May I ask the Leader of the House for the business for next week, please?

The business for next week will be:

MONDAY 29 APRIL—Second Reading of the Tobacco Advertising and Promotion Bill [Lords]. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hurrah."] I hope that sentiment continues.

TUESDAY 30 APRIl—Second Reading of the Finance Bill.

WEDNESDAY 1 MAY—Consideration of a Resolution on National Insurance Contributions.

THURSDAY 2 MAY—There will be a debate on Wales in the world on a motion for the Adjournment of the House.

FRIDAY 3 MAY—The House will not be sitting.

The provisional business for the week after will be:

MONDAY 6 MAY—The House will not be sitting, as it is a bank holiday.

TUESDAY 7 MAY—Second Reading of the Police Reform Bill [Lords].

WEDNESDAY 8 MAY—Progress on consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.

THURSDAY 9 MAY—Conclusion of consideration in Committee of the Finance Bill.

FRIDAY 10 MAY—Private Members' Bills.

The House will wish to know that subject to the progress of business, it is envisaged that the House will rise for the Whitsun recess on Friday 24 May and return on Monday 10 June. [Interruption.] I am sure that Members will be keen to return to business sooner than they had anticipated.

The House will wish to know that on Wednesday 8 May, there will be a debate relating to railways in European Standing Committee A, and on Thursday 9 May, there will be a debate relating to the execution of orders freezing assets or evidence in European Standing Committee B.

I thank the Leader of the House for giving us the business. Can he clear up a bit of a mystery? Last Thursday, he told us, at column 699, that on 1 May there would be the Second Reading of a Bill to give effect to the swingeing increases in national insurance proposed by the Chancellor. Today, he said rather mysteriously that next Wednesday there will be a resolution on national insurance increases. We must get to the bottom of this. Presumably, it is yet another Government cock-up, but we would like to know the nature of the error. Who made it? Why is he having to carry the can? Can we please now be told the exact relationship between the previous Bill, the present resolution and the implied time delay? Whose fault is it? When will we be told the full story? The national insurance increases are of enormous importance to businesses, individuals and everyone else. To start to deal with the matter in this way is depressing and disappointing to say the least.

There is something called the European Convention going on at the moment, which has the potential, regrettably, to have a profound impact on the nature of the European Union and our role in it. There are three Members of the House taking part in that convention, not the least of whom is the Minister for Europe, the right hon. Member for Neath (Peter Hain). When will the Minister for Europe give the House an opportunity to ask him what he is doing on our behalf, what commitments he is making, what the convention is up to and where it is heading? I am told that two of our representatives at the convention will appear before the House of Lords some time next week. It seems that the House of Lords can quiz members of the convention, while that opportunity has been denied to this House. When will we have a chance to find out what is taking place on our behalf in the European Convention so that we can have a say and give our marching orders to our representatives?

Will the Leader of the House confirm whether he spoke to The Sun yesterday? The Sun claims that he did—I have the newspaper in front of me. It says that something is going to be done to protect the Prime Minister at Prime Minister's Question Time. We know that he needs protection, and that he is incapable of dealing with what we call the open question as successive Prime Ministers have done for decades. It appears that the Prime Minister's plight is so desperate that he needs the Leader of the House's help to shut down the open question and to make sure that all questions are planted and scripted. We know that many of them are already, but it looks as if that will become routine. Why does The Sun quote the Leader of the House as saying of Prime Minister's questions:

"The public love it as theatre, but it would be in everyone's interests if people could set specific questions"?

Did he say that to The Sun? If not, where did it get the story? Can he assure me categorically that the Prime Minister will not be provided with extraordinary protection from the rigours of Prime Minister's questions, and that we can continue to put the Prime Minister through his inadequate paces every Wednesday?

During Question Time yesterday, the Prime Minister made the following remarkable assertion on the subject of rising street crime:

"As a result of the additional measures being taken, we are confident that by the end of September we will have brought that problem under control".—[Official Report, 24 April 2002; Vol. 384, c. 326.]

The Leader of the House will accept that we cannot allow that assertion to hang in the air unchallenged and unquestioned. Can we have an early opportunity for the Prime Minister or the Home Secretary, when he is not using robust language, to come to the House and tell us what has changed that means that street crime, instead of rising—as it is, sadly and dramatically—will fall dramatically over the next five months? What is the reason? Is it legislation, more police officers or more effective measures, and, if so, of what kind? Alternatively will the Prime Minister be out and about personally feeling the collar of muggers and making sure that they do not commit the crimes that they have been committing? We need an opportunity to quiz the Prime Minister and the Home Secretary about what they have in mind.

Finally, I want to raise the question of planning gain tariff, on which I have no doubt that the Leader of the House is an expert, as he is on so many things. A Green Paper on huge and dramatic increases in the planning system has been published. I am told that the Government have received about 15,000 responses, which indicates a high level of interest and alarm. It would appear that framework legislation will be introduced in the next Session, within which will be provision for statutory instruments to be used to vary the suggested planning gain tariffs. Will the Leader of the House give us a commitment that, if that happens, this new stealth tax and the enormous effect that it may have on every constituency will not be hidden away Upstairs in a statutory instrument Committee but debated on the Floor so that all right hon. and hon. Members have an opportunity to explore fully its potential impact on their constituencies and their way of life? It is a simple commitment to make. I accept that I am looking a little ahead, but I know that, with his legendary commitment to the parliamentary process, he will be only too happy to give such an undertaking.

First, on the business relating to the national insurance contributions, the right hon. Gentleman asks who will carry the can. I will carry the can if anything is wrong because that is my role as Leader of the House. I am happy to assent to that proposition, but I do not see that there is any can to be carried. It is certainly not for the inconvenience of the House that we will debate national insurance contributions on that date, which I announced a week ago. A Bill will certainly be introduced. In the event that the House carries the resolution, the Bill will be published the next day. The House authorities have informed us that it is necessary to have a founding Ways and Means resolution. It was not possible for us to consult the House authorities in advance of the Budget.

Oh!

I think that hon. Members would be miffed if we discussed with the House authorities the contents of the Budget before we shared them with the House.

I agree about the importance of the measure. It is enormously important to the national health service because it will enable us to continue our programme of record investment in the health service so that it becomes a world-class service.

As for the European Convention, there are two separate issues of accountability. The first is the accountability of the Minister for Europe, who sits on the convention as a member of the Government. He is, of course, regularly held to account by the House. Indeed, he answered Foreign Office questions only recently.

The second and separate matter of accountability relates to the two people who are there not as representatives of the Government, but as representatives of Parliament. That is a novel situation. I fully share the right hon. Gentleman's sentiment that they should report to the House and be held to account by hon. Members. I am exploring with one of those Members how we can best go about that and what mechanisms we could provide. The convention is important, and I fully share the right hon. Gentleman's view that there should be novel mechanisms for those two representatives of the House to report on what they do in our name.

I am not aware of having spoken to The Sun. I detect from the extract that the right hon. Gentleman quoted faint echoes of what I said to the Procedure Committee yesterday. I am happy to say that that is on the record and he can check the full report. My impression from memory, without having the opportunity to check the record, is that The Sun has conflated two separate paragraphs. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister stands in no need of protection. Indeed, were I to offer friendly advice to the right hon. Gentleman, it would be that it is on the Conservative side of the Dispatch Box that protection is required.

