asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, we are committed to the continuing scrutiny of defence policy in Europe by national parliaments. Under the provisions of the Treaty of Amsterdam, the European Parliament is kept regularly informed of the development of the Union's foreign and security policy.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for that helpful Answer. Does she agree that if the objective is to have closer integration in our approach to foreign and security matters in the European Union, it is most important that parliamentarians within the member countries should be able to come together, as they do in the Western European Union, deliberate on a common analysis and decide how they can be more effective in their job of holding governments accountable in their own parliaments?

My Lords, it is useful if Ministers can come together. The work done in that regard has been most useful and we commend it. However, we must now consider how to move forward. Nothing in our new plans indicates that the opportunity to discuss and agree the issues will be diminished.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that one of the difficulties about the European Security and Defence Initiative is the way in which it has bee n represented in some parts of the United States' press and Congress? Headlines such as "A threat to NATO's future", which recently appeared in a publication of the American Enterprise Institute and was seen by certain American Senators, are, I regret to say, fed by statements made by some Members of the other place, in particular the shadow Defence Secretary. Does the Minister agree that the wider the debate and discussion within the European Parliament, and between it and the US Congress, the sooner we are likely to see that the ESDI is intended to strengthen NATO and not to divide and weaken it?

My Lords, I wholeheartedly join the noble Baroness in stating that it is of great importance that the truth about the issue should be made plain. I also join her in finding reprehensible those who seek to distort the policy into something which it is not. The Government are convinced that security and defence should remain under the scrutiny of national parliaments. We are planning for that in the future.

My Lords, I am happy to hear the Minister's comments. The whole project is meant to be intergovernmental and to include those members of NATO who are not members of the EU, thereby strengthening the European end of NATO as a resource to help us all. In the light of that, should not proper scrutiny rest with the Houses of this Parliament, as the noble Baroness emphasised? Is it not difficult to see where the European Parliament comes into the matter at all? This is a NATO development and a resource to help strengthen the NATO resources available to the United States and to the European powers.

My Lords, it is clear that the European Parliament will not have a significant role in this regard. It has no role in decision-taking on common foreign and security policy issues and the Government will aim to ensure that it has no role in defence decisions either. We believe that there will be a strengthening of NATO. We know that our US partners are very happy with the development. The words of Strobe Talbott have been quoted in this House on a number of occasions.

My Lords, does the Minister agree that matters might be clarified if the Government stopped denying that this is a European army? Does she further agree that if the force ever had to go into action—and a large force is being allocated for the purpose—it would require a commander-in-chief who would need a staff, intelligence, logistics, air support and, in certain circumstances, naval support? If that is not a European army, can the noble Baroness tell us what it is?

My Lords, let us be absolutely plain. This is not a European army. When the allies joined together for joint action in other forums in the world war no one suggested that that was a joint army. Each of us contributed resources and coordinated with the other in order to ensure that the allies won.

I shall say again, in case the noble Lord does not understand, that this is not a European army and it will not be so. The Government are determined that we should retain control of our Armed Forces. I can assure the noble Lord that other countries feel just as passionately about their officers as we rightly feel about ours.

My Lords, as we are in a mood to be absolutely plain, does my noble friend agree that there is a real distinction? One is strengthening the European part of NATO, with which we all agree; the other is the separate aim of creating an autonomous European Union military capacity. If we do not start to recognise that, frankly, we shall not understand what is at issue.

My Lords, I believe that I have said all I can say, that I have said it very plainly and that I cannot say it any more plainly. However, it is absolutely clear that we must find a modus operandi for working together in order to increase our capacity to respond efficiently to the challenges which Europe faces. We need to do that in order to ensure that we deploy our servicemen in theatre in the most effective way to protect ourselves and our European partners. For many years we have joined with our European friends in their hour of need. We shall continue to do that; and we shall do it more efficiently if we do it together.

My Lords, does my noble friend agree that if any expenditure whatever is made on common foreign and security policy that comes through the mechanism of the European Union budget, then the European Parliament in general and its budgetary control committee in particular have a specific responsibility for scrutiny of such expenditure?

My Lords, the Parliament may carry out scrutiny and it may also be in receipt of information. However, the most important point is that it does not have decision-making capacity. That capacity remains with national parliaments where, rightly, it should rest.

My Lords, we heard very clearly what the Minister said about our Armed Forces, and we agree. However, is she aware that there is more to this question than armed forces and that last year the French President described the United States as a hyper-power and criticised what he called America's "increasingly unilateral" farm policy? What specific assurances can she give that our EU partners, particularly our French partners in the St. Malo Declaration, respect our commitment to NATO and the preservation of its prerogatives and that they will do nothing to undermine it?

My Lords, we have no reason to believe that our French partners will seek to undermine NATO. They have not done so to date and there is nothing currently before us to cause us to believe that they will do so in the future.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, as your Lordships know, the oil market has been very volatile of late, with prices rising from 10 dollars per barrel of oil in February 1999 to over 25 dollars per barrel currently. The Government monitor the market closely because significant changes in oil prices could, if prolonged, impact adversely on the UK economy. However, whether oil prices are low or high, the Government remain committed to the operation of free, open markets, where price is determined by fundamentals and not by regulation or intervention.

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for that Answer. However, the substantial increase in oil prices to which he referred has already had a serious impact on the international economy. It was one of the major factors which led the USA to raise its interest rates the other day, with more rises to come and possibly with similar action elsewhere. Bearing in mind the enormously adverse impact that the oil price increases had in the 1970s, have the developed countries since then produced strategies (both short and long-term) to deal with the possible recurrence of that situation? In particular, does the noble Lord recall that the International Energy Agency, of which the UK is a founder member, has as a specific remit:

"To maintain and improve systems for coping with oil supply disruptions"?

I should like to ask what it has recommended in the present situation.

My Lords, so far as concerns our own economy, I believe that it is of interest that oil is far less important to UK industry in the year 2000 than it was in the 1970s. It is now mainly used for transport. In addition, energy intensity has fallen since the 1970s. Despite the significant rise in oil prices over the past year, that has resulted in a very modest increase—less than half of 1 per cent—in the RPI. I believe that it is also worth noting that on 6th and 7th March the price seemed to peak and we are now beginning to see it come down. Today, it stands at approximately 25 dollars per barrel. I believe that that indicates that the markets are probably anticipating that when OPEC countries meet on the 27th they will increase their production schedules. Therefore, either way, we are very far from a position where we need to intervene or to take regulatory action of the kind that I believe the noble Lord has in mind. I should add that it does not seem long since I answered a question at the Dispatch Box about what the DTI would do to help the oil industry to cope with very low prices.

My Lords, surely the Government have taken a series of actions in relation to the rising price of oil, culminating in yesterday's action in the Budget. Diesel fuel costs over 50 per cent more in this country than it does in the Republic of Ireland. That causes considerable distortions of trade across the Border.

My Lords, I believe that that is a separate, although rather interesting, question. Obviously, it relates to the tax issue. However, the tax increases which were announced yesterday are simply in line with the rate of inflation.

My Lords, as I do not have too many opportunities to congratulate the DTI, perhaps I may congratulate my noble friend on proposing to do nothing at all about the price of oil. Would he care to list, or perhaps place in the Library, those areas where the DTI has it in mind to interfere?

My Lords, I believe that that is an ever-decreasing list of areas.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, with a few minor exceptions, for roadworks carried out by utilities and telecommunications companies an on-site information board must name the responsible organisation arid a contact telephone number. The board may also contain other information, such as a description of the works, the name of the contractor, and the expected completion date. A code of practice which covers that process is currently being revised.

My Lords, I am obliged to the noble Lord for that Answer. The code of practice certainly needs revision. Is he aware that there is a growing impression that anyone with a mind to do so, and some shadow of an excuse, is free to go along, choose a piece of highway or street and occupy it; dig a hole in it at leisure; leave it for a while; go back to it and fill it in again? Do the Government not believe that the time has come—this is not a party point in any way—when it really would be appropriate for someone to reimpose a measure of control over what now appears to be total licence?

My Lords, I accept that the impression gained by the noble Lord and many others is not a million miles away from the way that he described it. But that is not the reality. An undertaker's licence is required. I do not refer to "undertakers" in the sense that we all fear, but in the sense of telecommunications and utility companies.

One of the problems is that a few years ago, when there was a single telecoms company, not many companies were entitled to have access in that way. The latest estimate suggests that there are about 80 such licence holders who have code powers to dig up the roads. The local authorities in central London estimate that whereas 10 years ago there were about 10 such companies, there are now about 30. That may well explain some of the conditions with which the noble Lord is familiar on the streets of London.

It is important that better co-ordination is introduced. The local authorities in London are attempting to achieve that and, as your Lordships will know from previous questions, we have just completed a consultation process on how we can better control this matter.

My Lords, as a Keynesian economist, I suppose that I should not object to the fact that a large chunk of the labour force is digging holes; that a second large chunk is filling them up again; and a third chunk is looking on, supervising. But perhaps my noble friend can help me in order for me to retain my sanity. Am I right that in London there has been an enormous proliferation of so-called "minor" roadworks which have caused major disruption during the past year and that the number seems to have grown tremendously without, as the noble Lord, Lord Peyton, pointed out, anybody seeming to be responsible?

My Lords, I am not sure that anybody has those statistics. Certainly in relation to central London, there is a general impression that there has been a lot of activity. That relates primarily not to the highways authorities, which are the direct responsibility, in the main, of the local authorities, but to utility companies and, in particular, to the proliferation of cable companies which, under their licences, have the right to require access to under-road sites.

It is a changed situation from that which existed a decade ago. The local authorities are attempting to achieve better co-ordination, but the situation may require legislation. Our consultation process was directed at that and we are now considering the responses.

My Lords, is the Minister satisfied with the provisions of the New Roads and Street Works Act?

My Lords, the provisions of the New Roads and Street Works Act would, if triggered, allow us to charge for over-stay but not on a daily basis. We were addressing the issue of whether we need more substantial powers in order to allow the highways authorities to charge for the total period. There was a mixed response to the consultation. If we were to go further than the provisions of the current Act, we should require primary legislative authority.

My Lords, with reference to one of the Minister's earlier answers, when are the results of the consultation and the new code likely to be published? Does he acknowledge that one effect of all this new underground cabling is to make very much more expensive the activities of local authorities in trying to modify the roadways? It is much more expensive to interrupt a fibre cable than to interrupt an ordinary, old-fashioned type of cable. Can anything be done to make sure that statutory undertakers channel their cables, pipes and so on through the same channels so that everyone knows where they are and it is easier to manage the highway above and around them?

My Lords, there is an attempt to get together the various bodies which have the right to access below ground so that they can operate their cable lines and access to that cabling on a co-ordinated basis. However, that does not entirely answer the noble Baroness's question because we should need further powers to ensure that they all follow the same line and that everything is co-ordinated. It is partially the case that access is more expensive, but there have been other improvements in the maintenance activities of highways authorities, both the Highways Agency and the local authorities, which offset that cost. Therefore, the main problem is not in relation to highway maintenance but in relation to utility access, particularly in our central city areas.

My Lords, will my noble friend comment on why it is that at this time every year roads and pathways are dug up, certainly in London, by local authorities which, all the year round, claim that they have no money to spend on anything and yet, suddenly, in March, they have money to spend on roads? There is hardly a road in one piece throughout the whole of north London at the moment and those works all involve local government money. Where has it come from?

My Lords, my noble friend is not entirely correct to say that those are works by local authorities and highways authorities. As I indicated earlier, they are works carried out by utilities companies. The particular phenomenon at the moment is the cable companies which are providing a cable network within central London. That is what is causing the particular problem.

It is true that a substantial amount of maintenance work is being carried out by local authorities. The usual complaint in relation to local authority road maintenance is that there is not enough of it, rather than that there is too much of it. I hope that in the local transport plans we shall put that right. That should be done on a planned and systematic basis which runs for five years and does not concentrate expenditure at one time.

My Lords, will the noble Lord answer the noble Baroness's question about the timing of the consultation exercise?

My Lords, I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Thomas, that I did not deal with that question. The consultation exercise ended on 31st January. We are currently assessing the replies and we hope to be able to make an announcement shortly. That will entail us looking at the prospects for legislation.

My Lords, will the noble Lord consider publishing a list of those who hold the licences or enjoy the licence to which he referred earlier, the names of the chairmen or various heads of those concerns, and their telephone numbers?

My Lords, I might consider that along with my DTI colleagues were it not that I think it might encourage or provoke the noble Lord into criminal activity. I should prefer, therefore, not to do so.

asked Her Majesty's Government:

My Lords, I understand that the decision by Glasgow City Council to return the asylum seekers was taken on the grounds that some of them should not have been sent from London as they were required, as a condition of their temporary admission to the United Kingdom, to report on a regular basis to a London office of the Immigration Service. The incident in Glasgow was regrettable but does not affect the Government's plans to disperse asylum seekers under the national asylum support scheme.

My Lords, I thank the Minister for that Answer. Does he not agree that this whole complex and difficult situation is compounded by the fact that last year, while tens of thousands of applications were rejected, only 7,000 people were sent back? Where are the others and who is accommodating them?

My Lords, the noble Lord makes reference to a subject which I know exercises many of your Lordships and certainly exercises the Government. The number of removals last year was a record 7,650. That fact is widely known. As to speculating where other asylum seekers may be located, we have good and accurate records but it is undoubtedly the case that there are some who have disappeared within the system. That much is commonly known too. It is extremely difficult to estimate precisely how many of those seeking asylum have disappeared but the Government have been and are determined to keep abreast of this problem. We inherited a system which was not—

Oh!

My Lords, I know that Members of your Lordships' House have perhaps taken against the way we are conducting ourselves. But the simple fact is that we inherited a system which was a shambles. We are still working that system. We have tried to tackle it and to get on top of it. We have introduced legislation which will be effective in getting to grips with the problem. I should have expected Members opposite to support the firm, tough action that the Government are taking.

My Lords, will the Minister accept that xenophobic attitudes towards asylum seekers now prevail and that there is a need to arrest such attitudes? Will he further accept that politicians could give a lead? Most asylum seekers are not beggars. They are law-abiding people. Will the Minister accept that one of their greatest difficulties is that they cannot work in this country? Will he review that position to ensure that those asylum seekers who are in this country for three months or longer are able to work to earn some kind of living, rather than having to live without adequate means?

My Lords, the Government believe that we must deal with and treat asylum applicants with humanity and decency. That much is clear. We had a useful debate in your Lordships' House on precisely that issue only a few weeks ago. As to whether those seeking asylum should be able to work, that is a matter which all governments need to keep under constant review. We do not wish to develop a dependency culture in this country, but we must he fair. We must be tough in the way we exercise our immigration and asylum powers and controls, but we must be firm and stand steadfast against prejudice and bigotry in the system.

My Lords, is the Minister aware that those of us who live in Scotland were ashamed by the spectacle of the refugees being returned on a 400-mile bus journey to London after only a few days in Glasgow? It was entirely due to a lack of communication and understanding on the part of both local authorities in Glasgow and London. Can I have some assurance that there will be no further instances of bureaucratic cock-up in respect of these poor people, many of whom were carrying young children? It has caused great misery to those unfortunate refugees.

My Lords, the arrangements to which my noble friend refers were voluntary dispersal arrangements. They were not put in place by Her Majesty's Government. They were made between Glasgow and the London consortium of authorities, principally, in this case, the London Borough of Wandsworth. It was highly unfortunate and regrettable in the extreme that there was a lack of, or breakdown in, communication. The circumstances surrounding the decision of council officials in Glasgow to return the asylum seekers to London are, in a sense, understandable, but such situations must not prevail in the future. I am confident that the arrangements we are putting in place for the statutory dispersal scheme will ensure that such a breakdown in communication—a failure, in this instance—does not occur in the future. The situation did not result from government action; it arose between two local authorities as part of the current voluntary arrangements. On that point, I believe that we should leave the matter.

My Lords, does not the Minister realise that the incident in Glasgow is merely one illustration of the chaos of the dispersal policy as a whole? It is part of the wider chaos of the Government's asylum policy. Will the Minister confirm that in December the Home Office expected by now to need 10,000 units of accommodation for that policy but that up to last month it had acquired fewer than 1,500 units; and that 1,000 of those involved have refused accommodation and have withdrawn themselves from support? Those were the figures last month. Does the Minister have any that are more recent?

My Lords, I cannot today provide new information to the noble Lord, but when it is available, I shall, of course, do so. The noble Lord says that the system is chaotic. I cannot agree. The Government have put in place a system of statutory dispersal which will take effect from 3rd April. It is in all of our interests to give support to that system so that we can increasingly bring order to the chaos the Government inherited—a situation we intend to put right. We are working a system we inherited. We are putting measures in place to tackle the problem. It would be in all our interests if the House supported the Government in taking firm and effective action.

My Lords, after the first debate this afternoon, my noble friend the Leader of the House will, with the leave of the House, repeat a Statement being made in another place on NHS reform and modernisation.

My Lords, I beg to move the Motion standing in my name on the Order Paper.

Moved, That the debate on the Motion in the name of Baroness Chalker of Wallasey set down for today shall be limited to three hours and that in the name of Baroness Park of Monmouth to two hours.—(Baroness Jay of Paddington.)

rose to call attention to the opportunities and challenges in Africa and the ways in which the United Kingdom can enhance economic growth both in that continent and at home; and to move for Papers.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, I am most grateful that we are holding this debate today on the opportunities and challenges of Africa. I am particularly grateful to all noble Lords who have put down their names to speak.

Five weeks ago, over 100 businessmen and women heard the FCO Minister for Africa, Peter Hain MP, directors from Standard Chartered Bank and representatives from Macmillan's the publishers and Unilever's Africa Business Group speak positively about the future of Africa. The Minister herself was a guest at the lunch to hear the discussion. All three companies have constructive business in and sound plans for Africa. The growing markets of Africa are a challenge and an opportunity, not only for those in Africa but for all at home who can assist them.

First, perhaps I may declare my interests. In addition to my current Africa-related non-executive directorships of Unilever plc, the Freeplay Energy Group and Landell Mills Ltd, at the end of 1998 I formed a small advisory company, Africa Matters Ltd., to advance the sharing of knowledge, transparent governance and business development in Africa.

When, three months ago, I first asked for this debate, I thought of the remarkable successes of Mozambique over the past eight years. Despite the tragic effects of the recent floods, with more than 10,000 hectares of productive land destroyed in the past four weeks, Mozambique remains one of the best examples of how a country can progress to sustained growth after years of civil war. That is because it has open accountable government and it is committed to business partnerships.

In Mozambique we have witnessed eight years of real achievement, especially in the south, since the end of the civil war. Now the country's friends must help it to achieve new growth, probably faster than the first time round. The opportunity to rebuild the infrastructure, re-establish agricultural production and re-develop the power and telecommunications networks in the most modern ways now known is one of the greatest opportunities open to business. That means business in this country as well as in Mozambique. If development assistance donors will partner the business and financial communities to build up the human capacity there, the country will be a positive lesson not only for her neighbours but also for development everywhere.

Not only did Mozambique achieve 4.7 per cent growth on average between 1988 and 1998, but Botswana averaged also 4.8 per cent over that period with some highs in double figures in the past 25 years. Uganda averaged 6.9 per cent, Ghana 4.3 per cent and Burkina Faso 3.1 per cent. All those countries had governments which began to focus on building up the capacity of essential sectors to train key workers, start essential privatisation and allow the private sector to grow and work alongside government.

If business sees unequivocal determination of a government to tackle its future, challenge by challenge, business is usually willing and able to partner that government in overcoming the daunting impediments to growth. Aid will still be needed and Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary-General, last week summed it up neatly in the third Commonwealth lecture when he said:

"yet for all that we have done to help Africa overcome its conflicts and false starts and lost decades, I am afraid to say it has not been enough. Africa needs more: more assistance, more technology, more investment, more access to world markets, more cooperation and partnership".

How right he was.

No one agrees more with that than the retiring Commonwealth Secretary-General, Chief Anyaoku. He has helped to return so many of the Commonwealth nations to a fuller understanding of the need for democracy, good governance, sound finance and business development. He has stimulated some important initiatives, such as the establishment of the Commonwealth Association for Corporate Governance, to convince leaders of the essential requirement to carry out their business and government tasks without corruption and within constitutional rules. We wish the Chief and his wife great good fortune in their new life, and a little more time in their village.

We are fortunate in his successor, Don McKinnon, who, like me, was a member of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Team to restore democracy in Africa. He will carry on the essential Commonwealth work into the new millennium. He will be a firm supporter of the growing Commonwealth Business Council, led by Lord Cairns, Cyril Ramaphosa and Dr Mohan Kaul, which promotes the very essence of the partnering concept that business and government are developing across 54 nations.

The business examples of Unilever, Standard Chartered and Macmillans are instructive. I am grateful to them for the information that I shall now share with your Lordships. Besides the oil and minerals industries, Unilever is the number one investor in Africa. Unilever produces in 12 countries and sells consumer goods for personal care, for the household and for food across nearly all other African countries. Its turnover in Africa is above the Unilever average, and it employs over 50,000 people. It also owns plantations in five nations. In Kenya its 19,000 employees benefit from medical care and schooling, which also embraces some 100,000 family members, with a hospital, four clinics, 34 nursery schools, 22 primary schools, two doctors, 65 nurses and many teachers.

In Ghana and South Africa, on-going training is supplemented by the Unilever Foundation for Education and Development for postgraduate training through the Nelson Mandela Scholarship scheme which carries with it job guarantees afterwards.

The service of Macmillans, the publishers, on educational books in Africa is a particularly constructive story. It generates over £25 million of profitable turnover with bases in 14 countries. Macmillans have invested 25 years building those companies, which operate just as publishing companies do in the developed world.

Christopher Paterson of Macmillans is fond of saying, that for business success in Africa one needs nerves of steel with a long-term perspective, a "go anywhere, do anything" attitude and good personal relationships. My judgment is that every task takes rather longer to complete in Africa than in Europe, because often planning is not well thought through and systems are less reliable. However, the issues faced are very similar and with good personal relationships, well-trained and loyal staff, the rewards are there for the efforts invested.

Standard Chartered Bank, although active in much of the developing world, has made a special contribution to Africa for over 100 years. It operates in 12 sub-Saharan African countries, including Sierra Leone. It employs 5,500 people, spends over £100 million a year there, has assets over £1.5 billion, remits all profits, and makes a pre-tax profit of £100 million. As Standard Chartered is the first to say, it is doing well because its customers are doing well. Along with Guinness, BAT, BP, Shell and so many more, Britain's corporates play a huge role in developing Africa, but there are just not enough corporates yet involved. It is amazing to find that the banks remain underlent and we need to remember that there is plenty of debt capacity to support the much needed capital for business.

Although I have always been a fervent, committed advocate of the cancellation of government-to-government debt, debt has a role to play in business. Borrowing has a role to play provided it is done within well-known and well-calculated limits and the risks are clear for all to see.

Turning to the positive side—a factor that is often forgotten—investment brings far more to Africa than just capital. It brings urgently needed technology and management, too. At present Africa gets just 1 per cent of the world's foreign direct investment (FDI), and half of that goes to South Africa, Nigeria and north Africa. Yet investment in Africa brings one of the best rates of return. Standard Chartered Bank reports that for the African region collectively, the return on equity is in excess of 30 per cent. That means that there is real scope for greater investment, and true benefit for the investor. I shall turn to South Africa a little later.

Although it is true that there are always inherent risks, we can begin to minimise those risks through the greater involvement of businesses in addressing the key issues of good governance and tackling corruption. Alone governments cannot, and nowadays should not even try to, provide the infrastructure, but they should gain much from partnerships in planning, delivery, maintenance, upgrading of power, water supply, rail, telecommunications and roads, all of which are essential for education and business.

New initiatives such as African Lakes' e-touch Internet booths are an imaginative development for a few countries. If those and similar schemes are developed, there will be a much-needed communications improvement across Africa, from which millions may begin to benefit.

I repeat that no company should be under any illusion about the extent of the task involved in building up business in Africa. There are severe skill shortages, but there are enormous opportunities for building business through skill sharing, as well as developing equipment and technology. Active investment in a factory or agricultural production produces real multipliers. For one person employed, an extended family of 10 or more is supported, creating new economic activity.

The benefits of training spread fast, particularly where elementary education is a priority. Training helps to stimulate local industries to become suppliers to the main investment. Those suppliers need suppliers themselves. More and more governments are being persuaded to focus on and to introduce best practice action, especially at local levels.

Nearly every development donor is involved in some way in building management and technical capacity in all sectors in the developing world. However, it is crucial that newly trained people get hands-on advice in the application of that capacity. Mentoring by firms is common, particularly by smaller supplying firms.

BESO (the British Executive Service Overseas), of which I am president, is one of over 30 international mature volunteer organisers sending help to small and medium enterprises and to areas of skills shortage across the developing world. For over 25 years that practical skill transfer has brought new insights and applications to thousands of organisations and businesses in the developing world. Business people with real experience can make all the difference to a small start-up, a local hospital or even agricultural development.

However, for capacity building in business to be truly successful, a nation's education has to be soundly based, with the proper commitment of a government's own resources. Much is done to assist this by corporate support, but it cannot succeed unless education is a financial and organisational priority of government on a much wider basis. The use of the Internet and satellite broadcasting will become more useful to education, as will our wind-up radios. But it is e-commerce ingenuity that may help us to overcome some of the education deficits, provided the country's infrastructure is upgraded. At present that is just not so. It must be able to provide the power and improved communication facilities that are needed for far greater numbers.

South Africa's great infrastructure advantages do not exclude it from any of the challenges of education, healthcare or the need for greater investment for the mass of the people. In its recent research, A.T. Kearney found that informed current investors are far more positive about their futures than those who, alas, build up negative perceptions of South Africa from the outside. In South Africa, unlike other countries, it is not so much the market size which attracts investment, rather its stable and business-friendly environment, developed infrastructure and abundant natural resources. Those factors are given as the principal drivers of investment.

The proper development of natural resources, particularly that of minerals, will remain one of Africa's best hopes for investment, growth and employment for years to come. However, companies and governments must have predictable, regulated, orderly and transparent mining regimes with proper regard for health and safety and for the environment, as well as sound corporate social policies. I hope that UN Ambassador Fowler's work to stop the very small proportion of diamonds that come from conflict areas will be seen in proportion. Some 96 per cent of diamond production comes from non-conflict areas. Noble Lords will not need me to explain how many jobs are at stake in that 96 per cent of production.

Service industries, finance, marketing and tourism are all new key areas for investment in Africa. However, healthcare remains a great mountain for most African countries to climb, including South Africa. Tackling HIV and AIDS is still a very major task, which is being much helped by the activities of various business concerns.

Good governance is an absolute must for these countries and will be one of the greatest challenges across the world. But corruption will only diminish when good government and corporate codes of business become the norm. Those will come only when bribers from the north—in the main from the developed countries—stop bribing. That is why it is essential that the UK fully implements the OECD rules against corruption, a matter on which we are being very slow at the present time. By having strong rules, with instant dismissal for offenders, companies can show the way, but governments must help to police the whole system of governance. That requires each and every one of them to put their own houses in order as well.

Perhaps I may end by saying this. Many in Africa are trying hard to improve their performance and to change the world's mistaken perceptions. There are some terrible exceptions to this in the political management of Zimbabwe, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola and others. But the builders of Africa—whether President Mbeki in South Africa or President Obasanjo fighting corruption and years of mismanagement in Nigeria, or, indeed, Zambia, which is at last beginning to privatise its mining industry —are making greater efforts to modernise and develop than I have seen over the past 20 years. Those efforts will create employment, prosperity and growth. However, until peace and stability are restored to the war-torn nations, business cannot play the effective role that it wishes to do. Good management can bring positive change, but it requires more leaders, more business and more investors. It also requires them all to pull in the same, positive direction. Then the opportunities will be realised. I beg to move for Papers.

My Lords, I am pleased to be able to speak in this debate and I should like to congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, on putting down this Motion which gives us an opportunity to have a wide-ranging debate about Africa.

I should like to concentrate on South Africa, although I am conscious that we shall deal with the entire continent in this debate. However, South Africa is the area I know best. Anyone who has visited that country cannot fail to be impressed by the strong sense of nationhood felt by her people. It is amazing to see, given the brutal background of that nation. The vitality and optimism for the future shown by South African people leaves a lasting impression on any visitor. However, equally strong is the realisation that South Africa faces major challenges as well as opportunities.

Perhaps I may concentrate on two specific areas in my contribution. The noble Baroness rightly spoke of skills shortages throughout the continent. I should like to talk about education initiatives in South Africa which will help to provide solutions to those shortfalls. The noble Baroness mentioned several household name companies in her contribution. Many are helping in the work on education that needs to be done, not in a patronising fashion but working as partners where both the companies concerned and South Africa can benefit from such efforts. Indeed, those benefits are also felt by the United Kingdom as a whole.

I should like to talk about an education effort that has not received much publicity but is contributing in a helpful manner. Since 1997, the Warwick Manufacturing Group, attached to the University of Warwick, has been working, at their invitation, with the South African Government. Together, they have set up a partnership that has links in both the private and the public sectors. South Africa's electricity generating and distribution company, Eskom, has set up a technology leadership programme that works with Warwick to secure University of Warwick accreditation for both degree and master's courses. This is not a form of distance learning or a franchise. Training is given on the ground by tutors from Warwick working in South Africa. Students also come here to study at the university. The first awards were made in 1998. Tutors in South Africa are now working on the next stage of the master's degree courses.

Eskom is also working to secure its own interest in providing effective management for the future, because it will be a major challenge to provide electricity to every home in South Africa. The company has sent 30 women on its chief executive officers' course being run at Warwick. Those women have been earmarked as potential senior managers in engineering and will provide the leadership of tomorrow.

In 1997, the then Deputy President, now President of South Africa, limbo Mbeki, launched the Project 2000 Campaign, a project that aims, over a four-year period, to train 2000 senior managers to advanced and degree-level on courses designed in co-operation with the University of Warwick. It was a matter of great credit to the United Kingdom when the president said that Professor Bhattchayya of the Warwick Manufacturing Group had provided them with an effective affirmative action programme that would empower future managers and would also extend their capabilities in using competitive management practices in the developing private sector.

That kind of partnership in education will be increasingly useful, as will extending such opportunities info the more disadvantaged areas, such as the University of Zululand in Kwazulu/Natal and Transkei in the Eastern Cape. Today, 800 managers are attending training courses, which is not only good for South Africa, but also good for the work being done here in education. Partnerships of this kind benefit everyone involved.

An area in which I have a particular interest and on which the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, did not touch in her contribution is that of housing. I am glad to have the opportunity to mention this subject in today's debate. Housing is a big challenge for any nation, but from my own observations, it will be an enormous challenge for South Africa. In that country there is a developing sector of social landlords who need professional management skills. The noble Baroness mentioned good governance as part of the strategy required to avoid corruption. That applies as much to social housing as it does in business. The social housing sector in this country is working in a low-key fashion with the South Africa Housing Foundation, which has set up around 50 initiatives.

Regrettably, Britain is not providing the level of resources for projects of this kind as are Holland and one or two of the Scandinavian countries. Nevertheless, we are working on the ground in South Africa, sending over professional managers to work with the local managers in this sector.

I am pleased to be launching later today, under a charity that is already registered, an appeal asking the lending sector—the banks and social housing—to extend bursaries. We are not asking them to give money that we hand on, but to create bursaries whereby we can work with and train in social housing skills, in the United Kingdom, the future young professionals from South Africa. They can then take those skills back and utilise them. That is a positive way forward. It will not change the world overnight. But the need is great for those who are not used to paying rent; who do not have electricity or water. There is a great deal that needs to be done, and quickly.

We are delighted to be working in this sphere. It is an enormous challenge and it is not the kind of stuff that hits the headlines. It is positive rather than negative in the sense that we often tend to read negative stories in the UK. So I welcome this debate. I am sure that all those taking part in it will learn a great deal from it. I look forward to listening to the other contributions so that I, too, can learn and have an input into education and in the development of a housing partnership in which we will be working with, rather than patronising, the people of South Africa. They desperately need to gain from what we have learnt, and then be able to apply it in their own country.

My Lords, I too thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, for introducing this debate and for persisting in her demands to ensure that it takes place. Also, I congratulate her on her eloquent and comprehensive review of the opportunities now available in Africa. Like the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, I want to concentrate on two issues. However, before I do that I apologise to the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, and the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, who will be replying for the Government, in that, if the debate runs for the full three hours, I may have to leave before the end. I apologise for that. It is a longstanding engagement which was difficult to escape from. But were I and other noble Lords to be swift, I should not be faced with that dilemma.

The two issues I should like to address are, first, the question of the macro-conditions which will promote economic development in Africa; and, secondly, the need for a thriving base in society in terms of a free, prosperous, secure people who represent markets and economic potential for companies which might invest.

In relation to the macro-conditions for investment and enterprise, yes, open markets and liberalisation help. But when I attended the Afro-American Summit in Ghana last year as one of a small number of representatives of international business in a meeting with 16 heads of state, it was clear from the businessmen there that the greatest single obstacle to inward investment is something to which the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, referred; that is, corruption. It inhibits responsible, good, long-term players from investing in Africa.

Conversely—we should recognise this; it may be true also for Angola—corrupt regimes have an almost magnetic attraction for pirate companies; for cowboy companies (to mix my metaphors); for people who want to operate on short-term horizons in a thoroughly opportunistic way and who are not prepared to make long-term commitments. Those types of people are often attracted by corrupt regimes which facilitate their swift entry. So there is a double hazard in corruption: it deters the best investors and attracts the worst.

