth, live in absolute poverty in this country. When it comes to accessing finance, however, the problem is different. It is estimated that almost 8 million people are unable to access mainstream credit and often find themselves turning to informal moneylenders, who can frequently charge exorbitant rates of interest. Three million people do not have a bank account. Our average household debt, excluding mortgage payments, stands at £9,500, and Citizens Advice has been dealing with 7,200 new debt problems every working day. Although we have more material wealth than ever before, poverty has become more concentrated and inequality has become more marked, with some communities heavily dependent on charitable giving and public money, whether in the form of welfare benefits or grants. People in such communities are also more likely to be preyed on by doorstep lenders owing to financial illiteracy, poor credit ratings, a sense of exclusion from mainstream financial lending, past family experience and confusion over the financial products available.

I do not want to sound hysterical, but a headline that appeared only yesterday—it was quite shocking for me as a London MP—said that 19 per cent. of London’s children are being brought up in severe poverty, which is a great worry. We see that poverty even in my constituency, cheek by jowl with a lot of wealth. As I say, it is wrong to be hysterical, but we need to recognise that there are quite significant problems in this country, which are partly down to the fact that too many people are unable to access more mainstream finance. Introducing microfinance initiatives into such communities will help to challenge the perception of risk that attaches to the poor’s ability to repay loans, and it will help to support entrepreneurs who are considered unbankable.

Community development finance institutions are a fast-growing sector and provide finance and support to new and growing businesses in disadvantaged communities, which in turn creates jobs and services where they are most needed. I was contacted only last week by a constituent, Richard Matthews, who is looking to establish a credit union in the Covent Garden and Leicester Square districts of my constituency, something that is proving particularly popular with the Chinese community there.

CDFIs, which combine elements of the private and charitable sectors, promote a culture of self-help and combat poverty and social exclusion from the bottom up. Although they are not conventional sources of finance, they provide finance to viable enterprises and seek financial and social returns on their investments. In 2007-08, the last year for which we have reliable figures, CDFI lending totalled £76 million, levering £35 million of additional finance into unserved markets such as black and minority ethnic businesses, women’s businesses and small start-up businesses.

In London, a new drive to assist people through microfinance projects is being spurred by Fair Finance, an organisation that offers loans and advice to those who have been excluded from accessing mainstream services. Launched in 2005, Fair Finance has grown incredibly rapidly, expanding from its original base on a council estate in Stepney, just four miles east of here, to cover half of London. It has helped hundreds of excluded women to create businesses and it has saved many hundreds more from eviction. Its managing director, Faisel Rahman, has a background in international development and experience at Grameen bank and the World Bank, where he focused on the development of microfinance.

A client who borrows from Fair Finance tends to save £20 to £100 per month in reduced interest payments alone, compared with what they would pay to doorstep lenders, who have been known to charge interest rates of up to 4,000 per cent. annual percentage rate. By opening bank accounts and establishing credit histories for its clients, Fair Finance helps them to access cheaper products and services, helping them, for example, to pay utility bills by direct debit and to obtain longer-term contracts for mobile phones. Importantly, it also advises clients on managing their finances, which will, one hopes, introduce the habit of saving.

Unfortunately, Mr. Rahman believes that the biggest barrier to micro-entrepreneurs who take Fair Finance loans is the structure of the benefits system, which makes it unlikely that someone starting a business will be able to make enough money to cover council tax, rent and living costs, and there is obviously an issue with housing benefit, which is a particular problem in the capital. Micro-entrepreneurs also have to fill out a self-certification form every time their income changes, potentially leading to a damaging reassessment of their benefits. Such difficult short-term prospects may have an impact on whether they wish to remain part of the initiative. Obviously, there are other pitfalls in the application of microfinance here and abroad. Unfortunately, we have to accept that microfinance is not a panacea. As with all other development interventions, it is important that we constantly ask questions about its effectiveness.

Access to financial services has undoubtedly permanently improved the lot of some poor people, but is it unclear whether microfinance reduces poverty on average. There are few studies of its effectiveness, and it has been difficult to use a correlation to prove a causation. For instance, if affluence and microcredit go hand in hand, does that mean that the better-off borrow more or that borrowing makes people better off? That is a potentially circular argument.

Microfinance does not work as well in every country and it has great difficulties in large parts of Africa, for instance, where a lack of basic resources, a dearth of customers and difficulties with health make it particularly hard to be entrepreneurial. A disparate population can also make microfinance unsustainable owing to high operational costs, and loan books concentrated in a specific geographical area can be vulnerable to natural disasters or downturns in the local economy. Some women have also reported that their money has been stolen by their husbands or others, or that it has been lost to the demands of corrupt officials or village elders. For many, microfinance alone cannot be an alternative to direct aid, and I am not suggesting for one minute that it should be.

Critics of microfinance also point to high interest rates charged by lenders, but equally, interest rate caps can harm the poor, as they prevent institutions from covering their costs, often choking off supply. Furthermore, few institutions are held accountable for their performance, which leads to significant inefficiencies and market distortions. At worst, borrowers have on occasion effectively become wage labourers for a local microfinance bank. In places where microfinance is in operation, traditional moneylenders are often found to flourish too. Such lenders offer quick loan disbursement, confidentiality and flexibility. By contrast, the poor do not always find the lower rates of interest from microfinance institutions to be an adequate compensation for the time it takes to attend meetings and training courses, and the financial cost of monthly contributions.

Such criticisms tend to be valid, in my view, only when microfinance is considered in isolation. Its proponents have never claimed that it is a cure-all, and it should be kept in mind that microcredit and training are designed to offer a hand up rather than a long-term handout. It is also about more than just loans. The most successful microfinance institutions are increasingly providing access to other financial tools such as savings, insurance, training and financial education, as an economy becomes more sophisticated. As I have said, I would continue to promote free trade as the best tool to alleviate poverty, but in its absence microfinance can play an integral role in a comprehensive economic development process by generating local economic activity and stimulating demand for goods and services.

Microfinance has dispelled the notion that those on the lowest rungs of the income ladder are worthy only of aid, not the assistance of financial services. It has also helped to shoot down the idea that the poor are not able to follow basic rules of commerce. In much of Asia and Africa, the rural poor have proved that they can be entrepreneurial, and can launch a business and earn money. Even if the loans fail, the amounts of money involved are so small that that form of support for poverty alleviation may still be more effective than traditional aid. Donors should now focus on capacity building, particularly when it comes to obtaining strong managers to run microfinance institutions. We should also cast aside prejudice about traditional moneylenders, although we should not of course support lenders who charge extortionate rates. The poor have diverse needs and therefore need a range of lenders that can operate in any market: traditional banks, microfinance institutions, credit unions and even some doorstep lenders.

At a time when Government budgets are under strict scrutiny as never before, it will become even more important for each Department to articulate the benefits of its work. That is one reason why I wanted today’s debate. If global development budgets are to be ring-fenced, the Department for International Development must prepare to explain its work in terms that demonstrate value to the taxpayer and tangible results for the poor communities being served. In microfinance, DFID has a form of aid that has more chance than most of becoming self-sustaining and long lasting, and which will echo the themes of responsibility and independence that will become ever more important as our own nation negotiates the tough times ahead. Microfinance is insufficient alone to eradicate poverty and is second best to free trade, but if it is implemented alongside complementary policies, there is every opportunity for it to promote long-term growth in the poor communities that it serves. That applies equally to the slums of Nairobi, to rural Sylhet in Bangladesh, or to a council estate in Stepney.

I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on securing the debate. It is some time since we had an informed debate on microfinance, so I am delighted that we have the opportunity today. I apologise to all hon. Members who are present, because I must be at the first sitting of a Bill Committee and must leave early.

It is important, as the hon. Gentleman outlined, to consider the full range of what microfinance involves. We think about it as the provision of financial services to those who are traditionally excluded, but it is important to remember that it goes far further than providing small loans to set up a business. It is important for access to savings accounts and insurance, in particular. As the hon. Gentleman said, it is important to think about microcredit in this country, as well as its role as an international development tool. Clearly it has great scope, particularly in marginalised communities such as the one that I mentioned in an intervention. I am sure that especially in the current economic climate we want to do as much as we can to support our local credit unions.

Much of my work on microcredit has involved observing overseas projects. There is a self-help aspect to it—it is bottom-up. It is not about someone coming along and telling people how to do things, but involves employing local people in local organisations. It is about development at a rate that is compatible with local cultures and what the people choose to do with their lives. I agree that evaluation throughout is important and it can never be said that every project is a huge success; but we need to consider all the different dimensions. I want briefly to touch on some personal experiences, to bring out some general points.

Several years ago I was very impressed by the work that I saw in Kibera in Nairobi. It was amazing to people who visited it. People were lifting themselves out of extreme poverty and terrible living conditions. The fragility of that, however, was shown after the elections in Kenya, when there were riots in Kibera. There were many people with debts, whose businesses were smashed. We can never stand back, thinking that there is the power to make things sustainable in such extreme conditions.

I visited a project in Malawi with Opportunity International. The Opportunity International banks in Malawi are primarily savings institutions. They have a savings to loan ratio almost the opposite of ours, and many of us might feel more comfortable with that. The provision of that savings facility is all-important. The bank provides a smartcard, with an identifier using fingerprints to access money from machines and deposit it in mobile vans in the villages. The strength of the arrangement is that the people involved, who are primarily women, can get their money safely into the bank as soon as possible. That is crucial to enable them to move forward and protect their money to use on the things they want it for. That is an interesting savings model. Loans are made, but the model is primarily about savings.

I was fortunate enough to visit some projects that came from both the Grameen bank and BRAC in Bangladesh where another aspect of microfinance was demonstrated. We went to a village and heard how a group of women had used their money. The loans were predominantly to buy goats and animals. It could be argued that the basic loans had not led to any further growth, beyond survival and life being made a little more comfortable. However, one of the women introduced us to her son who had just completed his master’s degree. That was one of the add-ons that are such an important aspect of microfinance. Because of the predominance of women in using it, there is a tendency for it to be used to promote the family’s future. It is difficult to measure that as an impact of microfinance, but it seems to me to be one of the most sustainable aspects of it. It tends very much towards the improvement of educational opportunities for the next generation, and beyond. There are so many wonderful stories about that.

I now touch on a more recent experience.

The hon. Lady reminds me of a lasting thought about my trip to Bangladesh at the beginning of January. I noted a sense of positivity among middle-aged Bangladeshis, as the prospects for their children and grandchildren were going to be markedly better than theirs had been. The hon. Lady rightly says that elements of microfinance and of a growing economy are central to the Bangladeshis’ sense of optimism for the future of their country.

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. That is why we must always look at the bigger picture when it comes to the impact of microfinance.

I now refer to a totally different situation. I have visited Chennai, an area affected by the 2004 tsunami, to see some microfinance projects there. Rebuilding was not complete, but it was well under way. That was of great interest, as it showed the enormous importance of microfinance as part of what I would call a regeneration project. What I witnessed there was a good example of the empowerment of women through microfinance.

In the area that I visited, the male occupation was predominantly fishing. However, there were problems with alcoholism and domestic violence. The women in the microfinance group explained that when they identified someone, or if somebody came to them to say that they were experiencing domestic violence, the women as a group would challenge the perpetrator. That was an amazing example of the empowerment of females.

In that brief run around the world, I have tried to illustrate how microfinance can make a contribution to a large number of the millennium development goals.

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for giving way. Almost single-handedly, she has led on this issue for many years, and I congratulate her on her work.

The hon. Lady says that she has run around the world, but she has not touched on Afghanistan. She may be aware that 65 per cent. of the £4 million loans given for microfinance use over the past five years in Afghanistan went to women, to empower them. Does she think that that was a more effective use of our taxpayers’ money than the £4 billion spent over that time on the war?

I shall not be drawn into that. The important point is that although microfinance is never the only tool it makes an important contribution. I am aware of the microfinance projects in Afghanistan. Indeed, I have spoken to the Bangladesh rural advancement committee—BRAC. Straying slightly, it is staggering that such a country should have produced two enormous NGOs. BRAC, in particular, has reached out worldwide. I am sure that other organisations are operating there, but I am well aware of the work that they are doing. As for the social issues in Afghanistan, most of us believe that it is not only the fighting that needs to be tackled but the social structures, and microfinance does indeed have a role.

I have touched indirectly on the millennium development goals, which include alleviating extreme poverty and everyone having access to primary education. On the latter, where microfinance is operating, it is going much further up the scale than primary education. For example, the Grameen bank is giving support for children to go to secondary school, and members of the bank are able to access loans to send their children to university. It is absolutely incredible. As for the health goal, most of the projects that I have seen involve a lot of health education; they are running with support—and obviously the empowerment of women.

We often say that microfinance is targeted particularly at women. Of course, there are men who benefit, and I do not wish to exclude them, but the fact is that 83 per cent. or more of clients are women. If there is something that women can do, they can quickly get direct benefits.

As I said, evaluation and capacity building is all important. I have seen many projects that I thought would provide no further movement up the scale for the individual. However, as in the examples given by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster, I have also seen projects that are at the point of employing 40 or 60 people. The range is extreme. Then, of course, some clients move on to owning umpteen businesses and become very entrepreneurial.

We have to appreciate that there is a big range, but for those whose businesses are not going to expand greatly we should look at the wider education and health benefits when evaluating projects. Of course, we must ensure that funds are used as efficiently as possible, and learn from good examples. It is interesting to note how similar projects can be in different continents, but we must reflect on the differences. That, however, is a separate question.

I was pleased to see that the multi-donor facility for Africa has been set up. I keep asking about it because it is important that we consider the social impact; we need a strong set of social goals and a robust project design. The fund must build in safeguards and systems to promote appropriate micro-models within the structure of the fund. That is important, and the all-party group on microfinance is most interested in pursuing the future of the fund there. That is particularly appropriate for Africa; although there are some amazing examples of microfinance, we are not breaking in percentage-wise given the overall situation there.

Finally—this was meant to be a brief contribution—the all-party group is taking a particular interest in the wider issue of micro-insurance. We have always been keen on insuring for weddings, funerals and other events, but we need to consider micro-insurance on the larger scale, as part of our adaptation to climate change. It is a really important future agenda. We have raised questions with the Minister before, but it would be interesting to have an update on his view of DFID’s position on the matter. Clearly, we cannot predict natural disasters, nor where or when climate change will have an impact. Having an international fund that ties in with micro-insurance would be of enormous benefit.

A lot of work needs to be done. When in Africa, I heard that as many weather stations as possible are needed in order to track what is happening to the climate there. Proof will be needed in order claim against the fund. The country is working with farmers to plot variations in climate—and looking to farmers to plan their payments. Farmers in Africa often sell their produce in advance at a low price. That is obviously devastating for them, as they never escape from the trap, but by using the financial system they could even out their incomes and outgoings in a rational way.

A lot of groundwork is needed, particularly with agriculture, working with farmers not only in Africa but globally. Supporting micro-insurance in countries that may be particularly affected by climate change is really important.

I am delighted to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke). Moreover, I wish to congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on securing this debate and on introducing it in such a comprehensive and measured way. He is right to address the debate that exists in the country about why we contribute so much to international development—I know that some argue that we are not doing enough, but that is part of the wider debate. I was pleased, too, to hear him explore the impact that microfinance can have in this country. The hon. Gentleman raised some broader points about international development, including this poor-countries-versus-poor-people argument about where we should target our assistance, particularly in the context of India and China. I appreciate that it is legitimate to explore such an area in the widest terms, but if we use, for example, the poverty of the country as a whole, we can quickly find other reasons, such as human rights records and behavioural patterns of Governments, to remove such countries from the equation as far as international development is concerned. We should therefore concentrate on the alleviation of poverty for the people rather than focusing on the country exclusively. In countries such as China, though, we should consider what the Department for International Development is doing, because important technical assistance work on climate change is under way. It is a two-way street in which we are learning from them and they are learning from us. Although we need to critically evaluate such important work, we should also continue to support it.

The financial crisis to which the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster referred—he also mentioned it in his helpful article on his website—has been truly awful, and we have seen it at first hand in our own constituencies. The impact on the developing world, however, has been stark. The World Bank estimates that, as a result of the credit crunch, the finance gap for 2009 is around $635 billion, some $40 billion of which is in Africa. The priority that has been given to saving the western banking system has meant that Africa and parts of Asia have been left to fend for themselves. For example, 82 per cent. of the International Monetary Fund’s emergency resources has gone to European countries, and only 1.6 per cent. has been allocated to African countries.

Any debate on development has to be seen in the context of the dreadful events that occurred in Haiti a fortnight ago. It is a truly shocking catastrophe and highlights the need for urgent humanitarian assistance, which must be backed up in the long term by really serious development attention. Many people have been talking about getting Haiti back on its feet, only for Paul Collier to pull us up short and point out that it was never on its feet in the first place. I hope that we will be debating Haiti’s needs before long. Few could argue with the premise that it will need direct development assistance on a large scale for many years to come, and it is not alone in that.

In whatever part of the developing world we focus our attention on, the demands for development assistance are huge. Alongside the many channels of direct aid, which we debate and scrutinise in this House, we must not forget the importance of wealth creation as a key way to alleviate poverty. In that respect, microfinance plays an important part, which has been recognised by policy makers on the international stage for a long time. In 2005, the G8 at Gleneagles stated:

“African countries need to build a much stronger investment climate: we will continue to help them do so through the promotion of a stable, efficient and harmonised legal business framework...and increased access to finance including strong support for the development of micro-finance in Africa.”

The DFID White Paper committed the UK to support the creation of the new multi-donor facility, to which my hon. Friend referred, which has a goal of delivering microfinance to an additional 10 million clients over five years. Last year, DFID provided £250,000 towards the Consultative Group to Assist the Poor, which is a multi-donor partnership that works to expand access to finance and that monitors the success of microfinance projects worldwide. That is important work, which we support.

Today, the UK development finance institution, CDC, announced that it is to invest an additional $10 million in the ShoreCap II microfinance fund. Neatly timed to coincide with this debate, the CDC announcement reminds us that 160 million people are supported through microfinance institutions, and that 3 billion people across the world remain unbanked and without proper access to financial institutions and the products that they offer. The scale, therefore, is vast and it is a chasm that we would do well to cross.