I have frequently said both in and outside the House that we do not help ourselves when we appear to be interested in scoring party political points rather than in pursuing the public interest. Although it is the case that the public admire the theatre and high drama of party confrontations, it is important to convey that we are carrying out serious business. I have always taken the view that it is much better for Members who ask a question to be open and honest about the subject on which it is based.

The right hon. Gentleman also raised the issue of street crime. I am grateful to him for giving me the opportunity to put it on the record that the chance of being a victim of crime in Britain is at its lowest for 20 years. That reflects the fact that when he and his colleagues were in office, crime doubled in Britain. The commitment that the Prime Minister referred to yesterday was first given in February this year, although the right hon. Gentleman appears not to have noticed it at the time.

He was too busy reading The Sun.

Indeed. Too much time spent reading The Sun may distract one from noticing what is being said by the Government.

The commitment given in February was that we will stabilise street crime in London within a six-month period, by September, and will thereafter proceed to reverse the increase. [Interruption.] That is precisely what was said in the February commitment. If we are to be successful in getting on top of crime, stabilising it, reversing street crime and achieving the same cuts in street crime that we have achieved in other offences, we need to ensure both that we continue the record increase in police numbers which the Government have achieved, and that we support police numbers with the community safety officers that we have introduced.

It is bogus of the Opposition to express concern about street crime when only the other day in the House of Lords their Conservative colleagues defeated the proposed detention powers for community safety officers, who have been given a real role to play.

The right hon. Gentleman cannot have it both ways. He cannot pretend to affront on behalf of victim and at the same time stop the measures that are necessary to catch those carrying out street crime and street violence.

I am happy to assure the right hon. Gentleman that if any tax is introduced on the back of planning gain, that would require legislation, and the matter would have to come before the House.

As a new Member who has not yet been conditioned by too many years of planet Westminster, it is patently clear to me and most members of the public that the present system of Prime Minister's questions does nothing to improve Government accountability or allow scrutiny of what a Prime Minister is doing.

May I urge my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House—if he needs any urging—to ignore the advice of the shadow Leader of the House on Prime Minister's questions, and to talk to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister about ways of improving how Prime Minister's Question Time operates? Is my right hon. Friend prepared to consider ways of improving Prime Minister's Question Time to achieve genuine accountability and scrutiny of what the Government are doing?

My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has not raised any proposal with me or, as far as I am aware, with anybody else for any change to the procedure at Prime Minister's Question Time. It is for the House to consider how we proceed.

I am impressed by the seriousness and thoroughness with which the Procedure Committee is addressing the matter. The Committee has adequate representatives from the official Opposition and from the other party that is represented in the Chamber this afternoon. I hope that they will consider seriously ways in which we can improve the way that Prime Minister's Question Time contributes to our task of scrutiny.

For me, as I set out in my memorandum on modernisation, a key task must be to reduce the ridiculously long period of notice for oral questions.

I am full of admiration for the adroit way in which the Leader of the House juggles business. However, will he look again at the provisional business for Tuesday 7 May, because it would seem that Second Reading of the Police Reform Bill will clash with consideration in Committee of the Nationality, Immigration and Asylum Bill? The right hon. Gentleman will recognise that these are both extremely important Bills that require most careful and diligent scrutiny by Members on both sides of the House. It seems that probably the same Ministers will be involved.

Will the Leader of the House give urgent attention to the possibility of a debate as soon as possible after the local council elections on the encouragement of participation in the political process to reduce current apathy and disconnection—a phrase that he uses?

May I ask him especially to read an article in the Financial Times of 24 April? It is headlined "An electronic electorate". The article states:

"Ministers want to modernise polling. But it may take more to revive voters' flagging interest."

This well-researched article concludes:

"This will not bring turnout above 50 per cent. The answer is making voting attractive by making votes count."

I think that that phrase will he familiar to the right hon. Gentleman.

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that no gimmicks—not even new technology—will give equal weight and value to equal votes, and that we need to look again at a voting system that gives fair representation to all views? Does he note that Le Pen has had his success in France without a proportional system but with a first-past-the-post system, albeit with two stages? Has he seen early-day motion 1184, and the amendment?

[That this House expresses its concern at the National Front candidate Jean-Marie Le Pen securing a place in the final stages of the French presidential election; rejects the racism, intolerance and isolationism for which he stands; believes that apathy and declining turnout rather than a significant increase in the National Front vote share enabled Monsieur Le Pen to win second place; and calls on all democrats across Europe to stand together and resist these extreme influences on the political process, by offering imaginative policies based on the values of solidarity, compassion and enterprise which inspire and engage the public, and consign Monsieur Le Pen and his ilk to the margins of European politics.]

Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that what has happened in France is precisely the result of an inadequate voting system, which the Opposition want to impose upon both Houses of this Parliament?

On the hon. Gentleman's first point, I do not accept that we cannot proceed with the Second Reading of a Bill from one Department while that Department has another Bill Upstairs in Committee. It is one sign of the health, energy and commitment of the Home Office that it has many Bills before the House, and we cannot confine ourselves to proceeding with only one Home Office Bill at any one time.

On the local elections, I wholly share the hon. Gentleman's sentiment that we should make sure that we do everything possible to encourage the electorate to turn out and to take part, whatever way the electorate may choose to vote on the day. There are too many people in France who regret that they missed that opportunity when they had a chance to take it, and who now complain about it.

If we are to have a fair electoral system and a fair result, it is important that we should be honest with the electorate. As the hon. Gentleman raises the issue of the local elections, may I say that I was disappointed to read in this morning's papers the report of the Liberal Democrat campaign literature, which invites Liberal Democrat candidates to

"be wicked and act shamelessly"?

What's new?

What is new is that we have it in writing. The advice continues:

"Don't be afraid to exaggerate. For example, responses to surveys…are always 'massive'…Oppose all service cuts…why court the unpopularity that goes with…responsibility".

[HON. MEMBERS: "More!"] The House has other business to proceed to. The document is entitled "Effective Opposition". I say to the hon. Member for North Cornwall (Mr. Tyler) that so long as his party follows that advice, it will remain in opposition, without responsibility.

Will my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on ITV Digital? The focus has rightly been on the situation of Football League clubs, but of much greater importance is the position of dozens if not hundreds of companies that have been left high and dry, with debts owed by ITV Digital, after contracts were signed on the understanding that Carlton and Granada would guarantee that company. My constituency faces the loss of 600 jobs because of the activities of ITV Digital, and the matter should be debated on the Floor of the House.

I fully understand the severity of the situation to which my hon. Friend refers and the extent to which it has a direct impact on many constituency interests of hon. Members. I assure him and the House that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Culture, Media and Sport is following the issue closely. I touched base with her this morning in the margins of Cabinet, and she will certainly want to keep the House informed of the progress of discussions. The only caveat that I would enter is that we cannot proceed on the basis of the public purse accepting responsibility for the rather exaggerated expectations of ITV Digital. Consistent with that caution, though, we will do anything that we can to be helpful.

Although I have no quarrel with the right hon. Gentleman for deleting a day from the Whitsun recess, am I right in assuming that he had to do that because of the mess that he has made over the national insurance Bill? If I am wrong, could we instead have a debate on 10 June on Liberal election tactics, which he could perhaps open?