When the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, was a Minister, she addressed the issue of linking British assistance of all sorts to good governance. That remains of crucial importance in Africa. Perhaps when the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, replies she can say whether the Department for International Development is persisting in the policies initiated by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, in terms of that linkage, and if so, how. It is of crucial importance in Africa.

At the micro-level, it is clear that Africa contains a large proportion of the world's most disadvantaged, most poor and least educated people. Business certainly has a role to play as a partner for social development of one sort or another. Indeed, the company of which I was until recently a director and which I still advise, Rio Tinto, which has long-term investments in southern Africa, believes it is the role of companies in Africa to get involved in the development, both social and economic, of the communities where they invest. So business can help in creating capacity, in training and in some of the ways already outlined by the noble Baronesses, Lady Dean and Lady Chalker.

But something further is needed; that is, an opportunity for ordinary people to participate in the informal economy on a scale which is not possible at present. The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, said that borrowing has a role to play. It does, but at the micro-level also. We have seen promising experiments in South Africa, Tanzania and other parts of east and southern Africa in the use of micro-credit and micro-finance. One with which I have a close acquaintance is the venture in Kwazulu-Natal of Richards Bay Minerals, which is a subsidiary of Rio Tinto, in pavement banks. They started initially in converted containers. That has been extremely successful cumulatively. It is now part of a larger economic development experiment.

Those banks have been lending small amounts, from £7.50 up to £150, often on quite a short-term basis of a month or two; in fact, the average repayment period in those early experiments, which started in 1994, was 10 days. The money was being overwhelmingly used by hawkers, vendors and traders who would buy their essential stock and obligatory cart and be able to take craft and agricultural products to market. In that way they were brought into the informal economy as small enterprises.

Most striking of all is how much micro-finance such as that benefits women in particular. I believe that women are the great unharnessed opportunity of Africa. The vitality and energy of African women have to be seen to be believed. There is a lot of energy and potential for leadership in the emerging countries of Africa. Micro-credit is one way to allow small business people to realise opportunities which they would otherwise not be able to do. In fact, the experiment I talked of has succeeded, over six years, in creating 3,500 jobs and 830 new micro and small businesses—one can visualise how small the businesses must be.

So I recommend maximum support by the Department for International Development and for companies operating in South Africa to act as bankers and enablers of micro-credit. First, it helps to give people a taste for economic life, for self-management, for money management, for how to meet obligations that are a prerequisite of commercial life. Secondly, it definitely helps sustainability. We had in your Lordships' House a few weeks ago an interesting debate on sustainable livelihoods. Micro-credit is often the means by which people can define for themselves sustainable livelihoods. It is particularly important as a means of enabling women with the confidence to play a full role in that informal economy. Micro-credit has been successful in India, the Far East and in other parts of Africa.

Most striking of all is the fact that the apartheid regime in South Africa really discouraged two forms of activity by the black population. It discouraged people being artisans—that takes us back to the issue of trading capacity—and discouraged black people from knowing how to mend motor cars and windows and learning how to do plumbing. It thought that such jobs ought to be reserved for the white workers of South Africa. The regime also discouraged entrepreneurs—and thus the very possibilities that micro-finance and micro-credit can open up.

Therefore, in creating capacity and recycling credit at the base of the economy—not just simply at the top with the grand investors and the major banks—I hope that Her Majesty' Government will continue to pursue at that rather humbler level all the opportunities that micro-finance and micro-credit make available. In my opinion, the future of Africa economically lies on the whole with more micro activity and rather less grandiose schemes.

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, for having given us this opportunity to debate the current challenges and opportunities facing the African continent. During her long period as Minister of State responsible for overseas development, the noble Baroness played a key role not just in promoting democracy in many parts of Africa, but also in the implementation of the many economic reform programmes on that continent. Sadly, however, the African continent has been written off as a lost cause by many commentators. I was therefore pleased that the wording of the noble Baroness's Motion addresses the positive opportunities and challenges in Africa.

For obvious reasons of my background, having spent most of my life living in South Africa, I wish to focus my remarks on the political and economic challenges and opportunities affecting not just South Africa but also the entire region of southern Africa. I say "political" because the economic success of any country in Africa is obviously inextricably connected to the political stability of that country. Although there are certainly many positive aspects to speak about in southern Africa, it would be naive of me to paint a purely Dullish, upbeat picture of the region, especially in the, light of the regional conflicts as a result of the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the devastating recent floods in Mozambique, the seemingly endless civil war in Angola, and the recent collapse of the Zimbabwean economy.

Under the leadership of Nelson Mandela, South Africa achieved the political miracle through his policy of promoting reconciliation. South Africa now needs to achieve a similar economic miracle by enhancing economic growth and creating more jobs. Since the political transformation in 1994 there has been a strong emergence of a black middle class. The central difficulty for President Thabo Mbeki is how he can preserve the position of the newly empowered middle classes while generating a huge increase in jobs for those outside the charmed circle. As has already been mentioned, the poor overall education and skills level—a legacy of the apartheid years—has not helped his cause. Unemployment, excluding the informal sector, is estimated at around 40 per cent of the labour force, with the obvious result that crime has become endemic and a major concern for foreign investors and for locals living in South Africa. Labour economists are increasingly worried about the breakdown in the relationship between growth and jobs. But I believe that President Thabo Mbeki is firmly committed to speeding up the economic reforms and boosting economic growth.

South Africa has implemented prudent macroeconomic policies keeping inflation firmly under control and reducing the budget deficit. It has achieved a fairly stable currency as a result of these measures. In addition to the stable economic environment, the country has an excellent transport, communications and financial services infrastructure. Britain has certainly played a key role as one of South Africa's main trading partners and recently assisted South Africa in the delicate European negotiations on the Free Trade Agreement, giving it wider access to sell its goods in these markets. Sadly, these negotiations have been long protracted and, I believe, have left many South Africans feeling very disenchanted with the process of encouraging South Africa into such markets.

For South Africa to succeed—certainly if the country is to benefit from and contribute to a regional revival—peace needs to be restored in southern and central Africa. Further, the country needs to attract a lot more foreign direct investment. When I say "foreign direct investment", I see this as long-term investment rather than short-term capital flows into the bond or equity markets. South Africans have become increasingly aware of how inefficient much of their industry is, especially formerly heavily protected sectors such as the motor car industry. In the area of infrastructure, more public/private partnerships are needed in southern Africa. The World Bank is trying to facilitate this.

I turn now from South Africa to Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe's military intervention in the civil war in the Democratic Republic of the Congo has cost the country dear and plunged the economy into one of the worst financial crises in its history. This has resulted in an escalation of social unrest. The lack of transparency and democracy over the past two decades has led to rampant corruption in the country. I just hope that the forthcoming general elections will he free and fair. Many commentators are concerned by vote-rigging tactics and the lack of checks and balances. Although I have tabled a Question on the subject for next week, I would appreciate it if the Minister could elaborate on what measures Her Majesty's Government are taking to ensure that these elections will be free and fair.

It is important for Africa that Zimbabwe recovers from this crisis. It has had an obvious knock-on effect for several British companies, such as Standard Chartered, Barclays Bank and BAT, which have billions of dollars invested in the country. Many countries have halted new aid to Zimbabwe because of its human rights violations, government corruption, economic mismanagement and its military involvement in the Congo. Much of this aid was targeted at rural development, education, health and sanitation programmes, which are essential for those living in poverty. On the positive side, the country—and the economy—has huge scope for growth in agricultural exports, notably tobacco, the mining sector and tourism, combined with the highest literacy rate in Africa, as well as a well-trained workforce. The potential for economic recovery, should there be political stability, is huge for Zimbabwe.

The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, spoke of the tremendous achievements in Mozambique after so many years of civil war. After all the encouraging economic reforms over the past few years enhanced by foreign investment and privatisation, Mozambique has suffered a calamitous setback as a result of the recent devastating floods that will particularly affect many parts of the rural economy in the south of the country. Roads and bridges close to the Limpopo and Incomati rivers have been washed away and maize fields submerged. The floods have also destroyed a lot of the crops in the eastern part of South Africa, which supplies much of the food for Maputo and the surrounding area. For Mozambique to revive the economic recovery at the same pace as before the floods, the transport infrastructure will need quickly to be repaired and peasant farmers supplied with food until the next harvest.

There are reasons to be optimistic about the future of Mozambique, despite the fact that 11 million of its 16 million people are living below the poverty line. The northern provinces, which have more fertile land, were not affected by the recent floods. Many Mozambicans have not yet moved beyond subsistence farming lo take part in the modern industries of aluminium smelting, tourism and the financial services sector that are driving the current economic growth. I hope that as a result of the recent crisis there will not just be an increase in aid flows, but also much more debt relief for the country.

Finally, President Thabo Mbeki's vision of an "African renaissance" is based on the uncontroversial idea that hard work, economic growth, democracy and the fight against corruption will help the continent to realise its undoubted potential. It is patently clear that Africa's economic development is inextricably linked to political developments and peace. I support Her Majesty's Government's endeavours, and particularly those of DfID, to promote this ideal.

My Lords, I warmly congratulate my noble friend Lady Chalker of Wallasey on promoting this debate. I applaud not only her past record in government but also the work she now does in the field of African development. When I travel south of the Sahara her name is a byword for sympathy, understanding, empathy and creative optimism in helping the African nations to develop in extremely adverse circumstances.

I add a few words of praise in a completely nonpartisan spirit for the present holder of the office of Secretary of State for International Development. Clare Short brings great vigour and optimism to her job and seeks to call to our attention the vast importance of development in the poorest parts of Africa and elsewhere and the vast difficulties that exist. As is always the task of holders of that office in any government, she tries to mobilise serious, dedicated and widespread support for the development cause.

Clare Short has made a number of excellent speeches. Indeed, many others have made speeches. If speeches were the currency of development, Africa would become rich, so many speeches and words have been generated. Unfortunately, Africa is not becoming rich, but poor. Many parts of Africa are poorer now than they were in 1960 and are still going backwards. It is also a very violent place. Some noble Lords may have read the chilling and devastating book by the leading American journalist, Robert Kaplan, The Coming Anarchy, in which he describes in detail what is happening in many African countries. That description is remote from the kind of glossy picture sometimes portrayed by elite groups at the UN and other international agencies.

Sierra Leone, although it is temporarily stabilised, is the poorest country on earth. The Ivory Coast used to be rich from cocoa exports but has taken a dive as its forests have been stripped. Somalia has no government at all. Kenya, where I went with starry eyes in the 1960s to help with the Federation of East Africa, was an efficient and prosperous state but has sunk down and down into greater difficulties, corruption and chaos. AIDS is gripping poor Zambia; Zimbabwe has AIDS and bad politics, as we have just heard in the telling and informed speech of the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso. There is war in Congo Brazzaville and in Angola. Even South Africa, which I greatly admire and love, is a violent country with a murder rate six times that of the United States and five times that of Russia. Central Johannesburg is becoming almost uninhabitable. These are steps backwards, not forwards. We must contrast the positive side, which my noble friend Lady Chalker stressed so strongly, with the reality of some dreadful developments.

What are the problems? There is no doubt that the whole globalisation process produces good and bad, tensions and opportunities, and is doing so in some of the poorer societies and nations of Africa. The old idea that pouring billions of pounds worth of aid into Africa would achieve something has proved totally wrong. The billions have gone in; development, in general, with marvellous exceptions, has not occurred. The whole school of development economics is fundamentally wrong in terms of what drives development. The model of people such as W W Rostow and the generation of economists who looked at economic factors but failed to look at the constitutional and legal factors and the underlying questions of good governance, which have been rightly mentioned, was simply wrong.

Much nearer the mark was the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, a Member of this House who was much derided at the time for saying that the key to economic growth lay in the historical dimension of what had happened previously and in the customs and the constitution of the country concerned. By taking account of that, one would understand what made growth happen; if one simply poured in money, one would not. He argued that,

"understanding of antecedents was critical to the understanding of the current social phenomena and how development would proceed".

He was right. Those who derided him were wrong. It is not more and more aid that will move these African countries forwards rather than backwards; it is far greater concentration on basic things wrapped up in the phrase "good governance". I refer to respect for property and property rights so that you can invest without having that investment removed from you. I refer to law and order and the confidence of knowing that some roaming, illegal gang will not come along at night to slaughter your family and take your possessions. I refer to political stability—government that is soundly advised and with the legal system entrenched. I refer to reasonable freedom from corruption. One cannot be too strict about that as there will always be a degree of corruption. One cannot eliminate it entirely. That is one important starting point which I think we have to accept if we are to see progress in Africa. We must be careful with the word "democracy". The word flows easily from the lips of many lecturers and elite groups, but there is democracy, pseudo-democracy and the trappings of democracy. We may find better prospects for the future in the model of Uganda today. President Museveni attended the Select Committee in the other place which I had the honour to chair. When eager young MPs asked him why his country did not have democracy, he replied, "How long did it take you to achieve a proper democratic system—300, 400, 500 years? What do you expect in Uganda?" If it is only pseudo-multi-party democracy, with soldiers chucking grenades into the middle of it, that does not lead to development but to more chaos and more difficulty. We need to be careful as regards preaching about democracy being the answer and the model for Africa to follow tomorrow morning.

My noble friend Lady Chalker is totally right to say that Africa needs private investment, the return of flight capital and debt relief. Somehow, capital has to be injected back into Africa. There is much private investment in emerging countries—244 billion dollars last year. However, as my noble friend rightly reminded us, the vast proportion of it does not go to Africa. How do we get that flowing again? I believe that the roots of the development must be humble and focused on the smaller owner, the smaller processor, the smaller factory and the smaller farmer. I always admired the model of what was once known as the Colonial Development Corporation and which later became the Commonwealth Development Corporation. I admired that model over the years from the days when Evelyn Baring was chairman. It adopted the right approach to small-scale, private enterprise development. We should forget the big, glamorous schemes and the giant aid flows and get on with small-scale development in the form of agriculture, processing and distribution. My noble friend is absolutely right to say that that is what is needed.

Access to markets is extremely important. I am shocked by the way in which the American trade unions at present are blocking African textile exports to the United States. I am shocked to see how many other people who generally preach virtue and development when their own specific interests are threatened put obstacles in the way of exports from the poorest parts of Africa into the great markets of Europe and the United States.

Perhaps I may quickly run through my list of world institutions. Can they do more? The World Bank seems still not to have its tasks properly focused. Much too much effort is going into concessionary lending to Argentina, Mexico, Brazil and China—all countries with huge access to private capital. If we need this institution, why is it not concentrating much more on the poorest countries?

Why is the IMF playing around in this area so unsuccessfully when it should be limiting its activities, as the Melzer report rightly recommends, to liquidity crises and short-term situations? It is getting into a muddle about its role and stepping onto ground which should be covered by the World Bank.

As to the United Nations, splendid and excellent work is done by its agencies hut, again, it seems to be losing its focus. The UN should be defining and upholding the rules of international order and continuing with its works of mercy. Yet it appears ready to invade the sovereignty of nation states and to try to umpire between good and evil in ways which usually end up with the poorest suffering. We need to see change in all those areas if the African development pattern is to take off.

I conclude with one brutal and awkward question: does Africa really matter at all to our electorate? We have to ask that question because development policy must win support in our country at large. No amount of wishful thinking and idealism can get round that fact. I believe that in the end Africa is strategically extremely important in terms of our precise national interest. Disease, war, migration and environmental destruction all threaten our cosy societies, threaten Europe and threaten global stability.

We will be saved, not by the world government or even more aid, but by what Kofi Annan called, in his Commonwealth lecture last week, "solid frameworks of law". If we can work out how to get from here to solid frameworks of law in the small and medium-sized states of Africa, we will have secured a better path to development than anything a thousand economic remedies or theories can offer. It is the realists, the investors and the hard-headed businessmen rather than the idealists and the foreign aid enthusiasts who can and will bring this about.

My Lords, it is a pleasure and a privilege to take part in this debate which was introduced so ably by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. I appreciate following the noble Lord, Lord Howell because he mentioned my former colleague, the noble Lord, Lord Bauer. I want to link the remarks attributed to the noble Lord, Lord Bauer, with some of the points made by the noble Lord, Lord Howell. They are pertinent.

Let me begin with the question asked by the noble Lord: does Africa matter to us? I think I do not care; Africa matters to Africans. We should worry about Africa not because it is in our interests or to our profit—or even because it is to our detriment that Africa may spread disease—but because many people live there. Their well-being should matter to us regardless of whether or not we do business with them. We shall do business with them, but we should take an interest in Africa because many Africans live there.

For far too long and throughout the Cold War, we have tolerated misgovernance in Africa. We aided and abetted bad governance—we gave lots of money to people like Mobutu—and we should not now suddenly shake our heads and say, "The mess you have made is nothing to do with us. When are you going to behave yourselves?"

I remember that in the 50s, when I began to study development economics, Africa was not a poor country; Asia was. People in Asia looked with envy at Africa—at Ghana, Nigeria and Kenya—and thought, "Aren't the Africans lucky? They have lots of land, lots of natural resources and not much population". We thought that they had all the institutions that had been given to them by western countries. Asia was the big worry. I remember people saying in the mid-60s, "If only India and China could feed themselves, there would be very few problems left".

It is interesting to think of how Asia has taken care of its own problems, and Africa has not. I think that, fundamentally, the key lies in the way that Asia has looked after agriculture and rural development, and Africa has not. I support what the noble Lord, Lord Holme, said in that respect. Many years ago, Peter Baher reminded us that agriculture in Africa, especially in west Africa, is women's business. Trade is women's business. Many development agencies when they first went to Africa forgot this—they did not know—and so men were given agricultural grants. But men did not know much about agriculture; they had never had experience of it before.

One way of reviving African economies is to go back to the rural development issue, where again micro-credit helps. There we will find that African people have natural habits of entrepreneurship, especially African women. It would be a great opportunity for Africa to revive those trading practices and exports. After all, west Africa used to be a major exporter of agricultural products. But those economies have been smashed up by people who thought them unfashionable. We now know that those people were wrong. They followed the wrong ideology of starting industrialisation and transferring the surplus from rural to urban areas; and they indulged in certain fashions, as newly independent countries do.

However, we have to admit that at that time we were part of the problem but not part of the solution. We now have to examine our own role and say to ourselves, "Should we do too much? Should we not allow Africa the opportunity to look after itself? Helping, yes, perhaps; but not again laying down the law as to what it should do this time. We did it last time and we got it wrong".

I should like to concentrate on the theme which, to me, is the most important key to development in Africa. I refer to export-oriented rural development and micro-credit. In that context, one of the major concerns is not only democracy but decentralisation. It was because of a concentration of power in the urban areas and capital cities that a massive misallocation of resources took place. Once again, we should take the message of devolution of power and decentralisation to Africa—I am sure that DfID is doing so—and of giving women their proper role in local politics.

There are good examples of that. In India, seats are reserved for women at the panchayat level. It has been a long time coming. It has not been easy because men do not readily give up power. It is important that we push the idea of a combination of decentralisation, devolution of power, micro-credit, and rural development to revive Africa's fortune. It is obvious to the people concerned that that is the way out; it affects their livelihoods and they hardly need telling. We need basically to get out of their way and to help them to achieve what they can.

Many noble Lords have said that from the mid-50s onwards—almost 50 years ago now—the big failure in Africa was a failure of governance. A few years ago, Basil Davidson, a long-standing student of Africa, wrote a book entitled Black Man's. Burden—I recommend it to noble Lords—in which he pointed out that nationalism cost Africa dearly through the setting up of small nation states. Those nation states, indulging in their own fancies—as they were wont to do—cost Africa a lot of valuable surplus which was not reinvested. That was combined with the wrong theory; namely, that all business, especially private business, was somehow "anti-people", and that did not help either.

I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Howell, that issues of governance are again prominent. I should not go so far as to say that Africa does not need democracy; I still believe that democracy is a good thing. We do not insist, for example, that, because the railroad happened in Western countries, Africa should go through all the stages that those countries went through before having railroads. We encourage everyone to have the latest technology. Why, when it comes to politics, Africa needs 500 years to develop democracy, I do not understand.

Centralised democracy at national level is not enough. What are necessary are vibrant connections at local as well as national level. To use another clich00E9;, the quality of civil society is very powerful. One African country I have visited more than any other is Sierra Leone. I used to go there as an external examiner in the days when the Fourah Bay college was a great university and external examiners were honoured and the red carpet was rolled out for them.

Since then, I have seen Sierra Leone falling apart in the most amazing way. In the late 1970s, it was not the poorest country in Africa. It was a properly governed, good country; it had a good infrastructure and so on. The most surprising thing I found on revisiting the country was that there was no newspaper. In Freetown, it was not possible to get hold of a tabloid or a broadsheet which was readable. All that was occasionally available was some grubby thing with four pages. That should have triggered some idea as to where the problem lay. There was no civil society, no standard channels by which people could operate outside the political system. The political system monopolised all social life.

Africa is much more in need of the forces of civil society, which would act as a counterbalance to politics. Politics of itself, and the monopoly of power in Africa, have done a great deal of harm. However, I am sure that enough things are happening in Africa for Africa to take care of itself.

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, whom I still regard as probably our best secret weapon in Africa.

Africa has come a long way. My father walked from South Africa, where he arrived at the age of 20, to what was then Nyasaland, now Malawi, in 1896—over a century ago. I arrived in 1922, at the age of eight months, by sea at Beira in Mozambique and travelled up the newly built railway to the Zambezi, then, as now, in flood. My journey from southern Tanganyika to the coast at the age of 11 to go to school in England took 10 days, first walking, then by lorry through a plague of locusts, then by train. We had to stop to collect the wood to fuel the train. We lived in a house built of mud and wattle. We had no electric light, running water, telephone, radio or car, and I spoke the local African language almost before I spoke English. Law and order was kept by one district officer and one or two Askaris (native policemen), and justice was given in the courts. Years later, I heard Robert Gardiner tell an audience of young Zambian diplomats that although they should now grasp and enjoy their independence, they must never forget that it was to the British that they owed the rule of law which had replaced tribute to the witch doctor and the chief.

I believe that the British tried, as did the French in a different way, to leave an infrastructure to govern each country as they withdrew. I believe also that, under pressure from both political correctness and financial stringency, and perhaps a degree of disgraceful indifference, we left too soon. But the real disaster which has destabilised the centre of Africa was the disgraceful vacuum left by the Belgians when they gave independence to the Congo, where I served for a year before independence and for over a year afterwards. There were at independence 12 graduates in a country the size of India. No civil servants and no members of the professional class (doctors, teachers, lawyers, accountants) were available to administer a vast and rich country in the modern world. Unilever and Shell alone produced people with experience, some of whom became Ministers. One from Shell, alas, was eaten in a tribal war at the very outset of independence.

The leaders who emerged, many of them, at the beginning, men of quality and principle, Mobutu included, struggled, but anarchy and chaos ensued, and the UN presence, when it came, was a disaster too—wrongly conceived. Three days after independence and after meeting Ministers from Nigeria and Uganda, two of Lumumba's Ministers came to me to ask whether they could after all change their minds and whether the country could become a British colony. I had to say no. Six months earlier, a delegation of former Eoka men from Cyprus, who had settled in what was then Stanleyville, now Kisangani, demanded that the British should take over the Congo. I expressed some surprise that that should come from men with their background, but they said firmly that the British could be relied upon to run an independence in a tidy way.

I later served in Zambia for four years. That country too, sadly, although it had a number of good civil servants and professional men, including barristers, and one very profitable industry, copper, which later failed, did not have the infrastructure to run an effective economy in the modern world. President Kaunda told me as late as 1992 that he had always had to reshuffle the same five or six able people in the key jobs of chairman of the bank, secretary to the Cabinet, and so on, and that in the end they had usually defected to the much more lucrative private sector. I knew many of those men. They were my friends. And, alas, it is true: it was very tempting for them. That, quite apart from party pressures, had made it almost impossible to administer the complex and sophisticated regimes required by the IMF and the World Bank.

It becomes all the more tragic that another country which, after a long and debilitating war, entered independence with an excellent infrastructure, a well-educated population and the capacity to flourish economically, Zimbabwe, should now he in such dire straits. The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, has spoken about this, but I should like to say a little more. I have family connections there, third-generation Zimbabwean citizens, tobacco farmers, who bought their land well after independence and who are committed to the country for good or ill. When I was serving in Zambia at the time of UDI, I also made many friends in both the ZANU and ZAPU groups in exile, and was several times denounced on Salisbury radio as a friend of terrorists.

At the Lancaster House settlement it was recognised that land reform was essential and proper, but also that there should be compensation from the government for land acquired for resettlement by African farmers. The Land Acquisition Act 1992 laid down the right to compensation and for appeals against arbitrary acquisition. It was in any case intended originally to apply only to derelict farms or farms held by foreigners or absentee landlords. Some land was acquired subsequently by the government, but without proper schemes to train and fund the Africans whom they wished to settle there and grow tobacco or raise stock. Thus they failed to be viable and the land either lay unused or had in any case been given to politicians and others to whom the government owed favours. Over the years, the farmers union has trained many Africans in its farm development colleges as farm managers and has worked with small farmers so that a corpus of people with the necessary skills to run a modern enterprise is gradually being created. The union believes in a programme of land reform which would contribute to job creation and stability and which would develop the rural areas. It believes also that the government should enable Africans trained in this way to acquire title to their land.

However, in 1997 the government moved to serve acquisition orders on over 800 individual farms. Since they announced that there would be no compensation, since the economy depends for some 44 per cent of its foreign currency on the revenue from agriculture, and since, not least, agriculture employs a very large proportion of the people (over 250,000 farm workers would be thrown out of work), that proposal seriously destabilised the country. Donors such as the IMF, the World Bank, the EU and indeed HMG subsequently sought and received many reassurances that there would be proper compensation, even if it had to be phased. Since then, as we all know, those promises have been broken several times and international aid and loans have been frozen. Zimbabwe's funds are daily depleted to pay for the war in the Congo and, indeed, for President Mugabe's own excesses, and with no money to pay for the import of fuel the country is fast running down. Perhaps the saddest thing is that Zimbabwe has more in its favour than almost any other country in the region: a well educated population; plenty of entrepreneurs, white and black; until now a relatively flourishing economy; good race relations, and a white population who are citizens, not settlers in an alien land; a courageous press and effective trade unions; a respected judiciary, which is not afraid to challenge the state; and a population both sensible and sophisticated enough, despite much tribal hype, to vote in a referendum against the party line and for the interests of the country. They have recognised that the so-called "veterans", very few of whom are old enough to justify the title, are the president's bully-boys. On the farms that they have invaded, under party instructions, the African workers themselves are rejecting them. The Europeans are behaving calmly and with good sense under pressure. It would be a tragedy if a country with so much to offer both its people and Africa in general should go down.

It is a country in which all the conditions for economic prosperity exist. I respect the firm way in which the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been dealing with Mr Mugabe, but I hope to welcome action, stimulated internationally, both to end the wickedly wasteful war in the Congo and to enable a good, effective multi-racial economy in Zimbabwe to thrive as it deserves to do. No country is an island: disaster in Zimbabwe in terms of unemployment and turbulence will mean serious destabilisation in the neighbouring countries, not least Botswana, South Africa and Zambia. I cannot believe that we and the Commonwealth do not have both the power and the interest to exert real pressure on the man responsible, and to provide an international presence at the election, as the noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, suggested. The people could not have made it clearer that they wish to reject the policies of the man responsible.

We ought not to forget either that if it is not made possible for the natural leaders of Zimbabwe, such as the African trade union leaders, to have an effective voice in the affairs of their country, the president could well bring back the army and install yet another pernicious African military regime which could repeat the atrocities perpetrated in Matabeleland some years ago. That would be a terrible end for a good country which deserves better.

I conclude by endorsing what was said by the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, about the power of the women of Africa. They are indeed remarkable. I can remember being in despair in Accra on one occasion because I needed to get to Togo and the High Commission had assured me that it was totally impossible—no aeroplanes, roads under water, no way of getting there. I went to the market and asked a mammy, one of the large African market women, "Do you have a mammy wagon going to Togo?" "Yes", she said. I said, "Can I come?" She looked at me and said, "Fine", so I climbed on the lorry. I was put in the front, of course, as the guest of honour, and my suitcase was banished under the goats, the cheeses and the people in the back. I recall that the wagon had written on it some slogan such as, "God is with us". We needed it; the wagon had no brakes$ However, we got to Togo and the ambassador was probably as surprised as the High Commission, but I was not at all surprised. African women can do anything.

My Lords, I welcome the opportunity given to us by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, to debate this important matter this afternoon. I also particularly welcome the remarks of my noble friend Lady Dean concerning the valuable work of the Warwick Manufacturing Centre, particularly in postgraduate training, in South Africa. The work of that centre and Professor Kumar Battacharia is a very good example of what can be achieved in terms of the practical promotion of excellence in that continent.

I found myself somewhat surprised to be so fully in agreement with the points made by my noble friend Lord Desai about the relative confidence that he has in the continents of Africa and south Asia. Twenty years ago, when I was a junior Minister in the Ministry of Overseas Development, I was very optimistic about Africa and very pessimistic about South-East Asia. Twenty-five years later, the relativity of my thinking has changed somewhat, despite the threats of nuclear proliferation in South-East Asia and despite the beacons of hope which exist in Africa. The beacons of hope are clearly there, but they are very much offset by some of the often preventable and self-inflicted tragedies, some of which we have heard about this afternoon, such as the tragedies of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Sierra Leone and Angola. There are, of course, other areas which we have not discussed. I refer particularly to the bitter disappointment of certain areas such as the Magreb and parts of the Mashraq, where the European Union early in its development had devoted so much energy to the negotiation of agreements.

I believe that parts of Africa have clearly been successful. However, other parts of Africa give cause for deep, continuing and perhaps even deepening concern. They are riddled with conflict—ethnic and religious clashes, tribal conflicts, conflicts over post-colonial borders—and those conflicts are frequently compounded by the existence of corruption. In addition, I believe that there is cause for concern which has recently been highlighted in the very important but equally depressing report of the International Committee of the Red Cross, entitled War, Money and Survival. It suggests that,

"Prolonged internal violence in countries with rich natural resources but corrupt or weak governments may best be understood as battles for money or resources".

The flavour of that report is to be found in an excellent article which was published in the Economist of 4th March, which states:

"Wars in such countries serve some participants well. Violence provides a cover for the extraction and smuggling of resources, and armies, either private or national, give the means to control workers, transport and territory. War itself can be the means of getting rich (for example, in trading arms or by fighting as a mercenary) or of survival (bands of ill-educated young men recruited into arrives in Sierra Leone … make guerrilla warfare a way of life). Such participants may continue to exploit a war rather than win it and end it".

I believe that that somewhat depressing scenario is evident across much of the continent of Africa.

However, the world must not and cannot give up the commitment and the objective of concerning itself with the economic growth of Africa. In my opinion, the trade opportunities for that continent and with that continent must be developed and fostered. We have some responsibility in that respect. For example, the Uruguay Round was not a round which showed any concern fix the continent of Africa. To suggest that everybody benefits from trade liberalisation is, in my opinion, the worst sort of cop-out. In relative terms, Africa did extraordinarily badly by comparison with us, with the European Union, with the United States, with Japan. If poverty is a relative concept, that means that the fate of Africa was worsened by the Uruguay Round, and all the signs for the current WTO negotiations are that Africa is not placed to fare any better. We there fore have to accept responsibilities in addition to standing back and criticising the appalling tragedies as they unfurl before us.

However, Africa is well placed to benefit from two current changes. There are obvious benefits to be gained from the increasing commitment to debt relief. There is also a benefit to be gained from the new European Union/ African, Caribbean and Pacific agreement, the successor agreement to Lomé0 IV, which has just been negotiated, facilitating market access for the least developed countries.

On the subject of debt relief, I merely mention that debt relief should not be seen by anyone, as I am sure it is not in your Lordships' House, as an end in itself. If debt relief is to serve a useful purpose, the financial benefits that accrue from it must be properly deployed and used to the right ends. Poverty reduction and elimination, the development of education and literacy, and the capacity to compete in trading terms with the world must be the beneficiaries of the financial resources that flow from debt relief.

As to market access, it is perhaps appropriate that in this debate we should regret both the delay in and the dilution of the European Union/Republic of South Africa trade agreement. Agreement should have been reached at the Cardiff Summit. It is to the shame of the EU that, for petty advantage on marginal products, that agreement was so long delayed. It shames us all that for those marginal benefits the Republic of South Africa was left without a trade agreement, despite the fact that EU heads of state and government had invited Nelson Mandela to Cardiff in the expectation of such an agreement.

That is now behind us and we have the new European Union/ACP agreements, which are substantially better than those that they replaced. The EU has given a unilateral commitment that essentially all products will be both duty free and quota free. I draw particular attention to the words "essentially all" and hope that when my noble friend replies to the debate she will give some inkling of current Whitehall thinking on what they mean. I hope that they mean precisely that, and that the Government will seek to ensure that the minimum number of exemptions are inserted into those agreements.

Goods exported by LDCs can now come here. The clause which discriminated between least developed and non-least developed LDCs has been removed from the agreement. There is also an extremely important proposal relating to simplified goods of origin in the agreement. Although the EU has traditionally been the most generous in the supply of preferential terms, those terms apply only to the LDCs within the framework of the Lomé Agreement. For all other LDCs in Africa which are dependent on the generalised scheme of preferences for access to the European Union, that scheme does not give as good access to markets. We must ensure that they have the capacity to compete and have access to our markets on the same terms as those now available to countries which are the beneficiaries of EU/ACP agreements.

In this very useful debate we have focused on a number of points. The final test is how we help Africa to promote its own economic growth, which must be achieved. One thing that we can provide is tariff-free and quota-free market access to all LDCs. The "essentially all" means exactly that: the minimum number of exceptions that are humanly possible—and even those must be worked out of the system.