Boosting the proportion of our official development assistance that is dedicated to microfinance programmes will barely make up the substantial gap in investment that has emerged as a result of the current economic crisis. However, it is important to ensure that those at the bottom of the pile across the world will be in a position to join in the recovery.

As others have already said, the development benefits from microfinance touch on not only poverty and hunger reduction, but a number of the millennium development goals, particularly for women. A whole body of research suggests that women’s participation in microfinance programmes has helped them to break free of traditional gender roles and contribute to their local communities and families. In Nepal, for example, a local women’s empowerment programme found that more than two-thirds of those participating were making decisions on buying and selling property, the education of their families and negotiating marriages. All those tasks were traditionally performed by the men in the community.

Between 2002 and 2009, DFID invested more than £40 million in microfinance in Afghanistan, more than 60 per cent. of which went to women. Other benefits have been seen in areas such as child mortality. A Ghanaian study showed that “Freedom from Hunger” clients had better breastfeeding practices and that their one-year-old children were of a healthier weight and height than non-client children.

In 2009, there were more than 3,500 microfinance organisations in the world and significantly more than 50 per cent. of their borrowers were women. According to RESULTS UK, half a billion people are now involved in microfinance, which is indicative of the success of the movement globally. However, there are some issues about microfinance that must be addressed. The amount that is being invested in microfinance institutions is increasing—the CDC fund might be seen as an example of that—and there is still some way to go. However, the scheme has become so successful that people are beginning to question the motivations of those who are investing in such funds. I am not against people making a decent return, but let me highlight a recent example that was brought to my attention.

A Mexican microlender with more than 840,000 customers went public in 2007, and raised $450 million for a group of backers who had originally invested about $6 million, which is the sort of return that most of us would like to see. In the analysis of that particular case, it emerged that the bank involved routinely charged annual interest rates of more than 100 per cent and that the overall return on equity enjoyed on the project was three times the 15 per cent. delivered by traditional lenders. So we can understand why the non-governmental organisations sometimes get a little uneasy about that type of finance and I hope that the Minister can offer some reassurance about how we are tackling what are perhaps the excesses at the margins of microfinance. Nevertheless, with pressure on public spending in the developing world becoming more severe, it seems to me that a proportion of any increase in the resources available for development assistance will certainly have to come from microfinance initiatives.

We will have to tackle the different issues that were raised by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster. For example, he raised the issue of the evidence that has emerged from different studies, which does not always seem to conclude that microfinance is a good thing. However, in anticipation of today’s debate, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole and I were discussing this issue yesterday and she used a very good example of a woman who had enjoyed the use of microfinance. That woman herself had not seen a huge change in her income, but she had received a good, stable income, which enabled her children to receive proper schooling. Indeed, one of her children is now able to study for a master’s degree, which would otherwise not have been possible. So the impact of microfinance might not be immediately obvious, but through the generations it certainly becomes obvious.

In today’s headlines in the United Kingdom, we are hearing the heralding of the end of the great recession, although, as with everything that is advanced, we will wait to see the detailed figures before we start celebrating. As parliamentarians, we are inevitably and rightly preoccupied with the impact of what until recently we were calling “the credit crunch” on our constituents and focusing on the policy responses that we need to see to help many of our constituents to get out of the difficulties that they are in. However, in doing so I strongly believe that we must not lose sight of the wider impact of the downturn on the developing world. Private finance plays a critical role in alleviating that impact and it is currently drying up. If ever there was a moment for us to focus on the importance and the potential of microfinance, it is right now.

It is a great pleasure to appear under your chairmanship once again, Mr. Gale.

I should perhaps explain to the House that my hon. Friend the Member for Cotswold (Mr. Clifton-Brown), who is the shadow Secretary for international development and for trade, is on a campaigning visit to Sunderland and I am appearing, as it were, in his place.

First, I wanted to respond to the point made by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore), the Liberal spokesman, about Haiti. I hope that we will be discussing Haiti again in the House before too long and I completely echo the hon. Gentleman’s sentiments. Having said that, of course there will be a time for us to look at the way that the international community has co-ordinated the relief operation in Haiti and at the lessons that need to be learned from that operation. Indeed, my party has made it clear that if we were to win the next election, we would immediately set up a review of the way that Britain makes its contribution in this area of relief work. In the much-used words of Douglas Hurd, it is an area where Britain punches “above our weight” and we have a very big contribution to make, to ensure that the necessary lessons from the tragedy in Haiti are learned.

For now, of course, the main effort must be on bringing some hope and relief, particularly in providing shelter, food and medicine for the poor people in Haiti who are still, so many days after the earthquake struck, in desperate conditions. I am sure that we are all immensely proud of the contribution that British fire service personnel and NGOs are making to that effort.

The Minister would be expected to praise the staff of the Department for International Development. None the less, may I suggest that we add them to the list of staff that the hon. Gentleman has just cited, to pay tribute to the work that they are doing on the ground in Haiti too?

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. I am usually the first to pay such tribute and I happily do so again today.

I want to refer to the speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on the very important area of microfinance. Together with the hon. Members for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, he has done a great service to the cause of microfinance, highlighting the importance with which it should be viewed. It is perhaps not surprising that my hon. Friend, who is the Member of Parliament for the centre of the world’s financial services industry, should speak with such eloquence and knowledge on this vital extension of financial services to some of the poorest people on our planet.

In his opening remarks, my hon. Friend made some general comments about the support for development in the downturn that we are experiencing at the moment and about the countries that Britain seeks to support, which was a point picked up both by the hon. Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle) in an intervention and by the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk, in a comment about China.

I just wanted to say a word or two about my hon. Friend’s comments about the countries that we support. As our right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron), the leader of the Conservative party, has said—I paraphrase his remarks—“At a time of economic hardship, now is not the time to turn our back on the poorest in the world, who are hit first and hardest and who are least able to cope with these circumstances, but to reaffirm our promises to them.” I am sure that my hon. Friend and indeed the whole House would join me in saying that those sentiments are absolutely right. In view of the economic climate that my hon. Friend rightly identified, it is worth making the point that this approach to these matters is not sentimental but very hard-headed, which explains why, in these times of economic difficulties, we say that we should ring-fence the international development budget and reaffirm our commitment to reaching the target of giving 0.7 per cent. of gross national income to international development by 2013.

There are, above all, two reasons why my hon. Friend referred to the importance of giving this support. The first is that it is morally right to do so. Our generations have a real opportunity to make a big impact in this area. Because of globalisation and because of what we know, the discrepancies of opportunity and wealth around our world today are obscene and we have the ability to do something about those discrepancies. That is, if you like, the moral case.

However, the second point is that it is absolutely in our national self-interest to support strongly the cause of development in some of the poorest and most difficult parts of the world. I want to make that point very clearly; this is not only an issue of morality, although that in itself is a sufficiently important reason for many of us to give support, but an issue that is of absolute importance to our national self-interest.

The document that I have given a hard copy of to the Minister of State is the Conservative party’s Green Paper on development, “One World Conservatism”; I should point out that he is handling it with a pair of tongs, as it were, in his seat. I hope that it eloquently makes the two points that I have made about the importance of international development. However, it also makes the point that we will only maintain public support for this spending if we are able to demonstrate through independent evaluation that the money is really well spent—that for every 100p we take from the hard-pressed British taxpayer, they are receiving £1 of real value. Independent evaluation, which I have been banging on about tediously for the last four years, is absolutely essential if we are to maintain public support for this vital development budget. We need value for money and transparency. Transparency is important, because we need to hold ourselves accountable not only to the British taxpayer but to the poor people in the developing world who we are trying to help. That is why transparency, as well as value for money and independent evaluation, is so vital.

The second point that my hon. Friend made in his opening remarks was about the countries to which we are giving support. I think that DFID is currently giving support to 102 countries around the world. We have made it clear that if we were to win the general election, we would immediately set up a review of every country that is receiving support from the British taxpayer through the development budget, to ensure that that money is well-focused.

My hon. Friend was asked about India after he mentioned China, which the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk discussed as well. The Conservatives said some time ago that if we are elected, we will stop aid to China, which recently spent £20 billion on the Olympics and which, thanks to the international trading system, is roaring out of poverty. India seems to be a different case. There are, after all, more poor people in India than in all of sub-Saharan Africa. It is a country with which we have deep historical links through the Commonwealth, and it is in a different position. In the event of a Conservative victory at the election, that would be a matter for discussion under review.

Turning directly to my hon. Friend’s comments about the importance of microfinance, I associate myself entirely with what the hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole said. She and my hon. Friend spoke eloquently about the vital importance of microfinance in poor countries as well as in less poor ones, where the principles of microfinance can be enormously valuable. Not only does it help people to help themselves, as my hon. Friend said, but it goes directly to women. As I hope to explain in my remarks, it is women in every sphere of activity who bear the brunt of poverty throughout the developing world and who are particularly helped by microfinance.

In terms of our support for microfinance, I draw my hon. Friend’s attention to page 40 of the Conservative Green Paper on international development, where we say strongly that the lessons learned about how to make microfinance as effective as possible are important, and that we will embrace them and do everything that we can to help spread microfinance’s beneficial effects.

Professor Yunus, the father of microfinance, first became heavily involved in it three decades ago and founded the Grameen bank. Some 160 million people in the developing world now benefit, but I should point out that according to a recent World Bank report, 3 billion people in developing countries have no access to formal financial services. We need to ensure that we do everything possible to spread that access to help people increase their incomes and improve their lives.

In his excellent book “Banker to the Poor”, Yunus wrote about how he started the approach that led him to set up his bank, which demonstrates many of the most important aspects of how microfinance works. I had the pleasure of spending a day with Professor Yunus some time ago at the Grameen bank in Bangladesh, where I saw many of the characteristics that have made the bank and his approach to microfinance such a tremendous success. The bank has 6.5 million borrowers, 96 per cent. of whom are women, lends more than £2.5 billion and achieves a recovery rate of 98 per cent. Before the current financial crisis, I used to point out that that was a higher recovery rate than that of Barclays bank, but in view of recent events, I think that it is no longer appropriate to make that point.

My hon. Friend made the critical point that microfinance helps people to help themselves, empowers women, is self-sustaining and provides financial services to the poorest. He also said that it underlines an eternal truth about development: although conflict, dysfunctional societies and bad leaders are the key reasons why people remain mired in poverty, wealth creation, private enterprise, property rights, the rule of law, contracts and an independent judiciary, as the Liberal spokesman also said, all help lift people out of poverty.

My hon. Friend’s point about the importance of free trade reminds us that we should not give up on the Doha trade round, which was originally conceived in the aftermath of the terrible events of 9/11 and was always meant to be a development round. We are close to making significant progress on it. In my view, Ministers should redouble their efforts to ensure that the Doha round gains are not lost. There is no authoritative survey that does not show that success in the Doha round would make everyone in the world—rich and poor alike—richer. Perhaps the Minister of State, in replying to this debate, will say a word or two about where the Government stand in respect of the Doha round. The negotiations are carried out not bilaterally but through the European Union, of course, but I am sure that the House would welcome his comments on where we are.

Some of us have seen microfinance in action. In Bangladesh, I saw how microfinance can reach even the poorest of the poor with considerable effect. I saw the work of BRAC, still the biggest non-governmental organisation in the world. A couple of weeks ago, in Athar village in the Punjab, I saw the direct results of microfinance on the community. It has allowed the start-up of small enterprises, some of which I sampled, and lifted the standard of living in that poor community. There is now clean water for all the local population, and 100 per cent. of the children attend primary school. That is a direct effect of the microfinance approach.

Other innovative approaches are being taken as well, not least by RESULTS UK, a brilliant British organisation. Kiva.org offers peer-to-peer loans to entrepreneurs in developing countries. It is a model of transparency and public engagement. Some $170 million of loans have been made through Kiva, with 661,000 lenders and 290,000 recipient entrepreneurs. It achieves a repayment rate of 98.27 per cent., and 83 per cent. of loans are made to women. Hon. Members might be interested to know that that remarkable endeavour’s youngest lender is one year old and its oldest is 101.

Through GlobalGiving.org.uk, members of the public can choose where they invest, including in microfinance. My hon. Friend referred to the Arcubus bond, and the Liberal Democrat spokesman mentioned the CDC announcement and the recent International Finance Corporation aim to raise money for microfinance. A bond issue targeted at Japanese investors to support microfinance programmes has made $300 million. The IFC is considering raising funding in the European bond markets as well. New delivery technologies such as branchless banking through mobile phones are highly innovative efforts to take forward the microfinance agenda and reach the poorest in communities throughout the world.

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Cities of London and Westminster on an interesting contribution to an important debate and on reminding us of the importance of the international development budget and the absolute importance of the private enterprise, free market development agenda, which is so important in helping people lift themselves out of poverty.

In the usual way, I congratulate the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster (Mr. Field) on securing this debate. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Chorley (Mr. Hoyle), the hon. Members for Castle Point (Bob Spink) and for Mid-Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) and the Opposition spokesmen, the hon. Members for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Mr. Moore) and for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell), on their contributions.

I will reply to a number of the observations made by the hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster before I come to the substance of his remarks. I have been interested in microfinance for a considerable period, starting in part with my chairmanship of the UK Co-operative party. The Co-op party has a long-standing interest in credit unions and social enterprises that can help enable access to low-cost finance for people in the UK.

The hon. Gentleman made some interesting remarks that, in a sense, highlighted the continuing potential for microfinance, not only in developing countries, but here in the UK. I hope he will forgive me if I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions and her ministerial team to his remarks about the potential for microfinance in the UK. For a short period, I was responsible for consumer affairs as well as development—an interesting mix if ever there was one—and as part of that I considered what else we could do to crack down on illegal moneylending. That involved helping to ensure not only that responses from the police, housing associations and so on were clear and united, but that effective alternatives to the use of illegal moneylenders became increasingly available. I was delighted that the Treasury made additional finance available for cheap loans, but I suspect that my right hon. Friend will be able to do more justice to the potential for microfinance in the UK than I can during this short debate.

Some time ago, I had the privilege of meeting Professor Yunus and sharing a platform with him. There is no doubt that the work of the Grameen bank has inspired a considerable interest in microfinance and its potential across the developing world. As other hon. Members have described, microfinance has been taken up by organisations such as RESULTS UK, which does an excellent job.

However, I must part company a little with the hon. Gentleman: I do not think there is a choice between aid and trade. That is a false choice. There is both a role for aid to encourage trade and a role for trade—indeed, trade must be the long-term route out of poverty for developing countries. We can use aid budgets to do many things to help accelerate the development of trade, and we are considering exactly that. I would not want the House or those who follow our proceedings to run away with the notion that the Department for International Development does not face tough questions. We are regularly examined by the Public Accounts Committee and the National Audit Office, and there are a series of different ways in which our various programmes are evaluated. As a Minister in DFID, I have certainly never felt that I am not under scrutiny all the time—I know my officials have a similar view.

The hon. Gentleman raised the interesting subject of the debates taking place in some quarters about whether we should continue to give aid at current levels. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield pointed out that, of course, there is a very strong moral case, of which Haiti is the latest reminder. However, in the past five or 10 years alone, the notion that we can stay within our island and not worry about what happens in countries around the world has disappeared, if it were ever true before.

The hon. Member for Castle Point brought home the truth of that with his reference to Afghanistan. We know that drug lords in Afghanistan have occasionally been the only source of credit in local communities and that 90 per cent. of the heroin that ends up on Britain’s streets starts off in the opium poppy fields of Afghanistan. To bring us back in a circular route to the debate, the microfinance programme that we are supporting in Afghanistan, which has helped more than 440,000 Afghans to get access to loans, is just one way that aid for another country can help to make a difference and protect the UK. So there is both a moral case and a case in terms of our self-interest for continuing to invest in development assistance.

The hon. Member for Cities of London and Westminster made a number of comments about Bangladesh and the size of the aid programme there. I do not accept that our aid programme in Bangladesh is in some way unaccountable, but I accept his point that we must keep the number of programmes we have under review at all times. I will obviously draw his remarks to the attention of the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for Worcester (Mr. Foster), who has responsibility for our programmes in Bangladesh. However, I suspect that the nature of the hon. Gentleman’s visit meant that he did not have a chance to have a lengthy conversation with staff in Bangladesh. That might have given him more reassurance about the way in which we are keeping what we do in that country under close review.

Nevertheless, I welcome the opportunity that this debate provides to raise awareness of the difference that microfinance can play in transforming the lives of so many of the world’s poorest people. Roughly 2.7 billion people have no access to formal financial services and instead depend on an income that is both irregular and unreliable. As other hon. Members have said, those people sometimes also depend on risky informal financial services, such as rogue moneylenders.

Across Africa, fewer than one in five people use formal banking, and in countries of particularly acute poverty the figure is fewer than one in 10. As other hon. Members have said, that makes it harder for such people to start businesses or to contribute to their country’s economic growth, and it makes them particularly vulnerable to natural disasters. For many people, a small loan and a savings account can make all the difference. As we have said, access to those things can prevent a farmer from being forced into opium cultivation, a child from being sent out to work instead of getting a proper education or, indeed, a local business from having to stay small rather than expand and create more jobs.

We need to recognise the potential and the limits of microfinance. Microfinance is not the only type of financial service that we need to increase the reach of, but nevertheless it is an important one, which can lead us to recognise that poverty and risk do not have to go hand in hand. The real challenge for those involved with microfinance is one of sheer scale, and in order to achieve depth and breadth of reach a number of things must happen. First, banks and investors must get more involved in the sector. In recent years, there has been some positive progress in that direction and many international banks have already increased their participation in the sector—more than 100 microfinance investment funds have been set up—but we need more of that to meet the level of demand.

Secondly, Governments and regulators have a responsibility to remove any unnecessary policy or legal barriers to the expansion of financial services. Through our funding of the financial sector reform and strengthening initiative, DFID is providing help on regulatory issues in the financial services sector to more than 60 countries. Governments are also in a position to test new technology, such as using branchless banking to pay wages and pensions, which can help the extent of the reach of microfinance initiatives. There is no reason why branchless banking—perhaps using mobile phone technology—could not be extended to microfinance. Customers would benefit from the speed and ease of access, and banks themselves would enjoy greater flexibility.