I would not want to rule out a debate on that topic, and I shall bear it in mind, among the competing pressures. I am happy to assure the hon. Gentleman that he is wrong on that point. We took the decision on the recess in advance of the latest announcement. The Whitsun recess will be two full weeks. It is a generous recess; indeed, it is much longer than usual, and I do not think that hon. Members have any ground for complaint.

I have just learned of the result of the Damilola Taylor case, and like many people in this country will, I regard it as yet another judicial farce that has let down many people. Will my right hon. Friend consider a debate on the role that the police and the Crown Prosecution Service played in that farce, and give hon. Members an opportunity to comment on it?

Like my hon. Friend, I learned of the announcement from the teletext just before I left my office. It would therefore be foolish of me to express any view on it, and it would also be improper to do so. We have a clear segregation between politicians and Government, and the courts. Whatever we may think privately, it is important that in the House we respect the judgment of the courts.

Last week, the Government published their response to the Select Committee on Public Administration's report on the House of Lords, entitled "The Second Chamber—Continuing the Reform". There is a suspicion on both sides of the House that continuing the reform is not actually the Government's policy at all. To allay those fears, can the Leader of the House promise that we will have a debate before the summer recess on the Government's response, so that their policy on the second Chamber can be fully tested?

I am dismayed to hear that there are such fears, so I am glad to take the opportunity that the right hon. Gentleman offers me to repeat our commitment that we wish to take this forward before the summer recess, and I hope to be able to speak to the House on that matter before then.

Has my right hon. Friend noticed that the first question to the Prime Minister on 8 May is, in fact, a closed question from one of our hon. Friends? However, does the Leader of the House accept that without open questions it would not have been possible for the events in France to be raised yesterday? That is as good an illustration as any that a contemporary issue can be raised without notice being given. It is farcical that we have to give a fortnight's notice. The sooner that ends, the better. However, even if we give less notice, it would be a retrogressive step if we took away from Members the opportunity to raise a contemporary issue without having given notice beforehand. I hope that my right hon. Friend will consider that matter carefully.

I have great sympathy with all the points that my hon. Friend made. I do not recall saying yesterday that open questions would be suppressed in any way, although I did plead for a better balance with Members who wish to raise a specific issue being open and clear about what they wish to raise.

I totally endorse what my hon. Friend says about the importance of topicality. I was struck by the fact that not a single question on the middle east was taken at the recent Foreign Office questions. Of course Members found another opportunity to raise their concerns about the crisis in the middle east, but there is something wrong with a tabling system by which Members of the House of Commons, in holding the Foreign Secretary to scrutiny, cannot raise the biggest single foreign policy issue.

A number of my constituents are deeply concerned about the activities of gypsy families on the eastern end of the weald. A key to resolving the problem is the efficient operation of the planning system. At a recent meeting with the local borough council—I should add that it is not Conservative—it was alleged that a change in the Government's approach to the planning inspectorate has directly caused the problem. A letter that the head of planning has written to me this morning states:

"I can only presume that advice which the Inspectorate is now receiving from Government is leading to the very lenient approach…local residents are being severely disadvantaged".

Will the Leader of the House arrange for the Home Secretary to come to the House to explain why that approach is now being adopted?

I regret to say that the hon. Gentleman's local authority did not copy the letter that he received this morning to me, so I obviously cannot comment on it. I will draw his remarks to the attention of the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions, but my willingness to do so does not imply agreement with the view that has been expressed to him. I remain a little sceptical on the basis of the facts as stated.

The House and my right hon. Friend will be aware of the growing incidence of hepatitis C. The Department of Health set up a working group—chaired by Howard Thomas—which reported back before Christmas. I understand that the report is lying on a civil servant's desk at present. Will my right hon. Friend investigate when that report will come before the House and will he make time to debate it?

I fully share my hon. Friend's concern about the incidence of hepatitis C—a very serious condition, which is of concern to health workers as well as patients. It is very important that we take the issue seriously. I cannot say when it is anticipated that the report to which he refers may be published, but I will draw his remarks to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health.

Turning to the Prime Minister's pledge to stabilise street crime in London by the end of September and bearing it in mind that his past delivery on public services has not always been very successful, will the Leader of the House give us an absolute assurance today that the House will be recalled if street crime in London has not been stabilised at the end of September, so that the Prime Minister can come to the Dispatch Box to explain again why he has failed to deliver?

I am always open to invitations to recall Parliament during the Tory party conference, and we shall reflect on that request as the conference coincides with the turn of the month. [Interruption.] I see that some Opposition Members may support me in that endeavour.

The hon. Gentleman is particularly unfair to the Government with his claim that we have failed to deliver on our commitments, given that in recent months we have spectacularly delivered on our commitments to reduce both waiting lists and waiting times, and we shall continue to make progress on that.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that 17 per cent. of British workers still receive no bank holiday pay? Will he arrange for a debate on employment law and employment rights, in which we can highlight some of those bad practices?

My hon. Friend raises an issue of real concern to a number of our constituents. I have always been proud that this Government implemented the working time directive, which for the first time gave 2 million working people the right to paid holidays. We shall always consider the best way to advance working conditions, consistent with our commitment to an enterprise and successfully competitive economy. I shall reflect on what my hon. Friend has said and draw it to the attention of the Secretary of State for Trade and Industry.

Could the Foreign Secretary, the Home Secretary or the Northern Ireland Secretary come before the House in the near future to clarify the situation that is developing in the battle against international terrorism? The homespun element is very much active. We have heard comments clarifying only from the IRA's point of view what has happened in Washington. Yet it is significant that, since 1998, senior members of the IRA, after signing the Belfast agreement, have been involved in international terrorism and continue to murder Roman Catholics in Tyrone and to target and threaten people in this House.

The hon. Gentleman's last point is a weighty and important one: more members of the Catholic community have perished at the hands of nationalist terrorism than by any other means. We fully share his concern about the activity of the IRA in Colombia and elsewhere, and we are concerned about the findings in the report of the committee in Washington. However, that does not have a direct bearing on the present process towards peace within Northern Ireland or the existence of a ceasefire within Northern Ireland and on the mainland, which is warmly supported by the great majority of residents in both places.

Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the progress of his discussions on the memorandums which he recently published, in particular the roll-over of Bills from one parliamentary Session to another and the rescheduling of business to start earlier in the day?

She wants an early night.

I think that my hon. Friend's question is less about when we might finish at the end of the day than when we might start. It is well known that my view is that if the House wishes to restore itself as the place in which the agenda of public debate for the day is set, we must meet earlier in the day.

Why?

The right hon. Gentleman asks why. It is self-evident that if we do not start until the early afternoon and do not carry out our main business until the late afternoon, we have missed the morning opportunity to set the agenda for the day. It is in the interests of all Members of Parliament, whatever side we sit on, that Parliament should be seen as the place where the agenda for public debate is set, not simply a place of response. On the timetable, we are carrying out good and, I am happy to say, consensual progress in our discussions in the Modernisation Committee and I hope that we shall be in a position to report before the House rises for the summer recess.

Will the Leader of the House arrange for an early debate in Government time on the Budget's specific implications for local government? I am advised that the national insurance contributions will cost East Sussex county council £1.8 million—£1.1 million for education alone—and Wealden district council £100,000. Those both equate to a 1 per cent. increase in council tax, so people are hit not only once by the national insurance changes, but a second time by a hike in council tax.