I again welcome the debate and congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, on giving us the opportunity to debate the matter this afternoon.

My Lords, I join all other noble Lords in warmly congratulating my noble friend Lady Chalker on initiating this debate and inspiring us with her wealth of knowledge and experience. I focus on two areas: one a place of hope, albeit very precarious; the other a place of increasing despair. I refer to Nigeria and Sudan.

I begin with Nigeria from which I returned yesterday. I had the privilege of meeting the president and several ministers of state and of visiting Kaduna, the scene of recent horrific riots. The elections last year saw a welcome return to democracy and the reinstatement of Nigeria as a member of the Commonwealth. President Obansanjo subsequently set out his government's priorities, which include fundamental economic reform, an anti-corruption drive, and poverty eradication. The president needs and deserves strong support of every kind to achieve those objectives.

The ministers to whom I spoke emphasised the need for debt relief. Sadly, they also expressed concern about Britain's apparent lack of commitment to investment in economic development. They feel very disappointed by the lack of investment by British companies compared with other countries, including many in the European Union. Particular concerns were expressed about the need for investment in the construction, telecommunications, energy and oil industries. British companies have not only failed to invest relative to other countries but in many cases have pulled out.

These are difficult days of transition for Nigeria which has suffered so much under undemocratic and brutal rulers. As the president and his government strive to maintain democracy and curtail corruption, they need help with economic development. It is hard to sustain democracy when people have empty stomachs. I was, therefore, saddened to hear Ministers express disappointment over Britain's record. I ask the Minister what steps are being taken by the DTI actively to encourage investment. Will more active measures be taken to help Nigeria in these critical days?

I follow my noble friend Lady Park with a brief personal anecdote which may make a point more strongly than generalities. Just two days ago I travelled by car from Kaduna to Abuja. When we were in the bush about 100 miles from either city, and away from any village or settlement, our car broke down, the bearings of both back wheels having disintegrated. There we were in the middle of the bush with absolutely nothing. Suddenly, three young men who appeared from nowhere proved themselves extremely competent mechanics. They removed the rear wheels from the car and suddenly produced from nowhere replacement wheel bearings for our Honda. One would be hard put to find such brilliant service if one's car broke down in Britain. In the bush we found an example of local Nigerian skill, competence and enterprise.

With that illustration, I return to more general points. The Nigerian ministers identified other priorities, including poverty alleviation and healthcare. The former can be assisted by economic development; priorities for the latter include assistance with immunisation, malaria and communicable diseases. I ask the Minister whether DfID will assist in satisfying those very urgent needs.

I turn to the recent tragic events in Kaduna and elsewhere in which hundreds of people, both Christians and Muslims, were killed and many homes and properties were burnt. Tension remains extremely high. One member of our group was involved in a very frightening incident which nearly developed into a lynching. The tensions and riots are associated with moves to implement Sharia law in the northern states. I met leaders of both Christian and Muslim communities, all of whom agreed on the need for dialogue to promote understanding and peaceful co-existence; but deep divisions still remain. One imam, the national co-ordinator of the Muslim-Christian Dialogue Forum, confirmed the continuing commitment of Muslims to introduce Sharia law in the north. One Anglican bishop who was deeply committed to working for peaceful co-existence spoke of his fear that Nigeria would disintegrate under these pressures.

Although the Nigerian leadership has commendably averted the present crisis, there are indications that it may well recur. As we were told, Muslims still want to implement Sharia law and there may be strong international support from other Islamic countries for them to do so. For example, when Sharia law was introduced into Zamfara State, envoys from countries such as Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Egypt and Libya were reportedly present at the ceremony and offered financial support. Although Muslim leaders give assurances that its implementation will not affect non-Muslims, experience in countries such as Pakistan shows that its penal code has wide-ranging repercussions; for example, in that country countless citizens have suffered from misuse of the blasphemy code.

We were also told by many Nigerians, rather disturbingly, that they believed the motives for implementing Sharia law were not only religious but also political. By exacerbating unrest, they may create political instability which is intended to unseat the president. Therefore, the president and his democratically elected government need strong support as they address the challenges that confront them in this difficult, sensitive and complex situation.

I turn briefly to Sudan. Following the reply given by the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, to my Starred Question on 13th March, I am concerned that the Government's policy of critical dialogue may be long on dialogue and short on effective criticism. For example, in the response to that Starred Question the Minister apportioned blame equally to the National Islamic Front Government and to the Opposition. That perception could not be further from the truth.

I do not claim that the opposition forces, including the SPLA, are angels. War is war. But the opposition forces do not have an agenda of ethnic cleansing of civilians from their homelands; they do not callously and deliberately bomb civilian targets such as schools and hospitals; and they do represent the previous democratically elected government. Moreover, in our experience, whenever the opposition regained control of an area, they worked hard and fast to establish a civilian authority and civil society. Many Arabs and Muslims from the north whom we meet when they come south to trade and graze cattle in the dry season tell us that they prefer being in SPLA areas because human rights are respected and they feel safe there.

By contrast, the NIF regime, now called the "government of Sudan", was not democratically elected. It represents no more than 5 per cent of the Sudanese people. It took power by military coup and retains it by terror and subjugation. Countless Muslims in the north have been unlawfully arrested, detained, tortured and executed in prisons, and ghost houses. When I visited the NIF leaders in Khartoum in 1993 to hear their viewpoint, there was overt commitment to Jihad against the peoples of the south and the Nuba mountains. The word "Jihad" has many meanings, but the NIF's interpretation is full-scale war with massive military offensives against innocent civilians, with massacres, scorched earth policies, and the abduction of thousands of women and children into slavery.

These policies have been documented not only by us in Christian Solidarity Worldwide but by many other people and organisations, including UN rapporteurs. Recently in the oil-rich lands the government attempted ethnic cleansing of tens of thousands of Africans from their traditional homelands. This has been documented in the Harker report to the Canadian Government. There have been many independent witnesses to recent bombings of hospitals and of a school in the Nuba mountains. A government spokesman even confirmed that the school was their intended target. Right now, while we talk today, government forces are undertaking a massive offensive in Hamesh Khoreb in the Kassala region in eastern Sudan where the Beja Muslim people live.

Economic investment in areas controlled by the government of Sudan only encourages that brutal regime and enhances its capability to carry on killing its own people. This is particularly the case with investment in the exploitation of the massive oil reserves. The government are siphoning off 450 million dollars a year to fuel that war and to purchase weapons to kill their own people. Will the Government please press for a total oil audit?

The situations in Nigeria and Sudan are totally different. Nigeria desperately needs economic investment to accelerate development and to underpin its still fragile democracy. I hope that Britain will improve its record there. By contrast, Sudan is looking for economic investment to improve its pariah image and to help to finance its war against its own people.

I conclude by asking whether the Minister will give assurances that the Government will not encourage the government of Sudan, directly or indirectly, economically or politically. Last Monday the Minister, the noble Baroness, Lady Scotland, quoted a figure of 1.5 million people who have suffered in that war. That is a huge under-statement. Up to 2 million have died; and 5 million have been displaced in recent years. Please will this Government—they have expressed an honourable commitment to human rights and an ethically-based foreign policy—look again at the evidence and not be guilty of doing business with a regime which has the blood of millions on its hands?

My Lords, the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, does Africa a great service in tabling this debate. Her enthusiasm is infectious. I am grateful to her, and delighted to support the case for improving opportunities for that great continent which still receives only a fraction of the attention it deserves from our politicians and business sector.

My particular concern is for the poorest, and how they can benefit. I know that the economic strength of a nation should ultimately improve the life of everyone, but that trickle-down argument is now discredited. It is equally important that measures must be pro-poor; that is, directed towards the needs of vulnerable sections of society. Those inevitably include a range of political as well as economic objectives, as spelled out in DfID's latest enormous consultation document entitled, Economic Well-being. If policy statements could feed people, 1999 was a bumper year and we shall certainly have enough to go round.

People see aid policies as humanitarian and often ask how they can make a difference to the economy. Alongside IMF-inspired reforms there have to be targeted human development programmes. Many of these can directly address small businesses especially in the informal sector, bringing income into the poorest purses. As the noble Lord, Lord Holme, and others have said, there are a number of practical ways in which small injections of aid can stimulate local economies such as the use of micro-credit, loan schemes on the Grameen model, new marketing techniques, education and training, and the strengthening of local institutions. Many of these programmes are run by NGOs in partnership with the local community and government. The noble Baroness, Lady Dean, mentioned housing. I can think of many examples of rural African entrepreneurs starting up with this kind of funding. The CDC was mentioned. Some multilateral agencies like the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) have an excellent record in bringing skills arid finance into the poorest regions—not as outsiders, but by involving people directly in their own development.

Despite their new commitment to private enterprise, I do not believe that this Labour Government are enamoured of the IMF's adjustment policies in Africa which, although they have moderated, seem to have increased rather than alleviated poverty in the short term. But however bullish our own aid department, Africa has a very low priority in Downing Street. The Government will have technical answers to this debate; and I know there are a host of diplomats and aid workers who are committed to helping Africa, but we also have to ask whether the will is there to improve our trade and investment in Africa.

After all, our trade with sub-Saharan Africa has changed very little, despite some improvement in our imports from South Africa which accounts for nearly half of all our trade. Investment figures are only a guide: they hide the hideous inequalities and injustice of trade which can benefit unelected authoritarian regimes like Sudan, or play one side of a nation against another, such as in Angola. Yet there are British companies which have continued a long tradition of working in Africa, and they should be encouraged.

As a wealthy nation able to give away £3 billion in an afternoon, there can be no doubt about our ability to respond to a country in crisis. We are one of the foremost countries in humanitarian aid. Even with a limited aid budget, we have been faithful to post-conflict countries like Uganda, Sierra Leone and Mozambique, especially where the political conditions are right. But taking a harsher, City view, Africa north of the Limpopo hardly even figures in our economic vision. We regard sub-Saharan Africa as a bloc more like Soviet Central Asia or some far away war-torn region than the vast continent of nations and cultures which has influenced the entire western world.

From our island we have been in the habit of seeing the Anglo-Saxon culture as dominant for at least two centuries. But from another perspective, it has been Africa and the Caribbean which have supported our wealth, our lifestyle and our trade, let alone influenced our culture, cuisine and music for at least that period of time. Many of us in Britain come from Africa, or have lived there. Indeed, we increasingly acknowledge that it was from Africa that our civilisation emerged in the first place.

So how can we repay our debt to Africa in an economic as well as historical sense? The cancellation of unpayable, unsustainable and immoral debt is crucial, but it is a very slow process, especially when linked with poverty alleviation, as we are seeing even in Mozambique. The HIPC initiative, however welcome when it is announced, regularly, by the Chancellor never seems to be adequate. Hopes now lie with the Japanese as they take the chair at the next G8 summit. But can the Minister say something about the Paris Club decision last week? Did Her Majesty's Government, following their new-found entente cordiale in Abidjan, make a formal protest that the decision on Mozambique has been deferred yet again despite the pleas of that stricken country?

Education is critical to the expansion of opportunities, as will be apparent at the World Education Forum in Dakar in April. There can be little hope of increasing family income or limiting the scourge of AIDS if girls are not given more access to secondary education and more status in the local economy. As the noble Baroness, Lady Whitaker, said so tellingly last week, higher literacy must lead to lower infant mortality, and hence to better health and economic potential.

I saw for myself a year ago in Uganda that education was receiving higher priority and had already made an impact on the incidence of AIDS. In Mozambique, in 1996–98, the primary school enrolment rate went up from 62 per cent to 71 per cent even while hundreds more classrooms were being built. Let us hope that those classrooms are still standing and that classes are continuing today.

I was unable to attend last week's debate, but I read the encouraging statement of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, that,

"achievement of those [education] targets … is feasible if the political will is there".—[Official Report, 15/3/2000; col. 1590.]

I only wish that the same could be said of the 2015 poverty targets which on present trends seem unlikely to be met.

I also hope that we listen more to Africans talking about Africa. I had the pleasure of knowing Chief Anyaoku for a brief period. I am sure that many in the House have appreciated the ability, determination and good humour with which he has led the Commonwealth over many years. The United Nations Secretary-General paid tribute to him at the Commonwealth Day lecture last week. As we have heard, he said that Africa needs more assistance and more technology. One thing he pointed out from an UNCTAD study is that investment in Africa brings a higher return than does any other region, while more than 25 countries have undertaken far-reaching structural economic reforms. Yet Africa received only 5 per cent of all FDI to developing countries. The Central African Republic, Guinea-Bissau, Niger, Botswana, Namibia and of course Nigeria are just a few examples of countries where the internal situation has improved. South Africa still has a strong economy, with all the obvious reservations and legacies of apartheid.

Seen over a longer time-scale, there are many differences in the rates of growth in sub-Saharan Africa. Real per capita income in the region as a whole barely grew between 1970 and 1998. But out of the 48 countries, nine achieved an annual average growth of 3.1 per cent over that period. The noble Baroness mentioned even better examples.

This good news about Africa—and there are many examples of success—is drowned in a continual story of conflict, corruption and misappropriation. I suggest that it is up to our Government to liberalise trade and encourage the private sector, rather on the lines mentioned by the noble Lord, Lord Tomlinson. I am sure that the Minister will say that the United Kingdom is doing a lot in many directions; and it is. But she must admit that we have no real lasting commitment to Africa or even a political initiative to compare with the United States' recent initiative, although we must have at least as many historical reasons and connections for doing so.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend for initiating today's debate. I have known her for very many years and she is very much admired and loved on all sides in South Africa. My contribution today is due entirely to the fact that I have had the good fortune to spend annual holidays of a few weeks in South Africa over the past 15 years. I hope that I do not present a too negative picture of the situation there as I see it.

Since 1994, when Nelson Mandela was released—and I do not think that President de Klerk received enough praise for his courage in making that decision—the country has indeed progressed very slowly towards its aim of a rainbow society. Education, however, in some areas is virtually nonexistent because of the difficulty in recruiting teachers for schools in the townships. The police are under severe pressure because of very low salaries and instances of corruption in the force have greatly increased, as one has seen over recent months. The health service is under a great strain, again because of low wages and because many nurses and doctors are leaving the country in search of better rewards. Groote Schuur, the renowned hospital, is a shadow of its former glory, but I suppose that applies to many other hospitals built many years ago.

There appears to be quite a divide in opinions among young people as to whether they should seek their fortunes overseas or remain in their beloved homeland. Much, I feel, depends on how far affirmative action is taken. There are numerous stories of successful university graduates who are white not even getting an interview, while a less qualified black person is employed, sometimes resulting in, for instance, through no fault of their own, the black student having to drop out of medical school half way through the course. That must be a terrible waste of resources.

As noble Lords will be aware, the Cape coloureds—mixed race—feel discriminated against more now by Mbeki's government than they were under apartheid, and frustrated so that they understandably often resort to violence. Violence has been mentioned by previous speakers. The gun culture among the young gives rise to great concern on all sides. That is a priority for the government to tackle and they are doing so. It is the main obstacle to the country achieving more inward investment. People read about it and they hesitate before they invest.

I do not entirely agree with my noble friend Lord St John of Bletso on one point. The roads are generally well maintained, but public transport around the Cape is sadly neglected and those trying to get to and from work find it more and more frustrating, especially over weekends. Illegal immigrants—there are thousands flocking to the Cape in search of employment—add to the problem of the lack of low-cost housing. This year I did notice a considerable advance in building since a few years ago. Four years ago, the electricity, water and the roads were laid on, but nothing happened. This year I have seen a number of houses at those sites.

Three concerns were specifically addressed to me during my last visit: first, there was the insistence by the Europeans on the removal of grappa and ouzo labels; secondly, the sale by the UK of gold; and, thirdly, what they considered to be the very slow reaction of Her Majesty's Government to disaster in Mozambique. South Africa has made great strides in helping her very patient people—they are very patient—to lead better lives.

I hope that on my next visit in 2001 the improvement in the lot of all South Africa's citizens will be more apparent. We all realise the enormous challenges which face that nation and they will undoubtedly look to us for help and advice. I trust that we will not fail them.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for this opportunity to speak about Africa. The noble Lord, Lord Howell, drew attention to the slow growth of democracy and said that we were expecting too much of Uganda. The noble Lord, Lord Desai, asked why people should bother about Africa. Apart from the answers that he gave, we should concern ourselves because western Europe bears a very heavy responsibility for the conditions which exist in Africa.

I have lived in the Bristol area since 1941 and am conscious of the appalling depredations of the slave trade over many years. For a long time, Africa was known as "the Dark Continent". In the 1960s, I heard a lecture by Professor Thomas Hodgkin which he called "The Pre-colonial Stereotype". I hesitate to use the word "intellectual" in terms of myself, but his demonstration of the western European idea that Africa was behind the times and subject to all kinds of absurd notions was a revelation to me. It was built up by the need to justify the colonisation of Africa which was carved up for the use of the European nations.

The British, to their credit, tried to prepare countries for eventual independence. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Park, mentioned Belgium disgracefully totting up the balance sheet, discovering that it was moving into the red and pulling out of Africa. I am grateful to her for her correction, because I had noted that there were 13 graduates in the indigenous population. However, I am more than happy to accept the fact that I exaggerated and to take her figure of 12. The record is not good because we also left those countries with arbitrary frontiers, often drawn with a ruler on a map in the Colonial Office in London. We did not provide the best possible start for development.

There are large Muslim populations in the north, and large Christian populations in sub-Saharan Africa. In that connection, the Labour Party recently discovered the existence of the Memorial Hall in Farringdon Street because it loudly proclaimed that that was where the Labour Party was founded. You could have heard people expatiating on that if you lashed out several hundred quid for a posh feed, which no doubt my noble friend Lord Desai did. However, I resisted.

I have been familiar with the Memorial Hall since I was a small boy because it was the centre of the Congregational Church of which my father was a minister. It was also the site of the LMS. Elderly people in your Lordships' House will think of the LM S as the London Midland Scottish Railway, but it was not to us. To us, it was the London Missionary Society. I used to go around with my little box shaped like a hut—even that was patronising—collecting coins for the cause. We used to collect the ship halfpennies to go towards the cost of maintaining the supply ship, "John Williams", which used to ply between the Pacific islands where we had missionaries working.

As a result, we had Christians in Africa, many of them from the missionary works. I believe that, as a nation, we ought to play a bigger part in sustaining them. From time to time, I have mentioned the welcome contributions from the Bishops' Bench about persecuted Christians abroad. I believe that with such a substantial built-in block vote in your Lordships' House—it is about 26—that is one of their functions. I believe that more could be done by our friends on that Bench about the problems which such people face. In many cases, they are serious.

There are approximately 130 million Muslims in north Africa. In sub-Saharan Africa, 275 million people, or 48 per cent of the population of Africa, are supposed to be Christian. The interface between the two religions is the centre of much trouble, particularly in Nigeria and Sudan which were mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox.

I shall weary the House once more by quoting the 1997 US State Department report. Its author, Paul Marshall, stated that,

"in the last five years there has been persecutions of Christians in 40 countries. By persecution I mean there may be physical beatings, imprisonment, church burnings, maybe death, I don't just mean discrimination".

We must realise that people of our faith are the most persecuted in the world and we must do what we can to help those African communities. The UN rapporteur, Gaspar Biro, said much the same about the conditions in the Sudan. We must try to reconcile the two great religions in order to remove the causes of difficulty.

From time to time, there are serious atrocities in some African countries, but, with our record of the German death camps and the more recent revelations about France which were made during the Papon trial, western Europe is hardly in a position to lecture them about it. Therefore, we must realise that we are in no position to cast the first stone.

When assisting development, we must be careful not to appear to be striking a fresh neo-colonial phase. The people are very proud and independently minded and they are conscious of past history. Therefore, it is most important to ensure that we do not give the wrong impression. Even when we are discussing fossil fuels and the need to restrain their consumption, they may say, "You have had several hundred years of establishing a good standard of living by burning things in the most polluting circumstances and now you are lecturing us". Therefore, we need a new approach that is free from any taint of neocolonialism.

I echo what was said by a previous speaker that in the Commonwealth we have a wonderful example of multi-racial co-operation among all kinds of different nations but with a common theme. Only this morning, there was a debate in another place about the importance and significance of the Commonwealth. That organisation should be one of the main spearheads in our encouragement of development in Africa, which we all want to see.

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Chalker in introducing the debate—for that I am grateful—said that good governance is a must. There are, and have been, exceptions and, sadly, it is an aspect for which Africa has not been well known. Indeed, even when the old guard has gone, some of those taking on the role of senior politicians are proving to be slightly worse than their predecessors. It is sad that politics is a career which the very best in Africa seem to shun.

I want to focus the first part of my remarks on Zimbabwe. That will not surprise your Lordships because I took part in an earlier debate on that country. I am very disappointed, as I am sure is the rest of the world, that President Mugabe is responsible for the systematic rape of a dying paradise. The current crisis in Zimbabwe, as in many African countries, has three basic elements: the crisis with regard to the availability of foreign exchange; the crisis in government financing; and the debt crisis. The first is caused by poor export performance and the withdrawal of multilateral and bilateral support. The next is caused by excessive government expenditure and the high interest rates on domestic debt. The last is caused by the huge growth in debt during the past 20 years.

The total revenue of the government in Zimbabwe is estimated at 93 billion dollars. Their total expenditure is 142 billion dollars. That is a deficit of 49 billion dollars, or nearly 15 per cent of GDP and one-third of total expenditure. The interest on the domestic debt is now running at 5 billion dollars a month, which is a completely unsustainable level. The shortage of foreign exchange is estimated at 14 billion dollars, and that is before the funding of the Congo war is taken into account. That is estimated to cost the Zimbabwean economy 1.5 billion dollars a month in foreign exchange—not a happy situation.

The result of that was brought to our attention by the brave and thorough survey of urban and rural voters carried out between 14th January and 9th February for the Helen Suzman Foundation. That showed that 68 per cent of Zimbabweans believed that life for them and their families had got worse over the previous five years, and 63 per cent expected it to continue to worsen over the next five years. By far the most important issues for voters were rising prices and unemployment, followed by the fall in the value of the Zimbabwean dollar. Only 31 per cent of Zimbabweans said that they were confident that the government were telling them the truth, and 68 per cent said that they had not much, very little or no confidence in the government.

On top of that is the matter of the farming crisis. Nearly 700 farms have now been invaded by Mr Mugabe's young, paid thugs. They are not war veterans. Those farmers are Zimbabwean citizens and many bought their farms post-independence. Not only have they been threatened, abused and attacked, but so have their farm staff. The beatings and the brutalising have been and remain a terrifying experience, the like of which we cannot possibly imagine in our closeted life in this country. There has been no reference in the press to the huge damage to the natural habitat and wildlife that is also occasioned in the invasions of the farms. I have received a report that the situation for many is now worse than it was 20 years ago. We should congratulate the farmers and all the black staff who have been abused on the restraint that they have shown in the face of almost impossible circumstances and huge provocation. Long may their good sense prevail to take the heat out of the situation.

A ray of light in Zimbabwe comes from the strength and independence of the courts. I hope that the noble Baroness will update us on the current situation. I understand that the courts ruled in favour of the farmers and that all the squatters and those who invaded the farms had to be off the land within 72 hours. Those 72 hours are up. Can the noble Baroness tell us the situation in the country, and whether it is true that the government are trying to return to the courts to reverse an unfavourable decision?

That is all gloomy, but I turn now to what I consider to be a chink of light. Some of your Lordships have said that for years Africa has been seen as a "black hole" with no great future. However, I believe that there are now good opportunities. It is remarkable to consider that Africa had a steady annual economic growth during the 1990s, in marked contrast to many other areas of the world where the economies perished during that period; for example, east Asia. I know that it came from a different base, but Africa had a steady growth. The IMF forecasts that the growth for sub-Saharan African countries will be 5.5 per cent—the highest in the world. That represents potential hope for Africa.

I should like to touch briefly on particular aspects where there has been a marked and radical difference from what has occurred in the West. I refer, for example, to the telephone system. In Zimbabwe, it takes approximately 14 years to obtain a land line. However, suddenly people have mobile telephones and access to communication, as happened during the recent referendum. People communicated by mobile telephone and, for once, they had a reliable means of communication.

In banking and account handling, they have leap-frogged past the cheque stage. Many never had cheques and have moved straight into smart-cards. That represents a great opportunity for them. E-mails have also leapt across boundaries and gone past the hopeless telephone systems. In every village in Kenya and throughout Africa one finds e-mail and fax centres springing up. There is a company called "e-touch" in Kenya which started in business at the end of last year. It already has 25,000 people on mobile communication and expects that number to reach 50,000 by the end of the year. That is a growth rate of 2 to 3 per cent per day—the fastest in the world. I know that it is a small company, but at least it is there and giving people the opportunity to conduct business and to communicate in a way that previously had been impossible. That will change the economy and the democracy of Africa. Just as television helped to break down the stubborn Eastern bloc countries in the 1980s, so this technological revolution will undermine the government's attempt to keep their electorate and their people in the dark.

Africa is not short of good, bright people. There are plenty of good businessmen out there. However, they need help from the West and the developed world, but not in the sense of governments interfering in and nannying the state. That has never worked and it will not work now. However, as many noble Lords have said, what the people really need is education, education, education. If we provided the opportunities for them to be educated, I believe that they would have a really great future.

I have time to say one thing more about Zimbabwe. Am I alone in this House in being ultra-cynical, or is it possible that if a white president tried ethnically to cleanse half his farming population because it was a different colour, he would receive a different reaction throughout the world? Surely big debates would be held in the United Nations about that. Will the Government call a Commonwealth conference to suspend Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth for its anti-humanitarian behaviour and will they also raise the matter in the United Nations? It is so important. I do not believe that what is happening in Zimbabwe is so different from what happened in Kosovo. However, we are reacting in a totally different way.

My Lords, I too add my thanks to the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, for introducing this debate and for the huge contribution that she has made in Africa. I hope that she will forgive me if I say that she is the best Cabinet Minister we never had. I should like also to say what an extraordinarily knowledgeable and interesting debate this has been. I believe that that is because so many Members of this House have direct, first-hand experience of the continent of Africa.

The noble Lords, Lord Howell of Guildford and Lord St John of Bletso, both referred to the fact that a difficulty arises from the perception of Africa as what is often described in the United States as a "basket case"—a continent that has been written off. I believe that that is partly because over the years Africa has attracted bad publicity and little credit is given in the media to its real, if very painful and difficult, achievements. The one exception to that has been South Africa, where for many years the single example of Nelson Mandela attracted a sympathetic medium. That is why, even today, South Africa is often exempted from the overall perception of Africa as a continent of despair.

Noble Lords have referred to many good points, and I shall come to those. However, I shall add one or two more problems to the list and refer, first, to commodity prices. Even today, approximately 30 per cent of sub-Saharan Africa's GNP is in exports, most of it raw materials and other commodities. Historically, commodity prices today are at their lowest level in real terms for 150 years. The problem is that that is unlikely to bounce upwards because the manufacturing and other processes of modern advanced economies use far fewer raw materials and far less energy than they once did. Therefore, Africa cannot look for its salvation simply to the processes of global growth.

Secondly, one problem within Africa to which we have not referred in great detail today is the relatively ruinous effects of extensive deforestation and overgrazing, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, north of Zambia and Zimbabwe. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, referred to the devastating reduction of the forests of the Ivory Coast. That is one example among many others which could be given. I must say that in my gloomier moments, when I read about that, when I hear from my daughter in Malaysia that even now she cannot put her children outside because of the level of haze from the burning of Sumatra, when I fly over the Amazon and see fires reaching over a vast expanse of Latin America, I ask myself for how long we in the developed western world can continue to twiddle our thumbs and see the environment as a problem for our grandchildren and their grandchildren.

I shall not pursue that except to say that the fate and fortunes of Africa are necessarily bound up in our fate and fortunes. We shall be victims of a great illusion if we suppose that we can simply wash our hands of that great continent.

As regards the agricultural problems, I do not know how far the flooding in Mozambique is due—I suspect it is a good deal—to the churning out of the areas around the great rivers further north but I understand that one reason for the scale of the devastating floods was deforestation and the degradation of land further to the north of Mozambique. That is a thought which we should all bear in mind.

The noble Earl, Lord Caithness, cheered me up by speaking about the speed at which mobile communications are taking hold in countries like Kenya. I am sure he is right about that. My worry is that it is a relatively thin layer of the new African middle class, and in some countries an even smaller élite, which is benefiting from the advantages of information technology.

The noble Earl was absolutely right to remind us that the foundation stone of an information revolution is always education. Perhaps the most disturbing point to make is that the United Nations Development Programme forecasts that there will be in Africa by 2015 not 45 million children who are not even in primary school but 75 million. It is the only part of our globe where the proportion of children out of primary school, let alone secondary school, is growing rapidly. In Asia, the figure is falling dramatically; in Africa, sadly, it is slowly rising.

One reason for that, to which a number of noble Lords have rightly referred, is the scale of the devastating internal wars in Africa. The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, told us about the Sudan. The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, mentioned the Congo in that context. The terrifying aspect is that, throughout the centre of Africa, such wars are raging and are literally devouring the resources that are needed for education and health.

However, I agree, to some extent at least, with the noble Lord, Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe, who pointed out that the western world is not wholly without a share of responsibility. It is important to recognise that, throughout the Cold War, both sides used Africa as a surrogate in a war which they never conducted themselves. Wherever you look in Eritrea and Ethiopia, Angola or Mozambique or many other parts of Africa, you will see the devastating consequences of their having been used in that way and warlords having gained control over governments.

I now want to make two positive remarks in this short speech. The first concerns corporate social responsibility, of which the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker of Wallasey, is one of the world's leading advocates, and she is absolutely right. I give three quick examples of what is meant by corporate responsibility.

In Angola, even today, the embers of war are still easily ready to flare. One reason for that is that UNITA has been used by certain companies as a way of retaining control of the diamond areas. Even today, UNITA hangs desperately on to those areas which are the best hope that Angola has of major steady development.

The major company in the diamond industry—and I do not accuse it in any way of financing UNITA—is De Beers. The great thing that De Beers could do, in a spirit of corporate responsibility, is to insist upon all diamonds carrying certificates of origin so that they can be inspected closely to ensure that they are not coming from those sources which are using the money only for buying arms and for destroying a generation of young Africans.

The noble Baroness, Lady Cox, spoke eloquently—and I could not agree with her more—of the desperate need to support that marvellous African, Dr Obasanjo, in Nigeria in his efforts again to try to build democracy against all the odds, and the odds are terribly high. Dr Obasanjo is attempting to deal with corruption, with religious and other differences and the power of the military. As the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, said, he needs all the help he can get. Part of that help must come from the oil companies, and this is my second example of corporate responsibility. Almost the only major presence today in Nigeria is the oil companies. Two things follow from that: the need to reject absolutely systems of bribery and corruption, making it plain that, in doing so, the oil companies are supporting Dr Obasanjo's appeal to his people; and, secondly, the need for a greater sense of environmental responsibility than has sometimes been shown in the past. Putting it bluntly, in some cases, the oil companies have a great deal to answer for in terms of allowing oil to run into the ground and destroy possible agricultural areas.

Thirdly, still on the subject of corporate responsibility, I believe that the companies in South Africa have a responsibility with regard to the training not only of a narrow middle class—and I agree completely with what the noble Baroness, Lady Dean, said about the importance of management education—but also with regard to the adoption of community education schemes within the townships to give those children some sort of help.

Last, on the subject of governance, I could not echo more strongly what was said by the noble Lords, Lord Tomlinson and Lord Desai, about the World Trade Organisation, the EU Mediterranean Project and the situation with regard to the Uruguay Round. They are absolutely right. The governments of the West have not pitched in to the extent needed in order to offset the weakness of African governments in dealing with major interests which are brought to bear on them.

Our responsibility is not to intervene, not to recolonise and not to tell African governments what to do. But in the great international fora of the world, whether that be the WTO, the UN or, above all, in the monitoring of the sale of arms, only powerful western governments can undertake responsibility. I believe that to be the price which we owe to Africa for the exploitation of many centuries past.

My Lords, I add my congratulations to my noble friend Lady Chalker on securing this key debate at such an apposite time for the discussion of African politics and economics. I congratulate her also on her ongoing, effective work on behalf of so many African people. In the time available, it is impossible to do justice to that vast continent and to deal with all the challenges that it presents. We could easily spend this timed debate discussing any one country in Africa and still merely scratch the surface of the issues as regards a continent containing an estimated 12 per cent of the world's population —some 642 million people.

It has been most heartening to hear, not least from my noble friend Lady Park, of Africa's success stories, which are rarely trumpeted. I doubt that it is a well-known fact that democratic institutions, however fragile or flawed they may be, as noted by my noble friend Lord Howell, now form the basis of government in the majority of African nations, while 11 African countries are publicly committed to fighting corruption and working towards a binding anticorruption convention. Those countries, which are quietly working for peace, for economic reform, for human rights arid for constitutional and democratic rule offer us glimmers of hope and the promise of what Africa's future could hold.

Mozambique, the first country to be mentioned by my noble friend Lady Chalker, although the most recent African nation to be brought to its knees by disaster, is one such country. It lifted itself out of the chaos of civil war to achieve remarkable sustained levels of economic growth, combined with democratic government. Last year, it recorded double-digit growth. As the UN Secretary-General said, it is bitterly ironic that the EIU has singled out Mozambique as likely to have the highest growth rate in Africa this year. We know from Mozambique's example that it can be done and we must find the key to unlock similar progress in other African countries.