Thirdly, Governments can encourage the private sector to set targets for extending access to financial services to more poor people. For example, in India, just four months after the Government had urged banks to offer no-frills accounts to low-income people, 500,000 such accounts had been opened. That needs to be replicated across the developing world although, of course, we must recognise that no two countries have identical requirements and the solution must always be tailored to meet specific needs.

Fourthly, we need to teach more people about financial services. Some people can feel ill-informed, anxious or confused when dealing with financial matters. That is particularly relevant when talking about people in the developing world who may be using financial services for the first time. However, it is also relevant to people here in the UK, which is one of the points the hon. Gentleman implicitly made. With regard to the developing world, that is why we set up a financial education fund over a year ago to help people across Africa to understand better the financial choices available to them.

The provision of financial services brings its own challenges, and microfinance businesses might need help and guidance as they expand their reach, so the Department, together with the World Bank, is currently developing a fund, to which the hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk alluded, to support microfinance providers in Africa. We want that fund to invigorate approaches to microfinance, encourage innovation and ensure that people have the training they need. Ultimately, that should mean that financial services become more widely available to those who have traditionally been considered unbankable. I have already discussed that initiative with the all-party group on microfinance, chaired then by the hon. Member for North Poole (Mr. Syms), and I remain ready and willing to listen to comments from any Members who have an interest in the matter.

I will now respond to some of the specific points that other hon. Members have made. The hon. Member for Mid-Dorset and North Poole, who usually chairs the all-party group that I mentioned, highlighted the important contribution that microfinance can make to the achievement of the millennium development goals, and I completely agree with her point. If we want to achieve the principal millennium development goal of halving the number of people living on less than a dollar a day, we must substantially increase access to financial services. Microfinance has a key role to play in that. She also made an important point about micro-insurance. That is one small part of helping communities and the world’s poorest to be better able to withstand the rising impact of climate change globally, and that is one of the areas that we are working on.

The hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk mentioned the work that the Department is doing with CGAP, which is effectively the world’s think-tank on microfinance. We are co-operating with 32 other donors on CGAP’s work. He rightly drew attention to the impact of the global financial crisis on the world’s poorest people. As Members of Parliament, we of course will focus first on the needs of our own constituents, but he is right to remind us that almost 100 million people, according to the World Bank’s estimate, have been pushed into extreme poverty by the global financial crisis, the vast bulk of them in developing countries. Microfinance is clearly one part of our response to help get back on track to achieving the millennium development goals.

The United Nations Secretary-General is convening in September at the UN General Assembly a review of our progress internationally towards meeting the millennium development goals. Ten years in to that 15-year ambition to achieve those goals, that will clearly be a hugely important summit. I hope that by then we will have put into legislation our commitment to spend 0.7 per cent. of our national income on development assistance, because that will send a powerful signal to the international community.

On that point, may I say how much we welcome the publication of the draft Bill? Now that we have seen it, and seen that it is relatively short, can we not get it through before the election?

I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s support for the Bill and hope that the International Development Committee, whose job it will be to scrutinise it, and before which I will be lucky enough to appear, will be similarly supportive. We will wait to see what it says. I cannot speculate on when the general election will be called, and we have a series of other pieces of legislation to get through the House. If we cannot get the Bill through before the election, and if we have gone through the scrutiny process, why cannot all parties in the House commit to putting it on the stature book in time for the UN summit?

We have looked at the Bill and are happy to support it, as we have obviously made clear our strong support for the 0.7 per cent. commitment, so let there be no question about that. I wish to ask the Minister a question that the International Development Committee might wish to pick up. The Bill, which I have read carefully, states that if the Government do not bring forward 0.7 per cent. of spending by 2013, the sanction upon them is that they should come to Parliament and report, under three different headings, why that target has not been reached. That does not sound to me like a very strong commitment to the 0.7 per cent. target. Why is the Bill not much clearer, more succinct and tougher than that, in accordance with the commitment that the Prime Minister made to the House?

I am not sure what amendments the hon. Gentleman is suggesting, but I will be happy to listen to specific suggestions from him or the International Development Committee. We have made clear our determination to achieve the 0.7 per cent. target, but I have never been entirely convinced that his party, when in power—not that I think it will get into power anytime soon—would follow through on that commitment.

That brings me to several points that the hon. Gentleman made. I will start with his questions about the Doha development round. As he knows, in July 2008 we were very close to getting an agreement on the headlines—the modalities—of a trade deal. Pascal Lamy, the head of the World Trade Organisation, estimates that we were 75 per cent. of the way towards a deal, and we have come close several times to being able to see Trade Ministers meet. We secured agreement in the G20 meetings that there would be a stocktake in early 2010, and we await word from Pascal Lamy on when that will take place. There was a ministerial meeting of the WTO in Geneva in late 2009, and while the Doha round was not formally discussed at that meeting, it was discussed in a series of bilateral talks in which we and other countries pushed for further progress. Meetings of officials continue to take place in Geneva and I hope that Pascal Lamy will feel sufficiently confident about the progress that has been made to bring Ministers back to Geneva to try to reach the final part of the agreement that we need.

As the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield rightly said, there are huge potential benefits for not only developed countries, but developing countries. The example of cotton is perhaps the most graphic. Countries such as Mali and Burkina Faso, which depend on cotton exports, could see huge potential increases in the level of cotton exports if we could only make progress on getting cotton tariffs brought down, particularly in the US, in some parts of Europe and in other OECD markets.

The hon. Gentleman also rightly mentioned Haiti. As the Prime Minister said at questions last week, we clearly need a review of how the aid effort has worked in Haiti. I humbly recommend to the hon. Gentleman a recent speech I made on that issue at the Central Emergency Response Fund conference in New York last December on average, we see disasters of the magnitude of that which has struck Haiti once a year, as well as a series of other emergencies, so we clearly need to look at what else we can do to increase the effectiveness of the international aid system. I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving me a copy of his Green Paper—it will continue to be a useful guide for him when he is still doing the same job in opposition after the election.

I am grateful for the opportunity to raise this important matter in the House. The security of the Horn of Africa is critical for wider geopolitical stability in Africa, the middle east and here in the United Kingdom. There has been a lot of focus in the past few weeks on Yemen, which is just a short boat ride across the Gulf of Aden. This attention is justified, but I hope that although increased attention is given to Yemen, the fragile and delicate security situation in the horn of Africa will not be overlooked. If the horn fails to attract the political attention that I believe it merits, I fear that the UK will rue its decision.

As an avid Africa watcher, increasingly my view is that the key challenge facing Africa is neither the continent’s lack of natural resources—many of its countries have plenty of natural resources—nor its lack of innovation or entrepreneurship of its wonderful peoples, who are intelligent, creative and adaptive; neither is it its often challenging natural geography and topography nor even its poor governance, which hopefully is diminishing in increasing numbers of countries. I pay tribute at this point to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and the Inter-Parliamentary Union for their part in parliamentary capacity building.

My main concern is a malicious virus sweeping throughout Africa and especially through the horn of Africa, which does not discriminate between men and women, adult and child, young and old, or between Muslim and Christian. This virus eats away at the fledgling ambitions of Africa’s farmers and small businesses, artisans, scientists, poets and songwriters, and at the dreams of its children and youth. The virus would, if successful, stop the clock on Africa’s progress and turn back the hands of time. Of course, I speak of misguided and perverse extremist Islam—false Islam—and jihadism, both Islamism and Wahabism, along with its various franchises, affiliates and proxy footstools.

Today I hope to set out, albeit in the limited time of this debate, why the radicalisation of Africa must not be allowed to succeed and why the costs will be high not only for the horn and the continent as a whole, but for Europe and the United Kingdom. Such an outcome would return millions to poverty, put a near immediate brake on successful immunisation and health programmes, halt the extension of universal education and extinguish the struggling flames of young and fledgling democracies.

The UK has both a duty and self-interest in ensuring that it does all it can to stand with those African Governments and individuals who make a stand for freedom from terror, freedom to live in peace and prosper, and freedom to choose and remove Governments—government for the people and by the people—without fear of slaughter, murder and mayhem.

Let me be clear. I hope that the leaderships of all radical groups will some day soon come in from their hideouts in caverns, caves and cyberspace and realise the error of their ways. Leading Muslim countries have a key part to play in this enlightenment, engagement and counter-radicalisation process. But it is worth noting that many extremist groups neither accept arbitration as a means of resolving hostilities, nor subscribe to conferences and negotiations: they train for terror and live for terror and they die in a bloody witness of terror.

In respect of extremist groups and terrorism in Africa, one of the great and misleading propositions is that a resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict would lead to the terror groups disbanding. This is an inaccurate reading of all the evidence. That claim is merely a convenience for radical groups that want to court mainstream Muslim legitimacy and attract external funding. Their thoughts about Palestine are secondary to their immediate and near-abroad strategic goals and aims, which are both political and jihadist in outlook.

Even if the Arab-Israeli conflict were resolved today, terrorist acts against the west and Muslim majority Governments would not cease. Indeed, they may even intensify, unleashing terror against any Government or person, Muslim and non-Muslim, who is unprepared to conform to a particular view of extreme political Islam. Further, a Palestinian resolution would also be unlikely to stop Iran continuing to fund terror groups: the stated aim of President Ahmadinejad is to

“wipe Israel from the face of the earth”,

not to bring about a successful two-state solution.

Poverty and lack of education alone cannot be cited in the terror organisations’ defence. Yes, many operatives are impoverished, poorly educated and disfranchised, but that is not uniquely so. We know that many of the creators of terror groups often came or come from middle-class and professional backgrounds—well-established backgrounds. Poverty may be one driver, but, conversely, the availability of or access to wealth is not a single antidote: UK jihadists perhaps underline that point. The causes of radicalisation are wide and varied. Although no doubt poverty and corruption and other such issues play a part, the causes are complex and varied.

The Israeli-Arab conflict contributes to radicalisation, but it would be a strategic error and arch gullibility not to recognise and call jihadism what it is: a political ideology mixed with heresy that is advanced on the platform of jihad, aided and abetted by tribal chieftains and brutal warlords and the inglorious vanity of national leaders and external disrupters in the horn of Africa.

Sudan has a huge amount of natural resources and potential and could, with the right governance and internal settlement, become one of the continent’s most prosperous countries. But such prosperity will not materialise if important political, administrative and diplomatic steps are dismissed or regarded as unnecessary and inconvenient. That is why this April’s elections are so important.

I have serious concerns about the voter registration process and the means by which up to 2 million people living in the north will be required to take a long journey to the south, using poor infrastructure, to register and cast their vote. There needs to be a cast-iron guarantee that those people who make that long journey to the south will be allowed to return to the north of Sudan without harassment or complications. The Sudanese Government also need to ensure freedom of speech and assembly and the end of arbitrary arrests, otherwise the Opposition parties may cry foul.

The Sudanese Government need to avoid setting the scene for a disputed election result in April, which in turn could lead to the abandonment of the 2005 peace process settlement. Such an outcome would be catastrophic for Sudan and the region as a whole. Similarly, if the National Congress party forms the national Government, it should ensure that it honours the agreement on the content, process and timing of the national referendum, in just 12 months’ time. The next few weeks and months will take real political leadership in Sudan, and history will judge its leaders in that light. Sudan might prove to be one of the toughest foreign policy challenges for an incoming United Kingdom Government of whatever political colour in May.

That leads me on to Somalia. I hope that the British Government will continue to do all they can to ensure that the transitional Government in Mogadishu not only survive but develop into a fully functioning Government—a Government who are able to take head-on the foreign-backed al-Shabaab and other al-Qaeda affiliates. That is a jihadist militia that assassinates, beheads and blows up fellow Muslims. Who kills young doctors, whose training is only to help the ill, suffering and dispossessed people of Somalia? Al-Qaeda cannot be allowed to establish a caliphate of Greater Somalia. Not only is that against the will of the majority of the Somali people, but further regional conflict with neighbouring Ethiopia and Kenya would, I believe, become a distinct possibility, perhaps within three to five years.

The stakes are very high. Those jihadists will not be content with Mogadishu and Somalia. They want to spread their heresy and misery to Addis Ababa, Nairobi and other capitals in the region. That is the primary reason why I applied for the debate—an attempt at a stark wake-up call that unless more action is taken to assist Governments such as that of Somalia, whom I fully accept have their own imperfections and complexities, the alternatives will not only be bad for the people of Somalia, but strike a severe blow at this nation’s national security. It is time for more action to be taken to track, contain and isolate these threats, albeit multiple threats.

The war on terror—that is what it is—cannot be viewed through the prism of bean counters in the Treasury. It must be viewed with intensity, realism and recognition of the magnitude of the threat and the catastrophic consequences of failure. The Treasury cannot allow the United Kingdom to fail. It cannot undermine this nation’s national security.

Our European partners should also wake up and do far more. I also hope that Japan might see its shipping interests as a good reason why it could fund groundwork projects, employment generation and capacity-building schemes in Somalia. The Japanese have been particularly helpful in providing funding in Afghanistan and other parts of the world.

At this juncture, I should like to praise the efforts of the African Union in Somalia and, in particular, the Governments of Burundi and Uganda for the 5,000 peacekeepers whom they retain in the country. The AU’s presence is vital, and I hope that Nigeria and other key AU members will contribute further to ensuring that Somalia’s transitional Government survive and that the Governments of Uganda and Burundi remain committed to the mission in Somalia.

The British Government also need to be far more interventionist, robust and proactive in neutralising the fundraising capabilities of a minority of Somali nationals in London who are sending funds back to Somalia to sponsor terror. Similarly, the right to travel of any British citizen should be withdrawn if there is reasonable suspicion that they are likely to enter Somalia or other countries to train for acts of terrorism. I also think—I shall speak slowly here—that for any direct-line family member of anyone found guilty of certain terrorist offences who is proven to have had the probability of reasonable access to knowledge that their family member was to prepare and/or train for terrorist activity, any outstanding visa applications, asylum claims or application for UK citizenship should be refused. If parents can be prosecuted for their children playing truant in the United Kingdom, far more legislative imagination could be used to bring pressure to bear on would-be murderers of UK citizens through family members who are found to be either complicit in or culpable of their activities.

I want to discuss Ethiopia, and I declare an interest in that I recently visited Ethiopia as a guest of its Government; that should appear in the next week or so in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. I think we can all agree that Ethiopia is the big beast of the horn of Africa, with its long history and long borders. What happens in Addis Ababa matters, not just because it is the home of the African Union, or because of its large population, but because for the best part of the past decade it has been one of the most stable countries in the horn. Obviously there is a continuing issue concerning Eritrea, and there are internal issues too, but certainly in recent years there has been comparative stability, albeit a fledgling and occasionally stumbling stability. That is one of the best examples of representative Government in the horn at the moment.

Was the issue of the border dispute with Eritrea raised during the hon. Gentleman’s discussions with the Government in Addis Ababa, and does he have any hopes that the Permanent Court of Arbitration ruling will be accepted by both sides?

The hon. Gentleman always makes a sensible and thoughtful contribution when he intervenes in debates. I shall come on to that matter in a moment, but it would help if the court were to make the effort to visit the border, and if it did not make judgments based on a map in a room in a European capital. The question was raised, and I discussed it with the Foreign Minister and leading representatives of the Government, but I shall come on to that.

For the reasons I have given, the process of, as much as a peaceful outcome to, the forthcoming elections is very important. I hope, as does the whole international community, that a repeat of the arrests and killings of 2005 will be avoided at all costs. Not only would an irregular general election in Ethiopia be a bad outcome for its people; it might also create the danger of destabilising an already fragile region. I want to make it clear that I fully recognise the efforts of the Government of Prime Minister Meles. Since 1991 infant mortality has fallen by half. Life expectancy is also up, as is school attendance. However, democracy and human rights need to expand and mature, as does the independent voice of non-governmental organisations. I have my concerns about the civil society Act and some of the resulting restrictions on advocacy groups and non-governmental organisations in Ethiopa. Progress has been made, but more is needed, and it is needed far more quickly. It is vital to the whole of the horn of Africa that the United Kingdom and its partners should do all they can to ensure that Ethiopia remains stable.

That is why Eritrea is a vital part of the equation. Perhaps the chaos and tragedy that is modern day Eritrea would not be as bad as it is if it were not for the continuing interference of two of Britain’s so-called friends, and possibly allies—Libya and Qatar. Yes, close co-operation with both Governments is important, but that should not mean the United Kingdom Government turning a blind eye to the funding of the Eritrean regime or the destabilisation of other parts of the horn region, as Eritrea does its work often by proxy. The Eritrean Government’s aggressive and intransigent posture against Ethiopia is particularly unhelpful to the region. The Government of Eritrea need to stop using the border dispute with Ethiopia as a means to keep their citizens in a perpetual state of anxiety. That is why I welcome the United Nations arms embargo. I hope that it will be monitored particularly closely. It must be effective; it must work. I have a message for the leadership of the Eritrean Government: the Eritrean people want peace, not war. They want food, not more guns and bombs. They want an end to the siege of their blighted lives, which have been bruised and crushed by a confused, unimaginative leadership. They want an end to the provocation of neighbours, including Djibouti. Despite denials, Iran’s dark hand casts a long shadow over both Asmera and Aseb.

Regional security in the horn of Africa remains fragile, but it need not deteriorate further. Whether that happens will depend in large part on the responsible or irresponsible actions of Qatar, Libya, Saudi Arabia and, most notably, Iran. It will also very much depend on the strategic view that the United States, the European Union and the Government of the United Kingdom take on the question of whether the horn matters. I believe that it does matter. It should not be the victim of strategic drift at the Foreign Office or of the failure to allocate the necessary resources from within existing budgets to identify and tackle those elements in the region that are undermining the UK’s national interests and security.

Finally, if the British Government believe that freedom is a universal right, as I believe the Minister does, because he is a decent man, who has taken on his Foreign Office role very capably, the UK, when invited—that is key—has an international obligation and a human duty to defend those rights and freedoms.

I thank the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) for securing the debate, because this is an important issue. Unfortunately, it has not been the subject of many debates in the House, although I suspect that we will return to it in the foreseeable future because the situation in the region is not good by any stretch of the imagination.

It is well known that I represent an inner-London constituency, and a significant population from Somalia, Eritrea, Ethiopia and Sudan live in the community. The instability throughout the horn of Africa and the poverty that many people face there is therefore very real for many of those in my community. The asylum seekers and others whom I meet, who have been resident in my borough and other parts of London for a long time, have often been traumatised by their experiences and the abuses that they have suffered in Somalia and other places. None the less, people in the settled Somali community have a real wish and desire to make the best of their lives here, and they make an enormous contribution to our living standards and way of life. We have to recognise that that diversity is a strength, not a weakness.