The Government are happy to debate at any time their record on support for local authority expenditure and draw attention to the 20 per cent. increase that we have maintained for five years compared with the almost nil increase of the last five years of the Conservative Government. We are also very happy indeed to discuss relative council tax rates, because the average council tax by area per dwelling for next year will be £738 for Labour authorities, £824 for Liberal Democrat authorities and a whopping £833 for Conservative authorities. In those circumstances, a period of silence from the Opposition would be welcome.

My right hon. Friend mentioned the middle east earlier. He will be aware that the European Parliament recently agreed a resolution calling for an arms embargo on Israel and Palestine and the suspension of the EU-Israel euro-Mediterranean agreement if Israel continues to refuse to comply with recent United Nations resolutions. Will my right hon. Friend introduce a substantive motion in the House to enable hon. Members to express a view on those and other important matters raised in the European Parliament's comprehensive resolution?

Any decision on an embargo of the EU-Israel Association Council falls to the European Union's General Affairs Council, not the European Parliament. In fairness to the Government and the House, I remind my hon. Friend that only the other day we provided a full day for debate on the middle east crisis, which is an issue of the gravest concern to the Government. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary continues to be in close contact with people in the region and the international community to make sure that we do all that we can to secure an end to the violence and a return to the negotiating table and, in addition, to ensure that the international community, particularly the UN Commission on Human Rights, has an opportunity to examine the accusations of a breach of human rights during the occupation.

With more than 240 people, including 30 or 40 possible terrorists, still trapped in the Church of the Nativity, will the Leader of the House say whether the House can do anything to show that we are not sitting back while that horrific tragedy continues to unfold?

The Government and the EU are already doing all that they can to find a resolution to that appalling crisis and the severe conditions that now exist in an important church that is valued by everyone in the Christian community around the world. Javier Solana, the EU High Representative, has been engaged in the area trying to find a way forward and a basis on which the siege can be brought to a satisfactory conclusion. My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary is fully engaged in those efforts and gives what support he can through diplomatic contact. At the end of the day, we cannot make progress unless the Israeli Government themselves are willing to enter into a spirit of trying to find a way forward and a solution that enables us to relieve the appalling suffering now being experienced by people who represent the Christian community and are in the grotto of the Church of the Nativity.

Does my right hon. Friend share my dismay at the continuing communal violence in Gujarat? While we feel for anybody caught in that violence, whether Hindu or Muslim, we must ask why Indian security forces stood back and allowed Muslims to be massacred. There is a question mark over India's treatment of its minorities, so would my right hon. Friend find time for a debate on the issue?

I am aware of the serious concern throughout communities in Britain, including the community represented by my hon. Friend, about events in Gujarat. We share that concern and have expressed it to the Indian Government. I hesitate, however, to follow my hon. Friend in his generalisation; the Muslim community in India is one of the largest in the world, and on the whole India has maintained an honourable tradition of equal rights within an open democracy. It is important that it can continue to do so, which means in part that it must co-operate fully in making sure that we learn the lessons of what may have happened in Gujarat.

The right hon. Gentleman appeared before the Procedure Committee yesterday as part of its inquiry into parliamentary questions and gave valuable and excellent evidence. I suspect that it could well be as a result of that evidence that some publicity has appeared in The Sun newspaper today. Indeed, the comment was made that Prime Minister's questions created theatre, but the overall impression was very negative. The Leader of the House will appreciate that his memorandum on modernisation has an impact on Committees, Select and Standing, that are part of this House. Would he therefore be prepared to meet the Liaison Committee to discuss its concerns about the impact of his proposals on changing sitting times of the House? He can then be fully apprised of the concerns that are currently felt.

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for confirming that I was speaking to a Committee of the House and not to The Sun newspaper yesterday. On the modernisation paper, I would be very happy to meet the Liaison Committee if I am invited to do so to discuss this or any other matter. Indeed, I can see merit in our having such a discussion before we debate the forthcoming proposals on Select Committees.

Is my right hon. Friend aware of the restructuring plans that the ferry companies announced this week, which could undermine the Government's integrated transport policy? Will he consider finding time for a debate on P&O's announcements, which could threaten seafarers' jobs, slow down the movement of freight off the roads and on to rail, and cause all sorts of traffic congestion in Dover?

I totally understand the importance of that issue to my hon. Friend's constituency and constituents. I would not wish to comment on the proposals of a commercial organisation that is making its own judgment, but I am happy to take this opportunity to restate the Government's political priority, which is to ensure that we provide maximum opportunity for freight to travel by rail rather than road. Of course, we want to work with the private sector to secure that objective.

On that very point, will the Leader of the House now invite the Secretary of State for Transport, Local Government and the Regions to come to the House to debate the lack of freight movement through the channel tunnel, as the 72 trains a week that he promised would be passing through the tunnel by 15 April are not yet doing so? Does the right hon. Gentleman share my concern that, as of yesterday, illegal immigrants are jumping off moving trains, which puts their own lives at risk and makes it impossible for the police to apprehend them in this country? Will he take the opportunity to debate that issue with regard to reinstating the bilateral agreement with France and getting a commitment from the French Government to improve security in France, as well as a commitment from the British Government that they will take the French Government to court for breach of free movement provisions under the treaty of Rome?

In the event of a legal move of the sort to which the hon. Lady refers, it would in the first instance be a matter for the Commission rather than necessarily for ourselves, although we remain in discussion with it on the issue. In terms of clandestine entry into Britain, we have made good progress in reducing the number of people who arrive clandestinely and, indeed, of those who arrive without proper paperwork. Those matters are in our control, but provision for freight movement on the other side of the channel is not. We have considerable and continuing dialogue on the matter with the French authorities. We have a joint commission that will meet again shortly and we continue to put every possible pressure on the French authorities to ensure that security is improved to enable freight movements to achieve the capacity of the tunnel. After all, that is in the interests of the French economy and the British economy. Those matters are not, however, within our direct responsibility.

In common with many Members of Parliament from London and the south-east, I represent a borough that has a severe housing shortage. The obvious consequence is the fuelling of house price inflation, coupled with the fact that many council properties—especially houses—have been sold off as a result of the right-to-buy scheme. Like many hon. Members, I see the consequences in my advice surgery week after week. I have also been extensively lobbied by public sector workers, as have many MPs from Greater London. Can we have a debate or at least a statement on housing policy?

I understand the problems to which my hon. Friend refers. In particular, we all fully understand their importance to the provision of decent public services throughout the south-east, which requires housing whose cost is within the income of people working in the public service. I assure him that the matter is very actively under consideration in the Government. I am sure that my colleagues will report to Parliament whenever it is appropriate to do so.

Will the Leader of the House have a word with his right hon. Friend the Prime Minister about an error that the Prime Minister appeared to make at Prime Minister's questions yesterday, when he told the House that police numbers were now at record levels? He neglected to say anything about special constables, who are also police officers, and who are leaving in alarming numbers. In the Essex force, for instance, there were more than 1,000 specials when this Government came to power; sadly, there are now only about 400. They play a vital role in reinforcing the regular police, particularly at weekends, and we cannot afford to do without them. Would not one way to improve Prime Minister's questions be to ensure that the Prime Minister gets his figures right?