The debate has painted a tale of two Africas, but it is the story of deprivation, despair and disaster that we hear most often. Intensive efforts are needed to resolve the conflicts from the Red Sea to the Atlantic ocean; in the Democratic Republic of Congo; the diamond-fuelled conflicts in Sierra Leone and also in Angola—as the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, noted; the territorial war of Ethiopia and Eritrea; and conflicts in Sudan and Burundi. From north to south, east to west, the African continent regrettably is embroiled in civil and regional wars which take a horrifying toll on innocent civilians. The destruction visited on the continent cannot be overestimated.

As we have heard, even those African nations which we hope have put behind them a painful and difficult past, such as Nigeria and South Africa, have a long and difficult journey ahead. In the transition from apartheid to democracy, South Africa continues to provide an engine for African growth and stability, thanks to the vision of its leaders. But South Africa still has far to travel in building a just and stable society. Large, strategically located and a major oil producer, Nigeria now needs all the help it can obtain in its struggle to establish a viable democratic system, to jump start the economy, to fight corruption and to resolve regional unrest.

I listened carefully to the comments of the noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth and my noble friend Lord Caithness. I too wish to devote some of my remarks to Zimbabwe and to the Government's policy on that country, which is economically devastated as a result of the moral bankruptcy of its leader. I do so with a heavy heart, more in a tone of deep disappointment than in anger. I ask the Minister to what extent she considers that the circumstances which prompted Pakistan's suspension from the Commonwealth—namely, violations of the Harare principles—apply also in the case of Zimbabwe. At the time of the Harare Declaration, Zimbabwe was not only a member of the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group, set up to sit in judgment on the ways in which countries adhered to the principles; it was in the chair. It was replaced only last November.

Yet Robert Mugabe is not observing even the basic principles behind the Harare Declaration. This is a country which sends money and support to a war in the Democratic Republic of Congo rather than feed its own citizens. It is a country which prevented opposition parties gaining access to the media during the referendum. It is about to give consent to a Bill allowing interception of electronic mail and other communications. It is a country where journalists are arrested because they write the truth, not government propaganda, and where others are tortured. It is a country where the President threatens to kill his political opponents, condones the illegal seizure of farms and instructs the squatters to stay put; and it is a country which raids diplomatic bags and then claims that we are paranoid.

We have called for a suspension from CMAG. The Government have given no response. We have called for an audit of bilateral aid, in view of the suspension of EU aid, following the Court of Auditors' report that that aid was being misdirected. The Government have given no response. We believe that the innocent people of Zimbabwe should not suffer as a result of the crimes of their government. That is why properly audited bilateral aid and funding for NGOs should, and must, continue. But the international community needs a lever by which proper respect for democracy, human rights and the rule of law can be encouraged in Zimbabwe. The democratic world and the stability of southern African can no longer afford the policies pursued by Robert Mugabe. It is for that reason that I now call upon the Government to request that Zimbabwe be suspended from the Commonwealth.

I hope that the Minister will support that call. Will she say how else the Government intend to convey to the Government of Zimbabwe the clear message that their behaviour during the referendum was wrong; that their behaviour now is wrong; that the land seizure programme is illegal; that the ambitions of the kleptocrats and cronies must be curbed; that the destruction wrought on Zimbabwe's economy must be reversed; and that Robert Mugabe's system of government is fundamentally corrupt?

Last week, in London, the UN Secretary-General told us what we already knew: that, in spite of all that we have done to help Africa to overcome her conflicts, it has not been enough. His words, that,

"Africa needs more: more assistance, more technology, more investment, more access to world markets, more co-operation and partnership",

have been echoed in the debate today. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, that we must ask what more the international community can do to sustain the focus on the challenges facing Africa and to support the efforts of African governments and peoples in meeting those challenges.

I am pleased that the noble Baroness touched on the importance of the middle class. We need policies to develop the middle class. Let us consider the effectiveness of such policies in relation to pensions in Chile, or indeed in Taiwan. Let us consider the effectiveness of capitalisation targeted at the middle class in Bolivia. The establishment of policies directed towards the growth of an effective middle class provides both economic and political stability, because it gives individuals a direct interest in the success of their country's political and economic policies.

The subject of today's debate—economic opportunities in Africa and at home—is key. The reforms that have been made and the steps taken by African governments to enhance the foreign direct investment climate deserve our attention. Many governments have improved their regulatory framework for foreign direct investment, with investment promotion agencies to assist would-be investors. But there is potential for far more. As Africa grows, our businesses cannot afford to ignore that market. They must be encouraged to follow the example of companies such as African Lakes, which last month became the first fully listed UK plc to obtain a listing on the Nairobi stock exchange.

From the Government's working partnership with the US State Department, will the Minister say what lessons the Government have learned from President Clinton's Partnership for Economic Growth and Opportunity and the African growth and opportunity pact in terms of encouraging two-way trade, private sector investment and making the most of the opportunities Africa has to offer? To seize those opportunities, we must calibrate effectively our policies on debt, on trade, on war, on corruption and on development assistance. We cannot allow our failure to do so to contribute to the withering on the vine of Africa's productive sector.

For too long, Africa was viewed as a superpower battleground through the distorting prism of apartheid. Kofi Annan is right. We must not and cannot fail Africa now. Africa is doomed to political and economic failure only if we allow it. The direct involvement of the international community is critical if this, the poorest and most conflict-ridden continent in the world, is to make progress. If Africa fails, so do we. We cannot be secure if millions elsewhere are trapped by strife and scarcity. Africa should not fill us with despair. It should fill us with anger, determination and hope; anger that we are a witness to such waste; determination to do more to help the people of Africa to achieve and sustain peace and economic growth; and hope for Africa's potentially prosperous future.

My Lords, I begin by thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, for initiating today's important debate. I pay tribute to her work, which is well known in this House. She has worked tirelessly to facilitate development in Africa and to bring to the world's attention issues of concern to countries in Africa. This has been a good debate. It shows the concern in this House for what is happening in Africa.

The achievement of sustained and stable economic growth is a challenge facing all governments. It is an essential factor in reducing poverty and a prerequisite for integration into the world economy.

Two themes have emerged from the debate. The first is the importance of using the Commonwealth more positively in the way in which we work in Africa. The second is the need to influence international financial institutions and business to contribute to the development of Africa in a more positive, long-term and sustained way.

Three areas have dominated the debate. The first is the challenges that face the African continent. The noble Lord, Lord Howell of Guildford, mentioned many of them. It is also important to remember that those challenges can and are being addressed. The second key area is the opportunities that exist to take countries in Africa forward. The third area, mentioned by many noble Lords, is what the Government are doing in terms of impacting on some of those challenges.

The first major challenge is that of economic growth. Roughly 46 per cent of the African population lives on less than one dollar a day. Substantial improvements in material conditions will not be possible without a large acceleration in growth rates. Sub-Saharan Africa's growth performance has improved. Over the second half of the 1980s GDP growth was 2.5 per cent, which is not enough to keep up with population growth. In the early 1990s growth was even slower, but since 1994 it has quickened to around 4 per cent.

Those rates fall well below the 6 to 8 per cent growth per annum which is needed if Africa is to reach the international development targets in 2015. I say to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich that we still believe that those targets are achievable. The countries that recently have achieved them, or have come close to achieving them include Mozambique, which was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker. I agree with her that Mozambique is one of the best examples of a country where many developments have taken place. We are committed to the rehabilitation and reconstruction effort to get Mozambique back on track. The future task is to ensure that high growth continues in countries like Mozambique and that we work to create the conditions to enable growth in more countries.

In Africa a consensus is emerging on the need to implement good economic policies, the importance of tackling high inflation, lowering fiscal deficits, introducing well-functioning foreign exchange markets, maintaining open external markets, reforming the civil service, improving efficiency levels in the public sector, reducing price control and getting rid of restrictive licensing arrangements.

A second major challenge that has been mentioned by a number of noble Lords is the importance of conflict reduction. My noble friend Lord Tomlinson talked of the importance of conflict and linked conflict with corruption. Having a set of good economic policies is not enough. We know that in Africa conflict and war slow down growth. More than half of all African states have been affected by conflict in the past two decades, arid ten have been affected by severe conflicts.

My noble friend Lord Cocks of Hartcliffe and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, spoke of the destructive impact of religious conflict. Of course, in the past few years we have seen the devastation of ethnic conflict in various parts of Africa. Even in countries such as Rwanda and Uganda where substantial economic changes have occurred, effort is needed to bring down levels of military expenditure and reduce cross-border conflict. The noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby, rightly drew our attention to the importance of understanding the way in which developed countries have sometimes profited from those conflicts.

The third major challenge is the impact of HIV/AIDS, which is now the biggest killer of adults in Africa. Some countries will lose a quarter of their adult population to the disease. Increasingly African countries and their governments recognise the scale of the challenge and the need to take action now. The UK Government are working in partnership with African governments, the private sector and other donors, to co-ordinate an effective response to the epidemic. In this House we have had a debate on that issue, but I shall not give the detail of that assistance now.

The fourth major challenge is corruption. Corruption not only stifles domestic and foreign investment, but it affects the poor by excluding them from access to services and the protection of the law. However, prospects for progress on stamping out corruption have never been better. Governments everywhere are coming under pressure to bear down on corrupt practices. The noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, who unfortunately has had to leave, asked about the link between good governance and British assistance. In the White Paper on international development there were some key themes on human rights, on good governance and on gender equality.

As a government we have been robust in our relationships with governments on those matters. We are working hard to ensure that we tackle the corruption issue with the countries with which we work on a bilateral basis. At an international level, our priorities for addressing corruption are to agree a co-ordinated donor approach and concrete action to tackle corruption. A donor meeting in Maastricht in April is designed to produce an agreed action plan. In the United Kingdom we support the development of legislation to help implement the OECD convention on the bribery of foreign public officials and to strengthen action against money laundering, a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker.

We are encouraging the private sector to support anti-corruption efforts. In developing countries our aim is to work with other donors to facilitate a locally-led process to gain commitment from all sections of society to address corruption and to support the development and implementation of anti-corruption strategies. We are working hard to tackle what my noble friend Lord Desai called the failure of governance.

The fifth challenge is debt. There is no doubt that economic growth in Africa has been constrained by heavy debt burdens. Money spent in debt service, for example, cannot be spent on schools, on health or on building rural roads. Business people are also wary of investing in indebted countries, and that, of course, retards growth.

That is why this Government have taken the lead internationally in pressing for the debt burden to be lifted. We now have a debt relief package that should remove two-thirds of the debt of the heavily indebted poor countries. In December last year the Chancellor announced that the UK would unilaterally write off all the debt owed to ECGD by the heavily indebted poor countries. Most significantly, the general public in indebted African countries and indeed the British taxpayer expect that debt relief to be used by governments for comprehensive poverty reduction—an issue raised by my noble friend Lord Tomlinson. I want to assure the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, that we are committed to that "pro-poor" development. The UK will contribute a total of around £165 million to the HIPC trust fund, in addition to our share of the 1 billion euro package agreed by the EU for HIPCs, of which 680 million euro will be for the trust fund.

Having set out the challenges I now turn to some of the key elements that will enable African countries to sustain economic growth and to focus on reducing poverty. A number of noble Lords have mentioned the importance of increasing investment, encouraging enterprise development and increasing trade. There are, of course, mutual opportunities through trade and investment. A more prosperous Africa is likely to lead to a more prosperous UK. Wider and deeper trade and investment opportunities provide a two-way flow of benefits.

In terms of domestic and foreign direct investment, compared with other regions of the world, African investment rates are low. Not only do rates of investment need to increase, but the efficiency of investment also needs to be raised through improvements in the functioning of the public sector. The noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, mentioned that only 1 per cent of foreign direct investment goes to Africa. My figure is 3 per cent, while the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, mentioned 5 per cent. Perhaps we have all used slightly different calculations to reach our figures.

Nevertheless, the reality is that most of that investment, however small, is mainly concentrated in only a few countries; namely, South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria. However, it is important to remember that the UK is the third largest source of foreign direct investment into Africa, investing 1.1 billion dollars in 1997. Foreign direct investment in Africa has been constrained by negative assessments of, for example, corruption, profitability, the legal and regulatory framework, the economic and political outlook of whichever country is in question, access to regional markets, trade policies and tax regimes.

Investment in Africa by African entrepreneurs is influenced by similar considerations. It is estimated that 40 per cent of African wealth is held overseas, whereas for south Asia the figure is more like 5 per cent. For a continent that is so starved of capital, this has staggering implications. However, the general perception that Africa is a poor destination for international investment is gradually changing. During the 1990s, foreign direct investment to Africa increased. To a large extent, this was in response to the adoption of better economic policies. Additional privatisation will also provide further incentives.

The second area seen as providing good opportunities is that of enterprise development. The development of small and medium-sized enterprises is crucial for the long-term development of the economy. In Kenya, for example, small enterprises account for 98 per cent of all enterprises, 80 per cent of which employ fewer than five workers. Medium-sized enterprises can be innovative and dynamic because they provide crucial links between micro-enterprises and large businesses.

The noble Lord, Lord Holme of Cheltenham, mentioned the important role of micro-credit and micro-finance. The DfID has committed over £20 million into funding micro-finance projects in Africa to support the efforts of micro-enterprises and other informal sector entrepreneurs. Perhaps I may say to my noble friend Lord Desai that the sustainable livelihoods approach, including rural development, is a key element of our strategy. The noble Lord will recall last year's excellent debate in this House when this matter was looked at in detail.

The UK Government are actively encouraging and supporting enterprise development in Africa in a number of other ways: by improving the legal and regulatory enabling environment; by helping to establish financial instruments and institutions; and where possible, by removing management, technology and knowledge constraints faced by small and medium-sized businesses.

The third area of opportunity is trade development. Increased international trade is vital for accelerating growth in Africa. The Government are keen to promote a comprehensive round of trade talks. A more open, rules-based, multilateral trading system should benefit sub-Saharan Africa, although I have listened carefully to the concerns expressed by my noble friend Lord Tomlinson and by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams of Crosby. There is no doubt that, in the short term, globalisation will present Africa with serious challenges. Difficult transitions will have to be negotiated. We can expect the price of primary commodity exports to fall further. With deepening world trade reforms, preferential margins enjoyed by African countries in overseas markets, such as the EU, will inevitably be eroded.

However, I can assure my noble friend Lord Tomlinson that the UK fought very hard in the negotiations for a successor to the Lomé Convention and was successful in securing agreement to grant duty-free access for essentially all exports from less developed African countries until 2005. Discussions are continuing on what "essentially" will mean. A second important commitment of the EU is to review and simplify rules of origin that apply to LDC exports. As rules of origin can often act to limit the benefits of preferential market access, progress on this will be very important.

In most of Africa there is little technical capacity to analyse trade policy options, to negotiate new trade arrangements, to implement trade reforms, to monitor effects and mitigate adverse impacts. The Government are helping to build this capacity in a number of African countries and also to strengthen regional organisations. Furthermore, in response to a point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Chalker, we remain committed to supporting education and capacity-building, which was the subject of a debate in the House last week.

Perhaps I may now turn to the specific countries that have been mentioned by a number of noble Lords. First, as regards South Africa, my noble friend Lady Dean of Thornton-le-Fylde spoke of the importance of working in partnership and gave the specific example of the Warwick Manufacturing Group. As a graduate of Warwick and also one with knowledge of and a great deal of affection for South Africa, I am pleased to see the important role that partnership efforts are playing in leadership development and in promoting equality and equal opportunity.

The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, and the noble Baroness, Lady Sharples, mentioned other challenges facing the government of South Africa. President Mbeki's top priority is to improve the lives of the poor black majority, in line with election promises. South Africa remains a country with many living in poverty and with a high rate of unemployment—well above 30 per cent. Both of those factors exacerbate crime. We are helping to address these problems primarily through our development assistance programme, which will provide £90 million over three years. The priority areas include health, good governance, education and enterprise development. On the matter of the EU/South Africa trade agreement, the UK has been at the forefront in these negotiations, pushing South Africa's case for a liberal agreement. This is one of the best ways that Europe can aid South Africa's transformation from apartheid.

The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, also spoke of Mozambique, as did other noble Lords. I should like to make one point concerning the reconstruction, which is continuing in Mozambique. The Government of Mozambique have asked UNDP to take the lead in planning for recovery. A meeting of donors organised by the UN is planned for the end of April. There is no doubt that the disaster is a severe setback in human terms for Mozambique. However, we hope that the longer term economic impact will not be too damaging. The Government of Mozambique still predict that a 9 per cent economic growth rate can be achieved this year, which would be a major factor in assisting that reconstruction, if it can be delivered.

Turning now to Nigeria, I share the views of the noble Baroness, Lady Cox, and of the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, as regards what President Obasanjo is trying to do. He and his government have made a good start. He has made economic reforms, the fight against corruption, reform of the military and poverty eradication the centrepieces of his policy. The DfID's bilateral programme provides assistance in health, water, education, rural livelihoods and good governance in a number of states. The bulk of that assistance is delivered through non-governmental channels. We are also co-ordinating with the Government of Nigeria an effort to introduce initiatives for widespread HIV screening. UK/Nigeria trading links are strong, but Nigeria needs serious reform if it is to benefit from globalisation. Privatisation and a crackdown on corruption will attract new investors, as will better security and the maintenance of the rule of law. We are looking at ways to help in relation to all of those.

A number of noble Lords have expressed concerns in the strongest possible terms about what is happening in Zimbabwe. The noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, and other noble Lords talked about the farm invasions and the importance of land reform. High-level representations have been made to the Government of Zimbabwe to address the illegal occupation of farms by members of the War Veterans Association and to ensure that the rights of farmers and the rule of law are upheld. My honourable friend Peter Hain has spoken to the Vice-President on this issue.

We have conveyed to the Government of Zimbabwe our serious concerns. There is some confusion over the position of the court case and the appeal, which was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Caithness. Both the Attorney-General and Chief of Police are out of the country. The Commercial Farmers' Union has shown remarkable restraint and welcomed further discussions over the legal position. But I can tell the noble Lord no more right now about that issue.

I share with the noble Earl, Lord Caithness, anxieties in relation to the economic management in Zimbabwe. We urged the Government of Zimbabwe to work with the IMS and to implement the necessary budgetary restructuring to restore economic stability. Our programme in Zimbabwe gives priority to helping the 70 per cent of Zimbabwean households that fall below the poverty line.

The noble Lord, Lord St John of Bletso, raised the issue of elections. We and other countries are concerned that the government's timetable for elections will not allow the problems of the voters' roll to be addressed. We will not assist or mount international observer missions if that only serves to endorse a flawed process.

The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, asked specifically about the Harare Declaration. The farm invasions are serious, but do not constitute the serious and continuous violation of the Harare Declaration which demands investigation by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group. We want to see good governance, respect for human rights and economic policies which will enrich and empower all in Zimbabwe.

I am afraid I have run out of time.

My Lords, will the Minister give way?

My Lords, I would rather not.

My Lords, for two minutes only.

My Lords, I shall give way if the House agrees to give me a further two minutes.

My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister. There were clear calls this afternoon for the suspension of Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. I would be grateful if the Minister could set out the Government's position on that specific point.

My Lords, I made the Government's position clear. We do not believe that the farm invasions, although they are serious, constitute the serious and continuous violation of the Harare Declaration which demands investigation by the Commonwealth Ministerial Action Group.

I conclude by saying that our commitment to Africa runs across all government departments. The noble Lord, Lord Moynihan, stressed the importance of this being a commitment that did not just involve DfID. Various government departments are involved in promoting growth and development in Africa. Reducing conflict is high on our agenda and we are currently undertaking a cross-cutting review of conflict prevention. We are active, too, on the issue of security sector reform because we know that in many poor countries repressive, untransparent and bloated security sectors are major obstacles to progress in development.

I have mentioned our work on anti-corruption efforts in Africa with other western governments and there are some good examples of that. We are launching challenge funds with the aim of supporting partnership initiatives. British Trade International, our newly-formed trade and investment promotion arm, is actively engaged in identifying commercial opportunities throughout the continent. On the investment front, it has worked with a number of African agencies to promote investment. And of course the Foreign and Commonwealth Office is constantly working to promote stability and security across the continent.

Now is a time for opportunity for Africa. Never before have global relationships been so important and global processes so influential to any one country's and continent's development. Those are the themes which will be explored in the new White Paper due for publication in the autumn. Africa matters, and it matters to our electorate. We have only to look at the response of the British public to recent events in Mozambique and to the debt campaign. And I agree with my noble friend Lord Desai: Africa matters to the Africans. We, as a key partner in trade, investment and development, must assist Africa in that development to ensure a sustainable future.

My Lords, I thank all those who have spoken in this debate. We shall return for further debate, particularly on the tragic issue of Zimbabwe.

Over 96 per cent of Africa's diamonds do not come from conflict areas, and those firms employ large numbers of Africans. I hope that we can get some balance into this debate because I learned earlier today that De Beers, mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Williams, buys neither from Angola nor Sierra Leone. I beg leave to withdraw my Motion for Papers.

Motion for Papers, by leave, withdrawn.

My Lords, with the leave of the House I should like to repeat a Statement which is being made in another place by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister. The Statement is as follows:

Yesterday the Chancellor announced funding for the NHS, not just for the coming financial year but for the three years following. Taken together with this year—the first year of the current CSR—it means: the biggest sustained investment for the NHS (35 per cent real terms rise over five years); a real terms average increase of 6.1 per cent per year over the next four years. That is a rise of over double the average under the last government.

"Yes, there have been larger one-off rises, but never a rise sustained in this way. It means that by the year 2003–04, NHS spending will have risen to 7.6 per cent of GDP. That is a huge increase in any terms. In a period of predicted economic growth, it is unique. And it comes with an immediate injection this year of £2 billion extra for the UK, which includes the tobacco duty increase of £300 million.

"We have done this because we believe in the NHS. We never want to see it broken up, reduced to a rump service for those who cannot afford to pay for their healthcare. The NHS is a unifying force in this country and under me it will remain so. But here is the challenge to us in government and to all who work in the health service. Everybody knows that the NHS needed the new money announced yesterday. But everybody knows too that the NHS needs fundamental reform if it is to provide the standard of care people deserve in the 21st century.

"With the money must come the modernisation. A step change in resources must mean a step change in reform. In our schools, we now accept that though more investment is necessary, it is not sufficient. There is a real and often hard debate about standards, performance and reform. No one really believes that one without the other will work.

"Now is the time to raise the same debate in our National Health Service. So this afternoon I will set out the key challenges facing the NHS, the means by which we intend to tackle them and the methods for involving the people who work in the health service in this vital task.

"I say to our hard-working and dedicated staff in the NHS: you challenged us to come up with the money. We have done so. It was hard won and hard fought. There were many calls on it; many places it might have been spent. We rose to your challenge; now rise to ours. Work with us to make sure this money is spent well; make sure the NHS confronts the hard necessities of reform to improve the value we get for the money we spend.

"Some health authorities and trusts carry out four times more hip replacement operations than others. Why? How is it that some trusts can provide elective surgery for all their patients within six months while in others one in eight patients have to wait over 12 months? In some A&E departments non-urgent patients are treated within half an hour while in others there is a four or five-hour wait.

"There are trusts that see nearly 100 per cent of their outpatients within three months, while others only manage less than 60 per cent. The proportion of operations done as day cases varies from 75 per cent in some places to less than 30 per cent in others.

"There are around 5,000 elderly patients in hospital who do not need to be there because of complications between social services and hospitals over their care arrangements. Some hospitals employ twice as many nurses as others to staff critical care beds. Why is there a twofold difference in the cost of care between the best and the least efficient hospitals?

"Some hospitals manage without long trolley waits, while others have them on a regular basis. Patients can get a routine GP appointment within 24 hours in some surgeries but have to wait four or five days in others. The top 25 per cent of trusts use their consultants twice as productively as the bottom 25 per cent. There are huge variations in the proportion of patients at risk from heart disease who get the appropriate drugs to help to control their blood pressure and cholesterol.

"Nurses in some hospitals discharge patients from A&E and in others they do not. Some hospitals use physiotherapists to help to reduce waiting times for orthopaedic appointments, and others do not. Links between social services and GPs work well in some areas, but in others are virtually non-existent. Some medical teams are much better at preventing arid managing conditions, such as diabetes and asthma, than others.

"These are big issues. The reasons for the variation are sometimes complex. Some of these problems will be because of a shortage of staff and equipment. But some will be poor management; inefficient organisation. Some will arise out of outdated demarcations between professionals within the service. Some will be systems failures. Some will be professional failures. Each one of these must be confronted, analysed and solutions found.

"So these are the five challenges that I set for the health service. First, the partnership challenge: for all parts of the health system—GPs, hospitals and their consultants, primary care groups, social services and community health services—to work together to end bed blocking, reduce unnecessary hospital admissions and provide the right level of beds and services for each level of care.

"Secondly, the performance challenge: the challenge is to ensure that using information, incentives and inspection all trusts and primary care groups come up to the standard of the best; that we provide the right support and intervention for those who struggle to provide proper standards of care; and that the systems are in place to identify and root out poor clinical practice.

"As a first step towards meeting this challenge, the Secretary of State will later today give details of £660 million of the extra money for next year that will be allocated straightaway to health authorities, trusts and primary care groups. He will set out how the extra money will be coupled with new incentives to ensure that every pound provides value for money.

"Thirdly, the challenge for the professions: to strip out unnecessary demarcations, introduce more flexible training and working practices and ensure that doctors do not use time dealing with patients who could be treated safely by other healthcare staff.

"Fourthly, the patient care challenge: for hospitals and primary care groups. It is to ensure that they all adopt best practice, design out delays and introduce convenient booking systems so that patients with the most serious conditions get treated quickly, and no one has to wait too long for an operation that he needs.

"Fifthly, the challenge on prevention: to balance spending on tackling the causes of ill health with treating illness, to develop a more systematic approach to treating people at risk from chronic diseases and to persuade more people to play their part in achieving better health by adopting a more healthy lifestyle.

"These are tough challenges. Together we need to find the answers. If excellence can happen in one part of the country, then I say why cannot it happen in all parts of the country. In the past two to three years, there has been substantial change and improvement. The internal market has gone; a record numbers of hospitals are being built; nurses are returning to the National Health Service; and there are more doctors in training. There are new services like NHS Direct; new standard procedures just published for cancer and heart treatment; casualty departments are being modernised; there is a new Commission for Health Improvement, an Ofsted for the NHS, charged with raising standards in all hospitals; and a new institute, NICE, to advise on the best treatments and drugs.

"But we know that this has not been enough; and too often the pressure of change has been made doubly painful by the pressure of scarce resources. Now we have a chance to put the money to work. I have set out the challenge, but I offer to meet it in partnership with those in the health service. In the next few months, the Secretary of State for Health and I will meet and talk with the people responsible for healthcare in every part of the country. We will consult the leaders of the professions and NHS organisations.

"For each of the five challenge areas, there will be a dedicated unit to examine the problems and come up with solutions. The unit will be jointly led by a health Minister and a key leader from within the health service. Because it is a national health service, I have invited the First Minister in Scotland and the First Secretary in Wales to join me in a UK-wide group of Ministers to develop and drive through the reform we devise.

"In addition, for England, a new Cabinet committee chaired by me will be established to agree and monitor the standards of service and improvements that people can expect by the end of the financial year 2003–04. Then, in July of this year, we will publish a detailed four-year action plan for the NHS: the improvements we seek, the change necessary to achieve them and the timetable for their delivery. It will not complete the journey of renewal for the NHS, but it will take us a long way towards our destination. It will take tough, often painful decisions about change to make progress. But I want all parts of the NHS to sign up to the plan, to feel ownership of it, to agree the priorities that we set out and to help us to deliver them. I want the country to unite around it.

"But I do not, and I will not, yield to those who believe that the NHS has had its day. It has not. A modernised NHS, not private medical insurance, is the future. The values of the NHS are every bit as relevant today as they were 50 years ago. But they have to be applied in a different way for a different age.

"The NHS is one of the great institutions that binds our country together. It is one of the great civilising achievements of the 20th century. It is our task, as the party which created the NHS, to renew it for the 21st century and to defeat the pessimists and the privatisers who would see it dismantled".

My Lords, that concludes the Statement.

My Lords, perhaps I may begin by thanking the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating that prime-ministerial Statement. It is an unusual Statement but not, I am sure, unprecedented. I should also like to say at the outset how much I welcome the intention to devote more resources to the health service. We on this side of the House support that aim. However, as is now well known, that was yesterday's announcement; indeed, the Chancellor of the Exchequer told us that yesterday afternoon.

In contrast, the Prime Minister's Statement today is, I have to say, a disappointment. It sounds as if the No. 10 policy unit has just given him a seminar on the problems that doctors and nurses of this country could have told him about for years. I am bound to ask: where has the Prime Minister been these past three years? He tells us that he is going—no doubt, trailing the cameras behind him—on a roadshow of discovery to every part of the country. I thought that he was supposed to be running the country.

We all believe that Britain needs additional healthcare capacity. But does not the fact that the Prime Minister has felt the need to intervene personally—and put his job on the line—show the utter incompetence of the Ministers who have been in charge of the NHS since the general election? Over most of the long life of the NHS is has been Conservative governments who have supported it, modernised it, built new hospitals and pioneered new treatments. Surely that ought to have been acknowledged in today's Statement. When the noble Baroness replies, perhaps she might show the Prime Minister the way in that respect.

One of the things that has bedevilled the NHS has been the tendency of politicians on the Left to play politics with it. Too often, when Conservatives were in power, those people belittled its achievements and seized with glee every one of its problems. We hear that the Prime Minister now expresses his anger with the media for reporting problems in the NHS. I did not sense that fury in 1995, 1996 or, indeed, in 1997 when the Prime Minister made his extraordinary remark that there were,

"only 24 hours to save the NHS".

Since then not 24 hours have passed but almost three years. What has happened?

Pensioners with lifelong savings—people who, once again, were neglected in yesterday's Budget—have lost tax relief on health insurance. The numbers of people on waiting lists of over a year have risen when patients were promised they would fall. A new scandal has emerged of the doubling of waiting lists for the waiting list: 248,000 more than in May 1997, as a direct result of health Ministers distorting clinical priorities in 1997 and 1998 with their flawed waiting list initiative that has been roundly condemned by the BMA and every reputable medical body in this country. As the Daily Mail revealed this week, some 160,000 people are being forced to spend their savings to get life-saving and life-enhancing operations because the waiting lists for the waiting list are too long.

We have seen a transfer of choice away from the GPs, to whom we had given it, back to bureaucracy. Millions of pounds have been wasted on further bureaucratic tampering while problems on the wards have mounted. So much for "24 hours to save the NHS"; it is more like three locust years while the Government have fiddled and unmet demand for care has steadily grown. Now the Prime Minister comes forward with a Statement that lectures the NHS on its shortcomings. He tells us that he has discovered places where management is not as good as it should be. But who put it there? Was it not the Labour Party's mayoral candidate for London?

Is it not a classic comment on this Government that when the noble Lord, Lord Winston—I am delighted to see he is present—who knows the realities of the NHS, said that there were problems, he was privately bullied and publicly humiliated? But when, a few weeks later, the all-powerful focus groups revealed rising anger in the Labour heartlands about the failure of the Government's health promises, the Prime Minister panicked into action. I do not wish to embarrass the noble Lord, Lord Winston, but perhaps the Prime Minister should listen to the experienced people in his party a little more, and to the flatterers and spin doctors a little less.

What does today's Statement amount to? There is a promise by the Prime Minister to go on a roadshow and to set up new Civil Service units and Cabinet committees. And then what? He is to "prepare an action plan". When the Prime Minister talks of roadshows, units, Cabinet committees and action plans, have we not been here before with a roadshow on social security reform, a new Cabinet committee, "thinking the unthinkable"—remember that?—and delivering nothing? The public will not bear a repeat of that fiasco.

Does the noble Baroness agree—I hope that she does—that if the additional money is to be spent properly, that spending must be properly managed? It is a substantial increase in funding. Does she accept that you will no: get good management if you persist with the appointment of second-hand politicians to run the NHS? Has the noble Baroness had time to read the Fritchie report? It shows a record of unparalleled cronyism and political favouritism in the NHS since 1997. The report finds that of 343 councillors appointed to run the NHS since May 1997, over 80 per cent have been from the Labour Party; just 10 per cent have been Liberal Democrats; and 6 per cent have been Conservative. The Commissioner for Public Appointments comments that the appointments

"process has been politicised in a systematic way".

I may be wrong, but was not the noble Baroness herself part of that system? Does she accept that when public money on this scale is about to be committed to the NHS, political cronyism on this scale has to stop? I hope that the noble Baroness will give an unequivocal undertaking that the Government will accept the Fritchie report's key recommendations.

Yesterday, extra resources were announced for the health service. That was welcome. Today I am sorry to say that we are taken little further by a Statement that lectures the NHS on its shortcomings. We shall watch, supportively but sceptically, to see how wisely this extra money is spent. How much say, for instance, will the clinicians, the doctors and the nurses, who understand so well the problems of care, have in the way it is spent? How much, above all—this will be the test—will go to direct patient care?

After three years of waiting for a year of delivery that never actually comes, we are all entitled to be sceptical, not just us, as a political party, but also people outside the House. This is a government who tax more but deliver less. In this Budget they are again taxing more. Let us hope for the sake of the patients of Britain that this time, for once, they will actually deliver.

My Lords, on behalf of these Benches I greatly welcome and thank the noble Baroness the Leader of the House for repeating the Statement made in another place by the Prime Minister, although at this hour it is inevitably to a rather thin House with fewer than 30 noble Lords present.

In so far as I here is to be more money for the National Health Service, we welcome that without reserve. To that extent we certainly welcome the Chancellor of the Exchequer's Statement yesterday, and to that extent—although I wish to qualify my approval—we welcome what the Prime Minister said today.