I followed the hon. Gentleman’s remarks closely. Although there are many analyses of what is happening throughout the horn of Africa, one should not ignore the region’s colonial heritage. Ethiopia managed to avoid being colonised at any stage by the European powers so it has a special place in the lexicon of African history and culture. However, the surrounding countries were divided up quite callously at the Congress of Berlin in 1884, when straight lines were drawn on maps. There was another divvying up after the first world war and again after the second world war. That colonial heritage is not the sole cause of all the problems in the area, but it is a contributory factor to the instability and the problems.

One should not forget that the cold war was fought by proxy. In the wars surrounding Ethiopia and the battle over the Ogaden, massive amounts of armaments flooded into the area from the Soviet Union and the United States. That led to a great deal of instability. That instability still continues, albeit in a slightly different guise. The whole area is a victim of its history.

There remain a couple of subjects that I wish to raise, but essentially I am interested to hear the Minister’s reply, and to find out what degree of engagement this country proposes for the future in order to bring about or encourage some form of peace and stability in the region.

The people that I talk to are victims of everything. They are victims of colonialism; they are victims of the cold war; they are victims of instability; and they are victims of poverty. Everyone on the planet deserves rather better than that. The longer the instability goes on—principally in Somalia, but not exclusively—the more it will spread into neighbouring countries. I think particularly of the Somali people who feel forced to migrate to Yemen in order to escape what is happening in Somalia, although the situation in Yemen is not good at present.

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that although the problems would not necessarily disappear, the current fanning of the flames might turn to shallow embers if the dark hand of Iran was not over the horn of Africa? Notwithstanding the Iranian nuclear issue, the malevolent, oppressive and destabilising influence of Iran is seen not only in Latin America, central America, the Balkans, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Iraq, but in the horn of Africa, where it has been very active over the last 24 hours. If Iran were to be removed from that region, there would be at least some hope for the continent.

I am not in favour of anybody interfering in the horn of Africa if it makes the situation worse. The hon. Gentleman probably ascribes to Iran a rather greater power than it has. Nevertheless, influences at work throughout the region are not necessarily positive. One should look towards building political solutions in the horn of Africa rather than indulging in a blame game, and blaming everybody else in the region. A process of involvement rather than isolating all those Governments might be a better approach. That would include Iran as much as Eritrea or Somalia.

Given Iran’s internal problems—its young people being addicted to drugs and its economy in a real state—does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Iranian Government should focus more of their political attention and some of their limited resources on dealing with their internal problems rather than destabilising the region? He mentioned Eritrea, which is being particularly unhelpful in sending arms and extremist groups into Somalia. That has not helped. I hear that in the last few hours, Somalia has been very much involved in sending al-Qaeda affiliates to Yemen, yet we know that Yemen has a direct impact on this nation’s security. If Iran is taken out of the equation, it would help matters considerably.

I am absolutely not in favour of Iran or anybody else developing nuclear weapons. I understand what the hon. Gentleman says about the economic situation in Iran, its problems with drugs and the human rights problems that exist there. However, I think that we might differ on whether we should engage more not only with the Iranian Government but with a range of people there as a way of promoting engagement rather than promoting isolation. The more one promotes isolation, the more it gives space for those characterised as extremists to gain political power. We might differ on degree, but that is something that should be considered.

I have mentioned the role of the west and the matter of the cold war, but there is also a sort of rubric and policy, both in the European Union and the United Nations, that the problem is Africa’s and should therefore be left to the African Union to sort out, even though the African Union—as wonderful and as great an institution as it is—lacks the necessary resources to be able to do it. It is easy for the west to say that African peacekeeping forces should go in, but when those forces turn out to be largely from Ethiopia and one considers the previous wars over the Ogaden in which Ethiopia was involved, one has to wonder whether it is such a clever idea to send Ethiopian forces into Somalia when there are previous disputes over territory between those two countries. Might it not have been better to send in some more obviously neutral forces at an earlier stage? I accept that forces have come from Burundi, Rwanda and Uganda, but the initial very large deployment of Ethiopian forces has not been terribly helpful in building a feeling of reliability among the various elements of government in Somalia.

On the question of Somalia, the collapse of the Siad Barre regime and the disputes between Somaliland and Puntland in the southern part of Somalia obviously go to the heart of the problem. The violence is much greater in the south around Mogadishu and in the north around Puntland than it is in Somaliland itself, which is relatively stable—I use my words advisedly and carefully here. The west has put much emphasis on supporting the transitional Government in Somalia, and the Obama Administration appears to be even more supportive than previous US Adminstrations. Although I can see where it is coming from and why it is trying to achieve it, we must ask whether the transitional Government are representative of the people of Somalia. How effective are they and how much land do they control? Are we not in danger of fuelling an even greater war there? Is there not a necessity to revisit the concept of a longer-term peace conference on the issues surrounding Somalia and its instability?

The recent Amnesty International document on international military and policing assistance states that the whole policy should be reviewed in respect of Somalia, because it feels that the substantial arming of the transitional Government that is going on is possibly in danger of fuelling an even worse situation, rather than making the situation better. We must consider the issue carefully. If we pour a lot of arms into the area, we must ask what happens to them afterwards.

There was an interesting article in The Guardian on 22 January by Murithi Mutiga, entitled “Yemen: lessons from Somalia”. In it, he said:

“The path to peace in Somalia lies in separating these forces and pursuing a settlement with the more political and realistic members of the Islamist movement. Analysts such as Abdi place the likes of Sheikh Aweys and his Hizb Ul Islam offshoot of Al Shabaab in this bracket.”

He went on to say:

“If the pragmatists in the Islamist movement are persuaded to join a government of national unity that can craft some sort of peace deal, that would make a bigger difference than any number of millions of aid poured into the country after an international summit.”

Essentially, his plea is that Islamist forces in Somalia—perhaps not all of them—should be involved if a longer-term peace is to be found. It is something that may be difficult for some people to comprehend, but it is an issue that cannot be ignored or wished away. As the hon. Member for The Wrekin pointed out, the implications for the region and everyone else of further and worse instability in Somalia are very grave indeed.

The last point that I want to mention concerns Eritrea. There is a substantial Eritrean community within my constituency, and I have obviously met and held discussions with many of its members. It is surprising that the UN resolution on arms, travel and banking and financial embargoes against Eritrea received very little publicity in any of the newspapers in the world, because it was a major decision that was taken by the UN Security Council. Might not such a draconian measure against the Eritrean Government be utterly counter-productive in the long run if there is no process of greater engagement?

When I intervened on the hon. Member for The Wrekin, I made a point about the border dispute with Ethiopia, which is unfortunate, to put it mildly. It has cost the lives and money of an awful lot of people and ought to be resolved. Indeed, that was the whole point of the Court of Settlement. The lack of a resolution provides a huge propaganda victory for the Eritrean Government because of Ethiopia’s apparent refusal—this is why I intervened on the hon. Gentleman—to accept the arbitration agreed by both sides as binding.

Notwithstanding the many Eritreans in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency, does he not accept that the Eritrean Government, as I said in my speech, might also want to use the border dispute to maintain a permanent state of emergency or to keep the people in a permanent state of anxiety to suit their own purposes? The border issue, although important, is not due to the recent talks. The progress made on the border dispute is the primary reason why Eritrea is acting as it is. It is an internal rather than a border issue.

The point that I was making—perhaps I did not put it well—is that the lack of a settlement to the border dispute has led both Eritrea and Ethiopia to use the issue as a cause of national discord. As both parties agreed to go to arbitration and an arbitration settlement was made, it is surely incumbent on both parties to accept that settlement and implement it. Surely that must be the right way forward. The lack of a settlement is a useful cause célèbre, as the hon. Gentleman was trying to point out.

When the Minister replies, will he indicate what degree of economic aid and support this country and others can provide to help break some of the cycles of poverty in the region? Essentially, however, it is a political problem that must be addressed with a political solution. The area is not unfertile; the seas are not without fish; the land is not without minerals. There are opportunities for a much better standard of living. The area also has an extraordinarily rich cultural history. However, if we do nothing and the situation worsens—if the abuses of human rights, hijackings, kidnappings, warlords and all the other aspects of an inoperative state continue—the instability will clearly spread more widely, including to Yemen and other places. I wonder whether we are not sometimes too simplistic in looking at goodies and baddies, and whether a much higher degree of involvement is needed.

I conclude by differing with the hon. Member for The Wrekin. The beginning of his contribution seemed to be almost a counsel of despair that the war on terror must be pursued all over the place. I do not think that it has been overwhelmingly successful in either Iraq or Afghanistan. It certainly has not been successful in bringing about a settlement of the problems faced by the Palestinian people. Surely we must engage much more and recognise the causes of the instability and the heritage leading to it.

Above all, we must overcome the huge disparities between rich and poor in that part of the world, and between that part of the world and the rest, which is one of the factors involved. I meet the victims of the conflict, as do many others in the House. They are the people who suffer loss of homes, family, friends and livelihood and are forced to migrate. They do not necessarily want to be forced out of their own country; they want to be able to live in peace in that society. I think that we should do what we can to support them in that wholly human and decent aspiration.

One of the great benefits of the Westminster Hall forum is that one can come and listen to colleagues who know an awful lot about a subject either because they themselves have visited a particular country or because they have populations in their constituency who are from the country that they are talking about and they have worked with those populations, so that over a period of time they have really begun to understand the issues affecting that country. Consequently it is great for Front Benchers to be able to listen to that experience and knowledge.

It is particularly good that the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) has brought this issue to the attention of colleagues today. That is because, as we think about Yemen this week with the conference on the country taking place in London, we should be worried about other areas where there is a potential for the “virus” that the hon. Gentleman described to take hold, so that those areas become a breeding ground for terrorists who not only threaten the people in those areas but security across the globe.

Therefore the hon. Gentleman is quite right to warn about that threat and to talk about the dangers of false Islam. However, I slightly want to play devil’s advocate with him. No doubt he will be able to quote facts and figures against the sort of reading that I have done in my preparation for this debate, but I have come across the suggestion that the Islamic movements that we see in some parts of the horn of Africa are quite dynamic movements, which are changing all the time and which are not necessarily part of some sort of global jihad movement. There may well be some actors who fit that description, but equally there are many other actors who would not recognise any affiliation to some sort of global ideology in the way that the hon. Gentleman described. Indeed, quite a lot of people who are in the Islamic movement in Somalia or elsewhere in the horn of Africa are much more focused on trying to win power nationally. They are often part of a nationalist movement, involved in local disputes in their areas, and their links to al-Qaeda and that form of dangerous Islam are tenuous at best.

For example, I read a little of what has been written by one of the Chatham House experts on Somalia, Roger Middleton. He has said:

“Shabaab and Hizbul-Islam are nationalist movements first and foremost. The commanders are fighting to control Somalia. Their agenda is local, not global.”

That is not to say that those groups may not find links to other groups elsewhere, as the hon. Gentleman has described. However, trying to understand the intricacies of this Islamic movement is important as we debate the right policies to deal with the threat that it presents.

Given the demands on the time and resources of al-Shabaab, one of the examples that the hon. Gentleman used, and his comments that it may not have strong links with global terrorist organisations, does he find it surprising that, even as we speak, al-Shabaab in Somalia is trying to make its way to Yemen to support its al-Qaeda brothers there as they take on the Yemeni Government and indeed the Saudis on the border?

I have no doubt that what the hon. Gentleman says is absolutely right. However, I just say to him that when people have looked at the Taliban in Afghanistan in much greater detail and read the comments of some of those people who have gone to Afghanistan and talked to the Taliban in all the different provinces of the country, as some of us have begun to do, the message that comes out is that the Taliban is not some sort of homogenous group, with a unified command structure, that works together with one shared aim. Instead, the message that comes out is that the Taliban is a very mixed, incredibly heterogeneous movement and I would guess that it is the same for al-Shabaab. I bow to the hon. Gentleman’s greater understanding of this issue, but the fact that there may be one or two people, a group of people or a small militia going over to Yemen from Somalia does not necessarily mean that all the people who are behind that movement in Somalia subscribe to some sort of al-Qaeda network.

That is the only point that I am making and I am not even sure if I am absolutely right to do so. I will be frank; I have been reading what others who have spent their lives thinking about this issue are saying. A recent report from the Combating Terrorism Centre at West Point in the United States said that al-Qaeda had not found a promising base in Somalia and that, if anything, coastal Kenya had been a more fertile territory. It stated:

“At one point, Al-Qaida operatives were so frustrated that they listed going after clan leaders as the second priority for jihad after expelling Western forces.”

Another author concluded:

“In Somalia, al-Qaeda members faced the same challenges that plague western interventions (extortion, betrayal, clan conflicts, xenophobia, a security vacuum and logistical constraints).”

So that is not to deny that we should be concerned and worried about the points that the hon. Gentleman made. All I am saying is that as it may be quite a mixed picture, we need to understand that, because if we do, we are more likely to be able to deal with the problem. As the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, if we engage with the groups that do not have the virus, that are not contaminated, we are much more likely to be able to build up the civic society, the coalitions and the groups that can eventually take power and prevent the people whom we jointly are concerned about from having the effects on our security that we all fear.

This is always a case of trying to get a detailed understanding. My knowledge of Somalis in this country is that they have a very different approach to Islam from, say, Pakistanis, Iraqis or other Muslims whom I meet. Their main approach is the Sufi tradition, which is not exactly strict in its doctrinal beliefs, to say the least, and has a mystical orientation. It is very different from the sort of Islam that we see elsewhere. Again, it is important to understand those differences, so that we analyse the intelligence effectively for our policy.

Colleagues have talked about a number of issues within the horn and rightly made it clear how those all interlock. We cannot view one dispute in isolation; they all interlink, which is one reason why the situation has been so complex over the years. Inevitably, however, we do focus on individual disputes, and one major issue that has been talked about this morning is the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea. Past decisions have not been implemented, there appears to be a stalemate, and the way forward is unclear. It seemed at times that the hon. Members for The Wrekin and for Islington, North were representing slightly different points of view on that, and that is exactly as it should be. There may well be different tensions about who is to blame. Is it the Eritrean Government looking at their own people domestically and allowing the dispute to perpetuate because it suits their domestic political agenda, or is it the Ethiopians? I do not know.

What I do know is that the external powers, although they often have not been as helpful as they should be in their interventions, may have a role to play in this matter. Obviously, President Clinton had a bad experience in respect of Somalia when he was President, but I understand that he had a role in the finalisation of the Algiers agreement. Perhaps there is an external, world-renowned leader—it may be an African leader—who, through the AU or the UN, could take more initiative on the dispute, because although there are tensions preventing it from being reconciled, many of the people whose comments I have read for the debate suggest that should we get a resolution of the border dispute, many other benefits would flow from that. It is not just the border dispute that would be solved, but many other issues.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for giving way again; he has been very generous. We have to distinguish between my comments on and view of the Eritrean Government and those on the Eritrean people, who are a wonderful, innovative, adaptive and creative people. However, do not the incursion into Djibouti, the ongoing dispute between the Eritrean Government and Djibouti—something that has been ruled on by the United Nations itself—and the intransigence and the reluctance on the part of the Eritrean Government to understand and abide by the will of the international community give some insight into how the Eritrean Government respond even when there is that dialogue and that instruction from the international community?

Absolutely. There is great force to that argument. I am not trying to take sides with the Eritreans or the Ethiopians; I am just pointing out the complexity of the matter. As always in such disputes, a blame game is going on. In those circumstances, often external figures—from the UN, the AU or individuals—can play a role. I hope that the Minister will give us some indication of Foreign Office thinking on whether that is something it will be pushing for.

The hon. Gentleman will recognise that the border dispute between Eritrea and Ethiopia was referred to international arbitration and that both sides agreed in advance that they would abide by the decision. None of us was party to that decision, but a decision was made and a border was delineated. The tension would be reduced a great deal if both sides accepted that decision and moved on. Otherwise, the matter becomes a cause célèbre, the situation will become worse and the isolation, particularly of Eritrea, will become even greater.

I do not disagree with that. Clearly, although that arbitration has taken place and the ruling has been made, it is not being implemented. One therefore has to try to work out how we can get the two sides to try to implement it. I am not suggesting we move away from that decision, but there needs to be a protest because, at the moment, there is stalemate. Given it is the Minister’s job, I want to hear from him whether the British Government are doing anything to try to break that stalemate or whether they are just sitting back and saying, “A judgment was made a few years ago. That should be abided by, but it is nothing to do with us.” I hope we will hear something on that from the Minister today.

The hon. Member for The Wrekin rightly brought Sudan into the debate. Given this is an historic year for Sudan, he was right to do so. The peace treaty was signed five years ago, but it has not been fully implemented. There are elections later this year and one of the referendums is next January. The hon. Gentleman will know that there will be other referendums regarding the border disputes between the north and south of Sudan, and that consultations are going on. There is no doubt real danger that war and conflict could break out on a large scale. Clearly, conflicts are breaking out on the peripheries, particularly of south Sudan. If one talks to the southern Sudanese, they will blame the Government in Khartoum for festering that.

I was recently at a very interesting rally called Beat for Peace. I talked to a group of Sudanese people in a church and it was interesting to note that, although they were from the west, east, north, south and centre of Sudan, they were committed to work together as a diaspora for peace. They want the British Government and others in the international community to play an important role this year in trying to put pressure on the Sudanese Government—although they are difficult and I am sure that the Minister will remind us about that—to make sure that elections and referendums are conducted properly and openly. We need to ensure that there are international monitors and that support is given to those processes. I hope that those very difficult tensions can be resolved through a more democratic and peaceful way.

Given what is at stake and that the oil wealth over the border in southern Sudan is a huge bone of contention, these are clearly not easy matters. Also, given that Khartoum is still, I believe, not doing what the international community asked it to do in Darfur, it is often difficult to engage with the Sudanese Government. Clearly, those are tricky things and I do not make light of them. However, while I am touching on Darfur, will the Minister update colleagues on the state of helicopter provision for the United Nations-African Union Mission in Darfur? Over the past two years, I have asked the Foreign Secretary that question on several occasions and have not had a proper answer. The western powers, including Britain, put money aside to ensure that the helicopters needed to help implement international resolutions in Darfur are there, but as far as I know, relatively little progress has been made.