Let me say to the House that the Prime Minister got his figures absolutely right when he said yesterday that the police establishment was at record numbers. That is true, and the number of those in training is also at a record level. Had the Conservatives paid the same attention to increasing the police establishment when they were in office, instead of presiding over a decline in the number of police officers, we might not have the problems that we now have on our streets.

Is my right hon. Friend aware that Sunderland association football club gives a great deal of assistance to charity? It is not just that it keeps giving points away to other teams; its manager. Peter Reid, is involved with a charity event run by Emmanuel college, Gateshead, which raises money to send mercy ships to Africa. The team's striker, Niall Quinn, is involved in a testimonial game on 14 May, the proceeds of which will go to charities in the north-east of England and in Dublin. Might it not be a good idea for us to have an easy load that day, to allow those of us with tickets to go to the game and to encourage people to buy non-attendance tickets, which are available for this charitable purpose?

I shall, of course, take careful note of my hon. Friend's request when I plan the business for 14 May, although I shall have other factors to consider when I make those decisions. In the meantime, I am happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating the Sunderland club and its members on the work that they do for charity. I recognise that many local football clubs provide an important focus for community identity and community pride.

Will the Leader of the House assure us that, after the local elections next week, there will be a thorough assessment of the security and confidentiality of the experimental postal voting system that is to be used in the London borough of Havering and elsewhere? Will he arrange for a debate on the Floor of the House to allow my colleagues and me to raise the real concerns of our constituents on this matter? Those concerns are deterring them from voting, which is the opposite of the intention of that experiment.

I would certainly welcome a longer opportunity for the hon. Lady to explain why her constituents are being deterred from voting by the wider use of postal voting, which is the basis of the pilot scheme in her borough. I can assure her that the Government will be looking very closely at the results of those experiments. The pilots and experiments have been set up precisely so that we can consider the lessons to be learned from them and evaluate what happens on those occasions. As Chairman of the Cabinet Committee on e-democracy, I hope to spend polling day in the London borough of Newham, studying the borough's use of the internet to see whether it has facilitated voting and contributed to more people voting than might otherwise have been the case. I very much welcome the innovative way in which it is taking the facility, in advance of polling day, to old folk's homes and hospitals, to enable people there to vote using the internet in a way that they would not have been able to do on polling day.

May I draw the attention of my right hon. Friend to early-day motion 1171?

[That this House congratulates the staff of further education and sixth form colleges on their outstanding service to over four million students; welcomes the increased capital and revenue funding now available to the sector; notes, however, that colleges' core funding remains at 90 per cent. of 1995–96 levels and that the funding gap between schools and sixth form colleges for the same three A-level package remains at £1,000 per pupil; further notes the current recruitment crisis caused by low pay throughout the sector; welcomes the campaign led by the Association of Colleges, NATFHE and NUS, and supported by all the sector's recognised trade unions including UNISON, TGWU, GMB, ATL and ACM, for increased financial support for further education students, an improvement in the core funding allocated to colleges and a recognition of the recruitment crisis caused by growing salary differentials between schools and colleges; and calls on the Government to provide a fair allocation to the further education sector in the forthcoming comprehensive spending review.] It deals with the funding of the further education sector—an issue that attracted considerable attention at education questions earlier this morning—and focuses on the differentials between funding for colleges and sixth forms in schools. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is unique in the public services to have such a large differential in salaries and per capita funding between two areas doing essentially the same job? Will he find time for an early debate on the subject? [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear!"]

My hon. Friend raises an important issue, which is, I detect, supported by a number of others in the Chamber. He is aware that the Government are committed to trying to ensure not only that there is adequate funding for further and higher education, but that we make progress towards greater equality within that funding. I shall certainly draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Education and Skills to his early-day motion, and I am sure that he will find opportunities to press his concern through one of the many ways open to him in the House.

The Leader of the House is aware that I have previously raised in this place the plight of cancer sufferers in my constituency, particularly women with breast cancer who face an unprecedented wait for radiotherapy following surgery. The most recent case is that of a lady in Battle. She was operated on after Christmas, but has been told that she must wait until June to begin radiotherapy treatment.

Unfortunately, that is by no means an isolated case. This morning, I met the president of the Royal College of Radiotherapists, who told me that, despite the crisis prevailing right across the country,

"there is no long term plan for the provision of radiotherapy treatment which clearly anticipates the level of radiographers and radiotherapy equipment, relative to forecast demand."

May we have a debate that clearly addresses the issue, so that the Government have an opportunity to reply and tackle the crisis head on?

My impression is that the House has not been short of opportunities to explore health issues and health provision, and I am sure that that will continue to be the case. The hon. Gentleman raises a precise issue, but I plainly cannot comment on his constituent's case. However, I am happy to communicate the particulars to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Health and to secure a reply.

On the general issue, I remind the House that the Government have increased cancer treatment funding and the number of cancer specialists. We shall continue to do so, and the results that we are securing show increased cancer survival rates. We want to build on that. That does not mean that every single case has improved, but it does mean that we must ensure that support services such as radiography are properly funded and properly developed. I would not want the hon. Gentleman's one case to obscure the general picture, which is more investment and more results for the cancer service.

Although I had wanted to thank Mr. Speaker while he was in the Chair for providing lunch for my daughter as part of "bring your daughter to work" day, I am pleased that he has gone to meet the girls. Perhaps, Mr. Deputy Speaker, you will convey my thanks to Mr. Speaker for hosting that event.

Young people will benefit eventually from the knowledge-based economy, which is at the heart of the Government's programme, but does the Leader of the House share my distress at today's Science and Technology Committee report, which points out that research and development in many science subjects will fall substantially next year because of the research assessment exercise? Will he bring the Minister responsible for science to the House soon for a long-overdue debate on science policy, so that we can redress deficiencies such as the 22 per cent. decrease in nursing research over the next year?

I very much hope that my hon. Friend's daughter does not fall into the error of thinking that going to work means being taken to lunch. That may result in sad disappointment in later life.

My hon. Friend raises a question relating to the Select Committee. I heard the Chairman on the radio this morning, and he made some interesting points. We shall, of course, reply to the Select Committee in the usual way and I am sure that the Science Minister will be crafting a robust response. I can only say to my hon. Friend that it is important that we get the balance right between the research output of our higher education centres and their commitment to ensuring that they give proper attention and proper energy to the education of the next generation of students.

Will the Leader of the House find time for a debate on the strategic, environmental and commercial issues surrounding the proposal to site a new airport in the Thames estuary, which is particularly important to my constituents? Although such an airport would impact on a number of communities, it would impact particularly on 40,000 of my constituents who live on Canvey island. They would be delighted if we debated the proposal's impact on the environment and local infrastructure networks, as that would ensure that their interests are covered.

I understand that there is not such a proposal, but the issue is under consideration. I cannot believe that we would make any strategic decision about aviation or airports in the south-east or elsewhere without full discussion and exploration by the House. Any decision must be a balance between the need of the nation to ensure that we have proper aviation facilities and services, and the important environmental and social considerations to which the hon. Gentleman referred.