It is a matter of regret that the needs of the health service were not recognised earlier. To that extent we have had three wasted years because it was plain for everyone to see that the National Health Service had been in decline for at least a decade. We must also note that welcome though the prospect for the next four years is, it is only part of the way towards the Prime Minister's aspiration—if that is what it still is—to achieve levels of spending in terms of GDP comparable to those within the European Union. Although I mention those two reservations at this stage, it is good news. The money is good news and it would be wrong to pretend otherwise.

I ask the noble Baroness a question concerning what might be called the public spending context. It is not clear to me—but this may be my shortcoming—how the announcement yesterday fits in with the comprehensive spending review. Will it mean in any respect robbing Peter to pay Paul? Have other spending Ministers been told that there will be no more money for them? Clearly, the announcement appears to pre-empt a large slice of the Government's spending for the next four years. It is fair to assume that there will be losers. It would be helpful to know who they may be; otherwise, in due course, we shall have to probe to find out.

We shall also look for double counting. I shall not repeat the rather disgraceful story of what the Government have sought to do. I do not think that it is the first choice of Ministers, but they have been urged to adopt that course—and not to their long-term advantage. We hope that there will be no -window dressing". I mean by that easy measures of apparent, short-term success which hide long-term failures. What we want to see are clinical priorities and not political priorities, although I have to say to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that political priorities did not begin in 1997. We can see them a long time before that.

However, I agree with the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that if the Government are to be trusted on putting clinical priorities before political priorities and we are to have a highly competent service spending more money wisely and well, the Government must clear up the messy and indefensible situation affecting public appointments to NHS trusts and health authorities. My noble friend Lord Clement-Jones tabled a prescient, pertinent and revealing Starred Question last week on that subject. However, I do not think that it more than partially prepared us for the most remarkable and damning report of Dame Rennie Fritchie, published today. Again, I have to say that when the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, rather boldly refers to it, it is something of a pot calling the kettle black because this has been long-standing practice. But the fact that it is long-standing practice does not mean that it is not time for a change. I tentatively and nervously suggest that here is a case for an appointments commission. However, I shall not set out the principles upon which it should work.

I do not want to be ungracious to the Prime Minister although I and others are not impressed by his Statement. If the noble Baroness had made her own Statement, I believe that it would have been a great deal more rigorous and substantial, even if she had chosen to make it at all. Almost all the contents are concerned with administration, not with policy. The questions—there are 15 of them within the Prime Minister's Statement—sound more like a research programme, which could have been undertaken a long time ago, than a process of decision-making. On the basis of the Statement there is something to be said for giving all of the money to the King's Fund to come up with the answers which would enable the remaining money to be better spent.

Then again, those of us with experience of government will have allowed ourselves a hollow laugh at the proposal for a new Cabinet committee. It takes us back to the world of Harold Wilson and a long way from the world of new Labour, as we understood it. Our doubts are strengthened by references to dedicated units for this or that. I have never understood what a dedicated unit is; I simply do not believe in them. The five challenges are pure public relations or elementary management gimmicks. They get us nowhere, and we should recognise them for what they are.

The Statement is pretty empty and would have been better avoided. It is either an attempt to catch tomorrow's headlines—headlines for a second day of an important announcement—or, dare I say it, to prevent the Chancellor getting away with all the credit.

I simply ask the noble Baroness—it may be a rhetorical question—whether the money is aimed more at the administrative challenges set out by the Prime Minister. Or are we to believe that some will be left for improving treatment within the health service?

I have one further question of substance. I hope that the noble Baroness will forgive me if it was dealt with by the Secretary of State, Alan Milburn, in a further Statement in the other place. It concerns the existing policy targets. There are a number of targets in regard to cancer treatment, heart disease, mental health and other illnesses—they are reasonable targets; I do not dispute them—but are we to assume that the new resources will be devoted to these targets and that these targets still stand. Or are they to be widened?

I appreciate it is unrealistic to expect the Leader of the House to deal today with these and many other questions about the details of how the money will be spent. I hope very much—it is an obvious request—that we shall have a debate at an early date so that all sides of the House can examine more fully these very important developments.

My Lords, I am grateful to both noble Lords for their broad welcome for the additional resources. As to the final point of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, about opportunities to discuss these far-reaching and important proposals, he will understand that that is a matter for the usual channels. I am sure, however, as always in matters concerning the health service, that your Lordships will contribute authoritatively and interestingly as the debate proceeds and as the understandings we have about the targets to be developed in the new national health plan become more clear.

I should say to the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, that I am absolutely delighted that he welcomes so full-heartedly the additional resources for the National Health Service. I had understood, from looking at the comments of his right honourable friend Mr. Portillo before yesterday's Statement, that the Conservative Party believed that there was a choice in this country between making public sector investments and cutting taxes. Mr Portillo said only a few days ago, I think on 12th March, that he would recommend that the Chancellor cut taxes rather than improve public spending. None the less, I am delighted that that position seems to have changed. I am sure that the Conservative Party's conversion to this major extension of public expenditure will be welcomed by all sides.

Both noble Lords referred to how the Statement seemed to be concerned more with administration than with the development of clinical care and the organisation of medicine. It is important to understand—I can say this having been a Minister in the Department of Health at the very beginning of this Government—that it was not until the Government started to look at the variations in performance which the Prime Minister, quite rightly, spoke at some length about today, that there was any system in place within the health service for benchmarking the comparative performances of individual trusts and individual health authorities. It was in order to establish this basic tool of management that a great deal of the preliminary work was done. If the questions to which my right honourable friend referred today about the variations in performance of different hospitals and different professional bodies in the health service had been asked in 1997, it would have been very difficult to answer them in the precise terms that he used today. Noble Lords should not under-estimate the importance of achieving the position where we can now address those variations and make decisions about the distribution of resources, which are obviously part of that issue.

Both noble Lords referred to the question of whether this settlement—which is important, both in the context of long-term management planning and the distribution of resources on a fair and improved but targeted basis—has distorted the already outlined plans for the second comprehensive spending review. The House is aware that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of Exchequer yesterday announced an extra £1 billion for education, and other amounts for transport and other high priorities within the Government's present policy objectives. Of course, the comprehensive spending review in its detail will be carried out with all the other spending departments during the next few months, but I do not think that anything that has been said—or anything that may be read into the implications of the Statement as it relates to the health service—should be read across as an indication that decisions have been made about other public sector expenditure.

On specifics, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, referred to the discussion about waiting lists. I am sure that the noble Lord will be pleased to hear that the health department regards itself as being completely on target to fulfil the election pledge on waiting lists. The department and the chief executive of the health service have acknowledged that there has been what one might describe as a blip in that path upwards or downwards, whichever way one wants to look at it, in the past few months for reasons which were only too familiar to your Lordships when we discussed the problems of winter pressures. The question of outpatients is something to which the Government wish to give attention in this new planning period and in the light of this additional new money.

I suspect that noble Lords may have a slightly pessimistic view. Right across the health service, it is the case that 75 per cent of patients are seen within the patient's charter target of 13 weeks. No one pretends that we are all content with that target—of course it should be improved—but if one says that three-quarters of patients are seen within the existing target, at least we should not be too gloomy about existing standards.

Noble Lords were slightly dismissive of the plan set out by the Prime Minister to act on benchmarked information to lake projects forward in the context of the new spending arrangements. I thought my right honourable friend was rather precise on that issue. He described what indeed was an administrative process—and therefore perhaps not particularly exciting— but he was fairly clear about the way in which he hopes to move forward on a consensual basis involving the health service, the professions, the different parts of the United Kingdom—he referred to consultations with Scotland and with Wales—in order to achieve a consistent and coherent new plan which would be available and ready by July this year. That would then of course be planned out in the context of the longer term spending agreements announced today. This gives the health service a very important breathing space and a capacity to plan on the basis of knowledge of what the future spend will be. That makes it more coherent from the clinical as well as the administrative point of view.

The noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, asked whether the present clinical targets would stand. It is my understanding that they will, particularly those which have been developed within the new national service frameworks and the clinical priorities which have been agreed on cancer and heart disease. I am sure that the additional money will enable new national service frameworks and new national targets to be set in specific clinical areas. Clearly, those targets already agreed—which were in themselves quite ambitious—will be held to. I suspect that clinicians will be more confident in their ability to deliver them within the new financial context.

Both noble Lords referred to quality of management within the health service—I suspect, both the professional quality of management and that which is deployed by those who sit on health authorities and NHS trusts. They referred also to the report delivered today by Dame Rennie Fritchie. I do not know whether either noble Lord realised— the announcement was made only today—that my right honourable friend the Secretary of State for Health, Mr Milburn, announced that he was considering fundamental changes in the NHS appointments process in response to Dame Rennie's report. Most importantly, he said that the first point he wished to examine was responsibility for appointing hospital trusts and primary group trusts; namely, non-executive board members being devolved to local health authorities rather than those duties being undertaken by Ministers. That means that the process would be brought much closer to the local community and, presumably, that ministerial oversight would be removed.

I think it fair to point out again that headlines regarding the way in which appointments have been seen as political—even if that has not actually been the case—have been uncomfortable for all political parties. We are talking about a small proportion of Labour Party councillors being appointed since 1997. I understand that they constitute 20 per cent of the total number of appointments. Having been involved in the appointments process at an earlier stage and knowing that there are literally thousands of appointments—the total for which Ministers are responsible is 3,000—a figure of some 250 appointed councillors should not necessarily be exaggerated, although, given what my right honourable friend has said about an overhaul of the appointments system, I hope that some of the concerns about appointments made from all sides of the political process will be ameliorated.

As someone who was involved in this process as a health Minister early in this Government's term of office, I would say that one must not be over-sensitive on this matter. It was important for the Government—as it was when reforms were made by the previous administration—that those who sat on local hospital boards and were members of local health authorities genuinely believed in, and were concerned about, the way in which the government of the day sought to organise the healthcare system. As a Minister, I was pleased that people came forward for selection feeling that the health service was being focused on in a rather different way after the 1997 election. But we should also remember that all those appointments were made through the process set up by the previous Commissioner for Public Appointments.

I was pleased and flattered by the remark of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, that had I been making the Statement, as it were, ab initio it would have been more rigorous and substantial than the one that I repeated. However, the noble Lord, Lord Strathclyde, seemed to place some of the blame as he saw it on existing government Ministers for the disorganisation in the health system as it now stands. I am happy to plead guilty to being in that position two years ago, although the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, has said that I would have been more rigorous today, but I cannot accept that on behalf of my noble friend Lord Hunt.

My Lords, I was not referring to the noble Baroness the Leader of the House. My main target was Mr Frank Dobson.

My Lords, perhaps I may put one or two rather detailed points to the noble Baroness. Like my noble friend, I very much welcome the infusion of money. I take it that the £2 billion includes Scotland and Wales. First, does the £2 billion include the big increases in wages and salaries that have already been awarded recently? Does it also include the outcome of the review of long-term care which is under way? If that is the case, it indicates that the whole sum will not be available for the reforms with which the Statement is concerned.

On the question of Scotland and Wales, the noble Baroness mentioned the First Minister of the Scottish Parliament and the First Secretary in Wales as taking part in the group that will make the final decisions. Do the five challenges set out in the Statement that are being put to the health service by the Prime Minister apply to health authorities in Scotland and Wales as well? Will the four-year plan that is to be agreed apply to Scotland and Wales? If so, when will the Scots Parliament have a say in this matter? The health service is a devolved matter for Scotland, as it is for Wales.

My Lords, the noble Baroness's final point is entirely relevant. Health matters are devolved to Scotland and to Wales. I think what my right honourable friend was indicating in referring to the consultations that he intended to have with the First Minister and the First Secretary in Wales, was that the National Health Service is a UK institution. Of course, the funding is somewhat different. The arrangements even for administration and management within Scotland and Wales are slightly different. However, the aspirations for achieving the challenges and for meeting the targets set out are ones which I am sure both he and the Secretary of State for Health in England and Wales would regard as particularly important for the whole of the unified system.

It is important that we have a more consensual approach to reaching the targets, as I hope the Statement made clear. The reference was made in the context of bringing in the professions, presumably from different parts of the United Kingdom, as well as those responsible for administration. Clearly, although the overall settlement is UK-wide, there will be differences in the way in which resources are deployed. In Scotland, those will be matters for the Scottish Parliament, as the noble Baroness rightly said.

Wages and salaries fall to be met out of the overall budgets, but the figures given are for real terms growth. As the noble Baroness will know, they are susceptible to the outcomes of the independent wages and salaries review boards which are referred to the Government for the year in question. The real terms growth is over the entire UK and the whole economy, but, as I say, individual budgets will be deployed by the Scottish Executive in the way that it chooses.

My Lords, just to be quite sure, will the four-year plan apply to Scotland?

My Lords, if I have failed to answer the noble Baroness's questions I shall be delighted to answer her in writing.

My Lords, I am grateful for the solicitude of the noble Lord the Leader of the Opposition. I hope it continues until the end of my question to the Lord Privy Seal.

Is my noble friend aware that, judging from what I saw this morning in my own hospital trust, which I believe is representative, the Budget announcement has led to a real enthusiasm which I have not seen for a long time in the health service. It will clearly do a huge amount for morale. In particular, it will do a great deal for those hospitals in inner-city areas in deprived parts of the country.

My noble friend the Lord Privy Seal mentioned bench-marking. She, above all, is well aware that one of the problems in relation to disease is that its quality and severity, and indeed the stage of any disease, often depend on a whole range of factors, such as poverty, education and environment. One of the problems with performance indicators and bench-marking is that it is difficult to compare trust with trust across different parts of the country. I know that the Government are aware of that and that they have it fully in mind. A simple league table is clearly not the answer.

One of the problems in the health service is that, as a result of a very long period of neglect, the fabric has been run down. Consequently, one major investment that has been lacking is in information technology. Information technology would do a great deal to provide useful comparators in the health service which could lead to a better assessment of performance. Perhaps my noble friend will comment briefly on whether part of the extra money might be spent on examining how we can best gather information within the health service.

My Lords, I am very grateful for my noble friend's reaction and for his comments about the enthusiasm that he finds in his trust. Having known my noble friend very well over many years, I know that he speaks from a completely independent and objective assessment and reports accurately his experience in his own trust. I simply tell the House that it is reflected in a conversation in which I was involved this morning in Ipswich, in a non-inner city area, where a Conservative county councillor, who is also the chairman of the local health authority, was equally enthusiastic about the infusion of extra funds. As the Prime Minister and the Chancellor of the Exchequer have said, I hope that this will be seen as a nationwide enthusiasm. I certainly hope, to echo my noble friend's remarks, that it will raise morale and performance right across the health service.

My noble friend is, of course, absolutely right about the complexities of simple target setting within the NHS. He mentioned the social issues of poverty, education, and the environment which tend to affect the severity of disease and the problems which bring people to hospitals and to see their GPs at different stages of disease. I am sure that he will be aware that a great deal of work is being done in the Department of Health both to look at those complicated issues in the statistical sense, and, more importantly, to address the broader issues of ill health, so that there will be a better prevention programme as well as a public health programme which will back up the health service issues.

The question of IT is, of course, a priority for NHS expenditure. I know that there is a major commitment in the health service and in the Department of Health to taking forward the IT strategy which was developed two years ago. This will ensure that the exchange of information necessary to assist in the management of disease, and the practical advantages to patients of booked appointments, is spread as widely and as quickly as possible.

My Lords, I too welcome the additional funds announced yesterday and today. I believe that they have the potential to make a real difference to the NHS in the years to come. Perhaps I may ask the Leader of the House two questions. First, the Prime Minister in his Statement highlighted a consultation process with people responsible for healthcare in every part of the country. Will this be about how the additional funding is to be spent in this year, as well as in the following years? If so, the Secretary of State's speech today seems to conflict with that. He referred to allocations being made, and specifically one of £650 million, and he seems already to have decided what the expenditure should be. There appears to be a lack of clarity in that respect. Perhaps I may ask whether this consultation exercise will be a genuine button—up process or a top-down process, which seems to have characterised quite a great deal of the Government's expenditure to date. I am sure that we all want to sere the four-year action plan, to which the Prime Minister referred, genuinely owned by those who work in the NHS. But if there is no adequate consultation, it will not be.

Secondly, perhaps I may follow up the question asked by my noble friend Lord Rodgers about the status of the Comprehensive Spending Review, about which there appears to be a lack of clarity. Has the Department of Health's total budget for this and the following four years now been set? If so, can the Minister, the noble Lord, Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, indicate very soon the decisions that will be made on the Children (Leaving Care) Bill rather than waiting until the Comprehensive Spending Review?

My Lords, my noble friend Lord Hunt of Kings Heath, who is seated behind me, says that the answer to the noble Lord's final question is "no".

With regard to the broader point, as I hope that I made clear to the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, the four-year spending agreement is not, as the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones said, related to the Department of Health's spending. It is related to NHS spending. However, that is the agreed programme.

With regard to the question of the consultation process, my understanding is that the allocation of the £600-odd million referred to in the Secretary of State's additional Statement this afternoon relates to the extra £2 billion which will be made available at the beginning of this immediate financial year. The consultation process on the new national strategy, if that is what we wish to call it, which is to take place over the next few months, will be about putting the plans for the health service in a broader, longer-term context. As I said in reply to the two noble Lords who spoke from the Front Benches, the hope is that this agreed spending over the four-year period will enable proper planning and understanding of agreed targets to be the subject of consultation over that longer period of time.

My Lords, in welcoming the Statements of my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer yesterday and my right honourable friend the Prime Minister today, is my noble friend as puzzled as I am by the extent to which the Official Opposition are waxing so strongly about the fact that more Labour councillors than Tory councillors were appointed to these bodies? Does she recall that during their 18 years in power, the Conservatives were absolute past masters of the politicisation of all forms of public appointment? Was it not from their side, from a very good friend of mine whom I particularly respect, that we heard the Statement, "We would not knowingly appoint a Labour Party member to any public appointment"? We have nothing to learn from them, as my noble friend agreed.

Further, is my noble friend as puzzled as I am by the question from the Leader of the Liberal Democrats with regard to the three-year delay? Does she agree that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer is the first Labour Chancellor in history to make absolutely certain that he had the economy on a sound basis and the public finances fully under control before spending the money? I stand second to no one in wishing that it would not take quite so long. But is she aware that at least those of us on our Benches who know a little about economics believe that my right honourable friend was entirely right to ensure that the funds were first in place before committing them, and that what we really ought to be saying is, "Thank goodness that the funds are there now, and we are committing them to this top priority of the NHS"?

My Lords, I entirely agree with my noble friend politically and, of course, as always, I defer to his expertise in the broad economic field.

With regard to the question of whether or not this Government have anything to learn from the present Opposition party about appointments to public bodies, before the noble Lord from the Opposition Front Bench rises to his feet, I must point out that I was a member of a health authority under the previous administration. It would be completely churlish and inaccurate of me to deny that fact. However, I agree with my noble friend that a number of appointments were fairly extensively made on a political basis during those 18 years. In addition, however, we in this House quite clearly learned in our debate on the House of Lords Bill—although I hate to raise this subject again—that "independent", when it refers to public appointments at local level and particularly when it applies to certain areas of the country, often means "Conservative". But let us not dwell on that particular part of our collective past.

With regard to my noble friend's judgment about the overall macro-economic position, he is, of course, right that my right honourable friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer was determined, as he very clearly demonstrated in the Budget Statement yesterday, to get the finances of the country in good order to provide a good platform for growth of the public sector, and I am very glad that noble Lords all round the House have now recognised what a generous settlement this is.

My Lords, I thought that it was getting a little party political. Does the Leader of the House agree with me that the Statement was rather disappointing in that it did not mention the consumer, the patient? Does she also agree that the consumer should take part in management? More and more professionals are coming in who have their jobs at stake and their careers at heart.

Does the noble Baroness also agree that it is a little disappointing that no mention was made of infection control? This is becoming a big problem. Patients are becoming frightened of going into hospital, and we now have a report that 5,000 patients per year die from infection. Would she therefore include the question of infection control in the health agenda?

My Lords, I entirely agree with the noble Baroness that patients should be involved in the process of consultation. I suspect that it was only the limitations of time which prevented this matter from being explicitly developed under one of the challenges referred to by my right honourable friend. The noble Baroness will be aware that for the first time the Government have instituted an annual patient survey and a large number of patient representative appointments have been made to individual boards and trusts, particularly in the area of primary care. But the noble Baroness is absolutely right that patients must be involved in consultation and the development of plans.

As to infection control, the noble Baroness will be aware that there is now strong guidance in place to deal with this very serious issue. I agree that this matter must be taken seriously. This is perhaps precisely the kind of detailed issue which the consultation period on the new national strategy will include.

My Lords, I too welcome the Statement. The Statement says that a modernised National Health Service is the future, with which I also agree, but much reform is needed. In looking ahead, do the Government reject out of hand any method of raising funds other than general taxation to meet the needs of the National Health Service: the private sector, insurance or any other means? Can the alternatives be looked at, or are they forbidden ground?

My Lords, in so far as the noble Lord makes a rather universalist challenge by referring to "forbidden ground", the answer is yes. The Government believe that public sector funding of the kind announced yesterday by my right honourable friend, together with the plan developed by my right honourable friend the Prime Minister this afternoon, is the appropriate way to run a universal health service free at the point of need. That is the fundamental principle of the health service from which we have never diverged, and do not intend to diverge at this moment.

My Lords, does the noble Baroness recall that during the passage through your Lordships' House in 1989 of legislation to reform the National Health Service an amendment was moved and accepted by the then government which led to the appointment of a director of research for the NHS whose primary function was to look at the delivery of services within the NHS? Rather than set up a plethora of new bodies, committees and consultation processes, can the noble Baroness assure the House that the work conducted by the various directors of research over the past 10 years, and/or the suggestion of the noble Lord, Lord Rodgers, that the King's Fund research facilities should be utilised, will be fully taken into account?

My Lords, I do not recall the particular amendment to which the noble Baroness refers; I was not in your Lordships' House in 1989. I was, however, one of the first lay members of the Central Research and Development Council for the NHS which, presumably, was set up as a result of that amendment. I have been quite closely involved in the work of that body since its inception. My understanding of that body and the Director of Research and Development for the NHS has always been that the determining factor is research into services rather than their delivery. That may be a rather grey area but there is a slight distinction, certainly in terms of the projects in which I was involved when I served on the council. There is to be a new research and development strategy within the NHS which will embrace some of the topics included in the Statement of my right honourable friend about the challenges of modernisation to be published next week. I agree with the noble Baroness that the work of the Research and Development Unit within the DoH, although slightly different from some of the aspects of reform which the Government are anxious to pursue, is very relevant to the general process.

rose to call attention to the intrinsic issues in Northern Ireland; and to move for Papers.

The noble Baroness said: My Lords, for too long our debates on Northern Ireland have necessarily concerned the latest phase in the political struggle orchestrated by Sinn Fein/IRA. Martin McGuinness said in 1995 that the IRA's agenda was to end British rule in the North and to secure national self-determination for the people of Northern Ireland. Ever since it has summarily ignored the choice of the majority through the ballot box to remain in the United Kingdom. The British Government, according to him, had been dragged into the peace process initiated by the IRA. The IRA document Tactical Use of Armed Struggle (known as TUAS) had been launched the year before. It made it clear that the peace process had been embarked upon as a tactical expedient because it offered for the time being a better method of achieving the IRA's objective of a 32-county republic.

A return to violence was never ruled out. We should never forget that peace is not, for the IRA, the object of the peace process, just as solving issues of arms is IRA-speak for British arms, not theirs, and just as the much-vaunted offer in the second de Chastelain report that the IRA would,

"consider how to out arms and explosives beyond use in the context of the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement and in the context of the removal of the causes of conflict",

means, in IRA-speak, only the withdrawal of the British Army, the disarming and abolition of the RUC and the dismantling of all legislation or judicial procedures, such as the Diplock courts, which could in any way threaten the power of the IRA.

The IRA has now secured much: the release of prisoners; a substantial withdrawal of the Army; and a government commitment to legislate for changes in the RUC. Even under the Belfast agreement, that should be implemented only in a normal situation which simply does not obtain. Changes in the counterterrorism legislation are next on the IRA's agenda, and government cc nsultation on this has begun. Fortunately, Mr Justice Rowe's latest report of February of this year says robustly that there is a continuing need for the provisions of the Prevention of Terrorism Act, to which I shall return.

I wanted this House to address the intrinsic issues in Northern Ireland. These are only too often obscured and not debated because we are caught up in the latest phase of the IRA's political agenda rather than that of the people of Northern Ireland. I shall say only one last word on that. We must not forget that the IRA has never committed itself to decommissioning; it has merely used a code which, in IRA-speak, applies solely to the British Army and the RUC but which we, from Senator Mitchell to the British and Irish Governments, have clutched at as referring to the IRA. That has suited the IRA very well and allowed everyone to ignore the evidence cited by the Rowe report of continued weapons and arms training, recruitment, the purchase of arms, the targeting of objectives—also on the mainland—and to attribute it all to a few so-called breakaway groups.

The IRA representative is said to have told the de Chastelain commission that only all the members of the Army Council could authorise decommissioning and they had not been asked to do so. Not least, the IRA statement of 2nd February this year said categorically, after its representative had met General de Chastelain over a period of some two months, that,

"The IRA have never entered into any agreement or undertaking or understanding at any time whatsoever on any aspect of decommissioning".

Could that be clearer?

I make that point only because I believe that the Government now need to let the whole question lie fallow and simply forget about both decommissioning and those aspects of the so-called peace process which are still on the agenda of Sinn Fein/IRA (one of whose short-term objectives is undoubtedly to split the Unionists). Let the Secretary of State, with the active support of the two Governments, now concentrate on improving the quality of life of the people of Northern Ireland—the economy, agriculture and education—and specifically the people's right, too long ignored, to live peacefully in the United Kingdom, which by a large majority they chose to do. That means that the Government must concentrate on securing proper policing and doing something about those activities of the IRA and loyalist paramilitaries which are criminal and can in no way be justified or presented as part of a noble political struggle or a defence of "their people" against the enemy: the state.

The IRA likes to compare itself to the ANC in South Africa. I believe that Mandela would have been profoundly shocked to find the brave soldiers of the IRA beating teenagers with iron bars for private grudges, running criminal extortion operations and protection rackets and exiling whole families from their homeland. That was done by the ANC's adversary, the South African state. There is a culture of loyalty which prevents members of the republican or loyalist communities from co-operating with the police when murder has been committed, since fear of "execution" as an informer is a strong element. But, surely, it is indefensible that Martin McGuinness flatly refused to urge those whom both the RUC and the Garda need to testify against the Omagh bombers to come forward. It is a sad fact that the legislation that this House passed after Omagh has proved powerless to deliver known murderers to justice.

I believe that for the present the chief task of the Government should be to do everything possible to support and strengthen the RUC to enable it to act as normal police would act on the mainland to bring criminals (not freedom fighters) to justice. Sinn Fein/IRA, and indeed the Irish Government, should be challenged to say where they stand on each instance of paramilitary violence or criminality and, above all, on the question of the exiling of whole families.

Sir Kenneth Bloomfield's 1998 report on victims quoted the Cost Of The Troubles study (COTT). This reported in 1997 that 53 per cent of the dead in the Troubles since 1969 were civilians; 87 per cent of the total were killed by paramilitaries (59 per cent by republicans; 28 per cent by loyalists) and 37 per cent were under 24 years old; 89 of these were 14 years old and under, and of the under-18s the IRA killed by far the largest number. But perhaps the most telling statistic is that if the UK with its population of 58 million had experienced the same deaths pro rata compared with Northern Ireland's 1.6 million, the figure would have been over 130,000 people dead.

That is only the dead. What of those who have been maimed for life in punishment beatings and shootings (quite apart from 45 more murders in the period between the signing of the Belfast agreement and August last year)? In those few months there have been 105 shootings, 135 beatings and, most terrible of all in its lasting effect on whole groups of people, 440 people sent into permanent exile overnight. That figure is now estimated to have risen to nearer 1,000. What happens? Someone offends a paramilitary or is suspected of being dissident in some way, or perhaps a social nuisance to the community. He or she and the whole family are given a few hours' notice to quit their homes, their jobs, possibly elderly relations in hospital, and their friends, and leave Northern Ireland, never to return on pain of death. If they come to England, as most do, they will be jobless, homeless and without friends, especially as they may not be considered persona grata by whatever Irish community there is where they settle. They will, in any case, be still in fear. This traumatic experience has been happening to very many bewildered and terrified families for years now. These are our people, expelled from another part of the UK by the fiat of the paramilitaries, and yet I have heard no word of protest from the many generous and liberal-minded people in this country who care about Rwanda, Burundi and the Roma.

The shocking thing is that those people have no redress and no protection from the state because successive governments have accepted supinely that the paramilitaries must be allowed, in a phrase attributed, I hope wrongly, to the last Secretary of State, to conduct their own internal housekeeping. So no one can go to the police, willing as they would be to help, and no one can claim the protection of the law for themselves and the hapless children and old people who may also be included in their exile.

It was on St Patrick's day this year that the press reported that the IRA, after a lull (for it can turn off the tap whenever it wishes) had resumed the savage punishment attacks, and I have little doubt that the exiles will be stepped up too. The only proper course for a Government who honour human rights is to strengthen the mandate of the RUC in the communities at present dominated by the thugs. We are told that it is part of the strategy of the Belfast agreement to return to normal security arrangements compatible with a normal, peaceful society—just what the people thought they had voted for—and under the human rights section of the agreement we are told that all the parties affirm the right freely to choose one's place of residence and the right to freedom from sectarian harassment.

To achieve that, the first task of our Government must surely be to assert and back up the right of the RUC to operate freely, to forbid no-go areas, and to punish wherever they can be identified those paramilitary elements who are running protection and extortion rackets and other criminal profit-making activities, including counterfeiting. Did not the Prime Minister tell the United Nations in September 1998 that terrorists should have no hiding place and no opportunities to raise funds (which hardly squares, incidentally, with recent moves to allow Sinn Fein to raise funds abroad)? After Omagh the Prime Minister said that we must fight terrorism vigorously wherever it appears while holding fast to the rule of law. We can move towards fulfilling the commitment made to the people, both then and in the agreement, by conducting an all-out and serious drive to assert the rule of law through the presence of the RUC and through immediate action to arrest and punish paramilitary violence. (It was good to see, incidentally, that a released prisoner who took part in terrorist activity recently had his licence revoked).

We shall be told that no member of the community will dare to identify those responsible. That may well be true if the crime is murder, but there have been brave men and women—among them Families Against Intimidation and Terror (FAIT); and some months ago a 14 year-old girl who spoke out against the brutal beating of her young brother—who would, if they felt something would be done, take risks to identify the violent men publicly. But they must be sure that something will be done. It is difficult to see how the Dublin Government, Ted Kennedy or even Gerry Adams could attack the enforcement of the protection every citizen is entitled to have from the law—and the police, and no-one else, constitute the proper arm of the law in a normal society.

It is not enough to pay graceful tribute to the RUC, rather like putting flowers on a grave. Let us instead give those brave men and women in the RUC all the real support necessary for them to break the power of the paramilitaries to punish and brutalise their own communities. It will be to our lasting shame if we do not.

The other issue which concerns me is the role and responsibility of the Irish Government who have presumed to try to negotiate with the IRA on the withdrawal of British troops and have attacked the right of those troops to be stationed on British soil. Does it occur to the Dublin Government, who seem to believe the Belfast agreement gives them the right of decision within Northern Ireland but no responsibilities, that they, a so-called friendly government, a partner in the peace process and a fellow member of the European Union, are providing a safe haven for armed and violent men who are flouting the will of the people as shown in the ballot box both North and South, and who are conducting a war using the Republic as a safe base? When the IRA launches its next campaign for the abolition of the Diplock courts will the Dublin Government be abandoning its own special Diplock-type courts and its own prevention of terrorism legislation? I think not.

The IRA is unelected and has no mandate, but it has an agenda which will sooner or later constitute a threat to the Government of Ireland. Today our people are under daily threat and theirs are not, but that will not always be true. When the IRA resumes its war mode, will the Irish Government allow hot pursuit? We are all gratefully aware of the effective and professional cooperation that exists between the Gardai and the RUC, but it is time the Irish Government faced the fact that the British Government's duty is to protect their citizens and that the Irish cannot enjoy power in the partnership without responsibility.

The ill-fated and disgraceful treaty with the IRA over the return with full amnesty, of the bodies of those it murdered secured much favourable publicity for the caring IRA, but only three bodies for the grieving families. It demonstrated, however, that only the Gardai were to be allowed by the IRA to take part in the operation. If the Irish Government wish to be seen as a serious and responsible partner in the peace process, why, instead of acting as the IRA's spokesman on too many occasions, do they not bring pressure to bear on the IRA so that the perpetrators of the Omagh bombing may be brought to trial and witness borne against them? The bombers are, after all, supposed not to be from the Provisional IRA but from one of those famous breakaway groups. If the Irish Government would exert their influence responsibly in these issues the power of both governments to enforce the Belfast agreement would surely be enhanced and the political process justified.

I beg to move for Papers.

My Lords, we are grateful to the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for introducing this subject today. We share at least one characteristic in both debates today: we deserve a medal for our hard work, if nothing else.

As regards description, I agree with much that the noble Baroness said. However, I shall disagree on interpretation. I speak only for myself, and no one else. However, I recall about 30 years ago I was offered a chair in economics in the new University of Ulster. I asked the vice-chancellor whether I should have difficulty not only as an Asian but as a man given to some rebellious tendencies. He said, "Oh no, there is no problem living here". He was an Australian actually. He then said, "Whenever I give a party, I invite equal numbers of Catholics and Protestants. Of course, with Protestants, you have to be careful to invite equal numbers of Anglicans and Presbyterians". I decided that I could not live there.

Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom, but is not a united kingdom. It is John Bull's other island. I have said in many debates in your Lordships' House that the dilemma we face is that, while Northern Ireland is part of the United Kingdom juridically, historically and politically its status is not exactly like that of Wales or of Scotland. People may pretend that it is not, but it is still what I have called before a post-colonial situation. That situation has not been resolved.

In the early 1960s, when I was in the United States, the IRA was a joke. No one took the IRA seriously. It had almost dissolved itself. How did the IRA revive itself? How did the Provisional IRA come about? The Provisional IRA did not come about from a vacuum. It came about from the realities of the way in which power was handled by the majority community in Northern Ireland. That history—all of Ireland is about history—did not do justice to the United Kingdom. Northern Ireland did not behave like a part of the United Kingdom through those 50 years. Therefore, as the noble Baroness knows better than I do, there was a civil rights movement, there was a revival of the IRA and we have had nothing but trouble for the past 32 years.

We cannot forget this simple fact. It is a divided community; it is a community in which the majority in the North is a minority in the island and the minority in the North is a majority in the island. That is where the whole majority-minority question becomes rather peculiar. I was brought up in India on the nationalist version of Irish history. I was brought up to believe that the partition was wrong and that the six counties should never have been given away. I have learnt better since. I have learnt the subtleties of history. But a generation of people not only in Northern Ireland but in the Republic and in the United States believes that version of Irish history. Half of Boston believes that version.

The tricky problem is that the intrinsic issue of Northern Ireland is the very peculiar constitutional status of Northern Ireland, Successive governments, of both parties, have failed to see—no, that is too arrogant—have somehow not been able to appreciate the peculiar quasi-constitutional character of Northern Ireland. Decommissioning is just the latest part of the problem. As I have said before in your Lordships' House, the IRA is not a thing; it is an idea. When one goes away, another will be born. There will be the Continuity IRA, the Real IRA and so on. It is hard to know how one can convince the minority community in Northern Ireland, especially the totality of minorities in Northern Ireland, that it is in their interest to stay on the peaceful side of the constitutional arrangements rather than not. While there is even a minority of a minority still convinced—and there is—that there is an El Dorado somewhere else of a 32-county government, there will be Continuity IRA, Real IRA and so on.

The question is very much a political question: what can we do? The Good Friday agreement came the nearest that anything has come so far. In a previous debate on Northern Ireland I asked the Minister whether he was aware of an interpretation of the Good Friday agreement—that it was a treaty, an international treaty. Very often, in many post-colonial situations, a former terrorist body becomes part of the constitutional process. In this case, it is Sinn Fein, which is only an agent, and a not very good agent, of the IRA. If this is an international treaty, we have to be careful in taking unilateral action as a UK government without consultation with the government of the Republic as well as other signatories. Of course, as the sovereign power we are entirely entitled to do what we like—to restore the RUC and not submit to the IRA—but that is not the politics of the situation. Here is a case in which neither side has won and neither side has lost. That is what is peculiar about it.

I know that that is not a comfortable thing to say. I certainly do not know where we go from here. I believe that the intrinsic issue in Northern Ireland will stay historical and political and that it will take a great deal of tolerance and many negotiations before a settlement is reached.

My Lords, I wish to declare an interest in Northern Ireland. I was born and brought up on the shores of Belfast Lough and, apart from some years at school over here and also when in the Navy during the war, I have lived my whole working life in Northern Ireland. With family and grandchildren in Northern Ireland, I am very, very interested in its future.

I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, on initiating this debate. We have had many debates on Northern Ireland but I do not think that we have had one on the matters of intrinsic importance. There are many of course—the economy, industry, agriculture, health and others—but I wish to speak only about one. I call it "Terrorism Stage 2". But, first, I must say a little about what I call "Stage 1" to show how different it is from Stage 2.

I have a very early memory concerning the IRA. I must have been four or five and we were motoring home on a Sunday afternoon through York Street in Belfast when my father ordered me to lie on the floor of the car because there were snipers about. Fortunately, they took Sunday afternoon off. There has been no difficulty in keeping in touch with the IRA in later years as there have been several occasions on which they became active and had to be interned by the North or South or both. Throughout the years, and now, the IRA believes itself to be the only legitimate army in Ireland, with a duty to break the British connection with the North and unite the island of Ireland.

During the 1970s the IRA made very determined attempts to terrorise the people of Northern Ireland and to destroy the economy. It bombed power generating stations and power lines, it murdered people in hotels, restaurants or public houses. It seemed to enjoy murdering members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the security forces. It particularly targeted any member of the police whom it knew to be a Roman Catholic. The outstanding memory of those years was the determination of everyone, other than terrorists, to defeat the IRA and to remain part of the United Kingdom. No one was going to let those crazed people get away with it, and that included Roman Catholics. We were not a divided community.

None of us will ever forget the bravery and, after a difficult start, the efficiency of the RUC, supported by the Army. But for them, many, many more would have died. In those years, my office was in Belfast and it was astonishing the confidence that we all had in the RUC almost to smell out bombs and to clear the area at risk. I saw them at work almost daily and it was remarkable the speed with which they diverted traffic and cleared everyone out of the relevant shops or offices, after which the bomb disposal experts got to work. These brave men appeared to find their work so fascinating that they ignored the risks, sometimes, tragically, to their disadvantage.

What infuriated people most during those years was that we all knew that the IRA could be shut down in a period of weeks if the Republic of Ireland, a member of the EU, had been a friendly neighbour. The Republic defended its borders almost aggressively and if a policeman or soldier stepped across it, even by accident, it became an international incident. But the IRA, provided that they did not shoot members of the Garda Siochana and had safe houses and bomb and ammunition dumps, were not disturbed. The garda were not permitted to harass them or report what they knew. However, to do them justice, they passed useful information to the RUC.

The IRA were permitted to train in well known areas and terrorists were able to cross the border to murder farmers in Armagh, Fermanagh and Tyrone who were known to be Protestant. No wonder the security forces closed all minor roads and set up watch towers. Sir Norman Stronge, Speaker of the House of Commons at Stormont, and his son were murdered in their home at Tynan, County Armagh, and their house was burnt down. At their funeral, the rector of that small parish told us that he had buried 20 of his parishioners who had been murdered by the IRA.

The IRA developed skills and resourcefulness. When a particular attack was rebuffed it would try something else. It had plenty of time; it was not being stopped. In the 1980s, the IRA learnt that one bomb in London was worth 100 in Northern Ireland and it worked to develop the capability to plant such bombs.

Then followed the Anglo/Irish agreement and other agreements and declarations. The peace process began to develop and that culminated in the Good Friday agreement, which granted Sinn Fein/IRA almost everything it wanted. In exchange, the Republic has withdrawn Articles 2 and 3 from its constitution. Sinn Fein/IRA for its part has given nothing. It has said that it has no intention of decommissioning and that its objective remains unchanged.

In pursuance of that, Sinn Fein/IRA has recently increased its areas of control in many towns and cities. Other areas are being controlled by so-called Protestant paramilitaries. And each one is as evil as the other. Threats, beatings, banishment, torture and murders are their tools and their use remains unchecked in these areas. Law and order is nonexistent. Witnesses will not come forward because, quite understandably, they are afraid. Fear is the predominant emotion.

The bosses in these areas are running Mafia-like operations; racketeering of all kinds and drug running is increasing. The effect on young people is frightening. In some places, drugged sweets are being offered to school children. I learnt that in the town of Ballymena, a town of perhaps 60,000, 1,500 citizens are drug addicts.

If action is not taken quickly, these young people will grow up without any moral standards and will drift into violence of one kind or another. The police are almost powerless. If they attempt to tackle the problem inside these areas, they are accused of harassment. When listening to the radio yesterday, I heard a very articulate man, who was obviously dedicated to helping young people, pleading for help. Frustration at the inability to do anything to prevent horrific social problems for tomorrow is leading to widespread worry and almost despair.

What I hope is that we shall not delay acting. By now, we should know the consequences of delaying at Stage 1, the open bombing and shooting. We have something much more sinister to deal with. It is different from that of past years when the community was openly attacked. In the eyes of many, many people, the peace process in its present form has failed and it makes no attempt to deal with the sinister and, I believe in the long term, more dangerous problem. Despair is not good for morale.

My Lords, perhaps I may remind the House that this a timed debate. We do not have extra time and if every noble Lord takes as much time as the noble Lord, Lord Cooke, the Minister will have no time to reply.

My Lords, I apologise, I shall finish in 10 seconds. I beg the Secretary of State to spend more time in Northern Ireland listening to people in order to find out the seriousness of the problem and to develop and implement a plan to deal with it. At present, we are a very, very long way from peace.

My Lords, I, too, am grateful to my noble friend Lady Park of Monmouth for giving us another opportunity to discuss the issues that arise in Northern Ireland. Events there move fast and not always in propitious directions. I hope that it is not presumptuous to suppose that, by debating them frequently, your Lordships' House can make a modest but helpful contribution.

I share the admiration for the RUC that was expressed by the noble Lord, Lord Cooke of Islandreagh. I shall not follow him in the further parts of his speech because I want to return, I hope not tediously, to something which I have said previously but which I hope bears repetition. It is that I have never forgotten how in my early days in Northern Ireland time and again I was told by people, "We're not all bad, you know". I thought that so poignant and sad because I already knew how good so many people were, and are, on all sides of the communities.

I thought then that I understood the reason and I think now that I understand it. There is a feeling that in the eyes of the world everyone living in Northern Ireland is somehow tarred with the same brush. It was the brush of hideous cruelties and oppressions, such as those we have heard about tonight. It was also the brush of extremism which made any return to devolved government seem very far away.

There was a feeling that, although it was a travesty—not all people were like that, only a tiny minority—it was impossible to dislodge it. That gave rise to a feeling of hopelessness and of a kind of collective shame. I found that very sad and, worse, dangerous for all the reactive reasons which are so obvious that they do not need spelling out tonight. I knew that there was nothing naturally inherent in the people of Northern Ireland which made it impossible for them to be accorded the right to rule themselves politically as do people in this country and in the Republic. I knew that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with them which somehow made it necessary to deploy four times the number of police that would be normal for a population of that size and to back them up by 12 battalions of troops. Yet those people appeared to be viewed as though they were caught in a prison; one constructed in the past and largely of the past.

I turn to what I regard as the most important intrinsic issue. I soon came to the conclusion that, above all, what was needed was the construction of a system whereby Northern Ireland and all its people were again given the right and the ability to govern themselves politically within a framework which would be fair to the minorities so that they would not permanently be subordinated on important matters. I believed that that was the key which could unlock the prison.

The challenge for everyone's ingenuity was to find a way which would be generally acceptable and fair. I believed that if that could be devised and could win acceptance, and could be implemented and seen to work, collective self-confidence would be restored; that what is today called "self-esteem" would burgeon (I do not deride that or diminish its importance); and with it would come a belief that it was possible to build for a better future. I am sure that meeting that challenge remains the principal intrinsic issue for Northern Ireland today.

It seems to me that the great achievement of the Northern Ireland agreement and of the subsequent agreement that culminated in Senator Mitchell's review was that they enabled devolved government to be put in place. As a concept, it was, as it were, called down from the higher atmospheres of rhetoric and established on the ground. That is not a reference to the high wire act so widely condemned by the noble Lord, Lord Molyneaux of Killead. However, something that hitherto had been only rhetorical was made manifest on the ground. Scepticism was at least to that limited extent confounded.

Although that represents an enormous advance, and the agreement was in place and had started to work in a manner that in many ways was seen to be acceptable, as we now all know, it has had to be suspended for reasons that we also know too well. The task now is to consider how, with general acceptability, it is to be brought back into operation and seen to work in accordance with the principles of a free democracy.

It is impossible for us on this side of the water to know where the limits of acceptability lie. It is wrong for those of us on this side of the water who do not have to live there, like other noble Lords who are present in this Chamber, to say where they should lie. One thing is certain: the limits have been taken further in the direction of tolerance by most Unionists than until recently would have seemed possible.

I believe that the political risks taken by Mr Trimble have been as well judged as they have been brave; and they have been brave indeed. I believe that he enabled a boost to confidence to be given, the benefits of which I have already tried to summarise. I believe that he deserves once more to face down his critics, and I hope that he does so.

Nevertheless, there must be limits to what is acceptable. At the root of the issue is the principle and truth that democratic government can work only if there is confidence that no party will look to supplement the force of its arguments with the force of its comrades' arms. It is well worth spelling out why. I believe that the reason is because compromise will otherwise either be dictated by fear of violence or will be perceived to be dictated by fear of violence. The first can never be tolerated in a democracy and either case will give rise to the destruction of confidence in democratic government.

Therefore, a very difficult and delicate task faces us. However, the Government must also remember the duty, already alluded to tonight, to defend the people for whom they have responsibility. In those circumstances, it must be right for the Secretary of State, as he has said he will, to take his security advice from his principal advisers—the Chief Constable and the GOC.

Given the undiminished capability of the paramilitaries and terrorists to wreak the kind of damage with which we are all too familiar, not only in Northern Ireland but in London, Manchester and elsewhere, and noting that in the past three weeks alone three major attacks by the IRA or by so-called "dissident" groups have been forestalled by the RUC, the task now is to sustain the ability of the RUC to cope. I believe that the Government have a very delicate task. I salute the courage of those who take responsibility in Northern Ireland, and, again, I thank my noble friend for giving us the opportunity to discuss these matters, no matter how rapidly.

My Lords, I, too, should like to thank the noble Baroness for bringing about this debate. I must apologise to her and to the Minister in that I am booked on the last possible flight this evening and, sadly, it will not wait for me.

We are all aware that the overriding issues in the Province today are the development of the political situation, or the stalemate of it, and the security situation. However, although they have a detrimental influence on every day-to-day part of our life in the Province, I wish to talk about other matters. I must declare an interest in that I farm in a small way; I run a tourism business and I am linked to a hospital trust.

I should like to talk for a few moments about the rural areas of the Province and, in particular, those areas close to the Border with the Republic. Where I live in Fermanagh, we are in a unique position: the United Kingdom is on the fringe of the European Union; Northern Ireland is on the fringe of the United Kingdom; and we in Fermanagh and Tyrone are on the fringe of Northern Ireland. In addition, Northern Ireland is the only part of the United Kingdom which has a land border with a euro-based economy. Therefore, the economic pressures which are felt in Great Britain when trading with the Continent are multiplied greatly in the Province with its land border with the Republic.

Everyone in Fermanagh can drive or walk across the Border within about half-an-hour. We do not need to buy a ferry, air or Eurostar ticket to do so, and we can shop as easily North or South of the Border. The differential between the pound sterling and the Irish punt is now, or was yesterday, between 24 and 27 per cent, depending on whether one is buying or selling.

In Northern Ireland, 35 per cent of the population of 1.6 million lives in rural areas. In Fermanagh, 70 per cent of a population of 55,000 is rural-based and the population density is only 29 people per square kilometre, which is one-quarter of the Northern Ireland average.

Agriculture is the basis of our economy and the depression in that industry is causing more hardship than in other areas of the United Kingdom. The reasons have been well debated here and I shall not go into them in detail. The most significant is that prior to five years ago 80 per cent of agricultural produce was exported from the Province. Therefore, the effects on the industry—in relation to cattle, pigs and sheep, especially—are devastating to the local economy. In addition, the land border with the weak euro ensures that we suffer to a greater extent.

If that was the only problem, there might be some hope. However, there are now additional problems for local businesses and the economy. The textile industry, with firms such as Desmonds and Adria, are laying off employees and closing some of their factories, not only in the rest of the Province but also in Fermanagh. This month, the only meat processing plant of any size in Fermanagh closed with the loss of 200 jobs. The Erne Hospital, a major employer, is due for relocation, almost certainly outside the county.

Therefore, what are we left with? Agriculture and other businesses in the county are either very small or are micro-sized enterprises. However, the present situation is hitting them even harder due to their lack of mobility and, above all, the nearness of a weak euro-based economy I believe in the European Union open market and I am a member of your Lordships' Select Committee on European affairs. I accept that the weakness of the euro is outside the control of our Government. However, in certain areas where they do control matters, our Government's policies are having a devastating effect. Road fuel and transport policy is the most damaging for the incomes in the Province, and for the Border areas in particular.

The most critical factor in this sector is taxation, and I must say that I do not wish to see precise harmonisation of EU taxes. However, the Government have created such a disparity between fuel prices, North of the Border compared with the South, that it is affecting everyone every day in those areas. I take diesel as an example. It costs 74p or 75p a litre in Fermanagh. A few minutes away, it costs as little as 60 Irish pence a litre; that is, about 48 English pence—one-third cheaper. For those who can reclaim VAT in the Republic, where it is 21 per cent, another 4 per cent is recoverable over and above our 17.5 per cent VAT in the North.

Noble Lords must believe me when I say that the majority of people in Fermanagh and West Tyrone fill up in the Republic. Visiting there more often, they see that goods are cheaper in punts. Therefore, naturally they begin to do their shopping there. The effect is this: in Enniskillen, for example, 19 miles from the Border, fuel sales are down 50 per cent, which is making the garages unviable. Closer to the Border, sales are virtually nil. I believe that in Strabane, where there are 20,000 people, (here is only one filling station left selling fuel. In Enniskillen, high street shopping turnover is down by up to 50 per cent. The Southern Ireland shopper, who was frequently with us, is now rare. The locals have begun to shop South of the Border.

Our road haulage industry is on its knees. Last year, the Chancellor increased HGV road tax to over £5,000 while it is 1,000 punts or £750 sterling in the South. Many hauliers have reregistered their lorries South of the Border. The Republic has stopped, or is in the process of stopping, that practice, which leaves their haulage firms with the most incredible cost advantage.

Yesterday, the Chancellor reduced that tax bill by £1,800 per vehicle but that will have no effect in Northern Ireland where it is still four times more expensive. The Government must look at that issue to see whether they cannot be of some help.

The Government, and the Prime Minister in particular, complain that in rural society there is not enough diversification into, for example, tourism. Tourism, with which I am involved, is an important business in Fermanagh. As it is a land of lakes and beautiful countryside, that is not surprising. However, the differential between the currencies North and South has resulted in a fall of business in vital sectors—hire cruisers, restaurants, bed and breakfasts, and so on.

The Government can do much to help. They can halt the removal of health service jobs and leave the hospital where it is. They removed the rates office from Fermanagh. They should be locating more of that type of service in the county, away from the cities. I ask them to look again at the taxes levied on road haulage and fuel. They should support the agriculture industry to a greater extent.

To sum it up, the Government should show mare support for rural society in the United Kingdom as a whole and in particular in Northern Ireland where we are heading for a close-to-Border commercial desert.

My Lords, there must be some weird influence at hand in that, first, I am very high on the list of speakers, and, secondly, I am speaking between two men who come from that wonderful county of Fermanagh in Northern Ireland.

I begin by thanking my noble friend Lady Park for giving us the opportunity to speak on such a wide-ranging debate. Normally, when we say that something is "wide ranging", it is a veiled hint that the speaker has digressed in three dimensions all over the world. But today the noble Baroness has given us the opportunity to speak about "the intrinsic issues".

I wish the noble Viscount who has just spoken a swift and safe return to County Fermanagh. I hope that he will give my best wishes to such friends as I have there among the farming community after what went on in 1984 and 1985. I ask everyone who reads the debate to note in particular the remarks of my noble friend Lady Park. She has enormous wisdom, and there is the occasional chuckle, but I hope that the words she spoke are read and digested north and south of the border as well as across the Atlantic and elsewhere.

Is there anything new this evening? I first remember taking an interest in Northern Ireland in 1968. Indeed, in my office I have a copy of the Cameron report in which the noble Lord, Lord Fitt, in an earlier incarnation, was mentioned in all sorts of aspects. From 1972 my first eight speeches in your Lordships' House were made on the subject of Northern Ireland. I hope that they were as brief as I intend to be this evening.

But, good heavens, in 1984 the Prime Minister asked me to serve in Northern Ireland. I did that. I became very heavily involved with commerce and that number one industry in Northern Ireland—agriculture—and perhaps a little less with tourism.

Your Lordships will be aware that one must spend time as the duty Minister in Northern Ireland. During my first weekend there, at half past eight in the morning, a taxi driver was murdered, shot dead with a revolver in the markets in east Belfast. At nine o'clock, two RUC men were blown up in a car bomb in a culvert at Camloch. At two o'clock in the afternoon, two British soldiers were blown up—happily, one survived—at Enniskillen. That was my first weekend in Northern Ireland. As a young Minister, it was an example of what can happen.

I had the honour to serve three Secretaries of State. The first was my noble friend Lord Prior. A year before I got there, he had had to cope with the enormous drama and feelings aroused by the hunger strikes. As regards my second and third Secretaries of State, one had a great hand in creating while the third created and had to implement the Anglo-Irish Agreement of 1985 which, once again, aroused enormous feelings among the loyalists, one side of the community, in Northern Ireland.

As a junior Minister, it seemed to me that there was a noticeable improvement in relations on the ministerial side when I met my colleagues from south of the border and also in relation to security. Major events took place in 1992 and in 1999 there was the Good Friday agreement. I may take a leaf out of the book of the proverbial Chinese gentleman who, when asked what he felt about the French Revolution, said, "It is too early to say". But wearing my hat as an accountant from Scotland, I worry that one or two aspects of the 1999 Good Friday agreement might not have been tied up quite perfectly. In my career in your Lordships' House and in Northern Ireland, there were bloomers everywhere, but I wonder whether decommissioning may be a slightly weak point among the enormous successes achieved throughout 1999.

Two aspects of the Good Friday agreement have been laid out beautifully by my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew; namely, those of trust and confidence. I stress that those cannot be implanted, imposed or imported. They must be earned. We forget that at our peril.

My noble friend Lady Park and my noble and learned friend Lord Mayhew have said everything that I could have said about the Royal Ulster Constabulary. But I have spoken to five or six Members of your Lordships' House—none of whom is speaking tonight—about two programmes which I happened to see on Channel 4 on a Saturday evening about the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Some of what I saw in those programmes was bizarre but much of it was realistic. Indeed, some words of the Chief Constable were extremely optimistic. He stressed that he could not wait to get back to what he described as "proper policing".

I pause and wonder whether some of those who wish to have political input into the putative possible police committees might bear in mind the wise words of my noble friend Lady Park. Do they really want to have an Irish version of the Tonton Macoute; that is, police only coming into the locality of which you approve. I really do wonder about that.

I conclude by concentrating on commerce and the industry which was so ably supported by the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. Perhaps I may take a few moments to compliment the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, on the job he has done. I preceded him many years ago but I salute him as a Minister in your Lordships' House and I salute him also for what he has done for agriculture in the years that he has served.

I had a number of opportunities to go abroad representing—if you can call it that—the Northern Ireland agriculture industry. I went twice to the world's biggest food fair in Cologne. I went to Strasbourg, to Lille and to Paris. On each occasion, I was briefed by the wonderful press departments of the Department of Agriculture and the Northern Ireland Office. I was told that I would have to cope with the press.

I tried my best at the foreign languages. I went off to a language school which can be found in London and polished up my German and French. I managed to hammer home one particular simple message which was what many people might see through the printed and electronic media in Northern Ireland. I referred to the moon. I made no snide jokes about the full moon or anything like that. But I said that there is a dark side and a light side. Alas, the media and headline writers like to go for the dark side. Quite rightly, many of my noble friends and those speaking about Northern Ireland concentrate on the difficult side. I concentrated on the light side—the wonderful success of agriculture, food and tourism in Northern Ireland. Everywhere I went—Cologne, Lille, Strasbourg and Paris—people applauded. Both foreigners and Northern Irish said, "Thank you very much".

I believe that, although we consider it too early to comment on such matters, the success of any agreement that we have seen will be due entirely to the people of Northern Ireland. I have met many; in fact, very many, who were not of my religious persuasion, let alone of my political outlook, who might wish to have done me some bodily harm—grievous or not—in my career. But the process and progress belong to the people of Northern Ireland. I beg all friends of Northern Ireland here, in the south, and all over the world, to be patient. It is too early to say. I salute each and every one of my friends there, including Big Hector and all those in County Fermanagh.

My Lords, I join other noble Lords in paying tribute to the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for selecting the topic of Northern Ireland for tonight's debate.

In common with the vast majority of people in the Province, I am disappointed that the Executive is no longer in place because one party has not played its part in the arrangements flowing from the Good Friday agreement. It is to be hoped that in the very near-ish future, Sinn Fein/IRA will play its part and make a start to decommissioning its guns and explosives.

I identify with much that has been said tonight about the security and political situation, but the government of the Province must go on. Decisions must be taken to allow all sectors of life to proceed. I fully understand the difficulties with which the Government are faced at this stage. But a position of no decisions being taken on key issues of policy would be unfair and disloyal to the good citizens of Northern Ireland who are entitled to effective government.

I intend to restrict myself tonight to only a few areas of activity. I refer first to public transport. The railway system in Northern Ireland is in bad shape, with out-of-date rolling stock and poorly maintained lines providing a less than adequate service on all routes except the Dublin line. I acknowledge that NIR has a dedicated staff and management, but it cannot operate without a fair share of financial support. The amount of public money spent on public transport is considerably less than for other parts of the United Kingdom. I cannot understand why. Do we need less transport per head of population than other areas? We are being urged to leave our cars and travel by public transport; but what public transport!

In a Written Answer on 8th March I was told that the reason for the difference in spending on public transport in Northern Ireland from other parts of the United Kingdom was because it was afforded a lower relative priority in Northern Ireland. I knew that. That is why I asked the Question. I am only a new boy here, but in my opinion, the Answer that I received was not good enough. I lay no blame on the Minister, who is in a difficult position. I should like to place on record, however, that if I am not satisfied with any answer, I shall pursue that issue with extreme vigour.

Northern Ireland needs government by people responsible to the public, either through a local assembly or through this building. We shall no longer stand for edicts from civil servants who believe that they can do a soft-shoe shuffle around questions which they are not prepared to answer. I should like to hear a confirmation that the Government are committed to maintaining the present railway network in Northern Ireland. I should like to be told the date of completion of modernisation of the central station and the commencement date for the relaying of the railway line between Belfast and Bangor.

I should he pleased also to receive an explanation as to the lower level of expenditure on public transport in Northern Ireland and what steps the Government propose to take to bring spending there up to the same level as that in the rest of the United Kingdom. Will Northern Ireland's railways be treated in the same way as any other railway company in the UK and be allowed to replace its ageing rolling stock by leasing new ones; if not, why not?

I turn now to the issue of air transport. The Republic of Ireland Government have long recognised the value of a strong international airport to the economic growth of that country. The attraction for inward investors and tourists to a country with numerous direct international links is evident. Air transport in Northern Ireland is unable to compete on a level playing pitch so long as we continue to suffer from the unfavourable currency rate with our neighbouring state—a point to which the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, referred—and the absence of passenger levies charged by that government. That was highlighted yesterday by the Chancellor, with the exemptions for the Highlands and Islands.

Belfast International Airport is recognised as the major gateway to Northern Ireland. It is the only airport in Northern Ireland with the capacity to cope with the growth anticipated in air transport. Its owners, TBI plc, have made a major structural investment in its future. Do the Government recognise the importance of Belfast International Airport to Northern Ireland? Do they recognise the need to support not only its growth, but also its efforts to market Northern Ireland to international airlines in order to attract more direct international routes? Do they further recognise the threat that Dublin International Airport poses to our transport industry infrastructure? What measures do they propose to take to support private enterprise in its ability to compete on behalf of Northern Ireland?

While discussing transport, I should like to support the appeal from the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, concerning the difficulties in the Border area. I know only too well of those difficulties and I concur with every word the noble Viscount said. I, too, look to the Government for encouragement on the issue.

Finally, I wish to raise another topic. Before I do so, I should declare an interest. I am on the register of Members' interests as the chairman of a PR company. I should like to discuss the activities of Groundwork Northern Ireland, which is a client of that company. I am not, and never have been, involved in any of its activities. However, I was consulted by its representatives as a Member of your Lordships' House. I believe that I have taken the correct course of action in making that point. Groundwork is an important organisation which helps in many socially difficult areas. It is one of over 40 trusts operating throughout the United Kingdom. All of those trusts, with the exception of Groundwork Northern Ireland, receive central government support. Will the Government give an assurance that that inequitable position will be urgently addressed?

Given that Groundwork Northern Ireland works to the heart of the government agenda of targeting social need and promoting community relations, do not the Government agree that the Department of Social Development in Northern Ireland should form a closer strategic liaison with Groundwork Northern Ireland to maximise public and private funding in addressing those key policy issues? For some months it has been aware of the imminent publication of the government strategy on the regeneration of Northern Ireland. Will the Government say exactly when it wall be outlined and give the time-frame for the resultant consultation process? Will the Government give an assurance that Groundwork Northern Ireland will be involved in that consultation process? I look forward to favourable responses to those points.

My Lords, it is rare in this House, or indeed, in the Commons, to find someone with the dedication of the noble Baroness, Lady Park, who has shown a genuine, sincere interest in the fortunes of the decent people of Northern Ireland. Long may she continue to do so. I agree with almost every word she says and yet I find myself in agreement with my noble friend Lord Desai. There has not been a decade in Northern Ireland since the creation of the state in which there has not been violence. That was the case during the 1920s and 1930s. Even during the war raids in the 1940s there were a few incidents. In the 1950s the IRA began a campaign in a small way which ended in 1962. It recommenced later that year and continued during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s.

One must, therefore, with my noble friend Lord Desai ask why those eruptions of violence have taken place. Why have they been allowed to continue? Why has the nationalist community to a certain extent—sometimes greater, sometimes lesser—given support to the men of violence? As my noble friend Lord Desai described it—and I have done so many times during my political career—we have always referred to the unnatural constitutional position of Northern Ireland as a double-minority system. The Catholics in Northern Ireland are in the minority; in the Republic of Ireland they are in the majority. The unionists are in the majority in Northern Ireland and they certainly do not want to become a minority in the Republic of Ireland. That is the immovable object and the irresistible force. The tribal conflict that was created in 1922 is as endemic today as it was then.

I listened to the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough. This remark may seem disjointed but I know that he has a plane to catch. The noble Viscount lives in Fermanagh and he spoke of the economic issues there. Many people from his own county of Fermanagh regularly travel over the border to buy cheap diesel, or cheap petrol, or cheap goods and do all their shopping in the Republic. How many of those people are loyalists? How many of those people are Protestants who pay lip-service to the state of Northern Ireland, and yet quite happily travel down the road to the Republic to shop with their nationalist political enemies?

There is no clear-cut case. This morning I read in the newspaper about David Irvine, a spokesman for one of the loyalist paramilitaries, who has just returned from America. When he was photographed at Heathrow he said that his visit had been a waste of time. I could have told him that before he left. I fail to understand why all the paramilitary spokesmen, nationalist spokesmen and some constitutional unionists feel that they have to go to America or have to run in and out of Downing Street. One of the worst things that this Prime Minister has done is to open up the door of Downing Street to let in Tom, Dick and Harry—political pygmies and nonentities in Northern Ireland. All of a sudden they turn up in Downing Street.

The problems of Northern Ireland will not be settled in Downing Street or in Washington. They will be settled in Northern Ireland. With the coming into being of the Executive, I have seen some signs. I believe that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, although admittedly the tunnel is very long. I have seen some dramatic changes. Whoever would have forecast that Sinn Fein, the blood brother of the IRA, would stand outside unionist headquarters demonstrating for a return of the Executive? At one time one could never have envisaged that in a lifetime. To me that indicates that Sinn Fein, if it can break away from the dictates and the stranglehold of the IRA, will be quite happy to take part in the return of a Northern Ireland Executive. I plead with Sinn Fein to break away from the stranglehold in which it is held.

Since the outbreak of the Troubles, the Northern Ireland Government or the British Government have tried to govern under the rule of law. In doing so, hundreds of terrorists have been let off the hook. Even the most moderate of unionist members see that they are faced with a pan-nationalist opposition. The nationalists in Northern Ireland are supported by the Catholics, Sinn Fein, the IRA, Irish America and indeed, to some extent, some spokesmen in this House. So the unionists feel that their backs are against the wall and that they have to fight to continue with their existence. Every unionist whom I know is not a bigot, is not anti-Catholic, but they are Northern Ireland people and they want to continue to remain so.

The noble Baroness said something that struck me. The more I think of it the more annoyed I become. Consider all the concessions that have been made to the men of violence, both loyalists and republicans. By the way, the loyalists do not have to make any excuses as they just say, "We will not do anything until the IRA jumps first". They do not have to make excuses to guarantee their own position. They say that it is all up to the IRA.

Many noble Lords will remember the emotional debate we had in the House on the disappeared. We even had a very close vote on it. The IRA indicated that it would disclose the whereabouts of those whom they had so brutally murdered. Three bodies were found. The rest have been forgotten about by everyone, except their relatives. I found it very disheartening to read the words of Pat Byrne, the Garda Commissioner in the Republic, who said that we shall never get the evidence to bring the perpetrators of the Omagh atrocity before the courts. What does that do to the morale of people in Northern Ireland?

I realise that we are restricted by time, but I hope that, because of this debate, people in Northern Ireland will see that sooner or later they will have to take their future into their own hands. The matter cannot be settled in Washington or in London. People who live in Northern Ireland and raise their families there will have to bring violence to an end.

My Lords, I am extremely grateful that the noble Baroness, Lady Park, has given us the opportunity to debate this subject. Clearly, she has instigated a lively discussion.

I am delighted to see my noble friend Lord Fitt in his place after his illness. He seems to have lost none of his energy, clarity and perspicacity as a result of that illness. I am delighted to be able to follow him. I look forward to many more contributions from him.