I am not necessarily saying that I disagree with the hon. Gentleman’s central point on the better provision of air lift transport from whatever quarter for Darfur, but will he tell hon. Members from where he would source those helicopters within the United Kingdom?

Not from the United Kingdom. What lies, quite rightly, behind the hon. Gentleman’s intervention is the fact that we cannot afford not to provide helicopters for our troops who are engaged in conflict. When I met the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon to talk about the issue, I suggested that he put pressure on the British Government and others to use the funds that the Government had been putting into a pot to get helicopters from countries that had spare ones, such as Ukraine, the Russian Federation and others. It is clear from talking to people in the industry that those countries have spare helicopters that could be keyed up. As the hon. Gentleman knows, it is not just about providing the helicopters; there are the pilots—you need more than one per team—the mechanics and the spare parts. This is therefore a complicated logistical exercise, but the British Government and others have nevertheless said that the money would be there, and that has never been denied. However, as far as I know—I would be delighted if the Minister proves me wrong—they have never used the money to underwrite deals with countries that have helicopters and which would not, of course, give us them for use in Afghanistan or elsewhere.

I want to finish with two points. First, in this debate about the conflicts in the horn of Africa, let us remember the ordinary people there and the humanitarian crisis that the vast majority of them face as a result of conflict. I hope that the Minister will tell us what work is being done through the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the Department for International Development or international agencies to ensure that we protect civilians and meet the humanitarian challenge as far as possible. We are all realistic about the ability of Britain and the wider international community to end these conflicts any time soon, but that does not detract from our responsibility to help those who are caught up in them and who suffer as a result. I hope that the Minister will say something about that.

My final point is one that I should perhaps have mentioned earlier, although I am sure that colleagues will agree with what I have to say. Given the piracy that we have seen, particularly off the Somali coast, we should remember Paul and Rachel Chandler, who were taken hostage on 23 October. The Minister may want to give us the latest information that he has about them. He may have read reports that they gave an interview to an ITN reporter, in which they said that they would be killed if the money that had been demanded was not handed over by 24 January. Obviously, we hope and pray that that has not happened, and we would all be grateful if the Minister can give colleagues an update on the situation.

The example of Mr. and Mrs. Chandler shows, perhaps in a slightly extreme way, that instability in other parts of the world has knock-on effects for British citizens. That is why this debate is important and why the hon. Member for The Wrekin has done the House a service by bringing it to the Chamber.

It is a pleasure to serve under your benevolent eye, Mr. Gale. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on raising this important issue. As colleagues have said, this debate in Westminster Hall gives us the opportunity to have a slightly more reflective debate than we often have on the Floor of the House.

[Mr. Martin Caton in the Chair]

The debate is about regional security in the horn of Africa. Like other colleagues, I sometimes hear contradictory views when I talk to people who have worked and lived in the region, be they local people, expats or experts of one kind or another, including those from the aid organisations and the United Nations and officials from the Foreign Office and the Ministry of Defence. One view is that we should look at this as a regional issue, and colleagues have flagged up the fact that many of the countries in the region are interconnected. One example is the trade and the flow of people between Somalia and Yemen; if we could only stop some of the flow of arms from Yemen into Somalia, we could make considerable progress. There is also the conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea. There is therefore a whole raft of issues that show how the region is interconnected.

At the same time, however, the experts rightly tell us that each area is unique. As the hon. Member for Islington, North (Jeremy Corbyn) said, there are unique elements in their histories and cultures and there are differences in their populations. I suspect, however, that many countries and outside organisations have approached the problem with the idea that one size fits all and that there is one single threat. Here, I probably slightly disagree, on balance, with my hon. Friend the Member for The Wrekin about the threat from al-Qaeda. There is a threat, but it is much more complex than we sometimes think, so our response should be much more complex too.

Secondly, we should also be aware that we, the outsiders, have often made the situation worse by blundering in, sometimes with the best of motives. The current condition of Somalia, in particular, is undoubtedly due to the activities of many countries, ranging from the United States to European Union countries, including ourselves. It is also due, as hon. Members have pointed out, to the introduction of an Ethiopian force into the conflict. However, we should also be aware that the countries in question have played host to some political organisations that have developed into terrorist activity. Al-Qaeda and other organisations are only too well aware of that.

The issue is crucial; we could have an academic debate, and in another environment and another age I used to enjoy such debates, because one could argue things to a conclusion and go away and have a decent lunch. However, in the business that we are all interested in, which is the rough trade of politics, one must argue things to a decision. As the late Marshal Foch would have asked, what is actually to be done? In particular, what can the United Kingdom do?

The first thing to recognise is that we are talking about a desperate area. Other hon. Members have spoken of the level of sheer political instability—Somalia is effectively a failed state, and although Yemen is not, the experts say it is under enormous strain—the poverty and the number of refugees. The scale of that is vast. Also, for many of the people living in poverty in the area, what we regard as quasi-terrorist activities—piracy and the slave trade, which still goes on—are things that they and their ancestors have been involved in for hundreds of years. Undoubtedly there are people involved in piracy who have a terrorist bent, but we must ask whether, if Somalia had a reasonable Government and there were reasonable prospects for employment, particularly in fishing, there would be piracy on such a scale.

The United Kingdom Government, to be fair to them, recognise that all the aspects of a response must be integrated; the response should not be purely military or purely a matter of aid.

In no way do I condone piracy in any form, but does the hon. Gentleman acknowledge that piracy started with the inability of the international community to monitor fishing in the area, and that the loss of fishing opportunities, particularly in the Puntland, meant that people turned to a horrible criminal process?

Yes. I would not disagree at all with the hon. Gentleman. Also, the historian in me tells me that an element of tradition is involved. I recall visiting one of the Gulf states, although I shall not say which one, and being invited into a business family that had traditions of trade with the old East India Company—they showed us documents about that—and trading down to the coasts of east Africa. It was a cross-party delegation and a colleague asked the head of the family, “How did your business start?” He answered, “Very simple. We were slavers. We made all our original money from our slave trade activities down the coast of Somalia and elsewhere.” However, the hon. Gentleman makes a fair point and I would not resile from it.

Why is this important for the United Kingdom, and what should we do about it? It is important, first, because the region is important to UK national interests. It is an area of strategic importance, and our history and our current strategic concerns mean that we should put, and are putting, a considerable amount of effort into it. Whether we are putting the right effort into it is necessarily a matter for debate. It is also a crucial concern to us at a humanitarian level. The sheer scale of the problem means that public opinion rightly demands that we and our friends should do something.

The area is also of considerable importance to us economically. The potential of these countries to become involved in world trade is enormous. The seas around the area are crucial, given the sheer tonnage of trade that goes through there. Piracy has an impact not only on commercial companies but, as the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) said, on individuals. Indeed, while we are debating the subject, two people face the threat of being killed. Others, not necessarily UK citizens, are still being held.

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that, even in the last seven days, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have said that they will fight so-called infidels on land, in the air and on the sea? Given the history of the area, particularly the USS Cole incident in Yemen, does my hon. Friend share my concern not only about commercial shipping but about the leisure shipping that comes through that part of the region, particularly as cruise itineraries and destinations are published well in advance on the internet, giving plenty of time for preparation? Governments have given little consideration to the risk to cruise shipping, not from pirates who have small boats and would find it hard to board a cruise ship, but from terrorists.

My hon. Friend makes a good point. Cruise ships have been attacked before by pirates and by terrorists. The United Kingdom Government, like all Governments, advise cruise companies about the problem and give advice on security. I suspect that some of the measures that they undertake are not publicised, as many organisations use the internet as we do.

I thought that my hon. Friend was going to mention the fact that we have to give hard-nosed advice to people who merely—may use this expression?—wish to cruise their yachts around that area. There is a significant chance of being captured in that area. Frankly, people should weigh that up. Governments can give their citizens only a certain amount of advice without physically banning them.

I return to my theme, which is what our Government can do and why they should do it. The reason for doing it is, as the hon. Member for Islington, North said, that large minority groups living in the United Kingdom were originally nationals in those countries. Many of them fled here for the opportunity to find security, work and so on, but there is a problem. It involves only a few of them, but some have been radicalised and have returned to Somalia or Yemen either to support violence out there or to take part in international terrorism.

The difficulty for the Government is to get the balance right, providing counter-terrorist support for Governments in the horn of Africa without that support inflaming matters. Now is not the time to debate the problems of Yemen, but the problem for Governments is not only that they are fighting al-Qaeda but that they are fighting two separate conflicts, in the north and the south, in which al-Qaeda is only on the margins.

I have to say gently to the Minister that many believe that the original hype for what was going to be an international conference on Yemen burst like a bubble because, after asking questions, we discovered that it is a two-hour meeting in the margins of a bigger conference on Afghanistan. I do not wish to make a party political point, but I think that many Labour Members were a little surprised about that. It looks more like a public relations exercise. I understand that the Government, the United States Government and other Governments are looking at this as a long-term problem. I commend a Government publication by DFID about a year ago, in which they talked about the need for an integrated approach to the problem of Yemen, involving all Departments, not just those dealing with counter-terrorism.

My hon. Friend is giving way generously. He mentioned Yemen, which is linked to the horn of Africa. On 30 November in the main Chamber I asked the Prime Minister directly, during his statement on Afghanistan-Pakistan, whether he would include the Government of Yemen in the Afghanistan London conference. He was equivocal and did not give an explicit view one way or the other, which I found disappointing. We then had the incident with Abdulmutallab and—surprise, surprise—a phone call was made by the British Prime Minister on 1 January to the Government of Yemen inviting them to London, which came as a great surprise. That is not a criticism of the British Government, but I am concerned about whether the Government have a strategic grasp of the issues involving national security, including in that part of the world.

I think they do now because of the nature of the insecurity in that region and the nature of the threats that we face now. Any Government will come under enormous pressure if, sadly, future terrorist activity against British citizens abroad or in the UK is carried out not by some caricature terrorist looking like a down-market Lawrence of Arabia but by somebody who is, as has sadly been proved on numerous occasions, a second or third generation immigrant from a family living here who has demonstrably had a good education and looks to all intents and purposes like a young man—it is mainly young men—who is fully integrated into society, yet rejects a lot of what the current UK society stands for. There are no easy tricks to deal with that.

The Minister will get the support of the House if he approaches the issue of the horn of Africa comprehensively and recognises that, even if resources are stretched, one of the most important areas is intelligence and intelligence gathering. I realise that the intelligence community is under enormous strain at the moment.

I congratulate my hon. Friend, who I know feels passionately about this subject, on securing and introducing this debate, which has led to contributions being provided from colleagues on an important matter.

I congratulate the hon. Member for The Wrekin (Mark Pritchard) on securing this important debate, on his well-informed, passionate contribution and, more generally, on his thoughtful, important contribution across the foreign affairs canvas in the House. Not many new Members of Parliament specialise in foreign affairs and have that level of expertise and knowledge. The quality of debate is strengthened when the hon. Gentleman makes his contributions, which are usually based on a well-informed analysis, even if we will not necessarily agree on all the issues.

May I answer the first question posed by the hon. Gentleman, which was does the Horn of Africa matter? It matters significantly, in respect of stability in the international community, and in terms of direct United Kingdom national interest and the future of Africa as a continent. In every sense the horn of Africa matters. As the hon. Member for Mid-Norfolk (Mr. Simpson) said, we have to be realistic about the complex nature of the challenges that we face. There is not one solution. There has to be a security and stability element to our response, a significant political response in terms of improved government and human rights and a well thought out, smart level of significant development support to tackle the problems of inequality and poverty. All of that has to be brought together in an integrated approach.

I want to talk a little about the background of the situation, give an update of the security situation, summarise our understanding of the extent and causes of the problem and then talk directly about the UK’s response.

I will deal quickly with the Yemen question. It is important that we judge this week’s meeting on Yemen by the decisions that are made, the quality of the participants and the follow-up to and implementation and delivery of whatever is agreed, not on the number of hours the meeting lasts. Too often at such international summits fine words are signed up to at the end of the process, but the test will be whether we are willing to ensure that there is a clear plan for delivery, implementation and milestones, and also roles and responsibilities for the different players that need to make their contributions.

The important thing to stress is that the Government of Yemen must be in the lead. It is not a failed state, but it is a fragile and vulnerable state, so the support the international community gives on security, effective government and development will be incredibly important. Let us judge the outcome of the meeting by the decisions that are made, the delivery and the implementation.

There is no doubt that the horn of Africa stands out because of the sheer prevalence and persistence of conflict at every level: within states, between proxies and, not that long ago, between armies. It poses severe threats to regional and international security. The drivers of conflict in the horn are longstanding and in many cases predate current country boundaries, a point we should be clear about. The end of the cold war brought seismic shifts in the region. Long-entrenched dictatorial regimes collapsed in Ethiopia and Somalia, and Eritrea and Somaliland declared themselves independent.

A region that had long been viewed as one of chronic conflict and poverty, and that had been the playground of cold war foreign policy, did at one stage offer new hope of popular, progressive and accountable government, but unfortunately that has not happened.

The situation, frankly, has deteriorated. The credentials of Ethiopia and Eritrea were tarnished when they went to war over the disputed borders, and in 1998 there were 100,000 fatalities. Their unresolved dispute continues to be an underlying cause of problems across the region, as hon. Members have mentioned. Somalia has never managed to establish state structures and effective government, with fragmentation, warlords, political Islam, as the hon. Member for The Wrekin made clear, and extremist networks gaining ground. Meanwhile, we all acknowledge the significant challenges that remain to the implementation of the comprehensive peace agreement in Sudan.

So what security threat do we believe the region poses? The analysis is clear. Al-Qaeda’s allies and affiliates look to exploit ungoverned space and instability where they can, as the hon. Gentleman said, whether in the Sahel, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Iraq or Afghanistan. Unfortunately, the long-term instability in Somalia has resulted in an environment where both local violent extremists, and a small number of international extremist groups, have managed to gain traction and control over areas of territory. That control overlays a complex clan mix and a long history of insecurity. Terrorists and al-Qaeda, as has been said, are not interested in reality or the daily lives of the people of Somalia and offer nothing to improve their lives.

They are a threat to the well-being of Somalia and the wider region, and that has been evidenced by two recent bombings in Mogadishu: one was on 3 December, in which three Ministers and many civilians, including journalists and medical graduates, were killed; and only yesterday five people were killed in an al-Shabaab bombing in a civilian hospital in Mogadishu. I am sure that hon. Members will want to offer our deepest condolences to the Government and people of Somalia in the aftermath of those tragic attacks.

We are aware that al-Qaeda is present in Somalia, and it is vital to confront the challenge posed by its hateful ideology. Al-Shabaab is seen as the ally of al-Qaeda, but it also has its own agenda, which is focused on attacking the transitional federal Government and neighbouring countries. The UK and the TFG have had discussions on counter-terrorism, and we will work with both the TFG and other regional Governments to deny those groups safe haven.

As hon. Members have said, Somalia has also become known as the breeding ground for piracy in the gulf of Aden and Indian ocean. Piracy is a criminal enterprise, which results in great distress for the innocent crews and their families who are caught up in the hijacking, and the escalating ransom demands place an increasing burden on industry. Our thoughts go to Rachel and Paul Chandler, who continue to be held in Somalia. We call on the hostage takers to release them immediately.

As hon. Members said, we remain concerned about the situation on the border between Ethiopia and Eritrea.

Before the Minister moves on from piracy, will he agree that although we welcome the co-operation of the Government of Kenya in dealing with the legal issues over the pirates who are taken into custody, it would be particularly helpful if the Governments of Tanzania and the Seychelles would also participate in trying to bring forward a legal process?

I agree with the hon. Gentleman. All those countries with the capacity to make a difference should come together and do the right thing. It is important to place it on record that such countries have responsibilities in that respect and should take the necessary action.

To my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North who raised the issue of the border dispute between Ethiopia and Eritrea, I have to say that there was arbitration. The Eritrea-Ethiopia boundary commission made a very clear decision on the border. Despite our friendship with Ethiopia and our tremendous admiration for the progress it has made, we continue to press it to implement the decision following arbitration. The matter will continue to be a running sore and a cause of much instability until it has done so. I say to the hon. Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) who asked the question that we continue to make the case for that recommendation to be implemented, because it is a root cause of the significant instability.

Returning to the situation in Sudan, hon. Members have said that the situation remains fragile and difficult. However, I must stress that the comprehensive peace agreement between north and south remains on track despite all of the difficulties. There is now one year until the referendum on self-determination in southern Sudan. Irrespective of the referendum outcome, work needs to be done on many issues, including oil revenue sharing, security arrangements and border demarcation. Levels of organised violence and fighting between Sudan armed forces and armed movements in Darfur have declined significantly compared with 2003 to 2005, but lawlessness and insecurity remain high. The causes and consequences have yet to be addressed.

The hon. Gentleman asked about helicopters, and I will be very specific about the position. Since its inception, we have contributed more than £100 million towards the United Nations African Union Mission in Darfur. We have lobbied extensively in the UN and with countries in the region on the provision of helicopters. As an update, I can say to the hon. Gentleman that Ethiopia is to provide five helicopters for UNAMID, which is a step forward, but we need further information on how they are to be deployed. None the less, we should welcome that as a significant step forward.

I am grateful to the Minister for that, but five Ethiopian helicopters is not a new development. They have been promised by the Ethiopians for more than a year. When I pushed the matter with the Foreign Secretary and raised it with the UN Secretary-General, that was not the solution, because the Ethiopian helicopters are not the ones that we need for the heavy lift. The only ones that have those capabilities and that are not in conflict zones are the Ukrainians, Russians and Czechs. It is a question of underwriting those deals so that the helicopters can go into this mission. I do not think that enough is being done.

I will write to the hon. Gentleman if I have any further information to give him. The point about the deployment is that it will take place in February. If the hon. Gentleman does not feel that that is enough, I can find out if any other plans, commitments or discussions are taking place at the moment.

Turning back to some of the challenges, we all acknowledge that migration continues to be a problem both within the region and to Europe, with large numbers of internally displaced persons and refugees in the region itself. For example, the Dadaab refugee camp in Kenya is temporary home to almost 300,000 Somali refugees, some of whom have been there since 1991. There are also high volumes of migration flows to the UK and wider Europe. In the first three quarters of last year, there were more than 2,000 applications for asylum from the region.