The Leader of the House will recall that last week I raised the question of the £32 million contract for smallpox vaccine awarded to PowderJect and the large donation to the Labour party by Paul Drayson, its chief executive officer. We have now heard that PowderJect will subcontract that work to a Danish company, Bavarian Nordic. PowderJect is only acting as the middleman, so the Government could have gone straight to that Danish company and saved the taxpayer a lot of money. Can we have a debate, so that the Government can answer the allegation that they are for sale to the highest bidder? When the right hon. Gentleman replies, will he not go on about the Tories, because people are not interested in what the last Tory Government did in the previous century?

The hon. Gentleman is right about that.

My hon. Friends have stolen my punchline. I fully concur with the hon. Gentleman that the public are not interested in the Conservative party.

I remind the hon. Gentleman of what I said to him last week. PowderJect submitted the best, most cost-effective and most attractive of five tenders. It has long been the practice in the public sector that the company that secures the offer of work can then consider the best way to provide it. It may be that on this occasion, as on others, it has involved other companies and other plants in the production. The Danish company to which he referred did not get the contract because, as far as I am aware, it did not bid for it.

I welcome a debate that gives us a chance to review progress on international development and the United Kingdom's contribution to it. Since 1997, we have increased the time that the House of Commons spends discussing international development issues, both in Question Time and in the very effective Select Committee on International Development. I am keen to have annual debates, so that each year we can consider how the world is doing, what contribution we are making and where things are improving. We are moving towards that. There is definitely a growing interest in international development among hon. Members from all parties, and that is important and welcome.

No one can but argue that the issue of international development and poverty and inequality in the world is the biggest moral issue facing humanity, given that Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development countries have enormous wealth and opportunity for education and health care. We can always call for improvement, but compared with the lives of our great grandparents, we live in enormous comfort and people are able to fulfil their ambitions, exercise their freedom and develop their talents.

One in five of all human beings who share this planet with us—1.2 billion people—still live in abject poverty. They have purchasing power equivalent to less than $1 a day, and that is not a measure of what a dollar would buy in a poor country, but in the United States of America. It is a minute amount of money Half of humanity live on less than $2 day.

We are living in an era of rapidly increasing global integration. People see more of one another than ever before because of the quality of communications that are now available. World population is urbanising rapidly. For the first time in human history more than half of humanity live in urban areas, and the projections are that over the next 15 years it will reach 65 per cent. Teeming slums of masses of poor people see television pictures of how the rest of us live. That is a recipe for conflict and tension. It should shame the rest of the world, given our knowledge, capital and capacity to promote development.

I have no doubt that this is the biggest moral issue that we face, but it is also enormously important for the future safety and sustainability of the planet. Such levels of poverty are often linked to failed and imploding states, the spread of conflict, and the spread of diseases such as HIV/AIDS, which is spreading across the world, multi-drug resistant tuberculosis, and much more pernicious and dangerous forms of malaria. Indeed, the area of the world in which malaria is endemic is increasing. There are also the pressures associated with refugee movements and people leaving their homelands. There are more refugees in the world than at any point in history, and most of them are hosted by poor countries. Moreover, great strains are being placed on the environment, such as growing desertification and over-fishing.

As I have said, this is the biggest moral issue that we face, but if we do not make quicker progress, the prospect of bitter divisions, more conflict, more instability, more environmental degradation and the spread of disease will threaten future generations, wherever they live. In Afghanistan, we witnessed the consequences of a failed state and the ability of pernicious movements to hide themselves there, endangering and threatening the future of the world, as well as the people of Afghanistan.

If we are not careful in doing better by Africa, we will have virtually a failed continent on our hands. That would cause enormous suffering to the people of Africa, but it would also endanger the future safety and security of Europe. Africa is our near abroad; the distance from the south of Spain to the north of Africa is less than 20 miles. If Africa remains in its current condition, the human suffering will be appalling, and the future of our two continents will also be put in great danger.

I pay tribute to the work that the Secretary of State's Department is doing. On broken states, she will doubtless be aware that there are more than 700,000 registered refugees and displaced persons in Yugoslavia, Serbia and Montenegro. What can we do within our own continent to try to ameliorate that situation?

The hon. Gentleman is right, and programmes are in place in all former communist countries to help them make the transition to a democratic market economy. Of course, such countries have to adjust their systems of government. We are trying to bring stability to the Balkans by helping the countries concerned to build up their systems of government, so that they can grow their economies, care better for their people, and get refugees resettled. We are committed to all those tasks, and we are working as effectively as we can to achieve that objective.

The question arises of the suffering of those who originate from Serbia and Montenegro, but the pressure of refugee movements from eastern Europe to western Europe has played into the hands of those who have tried to incite far right, racist politics in western Europe by putting the blame on the many refugees who have settled there. Doing what is right and doing what is in our self-interest are not in conflict they are entirely complementary.

On present trends, Africa is getting poorer, and much greater efforts must be made to help—a point to which I shall return shortly. In the past five years, we have worked hard to improve the effectiveness of the international development system, which is full of conferences and grand declarations. If even a minor proportion of the declarations made and agreements reached at various conferences had been implemented, the world would be in better shape. We have tried to hone the international system, so that its objectives can be focused on much more clearly, and to secure collaboration with the World Bank, regional development banks and the UN system. That is preferable to the funding by various organisations of lots of separate initiatives and projects, which uses up much of the administrative capacity of the organisations themselves, and of the Governments whom they seek to support.

We have made considerable progress. Our first White Paper made it a target to get the international system agreed so that we could all work together to implement the international development targets. At the millennium assembly—which was attended by more Prime Ministers and heads of state than had ever before assembled for a single event—the world agreed to seek to secure the millennium development targets, as the international development targets were renamed.

One of those targets is to halve, by 2015, the number of people in the world measured as living in extreme poverty in 1990. Meeting that target means that 1 billion people will have to make the journey out of extreme poverty. Other targets include getting all the children in the world into quality primary education, and reducing infant, child and maternal mortality. The latter requires improved health care systems and that people have access to clean water and better nourishment.

Last weekend, my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and I attended the spring meetings of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. We have ensured that both organisations are focused on seeking to deliver those targets in countries around the world. They are also focused on measuring the reform programmes that they recommend to developing countries against progress towards the targets that have been set. Where once there were mixed messages and differing objectives, the measure of economic reform is now the systematic reduction of poverty and the provision of better services for people.

That is a very important consensus, and it is a new departure for the world. Historically, there have been lots of clashes between the World Bank and the UN system. Nowadays, there is much more collaboration and effective working together.

At Doha, we achieved agreement on the very important proposal that there should be a new round of trade negotiations to deliver better trading opportunities to developing countries. If we can deliver on that agenda, the result will be much fairer world trading rules.

Fairer trading rules will give developing countries a much better chance to grow their economies. Of Africa's total exports, 70 per cent. consists of unprocessed commodities. The payment that countries receive for such commodities is very low. Most of the added value for commodities such as cashew nuts, tea, coffee and chocolate is added on in Europe. As soon as African countries start to try to process some of those commodities they hit all sorts of tariff walls and escalations. On chocolate, for example, those tariffs and charges add up to 100 per cent. of the original cost.

The present trade rules almost amount to a conspiracy to keep Africa underdeveloped. Better trading opportunities will give African countries a better chance to grow their economies and create jobs. At Doha, we agreed a framework to deliver those better opportunities, but the task of ensuring that they are delivered will be considerable, and will require much attention.