The noble Lord, Lord Laird, commented on the need for decisions in Northern Ireland. Watching the matter from some distance with interest, I believe that a lot of decisions are being made by the ministerial team in Northern Ireland. I could list many things that I have picked up as taking place there. I believe that the three Ministers can hold the fort there for a lot longer before some of the criticisms that he made would really apply, but no doubt the Minister will answer that.

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, for his comments. Some years behind him, I followed in his footsteps in Northern Ireland, where his reputation still prevailed. People talked warmly and affectionately of the time when he was responsible for agriculture. I shall not embarrass him further by saying more about that.

This is a serious debate. The prognosis is gloomy if we believe that the IRA is as it always has been, if we believe that, it has not changed one iota, if we believe that Sinn Fein has not changed one iota, and that what it says about the peace process is a cover-up. I believe that some speeches in the debate have gone close to saying just that.

I believe that those organisations have changed, not as much as I would have liked them to change, not in all respects, but I believe that there has been a change in the attitude of at least some members of Sinn Fein. Because of that change, I am more optimistic than has appeared from the contributions of some noble Lords.

Of course, the problems ultimately have to be solved in Northern Ireland. It is up to the parties in Northern Ireland, and, with the assistance of this Government and the assistance of the Irish Government, some progress will again be possible. It will be difficult, but we have to assume that people can change and that organisations can change. We have to put them to the test to see how much change has taken place in their attitudes.

I believe that over the past two years there has been a lot of movement, both on the unionist side and on the nationalist and republican side. The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, has given some examples of that. We have seen the unionists make enormous concessions in terms of their earlier position. Not only has the SDLP moved, but I believe that Sinn Fein has moved as well. After all, it has accepted the principle of consent; it has accepted an assembly in Northern Ireland; it has seen the removal of Articles 2 and 3 from the Irish constitution; and it has accepted power-sharing. I am not saying that the unionists have not made equally important concessions, but it is right that we should recognise that Sinn Fein has as well.

What I believe needs to be examined is that all the parties in Northern Ireland have very little room for manoeuvre, whether we consider the Unionists, the SDLP or Sinn Fein. But if there is to be a breakthrough and the assembly is to he restored, flexibility will have to be exercised within that narrow margin for manoeuvre and there will have to be some new approaches.

I fully accept that, if progress is to be made, David Trimble and his party need to receive better assurances than they have had so far. David Trimble has shown courage and has made brave statements even over the past few days. But he needs stronger assurances than he has yet been given, and I cannot believe that Sinn Fein does not understand that. Of course, I do not know whether Sinn Fein will ever say, in so many words, "The war is over", however much one would like that to happen. I hope that, at least, Sinn Fein and the IRA will be able to give a positive indication of the change that some noble Lords have referred to in our debate tonight.

Having set up the Assembly last December, without, as had previously been requested, putting the question of arms right up front, I do not think that that demand can be met within the framework of the Good Friday agreement. However, I believe that David Trimble is entitled to rather more than he has achieved so far.

As I said in an earlier debate, I still believe that Gerry Adams has taken the position that he would like devolution to take place and that he would like to see decommissioning become an early part of that process. I know that David Trimble faces a difficult challenge at the Ulster Unionist Council, which meets this Saturday. As I understand it, a motion has been tabled on the future of the RUC. However, whatever has been said about the RUC—and I pay enormous tribute to its bravery, courage and sacrifice—I hope that such a motion has not been included to make the tasks that David Trimble must undertake to achieve the reestablishment of the assembly more difficult. While it is not for this House to comment on motions tabled by the Ulster Unionist Party at its conference this weekend, I fear that it might box him in. I hope that that will not happen.

Why am I optimistic? I believe that the Good Friday agreement has demonstrated some important successes so far. It has shown that the parties can agree and work together. It has also shown that there is enormous public support for peace and for local ministers working in a local assembly. We have seen that the assembly can work well. This Government have made difficult decisions about prisoner releases. The Patten Report is controversial about the future of the RUC, but I believe that it represents a way forward. A review of criminal justice is to be published shortly. Enormous progress has been made as regards equality and human rights. Furthermore, we now have the lowest Army presence for 30 years.

How do we move forward? We can move forward by fostering good and close relationships between the British Government and the Government of the Republic of Ireland. We must keep up the pressure on all the politicians involved to ensure that they talk to each other. We must not allow a vacuum to develop which the men of violence can then fill. As a Government, we must continue to implement our parts of the Good Friday agreement and we should not take decisions that will make it harder for the assembly to be restored. If security considerations allow, it would be desirable to lower troop levels even further.

Most important, however, is that all parties should make it clear that they understand each other's problems instead of constantly attacking one another. Each party must demonstrate a level of understanding of the difficulties faced by the other parties. I am particularly fond of the phrase, "All parties must stretch their own constituencies". Finally, there needs to be respect for the fact that both traditions in Northern Ireland are valid. If, as a Government, we continue to take that position, I believe that the assembly can be restored.

My Lords, in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for introducing this debate, I must confess that I was rather baffled when I saw the word "intrinsic" in the title. That is because Northern Ireland is an extremely complex milieu, where it is difficult to disentangle the kaleidoscope of issues that shape it and to establish which are intrinsic and which are not. That is to say, it is difficult to distinguish the general factors which are common to all such divided societies from the specific ones which are unique to Northern Ireland.

There is a tendency for some commentators to suggest that all the problems in Northern Ireland are unique and that the situation there cannot be compared with elsewhere. I venture to say that the region shares a number of common features with, for example, the Basque region in Spain, parts of the former Yugoslavia, Cyprus, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, East Timor, parts of Africa and the Middle East. Those are all areas of communal division. It is important to appreciate this comparative perspective. Indeed, the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, has mentioned many of the atrocities committed in Northern Ireland that are also a commonplace elsewhere. I could attempt to enumerate the features that are common to all divided societies, but this evening noble Lords are invited to address those that seem to be sui generis.

Foremost—this is what I wish to focus on—is the nature of what passes for politics in Northern Ireland. This point has been mentioned by the noble Lords, Lord Desai and Lord Fitt. Essentially, the problem is a political one. Added to the factionalism between and sometimes, more importantly, within the two communities, has been the deadening effect of 30 years of direct rule. In my view, this has led to a profound distortion of the political system. The lack of a devolved and representative administration meant that, in practice, the policy-making vacuum was filled by a concordat, forged between the voluntary sector and the regional civil service, and left largely undisturbed by a succession of grateful Ministers from Westminster who had formal, but often largely nominal, responsibilities, with the notable exceptions of security and Anglo-Irish relations.

Over time, this concordat became formalised into a myriad of quangos, community partnership boards and such like agencies. The consequential interlocking web of public, private, voluntary and state interfaces constituted a nomenklatura which effectively initiated and implemented public policy. Looking back, it was probably as good a system as could be contrived and it had some notable successes, including the creation of the Housing Executive, which allocated public housing on a fair, non-sectarian basis, and also the introduction of fair employment policies at the workplace.

But direct rule did, as in some ways it was meant to, have a distorting and deadening effect on the development of a more democratic and accountable system of government and a more normal and authentic political process. The Westminster MPs elected from Northern Ireland were almost wholly detached from the policy-making process, apart from lobbying on behalf of their constituencies.

The legacy of direct rule is one of the contributing reasons why it has been so difficult to implement the Belfast agreement, and its reimposition after a mere nine weeks of devolved government, if it endures for much longer, will only further exacerbate the problem. In most western democracies, there is a growing gap between the elected and their increasingly disaffected electorates. That is true in Northern Ireland, but with one very great difference. Whereas in most of the western world, it is the voters who have abdicated from the political process—as ever-lowering turn-outs at elections have shown—in Northern Ireland it has been the reverse. With a few notable exceptions, it is the political class that has walked away from the bulk of its voters, who register high turn-outs, despite going to the polls much more frequently than Great Britain. There is no voter fatigue.

Too many of the politicians, it seems, prefer to be influenced by small, more extreme factions rather than the burgeoning moderate opinion shown in the referendum majority in favour of the Belfast agreement and subsequent opinion polls. The noble Baroness, Lady Thatcher, once famously remarked of her deputy, the late Lord Whitelaw, that every government, "needed a Willie". She was referring to his powers of negotiation and reconciliation. Mr David Trimble's parliamentary colleagues include two "Willies" whose negative antics are the complete reverse of the benign influences exercised by Lord Whitelaw, as I am sure Mr Trimble would agree.

As the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, said, the majority of the people want peace, a devolved, power-sharing executive and an elected assembly, which they want restored as quickly as possible. That requires Sinn Fein to stop "playing games with arms" as President Clinton advised it last week in Washington; and the joint leadership of David Trimble and Seamus Mallon must be resumed. That is what these Benches and all people of goodwill pray for.

My Lords, I thank my noble friend Lady Park for so nobly and ably leading this debate, especially as I know that she spoke in the previous debate as well.

We have had either active terrorism or some form of artificial ceasefire for around 30 years. I remember Belfast well in the 1970s. I remember leaving my office to go to a meeting in the town, not knowing what time I would arrive there (or indeed whether I would ever arrive there), with a map permanently running in the back of my head of the alternative routes that I could take to reach my destination.

I can remember the day that a roof tiler was shot while working on a roof at the bottom of Shankhill Road, and I had the problem of replacing the roofers within a week or so. I made a clandestine date with one of the UVF heavies in Wilton Street. I remember as chairman of the Building Material Producers Association receiving 10 telephone calls from members one morning, all of whom had received black mask cards—the IRA's form of threat. Two of those died within the year from having defied that threat.

During those years, 3,330 or so people died and over 48,000 were seriolsly injured. For what? Thanks to the courage and stubbornness of the population, and the bravery and professionalism of our police and security forces, terrorism in Northern Ireland has achieved absolutely nothing, with possibly one exception; that is, as pointed out by my noble friend Lady Park and the noble Lord, Lord Cooke, it has created a climate in which crimes such as drug smuggling, extortion and other unpleasant forms of criminology can survive—and survive well. Thirty years ago they did not exist. Furthermore, if the peace process does not lead to the reinstatement of democracy and power sharing, it too will have achieved nothing.

Does Sinn Fein not recognise that the only way forward is the ballot box? Does it not see what is on offer in return for decommissioning? Will it really resort again to the bomb and the bullet? Will it or will it not? There is no doubt what the population wants; my noble friend Lady Park made that very clear. The population of Northern Ireland wants a return to democracy; to local politicians governing local people on local affairs. The people want an end to violence and paramilitary domination of specific areas of our Province where the police cannot police and people cannot speak their mind as they wish.

John Bruton points out in an article in the online Telegraph:

"While Dublin and London must lead, they must not fall into the trap of taking responsibility for the action of others. The obligation on the two Governments to be seen to do 'something' does not include changing policy just because paramilitaries refuse to change things".

By staying silent, the paramilitaries are getting others to float possible concessions to them, which shifts the goalposts without bringing a breakthrough—clearly demonstrated on occasions. There is no obligation on either government to change the ball park because paramilitaries will not decommission.

I submit that too many concessions have already been given. The present Secretary of State inherited a hand devoid of trumps and discards; they had all been played by his predecessor. The Secretary of State must now continue, as the noble Lord, Lord Dubs, made clear, to press Sinn Fein/IRA for a commitment to, and a process and programme for, decommissioning.

Mr Mitchel McLaughlin stated recently in response to David Trimble in Washington that,

"stating that the war is over is beyond Sinn Fein's power to give a commitment on".

That shows clearly that it is the military or IRA wing of the Republican movement, not Sinn Fein the politicians, which is in control. Sinn Fein has to realise that if it wishes to exert influence through the democratic process, it must find a way of leading the Republican movement into the 21st century and away from the primitive methods of previous generations. It must face the decommissioning process head on and do what is necessary. It must understand, as has already been said today, that a relationship not built on trust and truth is worthless.

The Irish Government have changed their position with monotonous regularity over recent weeks from strong support for the decommissioning position tacit support for the Sinn Fein position, including some adverse comments in relation to the happenings in South Armagh and our own forces. One of the facts of life in Dublin is that Sinn Fein is likely to win enough seats in the Dial to claim to hold the balance of power in a coalition with Fianna Fail after the next general election in the Republic. What will be the attitude in Dublin when Mr Ahern is asked to accept Sinn Fein/IRA into government while it still controls an illegal army? How will they live with two armies? Will the Irish accept a member of a known terrorist organisation as a member of their own government? I doubt it. In that case, why should we?

Has Mr Adams explored the real options with his hard-line colleagues? I doubt it. If there is to be no decommissioning in the near future, other ways of expanding the democratic process must be explored, including a reorganisation of local government and possibly the exclusion of Sinn Fein from mainstream politics and the Executive. However, while there is no Executive, problems arise with the running of the economy and administration. In the Financial Times supplement yesterday, Sir George Quigley and Sir David Fell both indicated to John Murray Brown that the business community is resigned to another period of political stalemate. That is a dangerous situation for us to be in.

We have seen Harland & Wolff s attempt to win the liner. We received an anonymous letter, about which my right honourable friend Andrew Mackay wrote to the Secretary of State and copied the Prime Minister. He said:

"I also have detailed information that despite Harland & Wolff advising the Government as far back as October/November 1999 of the type of support required, your limited offers of assistance were late which confirms that the quote from the Chairman last week of 'too little too late' [was accurate]".

We cannot survive. We have a precarious economy. It needs day-to-day management by politicians linked to this place if they are not to be set up in Stormont. What happened to the sale of Belfast Harbour, when £70 million was supposed to go into the infrastructure, as referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Laird? What is happening to ensure that our agriculture industry does not disappear down the Suwannee, as talked about by the noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough? I want confirmation that that is being properly looked after.

In the days before devolution there was a Secretary of State, four Ministers and only six departments. Today we have a Secretary of State, two Ministers and 10 departments of bureaucracy. I understand the Government's concern about sending out the wrong message. But that was four weeks ago. That was before Harland & Wolff; before the closing of factories in Derry. Time marches on.

Finally, I should just like to make clear some key points to establish where my party stands. We share the Government's view that the best way ahead—indeed, the only way—is to preserve the agreement. It is fundamentally wrong in a democracy to expect democratic politicians to remain in government with representatives of fully-armed terrorists. Decommissioning must take place: we believe that it is wrong to proceed with the early release of terrorist prisoners until such time. We believe that any changes to security must only ever be made commensurate with the level of the terrorist threat. They must never be introduced for political reasons, but only on the advice of the Secretary of State's principal security advisers—the Chief Constable of the RUC and the General Officer Commanding.

The Conservative Party believes that there is no justification for changing the name of the RUC. The Patten report gives no reason for doing so; that is because such reasons do not exist. We do not believe that the time is right to make cuts in the strength and capability of the police, or to abolish the full-time reserve. We remain hugely sceptical about the creation of the new district partnership policing boards based on the district council areas. There should be no question of members of Sinn Fein taking seats on the Policing Board without decommissioning, and no question of that board being set up at all while the Executive remains suspended.

However, we share the goal of building a police service that is generally representative of the community. We believe that the greatest contribution to achieving this and for transforming the policing environment in Northern Ireland would be a genuine end to terrorism, and decommissioning. That is the most important change that both the RUC and the rest of us require.

My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in what has been a very interesting, informative and wide-ranging debate. I should also like to thank the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, for introducing it. I shall, of course, endeavour to answer as many points as I possibly can, and will write to noble Lords if I am unable to do so. The nature of this debate was brought out by all noble Lords who spoke in terms of the range of issues that were covered. I have in mind, in particular, the need for respect for both traditions that was mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, my noble friends Lord Dubs and Lord Desai and, indeed, by my noble friend Lord Fitt, who I am delighted to welcome back.

I agree with my noble friend Lord Dubs that we must build sincere and lasting respect in Northern Ireland for both traditions. The parties to the Good Friday agreement committed themselves to partnership, equality and mutual respect as the basis of relationships within Northern Ireland between North and South and between these islands. The Government remain firmly of the view that tolerance and mutual respect are central to lasting peace and prosperity in Northern Ireland. We shall do all that we can to build tolerance and mutual respect.

The speeches of noble Lords tonight demonstrated that the perceptions of historical issues can, and do, vary. In response to my noble friend Lord Desai, and in support of the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, perhaps I may underline recognition of the fact that the overwhelming majority of people in Northern Ireland want peace. Indeed, the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, made that very clear in his contribution.

My noble friend Lord Desai and the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, touched on the comparisons and possible comparisons with countries in other parts of the world. The Government's answer is that the Good Friday agreement, as many noble Lords recognised tonight, addresses precisely the constitutional issues that have been the source of such conflict in Northern Ireland in the past. It represents agreement by the Northern Ireland political parties and the British and Irish Governments. It enshrines the principle of consent whereby Northern Ireland remains a part of the UK for as long as the majority make that choice. It recognises fundamentally the status of Northern Ireland as part of the UK, as long as the majority of people wish it to remain so.

The agreement enshrines a further number of very important principles of equality, fairness and parity of esteem. These, too, lie at the heart of a lasting, settlement for Northern Ireland. In response to a point made by the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, I can say that the agreement sets out a political settlement that the Assembly and the Executive supported; indeed, it has been supported by all the pro-agreement parties from both sides of the political and religious divide. For the first time we have consensus on how Northern Ireland should be governed. The Government remain steadfast in their belief that the Good Friday agreement represents the best way forward. They are supported in this by the pro-agreement parties.

My noble friend Lord Desai raised the issue of the status of the Good Friday agreement. The Government have developed an unprecedented level of co-operation with the Irish Government in reaching, and seeking to implement, the Good Friday agreement. We fully recognise that the agreement and its institutions are underpinned by international treaty. The Government's action in suspending the devolved assembly was, therefore, not taken lightly. It was only taken when it became absolutely clear that it was the only way to prevent the permanent collapse of the institutions and to protect good governance in Northern Ireland.

As the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Clifton, recognised, suspension was a step that the Government took with great sadness. But it is now time to look to the future. We are now entering into a consultation process. Over the coming weeks, the British and Irish Governments will hold a series of bilateral and round-table meetings with all the political parties. This process will have a single purpose: to rebuild consensus on a clear and unambiguous basis and to revive the institutions as quickly as possible on the basis of cross-community participation.

The agreement has already made a palpable difference to life in Northern Ireland. It created the Human Rights Commission and the Equality Commission to drive out discrimination and intolerance in all areas of public life. It has set in train the reform of policing and criminal justice—changes which are justified in their own right and which will be pursued, even though the political institutions are suspended. We have also made significant progress on normalisation. In the past week the Chief Constable announced that, fir the first time since 1969, there will be no Army battalion on tour in Belfast. We hope to take further steps in due course.

I cannot agree with my noble friend Lord Fitt that the visit to Washington and its involvement in these matters was a waste of time. It is important to ensure the continuation of political engagement. No one expected the consultations in Washington to resolve the current difficulties, but they are part of a process of discussions in which all parties must be involved.

The noble Lord, Lord Laird, referred to the importance of economic development. The political progress has also had enormous economic benefits. At the time of devolution investment was up and unemployment was down. Time and time again business leaders tell us that if Northern Ireland is to take its place on the world stage—its rightful place—we must, first, sort out the political differences. There can be no doubt that the agreement remains our best option for the creation of a new society based on consensus and the peaceful democratic expression of political aims. We shall work tirelessly with parties and the Irish Government to ensure that we achieve the twin goals of devolution and decommissioning.

The noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, referred to the issue of cease-fires. We welcome a series of successful police operations demonstrating our commitment to providing security for all the people of Northern Ireland. The security forces continue to thwart attempts by dissident paramilitaries to destroy the peace process.

The noble Baroness also referred to paramilitary attacks. The Government continue utterly to condemn acts of this nature; they are totally unacceptable. Those who have the power should use their influence over the perpetrators of these attacks to bring them to a halt. The Government will continue to pursue the ending of these attacks and will fully support the RUC in its efforts to do so. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Cooke of Islandreagh, that during 1999 there were 206 paramilitary-style attacks; 138 by loyalists and 68 by republicans. So far this year, as of 19th March, there have been 44, 32 of which are attributed to loyalists—16 shootings and 16 assaults—and 12 of which are attributed to republicans—five shootings and seven assaults. I agree with the noble Lord that prosecutions are extremely difficult to secure as victims are reluctant to co-operate with the police. However, we remain absolutely committed to tackling this problem and will continue to maintain that support.

The noble Lords, Lord Cooke and Lord Glentoran, mentioned drugs misuse. While the problem of drugs misuse in Northern Ireland, particularly of hard drugs such as heroin and cocaine, has not reached the levels experienced in other parts of the UK, the Government are not complacent. The total of £5.5 million of new money allocated to support our new drugs strategy published in August last year, and support for 16 projects at a new cost of £2 million, will be part of our attempt to resolve this problem.

The noble Lord, Lord Lyell, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, were absolutely right to identify that trust and confidence are an essential foundation for progress and stability. The noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, and the noble Lords, Lord Laird and Lord Glentoran, referred to decommissioning. The Government's view is that substantive progress needs to be made now; otherwise, cross-community confidence cannot be sustained.

I make it absolutely clear to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, and the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, that we shall take no risks with the lives of the people of Northern Ireland and there will he no reduction in security until it is safe to do so.

The noble Baroness, Lady Park of Monmouth, and the noble Lord, Lord Lyell, referred to the Patten proposals. The Government's decisions announced in Parliament on 19th January offer all the people of Northern Ireland the opportunity of a new beginning to policing. The Patten proposals offer the police the opportunity to develop in a way that they have wanted for years. Indeed, many of the proposals were contained in the Chief Constable's fundamental review of policing. The sacrifices made by members of the RUC will never be forgotten, and have been recognised by the Government. The best memorial to those sacrifices would be a service policing a new peaceful society with the consent and support of the people.

The noble Lord, Lord Fitt, mentioned the Omagh bombing. The Government are committed to bringing those responsible for that atrocity to justice. Substantial resources have been committed by both police services and co-operation is unprecedented in this regard. Every possible line of inquiry continues to be explored. Some 74 persons have been arrested within the two jurisdictions and two persons have been charged. The investigation remains open and the police will continue to pursue those responsible in order to bring them to justice.

The noble Baroness, Lady Park, referred to the post-Omagh legislation being powerless to bring perpetrators to justice. The Criminal Justice (Terrorism and Conspiracy) Act, enacted following an emergency Sitting of Parliament, was a firm and proportionate response to the threat posed by dissident paramilitary organisations. The legislation pushed the criminal law to its very limits in order to try to bring those responsible for this awful atrocity to justice. The fact that it has not been used to date is not a legitimate argument against the legislation.

The noble Baroness, Lady Park, and the noble Lord, Lord Cooke of Islandreagh, referred to the role of the Republic of Ireland. We totally repudiate the suggestion that the Republic of Ireland is a safe haven for terrorists. The Irish Government have shown themselves to be committed to the ending of terrorism and have been rigorous in pursuing terrorists within the territory of the Republic. Members of their police service have also been killed by terrorists while carrying out their duties. I am sure that noble Lords will join me in paying tribute to their sacrifice, just as we pay tribute to the sacrifice and professionalism of the RUC.

I agree with the noble Baroness and the noble Lords, Lord Lyell and Lord Smith of Clifton, that peace is not just for the IRA but for all the people of Northern Ireland. The Government, with the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland parties, are striving to secure that lasting peace. We believe that it is essential that the agreement is implemented in full. That means securing decommissioning as well as devolution. In the mean time we remain committed to ensuring the safety of the people of Northern Ireland.

I join with the noble and learned Lord, Lord Mayhew, in paying tribute to Mr Trimble. I am happy to agree that he has shown tremendous courage and leadership in bringing his party into government, and great skill as First Minister in trying to make that government a success. His commitment to the Good Friday agreement is beyond doubt. We shall need his strength and determination to keep this process moving.

I am sure that noble Lords will wish to join with me in paying tribute to the courage and dedication of those from both traditions who have shown enormous determination in spite of discouragement and sometimes personal risk to achieve lasting peace for the people of Northern Ireland.

The noble Viscount, Lord Brookeborough, mentioned agriculture in Northern Ireland. The Government fully recognise the important role that the agricultural industry plays in Northern Ireland, particularly in rural areas such as Fermanagh. We are committed to the industry and supporting farmers in all areas of the United Kingdom through their difficulties. The assistance package announced by the Agriculture Minister in September 1999 provided Northern Ireland farmers with £8.5 million additional funding. The Government acknowledged the specific issue of, and problems being faced by, industries such as road haulage. The Chancellor's announcement of a reduction in road tax for large lorries is an example of the imaginative approach we take on these issues.

The noble Lord, Lord Laird, mentioned Harland and Wolff. We understand the disappointment felt when Harland and Wolff did not secure the order to build Queen Mary II. I assure the House that Ministers and departments in Northern Ireland and London worked hard and made strenuous efforts in support of Harland and Wolff s bid to win that contract. I say to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, that there was nothing further that the Government could do.

The noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, also raised the issue of the Belfast Harbour sale. Officials are collating data to assist in evaluating the two principal options: transfer to the private sector or retention of trust status in the public sector. This will he used to inform the decision-making process in due course.

I should also say to the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran, that Sinn Fein has to accept that it must deliver on commitments if it is to benefit from devolution. None of the pro-agreement parties are in any doubt that decommissioning is of central importance. It is essential that we should be able to have confidence in assurances that guns are silent and will remain so. I can assure the noble Lord that Sinn Fein is under no illusion about the importance of decommissioning, not only to Unionists but to everyone in Northern Ireland.

We hope to return as soon as possible to normal operation of the devolved institutions. It is sensible, therefore, in the meantime, to maintain the present number of 12 departments. The noble Lord, Lord Laird, sought an assurance that during suspension work is being progressed by Northern Ireland Ministers and that decisions are being made. I can give him that assurance. A range of decisions has been taken since suspension. I should like to write to him on the detailed points that he has raised because I am conscious of the time.

The Government fully recognise the importance of Belfast international airport and the importance of transport between Northern Ireland and the rest of the world generally. We shall continue to look for ways of improving transport within Northern Ireland.

This has been a wide-ranging debate which has covered a variety of important issues intrinsic to Northern Ireland. The experiences of some noble Lords are tragic and deeply moving—for example, those recounted by the noble Lord, Lord Glentoran. The views expressed reflected a diversity of experience and opinion. While I cannot agree with all the points made during the debate, I acknowledge the commitment of those who have spoken. I am sure that we all wish for a lasting peace.

My Lords, the hour is late and another debate awaits. I shall say only a warm thank you to every noble Lord who has taken part in the debate. It would be invidious to identify anyone; everyone made a valuable contribution. I should like particularly to thank the Minister for the trouble that she took to respond to the debate in such a meticulous way. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.

rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what plans they have for the future of personal assistance support for disabled people of working age in order to further the Government's policies for independent living, welfare to work and the prevention or social exclusion.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, for introducing this question. She is a distinguished recruit to this House and to the mobile bench, which is one of the glories of this House. She has taken us into many areas which urgently call for scrutiny. Her remarks about the ever present threat to residential care should equally move humanity and the Treasury. Very few can achieve both those objectives at once. I congratulate her.

Since this is a disability matter, my noble friend Lord Addington speaks from the Front Bench, I speak from the Back Bench. We have agreed that I shall deal with welfare to work and that he will deal with the independent living fund. If I do not develop the noble Baroness's points on the question of the independent living fund, it is because they will be dealt with by my noble friend.

The Minister knows that I have quite considerable theoretical misgivings about the basis of welfare to work. I shall not develop those now. They seem to me to be beside the purpose of today's debate. But, if the approach can be well placed anywhere, it might be in relation to people with disabilities, where the level playing field to which the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, referred is still quite a long way off, and where a programme of assistance with job seeking, job selection and so on, funded by the state and guided by a personal adviser, could be of very great value. The question is whether it will be, or whether it will be clouded by a series of assumptions in government thinking which are somewhat wide of the case.

Welfare to work is by its nature a top-down approach to the problem of employability. People are being fitted into holes. They may be square pegs in round holes but they are still being fitted into them. We on these Benches would be much happier to think in terms of the creation of opportunities, making it easier for people to do not what the Government have thought they ought to do but what they themselves want to do. There may be a very large area of overlap, but it is vital that we should find the right starting point.

The conditions under which a welfare to work programme for people with disabilities might succeed would include, first, that there is not too much counting of the cost. In the light of the noble Baroness's remarks about residential care, that could be an economy. I remember watching the noble Lord, Lord Ashley of Stoke, in another place, when he had an enormous teletext machine with which he very effectively followed the debates. That sort of equipment clearly is not provided for nothing. It was an investment, and a very valuable investment in the public interest as well as in the noble Lord's interest. If that sort of thing is to be done on any large scale, it cannot be clone cheaply. Secondly, it must be done for equality of opportunity, for the level playing field that the noble Baroness mentioned, not for any overall reduction in unemployment. Thirdly, the disabled person, not the adviser, must be the final judge of what it is considered the disabled person may be able to do. Nobody else can possibly know how much it hurts; nobody else can possibly know how much exhaustion it causes; nobody else can possibly know for how long it is possible to sustain the posture in which the job must be done.

With regard to the question of the cost of personal assistants, I shall not gild the lily of what the noble Baroness has said. It is pointed out by RADAR that there is no financial provision for the cost of transport. With many, but not all, types of disability, transport is one of the gravest and most expensive problems. If you cannot get people to their places of work, there is no point in making them employable. What the noble Baroness said about people being able to take their care packages with them is also well worthy of thought.

So far, we have had an underspend in relation to this cost. This is because at this stage we have only pilots. It may not be significant. But there has been quite severe underspending in other areas of the New Deal—the over 25 pilots and lone parents—causing The Times to remark yesterday that this is a Government which contacts but does not spend. As the new deal for the disabled goes forward, I hope that it will not prove necessary to repeat that approach.

With regard to the question of increasing employment, we are told that the new deal for disabled people in its pilot form has created work for 2,000 people. The noble Baroness and I had some exchanges last week on the subject of substitution, as a result of which I was profoundly unsatisfied. We agree on both sides that there is no evidence of substitution; namely, that when someone is put into a job because of welfare to work it means that someone else does not get that job. What I cannot understand is how there can be any increase in the overall number of jobs created by the programme except if the welfare to work programme gives the person the skills to take a vacancy which would otherwise have remained untitled. It may be stupid of me, but I cannot see any way round that. If the Minister can help me I shall be interested.

But the most important factor is the ability of the individual to be judged. Mr John Denham, answering a Question for Written Answer on this subject in November 1997, said that for people of working age work was the best form of welfare. If he had only inserted the word "normally" I would have been completely happy. Not all disabled people are capable of work; not all disabled people who are capable of work are capable of every kind of work. It is vital that those who cannot should not feel liable to any kind of stigma for that reason. After all, it is no fault of theirs and not the kind of thing that anybody ever does voluntarily.

It is also worth remembering that there is not a single activity known as work. People who are, for example, paraplegic may be perfectly able to work as telephone operators. I would not recommend that job to someone with hearing difficulties. Someone with hearing difficulties may be perfectly well able to do a job involving heavy lifting. Therefore, there must be a real fitting of people to jobs and jobs to people, and that is an area where the judgment of the disabled person must be vital. What I do not want to hear, as casework anecdotes emerge from the pilots, is evidence of people being put under pressure. That can happen both ways. There are reports of advisers making a blanket assumption that because people have disabilities they cannot work. That is wrong. Most people can do something; and it may well be a job that most of the rest of us cannot do at all. But it must be the right job, and the individual must have the right to judge whether he or she can do it. I should like to be sure that I shall not need to repeat this once the programme goes forward.

My Lords, I am most indebted to my noble friend Lady Wilkins for initiating so important a debate for disabled people this evening. She said that current provision is complex, confusing and self-defeating and that it creates huge insecurity, fear and anger among people with disabilities. Hers was, as my noble friend Lady Hollis will appreciate, the authentic voice of severely disabled people who know from personal experience the reality of living (in my noble friend's own words),

"in fear of being forced into residential care".

My noble friend Lady Hollis will, I know, share my admiration for our noble friend and my indebtedness to her for initiating this debate.

Lifting people off welfare and into the world of work is one of the Government's central strategies. But, as the Royal Association for Disability and Rehabilitation's recent and authoritative report, Mind the Gap: Disability, Opportunity and Employment, makes plain, many barriers still litter the path from welfare to work for disabled people. At the same time, there are rules and regulations, like those of the independent living funds (ILFs), imposing a 55 per cent tax on the earnings of the disabled people they help to support, which create a major disincentive to work. Yet the help the ILFs were funded to give is for unavoidable and disability-related expense, such as that of personal assistance in washing, dressing, eating and getting to and from work.

Time is at a premium and I want to spend most of the few minutes still available to me in describing and addressing the implications of a case—that of Colin Hughes—which I find especially disturbing. My noble friend Lady Wilkins said in her opening sentence tonight that this debate is about disabled people who need help to wash, dress and eat, and some who require personal assistance even to breathe. Colin Hughes is one of them. He has to ventilate at night simply to stay alive and, in the words of The Times, the ILFs gave him the ultimatum:

"Leave your job or pay for your care".

Colin is very severely disabled by muscular dystrophy and has had his care funded by the ILFs for some 10 years. His grant has been used to employ a live-in carer who helps him with all his daily living tasks: getting up in the morning, washing, dressing, eating, going to and from work, and functioning as a human being. Without that help he would no longer be able to live and work independently in the community. The grant he receives has enabled him to work in radio producing BBC Radio 4 programmes such as "Does he take sugar?", and "You and Yours". More recently he has worked as a television producer of "Despatch Box" and "Westminster Live".

However, last November he was told by the ILFs that his funding would be cut drastically because of his earnings. His grant, they decided, must be cut from £390 a week to £80 a week, leaving him to pay the remaining £310 a week out of his net earnings. That would have left him barely better off than he would have been on benefits.