As my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North said, it is important to mention that the vast majority of people who come to this country play a very positive role and make a positive contribution to their local communities. There is sometimes a danger that people from certain countries in the horn are demonised in the way we present them. We should always make the point that it is a small minority who are a difficulty and a problem. We have to be clear about the threat that they pose. The vast majority of people who have settled in this country from the horn of Africa make a positive contribution to their communities and the United Kingdom.

I thank the Minister for that. His remarks are very helpful because the Somali community makes a huge contribution to ordinary life in London and other cities. We should pay tribute to them for that. On Somalia, does he envisage there will be any encouragement of the transitional Government to broaden their sphere of influence and their contact with other groups, so that they do not remain in the rather isolationist position they currently have?

I think we are all aware—whether in relation to Somalia or Afghanistan—of the importance of reintegration and reconciliation with those with whom that objective can be achieved. In a situation where there is a history of conflict, bloodshed and mistrust, the more inclusive Governments can be, frankly, the better. I think my hon. Friend would agree that a line has to be drawn and that it is not appropriate to include some people in the political process, because they have an entirely different agenda or ideology. If such people were to become part of the political process, they would simply attempt to undermine it. However, there are other people who need to be brought in if there is to be long-term security and stability. A sophisticated and smart approach is required to do that and it must be led by people who understand what reconciliation and reintegration mean in the context of, in this case, Somalia. There is no doubt that people benefit from long-term security and stability if they have a Government who is as representative as possible.

I say to my hon. Friend that there is also the question of effective Government. In countries that are incredibly fragile and where there is a significant amount of stability, sometimes the first thing we must do is find a Government who have the capacity to begin a programme of reform in terms of governing that country effectively. Our relationship with the Government of Somalia is an important and positive one, but, of course, we hope that they will become more representative and inclusive over time.

I am running out of time, so I will quickly move on to Somalia. The African Union Mission to Somalia, which the hon. Member for The Wrekin mentioned, is supported by a UN logistics package and trust fund, as well as through bilateral support. We contributed £15.7 million last year to the support of AMISOM. Yesterday, the EU Foreign Affairs Council agreed to the next stage in the plan to launch an operation to train transitional federal government security forces in Uganda. That is a true example of the multiplier effect of international co-operation. The hon. Gentleman was also right to mention the positive contributions that Uganda and Burundi are making. The UN Political Office for Somalia works hard with other UN bodies and the international community based in Nairobi to ensure a co-ordinated approach to the situation. In her recent visit to Nairobi, Baroness Kinnock announced that we hope to welcome President Sharif to London soon, so we will be able to discuss directly with him the issues of security situation, governance and counter-terrorism.

We support the sanctions regime against Eritrea because we believe that country has consistently flouted international law, which is why we supported UN Security Council resolution 1907. However, that is not an alternative to engagement. Of course, we want to engage with Eritrea, as well as to insist that it does not behave in a way that undermines stability in the horn. It is very important to get that balance right. The same point was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, North in relation to Iran. We seek constantly to engage with Iran in a positive way, but the problem is that Iran shows no sign of engaging with the United Kingdom or the international community.

In conclusion, I believe this is a very—

Order. We must move on to the next debate.

I welcome the opportunity to have this short debate on a subject of great concern to members of the Afro-Caribbean community in my constituency.

Let me make it clear at the start that I am not challenging the concept of the air passenger duty, which is charged on all passenger flights from UK airports. In 2008, the Government consulted on proposals to replace air passenger duty with a per-plane tax and subsequently chose not to go down that road. I have no complaint about that or about the Treasury’s decision to retain air passenger duty and add a greater number of distance bands. The reason why I am raising this issue is that the changes in the banding system impact unfairly on the Afro-Caribbean community, whose members began coming to the United Kingdom more than 50 years ago, but who retain strong links with their extended families in the Caribbean and regularly travel backward and forward to maintain those links.

I acknowledge that aviation could account for 21 per cent. of total UK greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 and I totally support the Government’s desire to address the problem as part of their commendable action to combat the effects of climate change. I am sure that the Minister will elaborate on that when she responds, but I repeat that I am not challenging the concept of air passenger duty or the way in which the Government chose to increase the number of distance-based bands. However, I cannot accept that it is fair or equitable for someone visiting family in one of the poor countries of the Caribbean to pay a higher rate of air passenger duty than someone visiting America, the richest country in the world, purely and simply because the capital of America, Washington, is on the east coast rather than the west coast of the USA.

The criterion on which the four new geographical bands are based is the distance from London to the capital city of the country to which somebody is travelling. That might appear sensible, but it depends solely on where the capital city is, even in a large country such as America. Washington is on the east coast of the USA, so the whole country falls into a lower band than the Caribbean countries. No account is taken of the fact that many states in the USA, such as California on the west coast, have larger GDPs than many Caribbean countries and are considerably richer. Furthermore, the criterion relating to the distance between London and the capital city of the destination country is not uniform throughout the world, and the Russian Federation is treated as two separate entities, one to the east and one to the west of the Urals.

Many Caribbean countries are extremely concerned about the impact that the inclusion of the whole Caribbean in band C could have on their tourist industries. Those industries are crucial to their economies, particularly when a competing destination— Honolulu in Hawaii—is in a lower band because Hawaii is part of the USA.

I am particularly concerned, however, about the effect that the new banding will have on the Afro-Caribbean community in my constituency and in the rest of the United Kingdom. The Afro-Caribbean community has been an integral part of the life of the United Kingdom since the first large-scale arrivals on these shores on the Windrush in 1948. Not long ago, we saw the 60th anniversary of the arrival of the Windrush, and the Government rightly recognised it and the continued contribution of the Afro-Caribbean community to the development of the United Kingdom.

Many of the first arrivals from the Caribbean started by working in poorly paid jobs in the public sector, and the Minister of Health in the Conservative Government of the 1950s actively encouraged young women from the Caribbean to come to the United Kingdom to take up nursing positions in the NHS. That they did, and it would be true to say that they have been crucial to the workings of the NHS ever since. The fact that the Minister of Health in question was a certain Mr. Enoch Powell, who subsequently became notorious for his “rivers of blood” speech in Birmingham in 1968, is one of the interesting contradictions of British history.

I make these points to emphasise the fact that the Afro-Caribbean community has played a huge part in the development of our society, and it continues to make a massive contribution. The Afro-Caribbean community, particularly the older generations, have a reputation for being law-abiding, religious and family-oriented. They travel regularly to and from the Caribbean in order to maintain contact with their extended families. Because the Caribbean is classified as band C, a family of four in my constituency who wish to travel to the Caribbean will pay £300 in air passenger duty for a return flight from November 2010. That is a lot of money for families living in my constituency, which has some of the largest pockets of deprivation in the country.

Even more bizarre, and it rightly angers the Afro-Caribbean community, is that other British families—such as David Beckham, his wife Posh and their three children, who are domiciled in California—can travel there from 1 November 2010 and pay the same £300 in air passenger duty as my constituent, his wife and their two children.

I accept entirely that the Government understand the problem. During a debate on the Finance Bill in 2009 the then Parliamentary Secretary to the Treasury, now the Minister for Pensions and the Ageing Society, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Wallasey (Angela Eagle), acknowledged that there were anomalies in the new four-band system. She said:

“We have gone for the rough-and-ready approach. I understand the points that are being made about some of the anomalies with capital cities, particularly Washington in relation to destinations in other US states and in Caribbean countries. However, I suppose that a rough-and-ready calculation is precisely that, and one can always find anomalies.”—––[Official Report, Finance Public Bill Committee, 2 June 2009; c. 165.]

The current Exchequer Secretary indicated during the Report stage of the Finance Bill on 8 July 2009 that the Government were looking again at how the new bands were impacting on Caribbean countries. We are now six months further on, and still the rough-and-ready approach has not been refined to rectify the unfairness on those in the Afro-Caribbean community in this country who wish to maintain their traditional family links with the Caribbean by travelling there regularly.

The Exchequer Secretary has been corresponding with me on this matter for nearly a year. She points out that resolving that unfairness against the Afro-Caribbean community is not as easy as it would seem. Bearing in mind that her predecessor made it quite clear that the banding system was a rough-and-ready approach, I suggest that all Commonwealth countries should be put in a separate band. We are continually told, rightly, that the Commonwealth is a special institution that is based on ties between all the countries, with the Queen as its head and the United Kingdom as the mother country. Such a suggestion may be rough and ready, but it is no more so than the current banding system. It has at least as much logicality, because up until the late 1960s every Commonwealth citizen had an automatic right to come to the United Kingdom and settle in the mother country, without any immigration controls being placed upon them. I therefore hope that the Minister will specifically indicate to our Afro-Caribbean community whether the Treasury intend rectifying the financial anomalies that have arisen through the rough-and-ready approach, and when they intend to do so.

The matter will not fade away, and anger in the community will become even greater if nothing is done and the increase in rates takes place on 1 November 2010. That is the sole reason why I asked for this debate. I appreciate that the Minister may want to talk about the principles behind air passenger duty and the banding system, but she does not need to do so. Instead, she needs to concentrate her mind, if she will forgive my saying so, solely on the question that I pose again and again: does she believe, as a fair-minded person— not as a Treasury spokesperson—that it is fair or equitable that a celebrity family, such as David Beckham, Posh and their three children, can travel to and from their adopted home in Hollywood and pay £300 in air passenger duty in November 2010, while a husband and wife in my constituency, working in low-paid jobs in the NHS, who take their two children to see their grandparents in the Caribbean have to pay exactly the same amount?

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Sparkbrook and Small Heath (Mr. Godsiff) on securing this debate. This issue has been raised with both me and the Chancellor by my hon. Friend and many hon. Members.

Before I get into the detail, I should like to say that I agree with my hon. Friend about our relationship with the Caribbean, and with his excellent points about the contribution to this country of the Caribbean community and the many other people who have come to these shores.

My hon. Friend has already mentioned some of what I am about to say, but I would like to start by talking about the background in order to explain how we came to this point. I will come to the Caribbean specifics later, but it is important to put those in context.

Air passenger duty was introduced in 1994 to broaden the tax base. There was a two-band structure, charging a different rate for flights to European and non-European destinations. Since its introduction 16 years ago, rates have changed only four times, including a reduction in economy travel rates in 2001. Rates were frozen between 2001 and 2007 and again for 2008-09.

In 2008, the Government consulted on proposals to replace APD with a per plane tax, considered carefully its evidence and merits and decided against introducing it at that point. That is why we announced in the 2008 pre-Budget report that we would reform the existing APD regime from its two-destination band structure to a four-band structure. Several factors were behind that decision. We felt that we needed to ensure greater stability in tax policy at a time of great economic uncertainty and global challenges—the world was moving on. In addition, a unanimous agreement was reached by EU member states in October 2008 to include aviation in the EU emissions trading scheme. There was a need to maintain commitment to environmental objectives, especially to ensure that the structure of aviation tax sent environmental signals to passengers and the industry alike.

In the economic circumstances, we needed to mitigate the potential impact on the airfreight sector, and the impact on employment in this sector and on the wider business community that relies on airfreight services. We also needed to mitigate the potential impact in the regions on direct employment and connectivity. The need to avoid the disruption and costs associated with the transition to another tax had to be considered, as did the relative simplicity of reforming the existing APD regime better to reflect environmental impacts. Many respondents suggested that any banding system should have more than three distance bands and that tax should be levied on final destination. We implemented the reforms on 1 November 2009.

Compared with the previous system, the reform of APD raises revenue and strengthens the tax’s environmental signal. Although the externalities arising from air travel are hard to calculate precisely, APD was not designed to be an exact match for this cost, but as a revenue-raising instrument. However, where possible and appropriate, it is right for the structure of revenue-raising taxes to reflect environmental benefits, as in the case of the reformed APD, which it is estimated will save an additional 0.6 million tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2011-12, contributing to reducing the risk of dangerous climate change.

The introduction of four bands into the reformed APD reflects the responses to the consultation on a per plane tax, which highlighted that aviation taxation should recognise distance flown as a factor. To strengthen the environmental signal in APD, destinations have been banded in a straightforward, transparent, and administratively simple way. The bands have been set at 2,000-mile interval, and what band a country falls within is determined by how far its capital is from London.

A geographical banding structure balances the aim of sending a stronger environmental signal with the need to make the reforms easy to implement. Ticketing systems are based on national territories, so it is easiest to base the tax on countries. Any banding system will contain some discrepancies, and although reform might remove some, it will create a set of others. Using capitals as a proxy for countries was, in our judgment, the most straightforward approach globally.

I recognise that my hon. Friend and the many hon. Members who have written to me feel that the reform of APD will affect travellers to the Caribbean. The tax on an economy class ticket to the Caribbean will rise by £35 per person after the two tax increases of 1 November last year and 1 November this year. That is not likely to be the only factor affecting ticket price, or the sole determining factor in the decision whether to purchase a ticket. The same £35 increase will apply to any other country whose capital is in the same band: that is, between 4,001 and 6,000 miles from London.

One point raised by my hon. Friend and in letters to me is that tickets to the western US attract a lower rate of APD than tickets to the Caribbean. However, APD rates to the US cannot be split into the eastern and western halves of the country without adding significant administrative complexity. Even if they could, of course, that would not affect the absolute rate of APD on tickets to the Caribbean.

My hon. Friend mentioned Russia. As I said, airline ticketing systems are based on national territories. In the case of Russia only, ticketing distinguishes between the eastern and western halves of the country. We have been able to design the tax to incorporate that distinction because it is administratively easy for the airlines to do so, but that is not the case in the USA. As I said, any banding system will contain some anomalies.

However, the Chancellor and I have committed to continue considering the issue to work out whether there is a way to mitigate the impact of APD reform on ticket prices to the Caribbean within the constraints of European and international law, as well as considering the effect on the public finances. Given the fiscal situation, the Government cannot accept options, such as just decreasing APD rates, that would reduce the APD revenue expected. We also cannot move the Caribbean countries alone to another tax band without objective justification. The Chicago convention on international aviation requires us to treat other countries equally.

My hon. Friend also raised the possibility of putting Commonwealth countries into a separate band. Unfortunately, such a move would be illegal under European Community law, as well as discriminatory and thus contrary to the Chicago convention. The Government have considered basing the tax or tax band on the exact distance of flights, rather than the distance to the capital. However, that would be illegal under the Chicago convention, to which the UK is a signatory. Some have suggested that moving to a per plane tax would help, but there is no reason to assume that moving to such a tax would result in less tax on flights to the Caribbean. In fact, implementing a per plane tax, as consulted on in 2008, would have resulted in more tax being paid on flights to the Caribbean than the reformed APD.

The UK and other like-minded states believe that the current practice of exempting aviation from taxation on fuel used for international services is anomalous and has succeeded in increasing the International Civil Aviation Organisation’s focus on the environment. However, it has not yet been possible to reach consensus within ICAO regarding specific economic instruments.

I have listened with interest to what the Minister has said. I understand that administrative simplicity, over-ticketing and the Chicago convention are important. Does she think it fair that a family of two adults from the Afro-Caribbean community, working in poorly paid jobs in this country, who take their two children to the Caribbean, should after 1 November pay £300 in air passenger duty, whereas a celebrity family travelling with their three children to Hollywood would pay exactly the same?

The point I am trying to make is that unless we attach a specific tax to a destination any banding system will create anomalies, so that some people pay the same in one band as people in another. We are not, under international law or the Chicago convention, able to be exact about distance so as to bring about the fairness my hon. Friend wants. We are trying to devise a system as close as possible, within the constraints of international law, to an environmental system.

The reason why we cannot use the exact flight distance is that that is too close to using fuel as a proxy. That is the point I am trying to make with the International Civil Aviation Organisation, so that we can begin to address the matter. We are committed to engaging actively with our European partners to press for greater action on aviation’s environmental impacts.

Air passenger duty is an important contributor to Government revenue, and we must remember that flying is a relatively under-taxed activity. No fuel duty is paid, and there is no VAT on tickets. The reform of APD is intended to ensure that flying contributes its fair share to public services, as well as to strengthen the environmental signal of the tax.

I assure my hon. Friend that we shall continue to consider the issue to work out whether there is a way to mitigate the impact of APD reform on ticket prices to the Caribbean within the constraints of European and international law.

As I said, I have been corresponding on the matter for quite a long time. The Minister gave assurances during consideration on Report of the Finance Bill that the Government were considering it. I am grateful, but when will the decision be taken? It is more than six months since the Minister said that the Treasury was considering it. For example, is it likely to happen before 6 May—to pick a date out of the air—or perhaps some time after that?

I can say only that as yet we have not found a way of mitigating the situation within the constraints of European and international law. I cannot give a time scale, because we are still looking. It is not as if we had found a solution and were deciding whether to implement it. We have not yet found a solution within the constraints of the law. The area is not straightforward; it is a very complex area of European and international law. All that I can say is that we shall continue to look for a solution.

I am grateful for the opportunity to have this debate on the finances and capabilities of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. As we know, last week the financial health of the Foreign Office was put in the spotlight by the Minister of State, Baroness Kinnock, when she revealed cuts to FCO operations, including the counter-terrorism programme in Pakistan—facts that many of her colleagues in recent days have been trying to airbrush out. However, over the past three years my colleagues in the shadow foreign affairs team, particularly Chloe Dalton, have been assiduous in uncovering the extent of the black hole in the FCO’s finances. We welcome this debate, which will help to give the issue the wider attention that it merits.

The Foreign Office has obviously been under financial constraints for several years. As a result, from May 2007 onwards the FCO has closed 34 high commissions, embassies and consulates, including in Honduras and El Salvador and on the island of Madagascar. We have opened new offices in places such as Banja Luka, Basra and Kirkuk—but offices ain’t the same as embassies. The FCO also withdrew funding from the UK defence attaché network, not understanding the huge value added there. It ended its contribution to scholarships for some Commonwealth students, which will be a huge long-term downer for the UK. It shut the FCO language school, cut the number of civil servants from 6,000 to 5,600 and downgraded 115 positions in embassies that used to be performed by UK diplomats, passing them instead to no doubt able locally employed nationals of the host state. It also began making the argument for virtual embassies and laptop diplomats in parts of the world where this country felt it could no longer afford permanent missions.