I wholeheartedly agree with what the Secretary of State is saying, but how does she intend to get developing countries better represented in the World Trade Organisation? Time and time again, those countries are failed by their lack of representation, and their lack of capacity and expertise in these matters.

The hon. Lady is right. We need improvements, but some of the criticism of the WTO at the time of Seattle was terribly misinformed. The WTO was born out of the most recent Uruguay round of trade negotiations. With its inception, the world moved forward to adopting a trade system based on rules and membership. Before that happened, the big trading blocs negotiated with each other in such trade negotiations, and the developing countries tended not to have a strong voice. Although it was of course right to bring down the protectionist barriers erected in the 1930s, the result was that developing countries were squeezed out of the negotiations.

Since the WTO was established, more than 140 countries—including China—have decided to join. Developing countries, therefore, make up the majority of the WTO's membership. That creates the possibility of them getting together and negotiating as a group, and thereby getting more fairness into international trade rules. That is how we got to Doha, but the problem remains that some of the poorest countries do not even have an ambassador in Geneva. We and other countries are working with the Swiss to set up a secretariat for those countries—an organisation with pooled resources that will enable them to be properly represented.

In addition, the UK has taken a leading role in the establishment of what might be considered a type of law centre, giving developing countries access to advice from trade lawyers. Such lawyers tend to be enormously expensive, but we now have a joint facility giving the poorest countries proper legal advice, and that helps them to exercise their rights under WTO rules.

My Department also has a considerable programme of working with UNCTAD—the UN conference on trade and development—and others to strengthen developing countries' negotiating and trade analysis capacity so that they are more able to be clear about their self-interest and negotiate their self-interest in all trade negotiations. Trade has become enormously complex, yet it is crucial for the chance to grow economies. So we are making a lot of progress in that field.

I was very impressed in Doha by the performance of the developing countries. The countries of Africa moved together. As Latin America, Africa, Asia and the Caribbean have shared as well as different interests, they need to pool their interests and negotiate together to secure more from the OECD economies. That will involve us in reforming the common agricultural policy, which we would welcome, but is also important in the interests of developing countries.

I wonder whether capacity is also relevant to debt relief. The early-day motion with the most signatures calls for more and faster debt relief. Is it the case that some of the poorest countries do not have the capacity to argue their side, which may be holding them back from getting more debt relief? I am thinking particularly of commodity prices—the analysis has not been strong enough to get the message through so far.

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. When the debt relief process started, many countries did not even know what they owed. There were bundles of bills in their central banks and a lot of work had to be done to tidy up and build the capacity for countries to manage their debt. We are engaged in work to build up countries' debt management capacity. It is quite right that countries should borrow responsibly and take out loans, but they need to manage their debt and ensure that they can afford to repay it.

I think that 26 countries have now qualified for heavily indebted poor countries status. Sierra Leone has just qualified, which is very good news. It is about to have elections and there are police across the country, which is a welcome development. However, there is a problem with the HIPC initiative. It had a formula for how much debt a country could afford in relation to earnings from its exports. Because commodity prices have dropped considerably and oil prices have gone up, many countries such as Uganda, which had already exited, are no longer sustainable under the formula. That was a matter of discussion at the World Bank meeting at the weekend. We will have to find extra resources for many countries to achieve sustainability. That is another argument for opening trade access. If countries are dependent on the export of a few commodities and prices fall, their economic development is called into question. All the countries that have been through the HIPC process have been helped to manage their debt for the future so that they do not get into these difficulties again.

The other very important meeting that took place a short time ago was the UN conference at Monterrey on financing for development. There was remarkable consensus between OECD and developing countries about the best kind of reform in which to grow economies to reduce poverty. It really is an extraordinary change since the days of the cold war. In the past, developing and developed countries would have found contentious, ideas such as encouraging the public sector to grow, having effective governance, regulating an economy responsibly and having better public services that are universal, but today there is agreement on the reform agenda across the world. That was one of the things accomplished at Monterrey. Again, there was a focus on implementing measures, not on arguing about what constitutes a desirable reform agenda.

I totally agree with the right hon. Lady's analysis of the need to help Africa develop so that it is capable of producing more than just the most basic staple commodities. We need to reduce institutional and trade barriers for that to happen. We have our own part to play with the Commonwealth Development Corporation. Is the right hon. Lady happy though that, in the past two years for which figures are available, the number of investments that the CDC made in sub-Saharan Africa almost halved from 41 to 26?

I am happy with the way that the CDC is being reformed. Some of the criticism is grossly misinformed. Our proposals, which the House supported, were to reform the CDC so that rather than being a public sector investment institution, looking for low rates of return and with a limited investment fund, its expertise on investment in developing countries could be used so that it became more of a conduit for private sector investment in those poorer countries—places where the markets do not attract much investment at all. That meant selling on some of the businesses that it owned to local or other ownership so that they could continue to function, and trying to increase the rates of return to encourage the private sector to move into those countries.

Last year was especially difficult for the world economy. Most investment houses have reduced their estimate of the value of their investments because of the state of the world economy. That has affected the CDC, too.

We are engaging in a difficult reform. It is being watched by other public sector development investment institutions across the world. If we succeed, the institution will be enormously important. Inward investment will provide the means to achieve technology transfer, access to clean water, sanitation, electricity, modern communications and so on. The amount of such investment going to the poorest countries is still extremely small.

We should try to find another opportunity to discuss at greater length the progress of the CDC reform. The hon. Gentleman correctly expressed the concern of the House that we get that right, but I completely reject the criticisms, for example, those in the article in The Times, which were malicious and ill informed.

I share the Secretary of State's concerns, and welcome the definite co-ordination that is under way.

The issue relates not only to inward investment but to what countries can do for themselves. Does the right hon. Lady welcome the fact that the President of South Africa has at last acknowledged that AIDS and HIV must be tackled for the good of the country? On a negative point, does she share my concern about the latest threat in Zimbabwe? White farmers have been dealt with and action is now being taken against Indian traders. Surely, that will further impoverish the country.

I agree that the changes in South Africa—offering treatment to prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV/AIDS and offering tests and anti-retroviral treatment to women who may have been infected after sexual assault or rape—are both right in themselves and will heal a bitter row that probably distracted the country from getting on with the task of preventing the spread of the infection.

HIV/AIDS is yet another burden for Africa. It has also spread considerably in India, and Russia has the fastest growth rate in the world, so it is wrong for people to think that the disease is a problem only in Africa, although it is more advanced there.

The good news is the achievement in Uganda, where rates of infection are down to 6 per cent. from the high 20s. There is a massive reduction in the rate of infection among young people. That shows what can be done and what needs to be done throughout the whole continent.

I agree that Zimbabwe is a complete tragedy. The economy is collapsing; there is negative growth, and hunger and poverty are increasing. The elections were flawed. The country should be an engine of growth in Africa. It has a highly educated population, good land and other resources, but the economy is being wrecked and the people are suffering terribly. We must hope for, and work towards, an end to its misgovernment so that the people of Zimbabwe have the chance for a better future.

I was describing the achievements of the past year and focusing on the world's efforts. At Monterrey, more official development assistance—aid—was committed by both the United States and the European Union after years of declining aid spend. That was a turnaround in the world's commitment to development and is a step towards the achievement of the millennium development goals.