The ILFs explained that they were imposing the cut of £310 a week because they had not realised that his gross earnings were £30,000 a year. They made it clear also that, unless he could convince them that capital of £30,000 which he had saved over the past 10 years should be disregarded, his funding would end altogether. The ILFs did not care that he will not reach pensionable age, or that he has scrimped and saved for 10 years in keeping with the Midland Bank's advice to him that he should save every penny he could for when he is no longer able to work.

Colin's funding was originally due to end on 6th February but the date was extended to 6th March. Following the recent changes to their rules, the ILFs told him that he would be required to contribute £234 a week towards his care. They would, they said, now disregard 45 per cent of earnings between £30 and £200 above income support. But the new level of contribution is still punishingly high and is a perverse disincentive to work; nor does it help the Government, since it costs much more to have a disabled person unemployed than in work. As a policy it is thus not only punitive and perverse but fiscally unsound. Colin Hughes wonders how many people would consider working if they were made to surrender up to 70 per cent of net salary to pay for their care. He says,

"This seriously undermines the Government's stated policy of giving disabled people an equal opportunity to work alongside able-bodied people".

Following a meeting with them on 14th March, he is currently trying to put together proposals for dealing with his savings in a way that will be acceptable to the ILFs; but he will still have to contribute a grossly unjust amount of his net earnings towards his care. Clearly he enjoys his work at the BBC, but he is now having seriously to consider his future employment.

He points out that it is not only the ILFs which use means testing. Local authorities, as the Prime Minister pointed out in a letter to me about Colin's case, have the primary responsibility and use means testing too. Their policies vary enormously. They are inconsistent, difficult to understand and impossible to defend. Some charge in line with the policy the ILFs have now discarded; others charge much less; and some do not charge at all.

One most disquieting case drawn to my attention by the British Polio Fellowship, of which I am a vice-patron, is that of a 73 year-old man who was paralysed after an accident at the age of 28. He lives independently—on an industrial injuries benefit and the minimum state retirement pension—and requires help in his home for up to 14 hours a week. He was charged £12 a week for this help. Now his local authority has pat the charge up to £112 a week: a tenfold increase. That must surely be shocking to everyone participating in this debate wherever they sit in your Lordships' House.

No doubt both local authorities and the ILFs will argue that they can help only to the extent that their resources allow and that, with more resources, they could give more help. But that cannot be argued by some other sources of help. For example, of the £195 million New Deal for Disabled People funding, which was allocated to help with employment for people with disabilities, little more than £11 million has so far been spent, three years into this new Labour Government. Way could not some of that money have been used to help disabled people now in work?

I have dwelt on Colin Hughes's case because I have known and respected him for many years as a person of excelling integrity whose life has been one of moving triumph over daunting adversity. I hope very much that his plea will convince the Government that further change is urgently necessary. In a message to me this evening, he states:

"While current means tests remain in place, major planks of government policy are severely compromised. They turn social inclusion into social exclusion. They turn 'from welfare to work' into from work to scrapheap'.

People who have to ventilate at night shouldn't have to pay through the nose for the help a wealthy, modern society based on equal opportunity should be willing to pay".

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, reminded me this afternoon of the wisdom of St Paul in saying that:

"No law can compel a man to do the impossible".

My Lords, let us not ask severely and heavily dependent disabled people to tolerate the intolerable.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, for initiating this debate. I have known the noble Baroness for a very long time and I pay tribute to her record of helping with many disability issues over the years.

Many aspects regarding disability came to the fore after the passing of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 1970. I pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, then Alf Morris, the honourable Member for Wythenshawe, whose Bill it was. I had the ptivilege of making my maiden speech on that Bill in your Lordships' House. In 1975 I founded the Spinal Injuries Association, a self-help organisation for people who break or damage their backs and necks resulting in paralysis, with all the complications and difficulties which can ensue. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, was one of our first management members of the SIA.

Also, 25 years ago the Crossroads care attendance scheme was founded, which gives help to disabled people when they need it. This came about when a young man called Noel Crane, who had broken his neck, contacted the director of the television programme "Crossroads" as a disabled person was wrongly portrayed in the programme. The director went to talk to Noel at his house in order to find out the correct image to portray. At about 11 p.m., when Noel's 70 year-old mother was nodding off in her chair, the director asked Noel, who is well over six feet tall, "How do you get to bed?". He said, "Mum puts me to bed and what's more she gets me up and dressed at 5 a.m." He could then get to work as an inspector at a Coventry car factory. Once Noel was helped into his car, he could drive to work using the specially adapted hand controls.

Thus, the Crossroads Care Attendance scheme was founded by Noel and others, with funding from the television programme. The scheme is a great help in the areas in which it exists, but the service does not exist in rural areas. Throughout the country, the scheme is patchy and is run in some areas but not in others.

Some time ago, the Spinal Injuries Association conducted a survey. It was found that many of its members needed only a little help once or twice a day. But that help was crucial in enabling them to leave their homes and go to work. Many members who have been injured and become disabled are highly trained and skilled people. To be a taxpayer is the best way to full rehabilitation and self-esteem, but with the huge handicap placed on them, and with the difficulty of obtaining reliable help and having to cope with the extra costs of disability, it is diabolical that costs cannot be set against tax.

Furthermore, means testing on top of the stresses of disability adds insult to injury. Even with tax relief and no means testing there can never be an equal playing field because all disabled people start at a disadvantage, be it in so many different ways.

On 2nd March, I attended a conference held by the Royal College of Nursing on disability awareness and nursing. Among the speakers were three qualified nurses who had become disabled. Two of them used wheelchairs. One of the nurses was also a trained psychologist and was specially trained in the treatment of asthma. They were most frustrated at being unable to gain paid work, even though their qualifications were much greater than those of some of their colleagues. They said that their Royal College had not given a positive lead in encouraging and helping them to work. The situation must be even more frustrating when lesser qualified nurses are being imported from foreign countries.

I hope that the conference highlighted the problems. The nurses who spoke were a good example of discrimination in the workplace. Can the Minister do something to help and encourage employers to take on disabled people? The sickness benefits are loaded against employers, many of whom might believe that the risk of employing disabled people is just too great. That might not always be the case, but in some cases there might be periods of illness. Could not some scheme be put into action to encourage, rather than to discourage, employers to give disabled employees at least a chance?

I know that there are various types of support, and they are welcomed, but the process of applying can be complicated with various complex forms. That often wears down the disabled person and his employer, thus jeopardising relationships. The employer may be asked to make a contribution to the overall costs. That may be the straw which breaks the camel's back.

Disabled people need to be helped with access to work through a flexible approach across the country. That does not happen in some areas where people have been told that their access-to-work personal assistant may not assist them with using the lavatory as that is "personal care", not "work-related". A disabled person needs holistic help, not a destructive, narrow interpretation.

We hear a great deal about joined-up government. Many disabled people need joined-up help. I hope that the Question tonight will help to encourage the Minister to improve the position of disabled people who wish to work. I hope that it will also encourage employers to give disabled people employment, thus preventing social exclusion, which has been the lot of so many disabled people.

My Lords, I want to add my warm congratulations to my noble friend Lady Wilkins. She was great! It was a star performance, and she will obviously make a major contribution; she began that tonight. I give her my warmest congratulations.

I recognise that the Government are committed to helping disabled people and have done some very valuable things. I know that my noble friend Lady Hollis is fully committed to doing what she can. Nevertheless, I have some harsh things to say about this Government.

The fundamental question which underlies the debate is whether or not the Prime Minister's promise to create "equal opportunities" includes disabled people. In other words, do the Government see severely disabled people as they see others or as a race apart, condemned to be unable to benefit from incentives to work and permanently unable to fulfil their potential? That is a simple but fundamental question.

It would be a political scandal if disabled people were excluded. However, the facts are that with present government policies many disabled people are faced with disincentives and can never achieve their potential. That issue lies at the heart of the debate. In many areas, the provision by the Government and local authorities for independent living and care for severely disabled people is pathetically inadequate. The policies simply do not match the rhetoric. The research, the briefings from all the organisations and, above all, the personal experience of disabled people themselves—I was very glad to hear the noble Earl, Lord Russell speak about the importance of the disabled person's view—all confirm the problems outlined by Lady Wilkins that the provision is rationed, discretionary and means-tested. Insecurity, patchy help and barriers to self-help abound.

This Government's fine record for disabled people is blotted if it allows disabled people's living standards to be damaged because of their disability. Yet, that is exactly what is happening. The great majority of severely disabled people rely for personal care on local authority assistance. However, since the dreadful, infamous Gloucester judgment, our fears have been realised and it is clear that the quality of that assistance has deteriorated sharply.

Perhaps I may explain that. This morning I hosted the launch of a report by the Needs Must Coalition. It revealed that refusals, reductions and complete withdrawals of services for disabled people were very common. Those were the words. Seventy-two per cent of people in the survey reported a reduction or total cut in help with bathing (72 per cent!); 70 per cent with help using the toilet (they cannot even go to the toilet!): 79 per cent with dressing; 89 per cent with help to prepare and eat meals; and 90 per cent with housework. Those are severely disabled people. When one considers the 86 year-old woman with Alzheimer's, waiting for a bath or a shower, who has to be strip-washed at the kitchen sink, those facts are absolutely scandalous.

This report on a serious situation in community care suggested that the Government's measures will have to he carefully implemented. Of course they will. But more crucially, the Government will have to be extremely generous.

Because they are not receiving the right support package, disabled people are excluded from employment at great cost to society and at enormous cost to themselves. Yet, incredibly, of the £195 million pledged with an understandable fanfare of trumpets by the Government for a New Deal for disabled people, only some £12 million—and I differ from my noble friend Lord Morris, who referred to £11 million; it is about £11¾ million actually—has been committed. Why is that? What complacency there is. What a lost opportunity. Let us think of the frustration of disabled people who want to work. Who is responsible for this scandalous state of affairs? What urgent action is being taken? I hope that my noble friend is listening very carefully and will give a comprehensive response to those points when she replies.

No one will dispute that we live in an incentive society. But it holds no incentive for those severely disabled people reliant on the independent living fund. They are subject to an onerous means test. That system, the ILF, conveys a sad, bleak and unambiguous message to disabled people: because you are disabled, you should not have the average standard of living, let alone one above average, regardless of your efforts and talents. That is my interpretation of the message.

As household earnings are taken into account, it means that a working spouse must pay the care costs of a disabled partner. It does not take an Einstein to work out the psychological effect on the disabled person and the financial effect on both of them.

I know that the Government feel that a scheme that can fund an individual for up to £32,000 per year should be means tested. I agree that millionaire types should be means tested. But it is wrong to means test that vital service so harshly, because personal assistance is a disability cost, not a luxury frill. As my noble friend Lady Wilkins said, such impositions do not apply to other public services. Why should this system stand alone? Let us imagine the public outcry if a person having an expensive heart bypass operation was told that that operation depended on a means test. But that applies to personal care and is accepted with equanimity.

Jane Campbell, a disability activist, sums up the dilemma for severely disabled people better than I can, and better than most people can. She has said:

"To expect disabled people to work hard and then relinquish the fruits of their labour in exchange for essential assistance to live, is a denial of our basic human rights".

A bedrock of this Government's policy is that work is the escape route and that they will help with that. Of course Ministers do try to help, and I appreciate that—especially my noble friend Lady Hollis, who really does wonderful work. But I believe that it is to the enormous credit of disabled people that, despite crushing disabilities, they are willing to work and work hard to secure a better life for themselves. Yet the Government's escape route is closed to them. The idea of hard-working, talented disabled people earning a high living standard is a pipe dream under existing government policies.

So we face the lamentable fact that disabled people are denied basic rights and the Government are denied the benefits of taxation. That way, nobody wins and everybody loses. They are the economics of the madhouse and t !ley need to be changed.

My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, for raising this important Question, which is close to the hearts of all three of us on this "mobile Bench". I for one would certainly need a personal assistant now if I had to be here by 9 a.m.

I first met the noble Baroness when she had been tetraplegic for one month. She was lying flat on her back in Stoke Mandeville hospital and I was asked to go to see her. She seemed to be bright—and, dare I say cheerful? No!—she had a sense of humour and she seemed okay. I reported back and said that I believed that she would do all right. I believe that she has done all right.

Hear, hear!

I congratulate the noble Baroness on her masterly portrayal of how the complex web of various and varied provision and the admirable goals of furthering employment opportunities and ending social exclusion fail to dovetail. The noble Baroness knows a good deal about the subject. I find that I grow more confused the more I read about funds and payments.

I welcome the Government's promotion of the provision of direct payments. Only by having control of one's own care package can one achieve the flexibility needed in personal assistance if one is to hold down a job. I welcome also the local personal assistance support schemes which can help users to fulfil their duties as employers. I support the noble Baroness's suggestion of portable personal assistance packages. Like the noble Earl, Lord Russell, I believe that that would at least ensure the same level of care when one moved area. Both the noble Baroness and the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, were most eloquent about the effect that rationing has and the way in which it impacts on the lives of others as well as that of the user. It seems to be operating to thwart the Government's aims. I shall give three brief examples.

First, it affects one's return to work. There is a man whose care package is so limited that the extra support of informal care—in this case, by his wife—is essential rather than an extra. She is currently in hospital with pneumonia, so he cannot go to work. Luckily, he has understanding employers.

Secondly, it can have a detrimental effect not only on one's immediate family but also on the lives of their immediate families. There is a woman who needs 24-hour assistance. Her care package of £548.93 per week—the maximum allowed by the I LF and the local authority—does not meet all her assistance needs, so her daughter has had to give up her university course to look after her.

Thirdly, rationing can contribute further to social exclusion. I think of a young man whose care package of £575.63 per week does not pay for the 24-hour care needed. He has to rely on his family, whereas, like most young people, all that he would really like is to be independent and to go to see his family when he wants to see them. He tries to manage on his own and so his life and his social life are restricted.

Means testing is causing huge concern. The noble Lord, Lord Morris of Manchester, gave a graphic description of the case of Colin Hughes. The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, gave a clear exposition of the overall situation and of the new crisis. I hope that the Minister will respond positively to her call for the ILF to suspend financial reassessment of clients and to ask local authorities to suspend their charging policies on direct payments. I ask the Minister why it is necessary to means test at all. If we accept that personal assistance is to level the playing field so that severely disabled people can not only survive but live their lives to the full in the community, compete for jobs and pay their taxes, is it reasonable, when they have been through all the complexities of care packages, job seeking and working hard at a job which may be satisfying, albeit stressful, to ask them to go through the far from satisfying experience of forfeiting their income to pay for their care, particularly since, as my noble friend Lady Masham said, there can never be a totally level playing field?

The National Centre for Independent Living believes that it was not really envisaged when the ILF started that significant numbers of clients would be able to work and that reform of the ILF needs to be approached in that context. If the disincentives were removed, many ILF losers—I mean users; sorry, that was a Freudian slip!—would come off benefit and so go into employment. I particularly urge the Minister to do all that she can to end means testing of partners. It is quite illogical. It is not consistent with local authority charging policies; the community care service is not allowed to means test partners. It places undue strain on relationships and even prevents them. The NCIL quotes the predicament of a severely disabled man who is tetraplegic. He is a trained accountant. His wife is a teacher in work and they have a small child. When he asked the social worker what was her usual advice in relation to partners' incomes being assessed, she replied, "I tell them to get a divorce"! Is that not a swipe at the key building blocks of community and society?

Another man, again tetraplegic from the age of 19, needs 24-hour care from two personal assistants the whole time. For 11 years he has had an important, successful, stressful and demanding job with BT. He is deeply concerned at the possible implications of the current review. He may have to change his lifestyle and even give up work because he may not be able to afford his newly ordered, expensively adapted car in which case he could not get to work. He adds:

"The ILF also requires you to declare any income your partner or wife receives. This is a working tax that has to be borne by your partner or wife which I feel is totally unfair. Although as a single person I am not currently affected by this, however, how do I explain to someone that, 'yes, I would like you to be my girlfriend, but if we start living together you will have to help pay for my care?".

He also says:

"I have three friends who are all in exactly the same situation".

That does not make for social inclusion. The NCIL's information from the ILF in May 1999 was that part of their proposal submitted to the Government was the removal of means tests on partners. I urge the Government to end not only means testing of partners' income but also of the clients' income, to enable severely disabled people to have control of their lives and to play their full part at work and in the life of the community.

I warmly support the call of the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, for a cross-departmental working party, including the expertise of members of organisations with direct experience of personal assistant services to examine in depth all these issues so as to get the provision to match up and meet the Government's aims.

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, on introducing the debate. Virtually everything that I have to say has been said in one form or another by at least one noble Lord which means that I shall not detain the House for long.

The major theme running through the debate is the problems encountered with ILF and the fact that it is means tested. It has the potential to drive people out of jobs or will not allow them to take one. A benefit that is supposed to allow people to live properly in fact stops them working.

The well crafted way in which the debate was placed on the Order Paper shows the absurdity of the situation. The Government have told us to fight for social inclusion. We must get people working so that they feel part of society. As my noble friend Lord Russell has already mentioned, there are one or two caveats to that approach. If we take social inclusion as the goal, we must deal with it as soon as possible. It is ridiculous that people are encouraged to work, to live a reasonable life in reasonable comfort, or at least are allowed to breath and live properly, but then we take away the vast majority of any income that they earn; the proceeds of work.

For many people in work their pay packet is their justification or status. Noble Lords may approve or disapprove of that, but that is a fact; "I am worth so much". It was said to be one of the great triumphs of the previous administration. We must bear that in mind when we say that disabled people cannot keep the money they earn because the state is keeping them in a reasonable condition, enabling them to live. Surely that is wrong.

There are clichés like, "Rome was not built in a day", but in trying to bring the whole thing forward in a new society, I should like to hear the Minister say that the problem will be dealt with in the near future because the absurdity of this has been spoken of time and again.

This is one occasion when I feel that the Minister should have five or six of her colleagues beside her. Most of the time when dealing with disability issues a question is put to a Minister, and the Minister bats it to another department. Transport is a classic example. How often have we spoken about the problems of getting to work? Personal assistance can be brought into the issue of transport. The noble Baroness should have someone from the Department of the Environment, Transport and the Regions beside her. Personal assistance would probably not be needed if every train was accessible and taxis could be relied on to turn up and accept someone with a guide dog. I could continue on this theme. However, something must be done to ensure that personal assistance is made available to enable disabled people to cope with the world the way it is.

As a firm general rule, my party does not approve of means testing. This is one occasion when its removal would greatly help a group and would set a precedent. If people are to be helped back into work and helped to get access to their work, that policy must be backed by action. I heard an interesting story about someone with severe dyslexia who received help when training to become a legal executive. Unfortunately, that assistance would not apply if she chose to continue her training to become a fully qualified lawyer. She was in some danger of having her career path blocked. A case like that highlights the need for cross-departmental consultation on this issue.

We need to look at the whole package in this area. The notions of local support and direct payments for social care have already been mentioned by other noble Lords. However, the level of support differs between areas, 'which is an absurdity. The Government must treat this holistically so that marginal costs are dealt with alongside core costs. I hope that the Minister will be able to give the House strong reassurances on this subject.

My Lords, like other noble Lords, I congratulate the noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, on introducing this important subject to the House tonight. I was personally very moved by the sincere and knowledgeable way in which she made the case for personal assistance support for disabled people of working age. As the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, said so wisely, it was a star performance.

Last year I broke my femur and for a time was confined to a wheelchair. I needed help with washing, dressing and other basic needs which until then I had always taken for granted. It brought home to me the day-to-day problems and social barriers faced by disabled people in a world largely designed to suit non-disabled people. I am now able bodied again, but most disabled people are disabled for the rest of their lives. For that reason, I am enormously sympathetic to the points made by the noble Baroness.

Personal assistance enables disabled people to control their own resources and support staff and helps them to lead lives as full and spontaneous as those of non-disabled people. The noble Baronesses, Lady Wilkins, Lady Masham and Lady Darcy de Knayth, are each one of them proof that disabled people with severe impairments can live active lives and contribute to society.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, made the point that the existing policy on long-term care continues to fester—I believe that was the word she used—while we await the Government's response to the recommendations of the Royal Commission on Long Term Care. Meanwhile, of course, the sale of an estimated 40,000 homes a year to pay for care home fees continues, causing great distress. I understand that the Government will make an announcement this summer. Can the Minister confirm that that is the case?

The noble Baronesses, Lady Wilkins and Lady Darcy de Knayth, and the noble Lords, Lord Morris, Lord Ashley and Lord Addington, all agreed on the problems surrounding the Independent Living Fund and means testing. Among some of the ILF younger clients who want the opportunity to work and develop their careers, there is a real sense of dissatisfaction towards means testing of clients' wages and those of their partners. The means test effectively caps the amount an individual can earn, creating a maximum wage for ILF recipients who work. In January new rules were introduced, supported by the Government, which mean that ILF clients can now keep £106 of their wages above the level of income support after housing and council tax costs are taken into consideration. While that is better than the £30 extra clients used to be allowed to keep, there is a deep sense of anger and injustice among disabled people that the ILF and the Government have fudged this issue and failed to remove this particular means test.

By working, disabled people with complex needs not only lose their benefits but also access to community care grants and other sources of funding. While the ILF means test of wages is in place, it will continue to lead many disabled people who need high levels of personal assistance to believe that they can never take on paid work. That must be wrong. Some local authorities do not understand the potential of the ILF. Many have a poor record in applying on behalf of their disabled residents and deny them and their own social services departments a valuable source of funding. That, consequently, leads to great variation in the use of personal assistance throughout the country.

The noble Baroness, Lady Wilkins, also mentioned direct payments by local authorities for personal assistance and the fact that many local authorities have still not introduced any form of direct payments. That is a particular problem for those with learning difficulties and, I understand, those with mental health problems. Can the Minister say if the Government will do more to encourage local authorities to introduce direct payments for personal assistance?

The noble Lord, Lord Ashley, spoke of the important Needs Must report, highlighting the urgent need for action by the Government in the field of community care, which I understand he launched today. Unfortunately, that is just one piece of the jigsaw. The bigger picture is no less challenging; a picture full of opportunities for government to show a much greater, practical commitment to tackling social exclusion. Those measures would maximise the impact of what is supposedly already government policy.

For example, the issues raised by this Unstarred Question are of direct relevance to the United Kingdom's 8.7 million deaf and hard of hearing who face numerous barriers within a system that is meant to help them. I agree wholeheartedly with the remarks of the noble Earl, Lord Russell, about the investment in the equipment of the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, o enable him to follow debates.

Low take-up of disability living allowance among deaf people—8 per cent for the severely or profoundly deaf as against 30 to 50 per cent for disabled people in general—underlines the obstacles that deaf people face within a benefit system that is supposed to help them maximise their independence, their opportunities for employment and social inclusion.

Access to work is the key to effective transition from welfare to work. Financial support for essential equipment through the Government's Access to Work scheme is often crucial to disabled people's capacity to access the workplace and the opportunities employment brings for independence and social inclusion. Disabled people are more likely to be out of work than non-disabled people. I agree with the noble Baroness, Lady Masham, that the Government's plans to counter low awareness among both employers and potential and actual employees are inadequate. Last month we debated social exclusion in the important debate on the Rowntree report tabled by the noble Earl, Lord Russell. Social exclusion is defined by the Social Exclusion Unit as,

"a shorthand term for what can happen when people or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems, such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health poverty and family breakdown".

The missing link that, in many cases, would connect at least six of these eight problems, but which is not included in the definition, is disability. This is a missed opportunity that risks undermining the whole social exclusion programme. As the All-Party Disablement Group, chaired so well by the noble Lord, Lord Ashley, has argued, disability needs to be at the heart of government policymaking; that means having a specific high priority on the agenda of the Social Exclusion Unit.

My Lords, I should like to thank all noble Lords who have taken part in the debate tonight, especially my noble friend Lady Wilkins. I believe that everyone has spoken this evening with passion and compassion about the rights of, and support for, disabled people. It is right that disabled people should enjoy the rights that others take for granted—the right to independence, the right to work and profit from that work, and, as the noble Lord, Lord Astor, said, the right to play a full and inclusive part in society. We have done a lot, but we have a long way to go.

Perhaps I may turn first to the core of tonight's debate; namely, the personal income support—the personal assistance packages—for disabled people. We have done a good deal to strengthen the incomes of disabled people. Although it was not spelt out tonight, we all know that disabled people, on average, have lower incomes with which to meet higher costs. As regards benefits, we have already introduced the disabled person's tax credit, which was raised still further in yesterday's Budget. This offers a lower income taper and a higher income threshold, together with improved help with childcare costs, thus making it more generous than the disability working allowance that came into being while my noble friend Lord Carter and I were sitting on the Opposition Benches in 1991.

To my delight, the working families' tax credit pays a double child credit to families with disabled children and is worth some £25 million to 25,000 families with a disabled child. We shall also introduce a disability income guarantee from April 2001 for the poorest disabled people with the greatest care need. This will provide nearly £6 a week extra for single disabled adults and children and over £8 a week for couples. Again, that will provide more assistance.

Although its payments are not strictly benefit, we have also recently—and this is at the heart of tonight's debate—made changes to the Independent Living Fund. I should like to spend a little time on this. The funds provide valuable assistance to help seriously disabled people, who might otherwise be in residential care, to live independently in their own homes. I know, because disabled people have told me, how ILF moneys have turned their lives around. They have allowed disabled people to be at the centre of their own lives, to discover or rediscover spontaneity and to make decisions rather than having decisions made for them. For example, they allow people to decide when they want to go to bed, when they want to stay up late, and so on—indeed, everything that we associate with adulthood and take for granted.

Noble Lords raised the issue tonight of the upper limit on ILF care packages and the question of means testing, to which I shall return. However, my concerns are perhaps just a little different. The need and demand for independent living for disabled people is both overwhelming and humbling. Yet, ILF moneys—some £2 million, as my noble friend Lord Morris said—remain unspent. Nevertheless, 70 per cent of claims to the ILF are successful.

So why, taking just the 1993 fund as an example, is there so much discrepancy from place to place? Why is it that Wrexham in Wales has 77 clients on ILF per 100,000 of the population and Wakefield has three? Why has Coventry 25 per 100,000 and Kirklees two? Why has Rotherham 31 per 100,000 and Rutland no one at all? Why are not social services departments and disability organisations publicising the ILF, or helping us to publicise the ILF, more effectively? The trustees are giving presentations to local authorities, including the low take-up authorities. They have given 173 presentations since April 1998. But it is slow and hard work.

The limits on the maximum payments the funds can make have been increased and a new, more generous disregard of earnings has been introduced. This means that those seriously disabled clients of the funds who are able to work can keep up to £76.50 a week extra, which greatly, and rightly, enhances the incentive to obtain and remain in employment. I could give many examples but I shall give just one. Before the changes this spring, Mr Baker, a family man earning £25,000 a year, with two children and a care package of £500 and a local authority contribution of £200, with average housing costs and so on, would have had to contribute £66 a week out of his income, together with half his DLA. As a result of our changes he now contributes nothing at all except for the half of DLA. He is £66 a week better off. This applies to single people on lower incomes and to household incomes all the way up. These are real improvements that should be acknowledged tonight. There are currently only about 100 of the funds' 15,000 clients who are in work, although they have dominated tonight's discussion. It is right that they should find that work pays.

Clearly, difficulties can arise when people's earnings increase over time, affecting their contributions to their care package. This may have occurred in the case of Mr Colin Hughes that was described by my noble friend Lord Morris. However, no further such case has yet emerged. I can and do assure the House that the trustees and stiff of the ILF will approach any such situation and respond within the letter and the spirit of the trust deeds as sympathetically as possible.

However, it is only right that I make clear that on the basic question of means testing within the ILF regime—this was raised by most speakers tonight—the Government are still of the view that this remains appropriate, as it is for local authorities. The reason, of course, is that ILF came out of the supplementary benefit social security scheme. It has never not been means-tested. When income support was introduced in 1988, severely disabled people lost some of the premiums that they had previously been entitled to enjoy. I understand that the ILF was created to cater for their needs. They comprised a group which at the time numbered only a few hundred. ILF, and its predecessor, has always been embedded in a social security means-tested scheme. But, having said that, it is right that government should continue to keep under review the level of income and the point at which some contribution to care packages kicks in.

We recognise—this was also recognised by noble Lords tonight—that there is wide diversity in the charging regimes for home care operated by local authorities. This gives rise to excessive and unreasonable variations. We intend to address those inequities. The Audit Commission will report on this in May. We shall then consider how to tackle the problems in the Eight of its information on the extent of variations in local authority policies and, of course, will consult on the matter. We are determined to take steps so that the charges levied by local authorities on people needing assistance with personal care are both reasonable and based as far as possible on a consistent framework to ensure fairness. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Astor, I add that our proposals for financing long-term care will be completed this summer and we aim to publish a White Paper for consultation on them.

My noble friend Lady Wilkins and, I think, the noble Baroness, Lady Darcy de Knayth, asked about portable personal assistance packages. The fair access to care services policy guidance makes clear that, while local authorities may not have identical criteria on packages, none the less the receiving local authority—if I can describe it thus—is expected to continue the care packages that the disabled person previously enjoyed. If it proposes to reduce it, that local authority must provide a clear written explanation.

The noble Earl, Lord Russell, referred to the issue of transport. He is of course right about the needs of disabled people. That is why Motability has been so successful that it is now the largest car-leasing firm in Europe. I am sure that he will be pleased that this year the Government are virtually doubling the sum they contribute to the Motability equipment fund, which allows us to tailor a car to a person's individual need.

I move on to the services for disabled people reflected in the direct payments scheme, a scheme which many of us—including the noble Lord, Lord Carter, myself, the noble Baronesses, Lady Darcy de Knayth and Lady Masham, and the noble Earl, Lord Russell—championed when in opposition. This scheme was introduced in 1997 to allow local authorities to make payments to people who would otherwise receive care commissioned directly by social services departments, to allow them to control and purchase their own care needs. As the user of one DP scheme in Surrey said:

"I feel like a human being again. I feel I have my own life back, secure and better generally in myself".

Another said:

"I feel that I am now free; free to enjoy life with the additional support I would like".

The scheme has grown steadily. Most local authorities—at least two-thirds—now offer direct payments. I hope that the remainder follow suit. I do not know why they do not. We want to see a much greater expansion of direct payments because I doubt whether more than a couple of thousand people are yet receiving such payments. We have changed the regulations so that people over the age of 65 are eligible; we shall be supporting the Private Member's Bill of Mr Tom Pendry in the other place to extend it to 16 and 17 year-olds; we are keen to see direct payments going to people with learning difficulties, with mental problems, with HIV and AIDS, and to others; and the Department of Health is publishing a booklet to help to explain the scheme to people with learning difficulties. But, as with ILF care packages, I ask your Lordships why direct payments are not being more widely deployed. If we mean what we say about ensuring that disabled people have the dignity of making financial choices, why are the opportunities offered by the ILF and direct payments schemes being neglected in local authority after local authority after local authority?

My noble friend Lord Ashley talked about the Gloucestershire judgment and referred to the Out of Service report, which I gather was launched today. I have not had the privilege of having a copy and therefore, as yet, I cannot properly comment on it. The Government have always recognised the right and responsibility of local authorities to determine the allocation of resources and to take into account their own resources in so doing. However, this does not mean that local authorities are under no obligation to provide such services. Pressed in part by the work of my noble friend, the Department of Health reminded local authorities of their obligation, their duty, to meet those service needs in Circular 13 issued in November 1997.

The hour is moving on. I could talk about the New Deal: the fact that 9,000 people have so far participated and that 2,500 people have been helped into work. It is true that £12 million has so far been spent, but the House will be pleased to know that £61 million is already committed. Obviously this money is over three years. I could talk about rights under the DDA; I could talk about the reduction to 5 people in the employment threshold and how we are gradually bringing this down, but I shall not do so tonight.

I am sure that all noble Lords are delighted to see in place a Disability Rights Commission which will work towards the elimination of discrimination against disabled people; which will promote the equalisation of opportunity for disabled people; which will take appropriate steps towards encouraging good practice; and which will advise the Government on the operation of the DDA. Those rights are the other side of the personal support and assistance packages. To conclude, disabled people have the right to be treated with respect and dignity and to have the same opportunities that we should all have to fulfil our potential.

Some noble Lords, particularly those in the "wheelchair brigade", if I may so describe them, have said that all too often disabled people can live their life on a knife-edge of uncertainty, fearful, as Jane Campbell said on the radio last week, that any day someone could take their hard fought for liberty away from them by withdrawing their personal support. My noble friend Lady Wilkins quoted one or two such people who thought at one point that they might have to go into a home. I remember someone saying to me that, as a result of being supported by direct payments from the Independent Living Fund, he had moved from being a dependant in residential care into a home of his own, to having a wife of his own, children of his own and a job of his own—and, as a result, a life of his own.

We recognise those rights. We still have a long way to go. We are working with the Disability Rights Commission. I know that your Lordships will continue, rightly and properly, to be vigilant in the cause of disabled people. I hope that the House will accept that, on the front of independent living and direct payments, there is the capacity and potential to do much more than is currently being done. I hope that people will join with the Government in seeking to ensure that all those disabled people who can take advantage of the Independent Living Fund and of direct payments, and as a result turn their lives around, will be encouraged to do so.

My Lords, in moving the adjournment of the House, perhaps I may move slightly outside our normal procedure and say that in our final debate I had a strong sense of déjà vu. So many of the speakers had also taken part in the many debates on disability that we have had over the years, and in which I and my noble friend Lady Hollis had also taken part. As Chief Whip, I note with some alarm that your Lordships have lost none of that effectiveness in castigating the Government in which I used to take part with considerable enthusiasm. I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.

Before it gets worse!