Therefore, even in November 2006 the UK’s former ambassador to the United Nations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, warned the Select Committee on Foreign Affairs of

“a progressive decline in the capacity of the Foreign Office to cover every aspect of diplomacy.”

One head of mission reports cutting 40 people from the payroll. The Committee concluded in its report in 2008 that the pressure on the FCO budget risked

“jeopardising the FCO’s important work”—

a warning that has been raised on many occasions by Members of both Houses. That trend alone, amounting to a creeping erosion of the FCO’s clout overseas, was a matter of serious concern.

But then, in the autumn of 2007, the Treasury decided, in negotiations with the Foreign Office over the 2007 spending round, to withdraw what was known as the overseas price mechanism. Let us be clear: the OPM was a system that ensured that the Foreign Office, which has to spend more than half its budget overseas, was neither worse off nor better off as a result of overseas inflation and movements in currency exchange rates. That is a pretty sensible thing, one would think. Crucially, the OPM ensured that the Foreign Office, which, unlike any other Department, including the Department for International Development and the Ministry of Defence, operates in more than 120 currencies worldwide, could—I quote from the FCO’s resource accounts from 2007-08—

“maintain its purchasing power at a level equivalent to that of Home Departments”,

which do not have to spend the bulk of their budgets overseas. When sterling rose and the FCO could buy more foreign currency with the pound, the excess was returned to the Treasury. Conversely, if sterling dipped, the Treasury compensated the FCO. In the last three years before the OPM was withdrawn, albeit in different economic circumstances, the FCO returned more than £20 million to the Treasury’s coffers.

In short, the mechanism allowed the FCO to plan its activity overseas with confidence over a number of years. A glance at the FCO’s responsibilities, which include countering terrorism and weapons proliferation, shows why such continuity matters. Also, 69 million British citizens travel overseas each year and, according to FCO figures, 12 million British citizens were living overseas in 2007. For British tourists and expats alike, the embassy can be the first port of call when they get into difficulty. It is estimated that 100,000 people will go to the World cup in South Africa this year, and obviously our mission or missions will have to deal with any problems that arise. It is therefore very surprising that Foreign Office Ministers did not stand up to Treasury officials when they sought to strip away this important protection, and that the implications of the change were either brushed aside or, even worse, not realised.

The timing was almost as good as when the Prime Minister decided to sell our gold reserves—at completely the wrong time in the market. Within six months of getting rid of the OPM, sterling plummeted. According to Sir Peter Ricketts, the pound fell by 25 per cent. against most currencies over the following period, wiping away a significant proportion of the spending power of local FCO budgets.

Parliament was not informed of the planned change, and not a squeak of protest has been heard from the Foreign Secretary or his colleagues. Repeated written parliamentary questions from my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), asking what position Ministers took on the proposed change and how many times it was discussed, have been rebuffed. It is worth noting here that the Foreign Secretary has had 14 different Ministers since he got the job. Such upheaval has coincided with the most difficult period in the FCO’s finances, which prompts the question whether FCO Ministers were too busy fighting for their jobs to stand up for this critical mechanism.

The only explanation we have to date is the rather bizarre statement by the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the right hon. Member for Pontefract and Castleford (Yvette Cooper), who said that the FCO lacked the “incentive” to take currency movements into account and needed to be brought in line with practice in other Government Departments. That completely disregards the fact that no other Government Department has a fraction of the foreign currency exposure of the FCO.

Ministers are now trying to brush aside the issue, implying that the FCO’s difficulties are merely the product of the tough financial environment and ignoring the fact that this was an own goal, a self-inflicted wound. If Ministers believe that this change was right and was in the interests of the country, why will they not come out and say so? I hope the Minister will state clearly whether he believes that this new arrangement is appropriate and give a full account of the reasons for it.

It would help if the Minister said whether he is aware of any major UK ally that requires its Foreign Office to bear the full brunt of foreign exchange movements, or whether the UK is alone in that respect. The US State Department, for example, has a buying power maintenance account to ensure that it does not suffer from adverse currency fluctuations.

The fact remains that the change happened on the Foreign Secretary’s watch, and I hope he will be prepared to come to the House at the earliest opportunity, in Government time, to address the concerns about the state of the Department over which he presides.

Let us look at what we know of the consequences. In 2008-09, the first year without the OPM, the FCO budget for embassies took a hit of £59.2 million. In the current year, the hit on embassies is estimated to be £80 million. In the next financial year, according to Sir Peter Ricketts, the hit will be £120 million out of a budget of £830 million for the UK’s embassies overseas.

In fairness, 190 British missions have had to receive extra money to compensate for the reduction in the spending power of their local budgets, but one head of mission complains that their local budget has been effectively cut by 25 per cent. The Minister of State, Baroness Kinnock, said last week that

“budget constraints have led to staff redundancies, cuts to travel and training, and reduced programme funding including our work on counterterrorism and climate change.”

She described

“staff redundancies in Argentina, Japan and across the United States.”

She said:

“Counternarcotics programmes in Afghanistan, capacity building to help conflict prevention in Africa, and counterterrorism and counter-radicalisation in Pakistan have all been cut”—[Official Report, House of Lords, 20 January 2010; Vol. 716, c. 992.]

Sir Peter Ricketts said:

“We have had to stop a lot of activity this year...we have stopped whatever programme activity was not committed, stopped most of our training and cut into our travel and our hospitality...local staff have not had overtime payments, or in some cases pay rises, and some are on involuntary unpaid leave or four-day weeks. We have a real problem within the budget”.

It seems staggering that the work our embassies can do in a particular country depends not on our intent but on the strength of the pound against the local currency. That must affect morale and make consistent planning exceedingly difficult. Is there not a risk that diplomats are being posted overseas without the important training they would normally have? Is that not likely to have a knock-on impact on the effectiveness of British diplomacy? Ministers have been extremely coy about saying what training has been stopped and how many diplomats have been affected. It would be a matter of particular concern if the language training that has distinguished our diplomats for so many centuries were being affected. I hope the Minister is in a position to assure us that that is not the case.

Such is the incoherence that the cuts are eating into the new priorities established by the Foreign Secretary himself. In January 2008, he rewrote the FCO’s strategic priorities, identifying four new policy priorities on which the FCO would focus. Three of those priorities were counter-terrorism, conflict prevention and climate change—the very programmes that have been cut.

The Foreign Secretary said that

“we will be increasing substantially the overall level of resources the FCO puts into counter-terrorism and counter-proliferation; climate change; Afghanistan and other conflict regions…All these areas will receive additional staff and money.”—[Official Report, 23 January 2008; Vol. 470, c. 53WS.]

However, according to Baroness Kinnock, jobs and funding in those areas are now being cut.

The FCO has stopped its contribution to peacekeeping and conflict prevention in Latin America entirely and cut back its contribution in nearly every quarter of the globe. That must cause serious concern, and it seems likely to affect our international reputation, especially given that our major ally, the United States, is dramatically increasing its spending in those areas. It must also distract FCO staff from the business of diplomacy, which is supposed to be the FCO’s core function. FCO senior management must now oversee highly complex hedging operations, receiving advice from HiFX Financial Services costing £41,000 a year.

What of the future? Sir Peter Ricketts has warned starkly that

“the budgetary pressures…put a question mark over whether we can maintain the number of people we have abroad”,

and that the closure of British embassies overseas cannot be ruled out. It is time for the Government to tell us.

I hope the Minister will answer the questions I have raised, respond to the following specific points and write to me with any answers he cannot provide today. First, the Foreign Secretary took over in June 2007, and the OPM was withdrawn that October. Will the Minister clarify once and for all whether that was a decision overseen by him, an act of his outgoing predecessor or just an oversight?

Secondly, did any FCO Minister oppose the decision to remove the overseas price mechanism? If not, why not? My right hon. Friend the shadow Foreign Secretary has tabled a written parliamentary question on the subject to the Foreign Secretary, but has been stonewalled. Which Minister oversaw the decision? Did the Foreign Secretary personally raise the issue with the Treasury? Was he briefed on it by his officials?

Thirdly, will the Minister account for the discrepancy between what Baroness Kinnock said to the House of Lords last week—that FCO counter-terrorism programmes in Pakistan have been cut—and what the Foreign Secretary said in a letter to my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond, Yorks yesterday? The Foreign Secretary said that there had been and would continue to be a rise, year on year, in his Department’s spending in Pakistan.

Fourthly, why is the FCO budget still taking such a huge hit from adverse currency movements—over £100 million by the end of the year, according to Sir Peter Ricketts—two years after it implemented its own mechanism to hedge against currency movements? Are Ministers satisfied that the new system is working sufficiently well? If not, what are they doing about it?

Finally, Sir Peter Ricketts said in December that the FCO was in discussion with the Treasury about the budget crisis. What was the outcome of those discussions? The hedging strategy is clearly not enough to compensate fully for the absence of the OPM, and the permanent under-secretary is warning that embassies may have to be closed as a result. Are Ministers asking the Treasury to step in and fill the gap, or are a string of UK embassies about to be axed?

It really is not a sensible proposition to run foreign policy on the basis of exchange rate movements. The nature of the threats that this country faces requires pre-emptive diplomacy in extremely dangerous and volatile parts of the world, where it tends to cost more to intervene and where the exchange rate risk is likely to be much higher because the place is riskier. There is a risk that the FCO will have to bear that in mind as a pre-eminent condition in determining whether diplomacy is feasible, rather than as a cost that must be borne as a matter of course in the pursuit of this country’s national interest.

Sir Peter rightly described this country’s overseas network as

“the Crown jewels of the FCO”.

It is a valuable human and physical resource, a significant factor in our country’s ability to continue to punch above its weight and a platform used by every Department overseas. That network, or parts of it, really is in jeopardy, and we need the Government to explain how cuts to it can be prevented and how the vital skills and training of UK diplomats can be preserved. We need Ministers to reassure Parliament and the public that the country’s ability to project its influence overseas is not being limited. In today’s challenging environment, the Government should be working to build our influence in selected areas, not presiding over its decline.

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr. Caton. I congratulate the hon. Member for Gravesham (Mr. Holloway) on securing this timely debate.

I should say from the outset that the most important thing in the Foreign Office is not the buildings that we own or the places where we are, but the job that we do—it is not about being, but about doing. That reflects one of the significant changes that have taken place in diplomacy over the past 50 years. In the past, people said, “Let’s have the biggest building we can, to show that the British empire still rules the roost,” but nowadays people are far more interested in being effective in the countries that we talk to.

The hon. Gentleman is right that we have had to make our priorities clear in recent years, and we have had to focus our spending clearly on them. When my right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary arrived in post, he was right to say that he wanted to make sure that the whole Foreign Office network was clear about what its point was and which priorities it had to pursue with absolute diligence.

Other countries in Europe face difficult issues about their representation in different parts of the world. Yesterday, I was in Brussels with Europe Ministers, and some of them were complaining that Sweden has just closed five embassies in European Union member state cities but opened 10 new places elsewhere—ironically, we have just reopened our office in Malmo. That is a constant process, which the Foreign Office and every country in Europe will have to engage with throughout the years ahead. We have no specific plans for closures at the moment, but we always have to make sure that all our money is focused on the job in hand and on getting things done.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the overseas pricing mechanism and he is right that we have seen much greater volatility over the past few years than in previous years. In the four years up to 2007-08, when the mechanism still existed, there was never a movement of more than £20 million in one year, whereas this year and last year have seen much more significant changes.

There is clearly a difficult set of issues to resolve in the Foreign Office and, for that matter, in the Government. In that respect, I can absolutely reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Government have no intention of diminishing our presence in the world or reducing the work that we do. However, in our estates policy—the Foreign Office owns a large amount of estate around the world, which has quite often been gifted to us by generous Governments and sometimes by British citizens abroad—we will always want to make sure that we use every pound effectively. That is why we have been going through a series of good housekeeping measures over the past few months. One relates to what allowances should be paid to diplomats and UK staff based abroad, another relates to how we organise our travel and another relates to the estate. Thirty or 40 years ago, many members of staff in an embassy would have been expected to entertain in their embassy-provided flat, but that is much rarer today. In many cases only the ambassador would be entertaining at home; so matching the estate to the needs of a modern diplomatic service is important.

The hon. Gentleman referred—rather disparagingly, I thought—to laptop ambassadors. It is certainly true that in some places we must be nimble and light of foot. For instance, in Laos we do not have an ambassador in Vientiane. We are accredited to Laos, but the Australians have taken over our embassy—they are based in it—and they provide much of the consular support to us. However, the British ambassador in Bangkok regularly visits Laos. We must have a presence at the appropriate level for each country. In the past 10 years Foreign Office staff have been far more imaginative about how we can do that creatively, so that in the Baltic states, for instance, rather than having an expert on every issue in every post, we have tried to work together in the region, not least because the countries in question also tend to work as a region. We can get more bang for our buck—or pound, depending on the exchange rate.

It is worth pointing out that roughly 50 per cent. of our posts have fewer than four members of staff. That is not particularly new; it is just a fact, because sometimes that is the appropriate level of representation. I want to focus more on the outcomes that the Foreign Office tries to achieve, which we have been good at in the past few years, than on just the practicalities of how many people we have around the world, and how many buildings they are in.

One of the key things that we want is to protect the United Kingdom from threats from around the world. The EU Operation Atalanta, off Somalia, in which we targeted the piracy that has plagued many British shipping companies, is a vital part of our work, and we are leading the effort. Likewise, we provide training to increase counter-terrorism work in many parts of the world, and that, too, is an important outcome. We obviously try to promote the UK economy—UK Trade and Investment takes the lead on that—through our embassies. We reckon that that has brought in £3.6 billion of additional profits to the UK. In addition, we try to lead in international organisations on a series of key issues for the United Kingdom. I would particularly mention our work on the cluster munitions and land mines conventions. Our leadership played an important role in bringing those about. I look forward to taking forward the Cluster Munitions (Prohibition) Bill in the next few weeks; it has already been through the House of Lords.

I disagree with the hon. Gentleman, therefore, about his characterisation of where the Foreign Office stands today. My experience, having visited many embassies, in Latin America, Australasia and Europe, is that our presence is well placed and well met. It is highly resourced and people can do a good job because of the quality of the people that we recruit and because there is phenomenal pride in working for the Foreign Office.

The hon. Gentleman asked some specific questions, which it is only fair that I should try to answer. He asked about counter-terrorism spending in Pakistan. I do not think that he was in the Chamber on Thursday when I answered an urgent question on that. I tried to make it clear then, as I want to now, that it is not true that less money will be spent next year than this year or last year on counter-terrorism in Pakistan. Some of the newspaper reports that have suggested, for instance, that there will be a £110 million cut to counter-terrorism spending in Pakistan are wide of the mark, not least because we have never spent anything like that on counter-terrorism in Pakistan. The figures are these: in 2008-09 we spent £35 million on counter-terrorism; in 2009-10 we shall spend £36.9 million; and we expect to spend about £38 million in 2010-11.

The largest proportion of that counter-terrorism budget, by some considerable distance, is spent in Pakistan; it amounts to some 28 per cent. of that budget. That means that we spent £3.7 million in 2007-08, £6.3 million in 2008-09 and £8.2 million in 2009-10, and we are projected to spend between £9 million and £9.5 million in 2010-11. It is certainly true that we would always want to spend more on counter-terrorism in Pakistan and we have had ambitions to spend more, but as I said last Thursday, we have had to curtail those ambitions.

The hon. Gentleman asked whether there are ongoing discussions with the Treasury on this subject. I have to say that the Treasury has been entirely helpful throughout the process of our having to deal with these issues. The discussions are far from complete and I very much hope that they will be successful. I know personally that the Chancellor of the Exchequer and the Prime Minister are very focused on the need to have a strong presence in the world. During the next two days, with the Afghanistan conference here in London, I think that we will see that Britain is well respected, not only because of the Foreign Office but because of the trilateral work that we do, in the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development. Those three Departments work very closely together and, of course, they are the three Departments that are most affected by exchange rate changes.

I agree with much of what the Minister is saying. However, surely the substantial point here is that we are in a position where we have to expand or reduce our diplomatic operations in line with the movements of exchange rates. Is that really a way to run an effective foreign policy? Also, what is he doing to try to claw back what has been for the FCO the disaster of removing the OPM?

As I said last Thursday and as I have already said again today, this is a difficult time and we need to do every piece of good housekeeping to ensure that we receive value for money, especially in relation to our estate and the way that we recompense and remunerate our staff. Furthermore, we have not yet completed discussions with the Treasury on our financial situation for the next financial year.

However, I would just push back this point to the hon. Gentleman. Today, rather unusually for him, he has been something of a front man for his own Front Bench.

indicated assent.

Just for the record, the hon. Gentleman is nodding and he is obviously very proud of being that front man. However, I want to ask him whether the Conservative party would reinstate the OPM. Would the Conservatives increase the amount of representation in Latin America? I know that Baroness Rawlings, who speaks for the Conservative party, was boldly announcing last week that it had every ambition to increase the number of British embassies in Latin America. Therefore, would the Conservatives increase the number of our embassies in central America? For example, would they reopen the embassy in Tegucigalpa? Do they really have any intention to spend extra money—because if they do, we would like to know the figures.

The Minister rightly points out that I am an extremely lowly and unimportant Back Bencher, so I cannot answer those questions. However, what I am sure of is that the Conservative party will not expand or reduce Britain’s overseas footprint or our ability to project the country on the basis of foreign currency fluctuations.

That is not what I predict the Conservatives would do if they were to become the Government. I urge the hon. Gentleman, because he has spent a great deal of time talking about his correspondence with the right hon. Member for Richmond, Yorks (Mr. Hague), to speak to him and ask him to answer my letter of last week, in which I asked him a series of questions about how the Conservatives would finance the Foreign Office. Is it true that they would end up raiding the overseas development pot to pay for the extra embassies that they intend to open? Is the right hon. Gentleman making promises that he cannot possibly fulfil?

Cut the politics. [Laughter.] No, seriously. It is not politics; it is actually really important. It is about Britain’s diplomatic footprint. Is the movement of foreign currencies—foreign currency fluctuations—the basis on which to expand or reduce our presence abroad?

Well, I do not think of the hon. Gentleman as a minor player in the Conservative party. As he has already acknowledged, he is their front man for this debate today, so it is a bit rich for him to start accusing me of playing party politics. The truth of the matter is that I do not think that the most important thing in the world is just being; it is what we do and whether we are able to make a difference in different parts of the world. And I have every confidence that the discussions that we are having, between the Foreign Office and the Treasury, will be able to move this issue forward.

Order. We must now move on to the next debate.

Thank you, Mr. Caton, for allowing this debate on the UK school games and the 2012 Olympic legacy. A quiet revolution has been going on in this country in school sports, particularly over the past decade. In 2000, around 25 per cent. of our young people experienced two hours of quality physical activity or sport a week, and by 2009 that had increased to over 90 per cent., which means just under 4 million hours more of sport and physical activity a week in our education system.

When I was Minister for Sport I discovered the real depth of talent we have in our schools. Although we had, and still have, competition managers who do a fantastic job in the school sports partnerships, many said that they wanted to try to find a system in which we could bring the very best of our young people together to perform against each other, and in doing so we would sharpen up the competition.

However, we would also be able to do something else. Those who have been able to go to the Olympics or the Commonwealth games will undoubtedly know that they are totally different from any other sports event. In single sports events one goes to see one event, such as athletics or hockey, but when one brings all the sports together—there are 27 in the summer Olympics—and the athletes live in the camp, eating together and socialising, and then competing against one another, many of them are often put off by that atmosphere, particularly in their first experience of a multi-sports event, such as the Commonwealth games or the Olympics.

Therefore, there was some discussion about how we could reproduce for our young people that type of experience: to come in, have an opening ceremony and then compete. In the margins of that we could bring Olympians in to do mock anti-doping—I hope it is mock—so that the young people get all that experience. The person who epitomised all that is none other than Darren Campbell, a good friend of the UK school games. Darren stated in an article on those games:

“The Games are paramount to the success of future world champions...Some superstars will be born here...it replicates what happens at the Olympic Games, so if these young people get there they won’t be scared. I think that the sooner you get over the fear of whatever you want to do in life the more successful you will be”.

He summed up well what we are trying to achieve by giving the young people the experience of participating in the UK school games.

Two important events in this regard came together in 2005: London, as many people know, won the right to stage the 2012 Olympics; and the Millennium Commission, which I happened to chair at the time, was winding down. It had a few bob in the bank that it did not plan to spend, so the longest serving trustee, Michael Heseltine, and I got together and decided, because 2012 was on the horizon, that it would not be a bad idea if some of that surplus money was put to good use by trying to create a platform of a legacy for our young people in schools and taking that forward.

Those two things came together, and the board agreed that some of the commission’s surplus would be used to develop a sports event for young people that would run up to the Olympics, and hopefully beyond. That was in part how the UK school games came into being. At the same time, the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr. Brown), was very supportive and chucked a few bob into the pot. There was a suggestion that we call the event the school Olympics, and I can assure you that there was absolute hell on that point, because one cannot use the coveted word “Olympics”.

What I want to make clear for the press in particular, and to those of the press who have not come to the debate, is that they tend to criticise us, including the Sports Minister, my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bradford, South (Mr. Sutcliffe), and claim that we do not have enough competitions in schools and do not do enough to provide the facilities for competition, but I have never heard such claptrap. First, as I have said, the participation rate among young people in education has increased here more than in any other country. Secondly, we have competition managers. Thirdly, we are developing new types of structures, such as the UK school games. The latter is not a glorified sports day; we are trying to give the very best to our young people in order to equip them for the international stage and to give them confidence and experience. Together, experience and confidence result in a winning team.

I therefore say to the press, “Instead of carping, come to the UK school games. Come and see what our young people are doing. Come and experience it.” It will be in Gateshead this year and in Sheffield, the centre of the universe, in 2011. I shall speak later about 2012. The press ought to start reporting on our young people. Since Glasgow in 2006, many have gone into the Olympics. Many performed in the Beijing Olympics, and have gone on to the international heights in their sports.

I pick up on the point about newspapers. Only one national newspaper gives school sport significant coverage, and that is The Daily Telegraph. It is not often that we on these Benches congratulate that newspaper. That sort of investment in reporting is important for our sporting superstars of the future. Perhaps my hon. Friend should congratulate The Daily Telegraph.

Very much so. However, it is not only The Daily Telegraph; it is also Gareth Davies, who is an institution in his own right. I compliment him on what he writes about the UK school games; as my hon. Friend says, he keeps school sports and grass-roots sport in the national newspapers, and all credit to him. If one or two journalists followed Gareth Davies, I am pretty sure that readers would be much more enlightened about what is happening within the school structure, and how we are preparing young people to perform on the international stage.

That is how the UK school games came about. It started in Glasgow in 2006. It has grown from 1,000 athletes in five sports in Glasgow to 1,600 athletes last year in Wales. I see that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) is with us today. With his colleagues from Bristol, he put on a fantastic games in 2008. As we have gone down the country—from Glasgow to Coventry, to Bath and Bristol, to Cardiff and Wales—we have been left a legacy of young people who have volunteered to officiate.

Yes, many of the spectators really enjoyed what they saw at those first-class events, but that is on the day. The hon. Gentleman gave me a note the other day about the spin-offs. There have been eight sports festivals in the sub-region, with family fun days; and there were 156 new school sports competitions, engaging 15,000 young people of whom 9,000 were new to school competition. It also involved the recruitment and training of 270 volunteers; that is a legacy that we should treasure. It also brought £2.4 million into the local economy. It shows what impact the UK school games can have on cities.

That development has been taking place and it has left a legacy. This year, the UK school games will be in Gateshead, in the north-east. I hope that there will be a greater number of sports. In 2011, it will be going to Sheffield; and we may have as many as 12 or 14 sports and nearly 2,000 athletes. That is close to the figure that we see in other multi-sports event, such as the Commonwealth games. That is the type of experience that we are able to give our young people. As I said, we have seen many of those young people competing in international events.

Eleanor Simmonds was the youngest ever British Paralympic champion, and that reminds me that I should also say that we have integrated the Paralympics in many sports, as well as the able-bodied Olympics being integrated. That has been a huge success. I have to pay tribute to a number of people who have made that happen, particularly the governing bodies, which have been first class in supporting the UK school games. Many of those bodies are now saying that the UK school games is influencing the way that they schedule the competitions for their particular sports, which are coinciding with the games around the September period.

I also pay tribute to the Youth Sport Trust, which is a first class organisation in its own right, for what it does in schools. It has embraced the UK school games as an integral part of the development of the school sports partnership. As ever more young people are playing more sport and participating in physical activity, it has been able to start building a pyramid with excellence at the top. Under the leadership of Steve Granger that organisation has done a first class job.

Fast Track has brought to the UK school games the professionalism that it brings to all the work it does. We have seen some of the top officials coming into the UK school games, aided and abetted by Fast Track, which is a very professional organisation.

Young people, such as Emma Wilkins in 2007 and Craig Hamilton in 2008, took medals at the UK school games and went on to join the squad with our Olympic champions, Rebecca Adlington, David Davies and Jo Jackson. That shows that, as young people come through the UK school games system and through the competition management and development system of the school sports partnership, they move on to the highest level internationally in their sport, representing our country somewhat better equipped than they would have been had they not had that experience.

Where do we go in 2012? It will be a fantastic year, there is no doubt about that, with the Olympics, the Paras and the build up to that. But looking a little bit beyond that, what will happen to the facilities? What happened in Beijing? More than 20,000 a day went to see those facilities after the Olympics in Beijing. People want to experience those facilities. What would be better than holding the four days of the UK school games there after the Paras close? More than 2,000 young people, who are at the top of their sport, will be able to experience the place where the great athletes of the world will probably have broken records and will definitely have won gold medals, a lot of which I hope will be from Britain. Those young people will be able to perform in those facilities before they are reconfigured in legacy mode.

It is important to ensure that part of our legacy includes giving as many young people as possible the experience of performing. The Olympics is a once in a lifetime—perhaps a once in two lifetimes—opportunity. The last Olympics held in Britain was in 1948. Not many hon. Members in this Chamber were born in 1948, but I was—

I was.

The hon. Gentleman says that he was born in 1948.

What a great experience it will be for those young people to perform in those facilities. They will have those memories for the rest of their lives. That is part of the legacy. What will be even better is for all those young people around the UK who have seen great athletes on television performing in those facilities for three or four weeks to visit and see their peer group perform there too and, in doing that, experience the facilities for themselves.

It would be even better than that if we told every secondary school in this country in the next few weeks that they could have 60 to 70 places, allowing young people to come to London and watch young athletes in their peer group perform, and thereby experience the facilities. I do not think that that is impossible. In fact, discussions are taking place now with the commercial world—businesses—to see whether we can get sponsorship for every secondary school, which is some 3,000 secondary schools, throughout the length and breadth of the United Kingdom. We will tell 60 or 70 young people from those secondary schools that they can come to London and have some type of competition—as the hon. Member for Bath did on a small scale for a number of schools in relation to the UK school games. That could be replicated across the United Kingdom.

There is no doubt that one of the problems with the Olympics—it is a fact of life—is that is has a draw-down factor to London, because inevitably that it where the action will take place. Some of the regions feel a bit left out. We have done our best to ensure that the impact has been nationwide, but it is always difficult. Inviting every secondary school to send 60 or 70 young people to have such an experience will be something that lasts them a lifetime.

Discussions are going on about the possibility of staging the UK school games in 2012 immediately after the Paras. We would then be able to ensure that we allowed young people to come down to London to watch them as well. Discussions are taking place with the London Organising Committee for the Olympic Games, the Olympic Delivery Authority, the Mayor’s office and the new committee that has been set up to consider the legacy. I hope we will have a positive response from them.

It is true that there will always be sceptics. One of the problems with running the Olympics is that everybody is focused on that and no one looks beyond it. It will not be music to the ears of some of the organisers that we want to put another event on for four days. I do not know what the major sponsors will do but, through my hon. Friend the Minister, I will say to them that they should seriously consider rolling over support for another four days to the UK school games. I think it would be financially viable for them to do so. I would have thought a quarter of a million kids eating burgers in those facilities is worth a little bit on the bottom line, and a few bob in the coffers to help run the UK school games would be very helpful indeed.

We also need a major sponsor—we are discussing that with a number of organisations—so we can go to the schools and say that transportation will be provided on a certain day and that the young people will be brought down. My colleagues—my ex-colleagues—at the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, who are responsible for part of the legacy and the organisation, can from time to time be a little bit risk averse, but I am sure they will take the risk averse hat off, put the progressive hat on and say, “Here we have a great opportunity for our young people to be able to perform in these facilities.”

I have been involved with the Olympics, so I know the organisation that takes place and how those involved become focused on the end objective—on winning medals and making sure we have a first-class event—and that anything that disrupts that is considered to be an irritant. I say, “Fine. It might be a bit of an irritant, but it’s one that you can absorb into that organisation.” We can roll over the organisation of the Olympics and the Paras into the UK school games. I believe that is very achievable.

My proposal would put a fantastic feather in the cap of the Olympics, LOCOG and the Government. Why do I say that? Why is it that Jacques Rogge, the president of the International Olympic Committee, has instituted the youth games on opposite years to the Olympics? After talking to Jacques, I discovered that the reason was that the Olympics have to some extent lost their way. The event has became fairly commercialised and sport follows business, rather than business following sport. Talking to Jacques, which I did on a number of occasions, he was very keen to ensure that the Olympics come back to how they were when they started and that the event should reflect what the five rings actually stand for—the excellence of sport and all that springs from that.

We could run the UK school games, which are quite unique, on the back of our Olympics in 2012. We were talking to the IOC and asking whether that could be done in the future as well. Could the countries that host future Olympics use something like the UK school games to lift the whole structure of sport and physical activity in their schools, and bring together young people at the highest pinnacle of excellence? I think that that is possible and laudable and that it would go down extremely well. Such a proposal would be a major part of our legacy, which some people believe has not been given the attention it deserves. This idea gives us a great opportunity to do that.

I ought to declare an interest, because I am the president of the UK school games—I should have done that at the beginning. There is not only a need but a great desire to keep such competitions and experiences for our young people after 2012. We ought to start talking about locking the UK school games and the school sports partnerships operating effectively around the country into the Olympic legacy programme. If we held the games every two years after the Commonwealth games and the Olympics, we could use competitions and school sports partnerships during the fallow year to develop at the regional level.

We have laid a base for a proper discussion about how to develop sustainable competition, to which our young people have responded positively, thanks to all those who have supported the UK school games. My colleagues at DCMS have done a fantastic job, as have the cities that have hosted the games. When we put the matter out for competition, twice as many cities wanted to host the UK school games as we could manage between 2005 and 2012. I also thank the Youth Sport Trust, Fast Track and my hon. Friend the Minister for his support for the games since he took over the mantle of Sports Minister. They have been absolutely first-class, and I thank them. I think that the results that we have been producing through the games year in and year out are a credit to all the effort put in. If the press took a little more notice of the situation, it would be the icing on the cake.

On a point of order, Mr. Caton. Can you confirm that there is a little-known rule that prevents Front-Bench spokesmen who participate in debates such as this from giving the full support that I would wish to give to the right hon. Gentleman’s excellent proposals?

It is true that such a rule exists. You could perhaps take it up with the Chairman of Ways and Means if you would like to see the rule changed, but I am afraid it is a rule at present.

It is a great pleasure to respond to this debate. As a Minister, I usually find that when I respond to debates, I must knock down the arguments made by colleagues from any party, but I support wholeheartedly what my right hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Central (Mr. Caborn) said and I congratulate him on the work that he has done as president of the UK school games and in sport over many years, not just during the time when he was Sports Minister. His commitment to sport is well known.

My right hon. Friend is right to point out what is happening in school sport. He called it a quiet revolution, and I agree. There are a lot of myths about school sport that need to be broken down, and the UK school games have helped us do so, not in isolation but as part of an overall strategy on school sport. As he said, the UK school games were and are intended to ensure that our elite athletes have the opportunity to feel what it is like to be in a games scenario.

It has been my great pleasure during the past three years to attend games in Coventry and Bath. I am delighted that the hon. Member for Bath (Mr. Foster) is with us. He was a big supporter of the games in Bath and helped them grow from the previous stage, and I know that economically and in terms of sports and volunteerism, Bath is a much richer place. The comments about the games in Bath and Bristol were superb. I congratulate him on the work that he has done.

The games are part of a strategy to ensure that people enjoy the benefits of sports. Those of us on the Government Front Bench who are involved are committed to them. We know that sport changes people’s lives for good. Not only does it give them the individual satisfaction of doing well in a particular sport, but it brings life-enhancing skills and teaches people about teamwork and relating to other people. The friends that people make through sport while growing up, particularly school sport, stay with them all their life. Sport and the power of sport are important to us all, particularly this Government. Sport unites people. One great thing for me is that people do not have to speak the same language to understand, benefit from and be delighted by sport. The passion for sport is one reason why my right hon. Friend and others were successful in bringing the Olympics and Paralympics to London in 2012.

It is appropriate to use sites in the way that my right hon. Friend suggests. As he said, there are logistical issues and detailed discussions to be had with some of the bodies involved, including the Olympic Delivery Authority and the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games. However, the principle is right, and I was grateful that the hon. Member for Bath and the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt), who leads for the Conservatives on this matter, expressed their support in The Daily Telegraph this morning.

I hope that kills off the idea of having a schools Olympics, because we do not need one. We do not want to confuse the situation, but to build on the strengths that we have. As my right hon. Friend said, we have 432 sports colleges and 450 school sports partnerships. We also have competition managers and sports leaders. When I go around looking at school sport, one of the exciting things is to see sports leaders from secondary schools going into primary schools to teach sport and to help the PE teachers to develop sport.

There are therefore myths that need to be busted about participation rates, although the stereotypes about school sport are going. In the past, girls played hockey and netball and boys played football, cricket and rugby, but that has all changed. A lot of that is down to the investment that has gone into school sport and the work of the national governing bodies. We can now see mountaineering, canoeing and a vast range of other sports in schools. The competition element is also back, and that is key. There was a period when competition was taken out of school sport, and sport and society suffered as a result.

It is important that we rebuild confidence in school sport, and we are doing so. It is also important that we have the networks in place to allow our elite sports boys and girls to get into the school games. As my right hon. Friend said, he started the games off in 2005, and they have grown incrementally ever since. We will be in Tyne and Wear this year and we look forward to being in Sheffield in 2011, when I know that we will have a great games.

There are issues about what will happen after 2012, and the Department is going through them to evaluate the long-term future of the school games. However, I want it to go beyond 2012, and the opportunities are there. That would be such a boost in terms of the sporting legacy of 2012. It would also help with what we are calling the decade of sport, which started with the Twenty20 world cup last year. Every year there would be a major sporting event in the UK, hopefully leading up to the soccer World cup in 2018.

It is great to hold those great events, but they also provide opportunities for our young sportsmen and women to see role models and to have something to aspire to and achieve. Nobody was prouder than I was when I came back from Beijing to watch the Olympians and Paralympians parading their medals at the ceremony in London. The impact of that has gone right down into our communities. Those Olympians and Paralympians are now acting as role models and an inspiration for future generations. We are making sure that we have the structure in place to encourage that.

I want to make sure that the opportunity that my right hon. Friend presents us with is looked on positively. I will be pleased to help in any way that I can with the discussions and negotiations that we will need to have. It is good that we have all-party support, because we can use our collective strength to help the school games to develop even further.

I thank the Youth Sports Trust and Fast Track for their work. There have been questions about the cost and the value for money of the school games, but I am satisfied that they are an important part of what we want to happen in school sport as we try to develop our sports infrastructure.

It is important that we do well in London in 2012, and I am sure that we will. However, I also want us to do well in 2016 and 2020, and we will not if we do not have the sports infrastructure in place to enable our elite sports boys and girls to taste what it is like to be at the games. We took a lot of youngsters who were not competing to Beijing to sample the atmosphere, and the UK school games allows people to do that as well.

My right hon. Friend makes a fantastic proposal, which we would want to support, with the caveats about needing to work with certain organisations. Collectively, however, I am sure that we can cut out the nonsense about a schools Olympics. We have our schools Olympics—the UK school games—and we want to develop them further.

Question put and agreed to.