The EU made a commitment that, by 2006, we would reach an average of 0.39 per cent. of gross domestic product. That means an extra $7 billion every year thereafter. The US made a commitment to an increase of $5 billion from the same date.

So that is good news. It is still not as much as the amounts that the reports commissioned by the World Bank and from former President Zedillo of Mexico said will be needed from the world in aid resources to reach the millennium development goals—that is, roughly double the assistance that is already given through the international system. However, the meeting reversed the decline that has taken place for many years in the international system, and that helped to make it an important success.

I am becoming a little confused by the number of declarations, conferences and pledges on development that are going on around the world, so will the Secretary of State clarify a couple of points?

First, what is the relationship between the fund recently set up at Monterrey and the global health fund? I presume that they are completely separate, but is there any cross-over? Secondly, has the money merely been pledged or is it in a bank somewhere gaining interest that can be dished out to the countries that need it? I sometimes worry that such pledges remain just pledges, and may seem grandiose but do not really amount to much.

A fund was not set up at Monterrey—rather, the United States and the European Union committed themselves to grow their spending on aid. It was a commitment on future spending, so the money is not in the bank. The US has suggested that its $5 billion might go into a new fund that is run in a different way to USAID. The EU's pledge is to increase our spending through existing channels, not through establishing a new fund. So no, there is no money in the bank. There is a pledge and a commitment, and it will be our duty and that of others to ensure that the EU keeps to it. It would be a betrayal of the developing world to sign up to a radical reform agenda, and then to fail to keep our part of the promise.

The global health fund arose from the G7 meeting and from commitments made by Kofi Annan. There has been some confusion about whether it is only for HIV/AIDS—it is not—and whether it is the only instrument for getting more spending into the care of those with HIV/AIDS, malaria and TB, three illness that cause enormous ill health and suffering, and thereby economic loss, in developing countries. We in the UK have always seen the global health fund as a fund to provide drugs and commodities through which, by pooling resources internationally, we can achieve greater reliability of supply and lower prices, and then encourage developing countries to improve their delivery systems. As a country, we have pledged $200 million to the fund. We are already spending £1 billion on strengthening countries' health systems.

That is what the fund is for. Because Kofi Annan made a speech saying that we need an extra $10 billion a year to combat HIV/AIDS—he meant all forms of spending, including Government spending—everyone sees the global health fund as a failure, which it is not. It is in the final stages of appointing its chief executive, or whatever title the person is to have, and it has received a series of applications from developing countries on which it is about to make decisions.

The final UN international conference that is required to complete the architecture is the forthcoming world summit on sustainable development in Johannesburg, Rio plus 10. We have discussed that in the Select Committee. I hope that the prize that we will get from that conference is an overcoming of the division between the environmental lobby of the north, which tends to be cautious about promoting development because it believes that the world is under strain and cannot afford any more economic growth, and the view from the south that such an environmental agenda locks them out of development. I very much hope that we will get a real commitment to sustainable development at Johannesburg. We need to guarantee development for the poor, but in the context of a sustainable planet, and to bring the development and environmental lobbies together properly to promote sustainability, rather than a "do not disturb, do not develop" approach. If we can achieve that, we will have global agreement on how to drive the world forward.

The Secretary of State took part in an interesting sitting of the Select Committee on Environmental Audit on just this point. At the risk of sounding like a voice for the north, does she agree that it is important in the context of Johannesburg to transfer our technology to developing countries? That offers huge opportunities both for our domestic markets and for developing countries, which could be enabled to bypass some of the environmental degradation that we have undergone through the process of industrialisation. For example, we could take them straight to the future of electricity generation—embedded generation instead of huge grid connections.

Of course I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we should transfer not old technology but modern, more environmentally sustainable technology. However, we will not transfer technology on the scale that is needed. Half of humanity has no sanitation, and more than a billion people have no access to clean water, which means that their children constantly get sick because the water has been used for other purposes by other human beings. The need for investment in sanitation, water and energy is massive, and we will get that investment only if we can grow economies so that countries can afford more imports. They would then be able to afford the transfer of technology that occurs through trade and foreign direct investment. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that we must make sure that any transferred technology is state of the art, rather than old and polluting—that would be a terrible development.

The achievements of the past year which I have just summarised mean that the world now agrees on the agenda and on the best way to engage in reform. We need now to drive forward implementation and to improve the measurement of our progress in achieving development goals. The World Bank is calling a meeting in June to improve the collection of statistics and measurements across the world system, so that we can learn from the progress that has been made and find out which countries are not making progress.

At the meeting last weekend, the World Bank issued a report on progress towards the development targets. We are on track to achieve the targets to halve poverty, so we are set by 2015 to reduce by a billion the number of people living in abject poverty. That is partly because progress in China has been remarkable for the past 10 years or so. Progress in India and Bangladesh has been considerable, but it could be better, and we must remember that two thirds of the world's poor live in Asia.

We are not, however, on track in Africa—it is getting poorer. The population is growing faster than the economy. Africa is by far the poorest continent, and 50 per cent. of its people live in abject poverty. I repeat: it is getting poorer. Twenty per cent. of the continent's people are living under conditions of conflict. For example, the Democratic Republic of the Congo is hardly a state. It is an enormously resource-rich part of the world, as big as western Europe, but it lacks the institutions of a modern state and it is in desperate humanitarian need.

We have to do better in Africa, and we have two opportunities to do so. The first is through NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa's Development, in which African leaders are coming together to say that they are determined to do better, to end the conflicts, to reform their states and run them better and to provide better services for their people. That gives us an opportunity to respond to Africa's own reform agenda. In the past the agenda has tended to be set in Washington and imposed on reluctant states, so it has been more likely to fail. The importance of NEPAD is that Africa is leading its own drive for development.

There is another major opportunity. We must concentrate on ensuring that Sudan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Angola all come to peace. According to World Bank estimates, the levels of conflict in Africa are costing 2 per cent. of economic growth to every country on the continent, including those that are not in conflict, simply because of the reputation of Africa, the difficulties of transport systems and so forth. If we can focus on bringing to peace those three massive, resource-rich countries, which straddle the continent and have been engaged in war for two generations, that really would improve Africa's prospects.

As usual, I do not find that much to disagree with in what the right hon. Lady is saying, which is always slightly depressing for a Conservative Member. Does she agree, however, that NEPAD has resulted in marvellous words with which we all concur, but we need to see some concrete action from its leaders, particularly the President of Nigeria, who presides over an extremely corrupt state and yet has signed up to NEPAD's statement on the importance of good governance and accountability?

I agree very much with the hon. Gentleman. We must have implementation, but it is important that Africa is calling for reform itself rather than being hectored by others. I agree that lack of progress on reform in Nigeria is very worrying. In that oil-rich country, 70 per cent. of the population live in abject poverty, and all its systems are riddled with corruption and ineffectiveness. One in five of all Africans cannot go forward without Nigeria going forward, and progress has been very slow.

Nigeria is now in pre-election time. Some of the reforms in which Governments in developing countries must engage to run their economies better and provide better services to their people threaten vested interests and are difficult to implement. A wave of reform tends not to happen in a pre-election period, so I am worried that there will be still more delay before the reform agenda can be driven forward in Nigeria. Nigeria is in bad shape and we must do all we can to ensure that the reform effort moves forward so that the rich oil resources there are used for the benefit of the people and not just for the benefit of a corrupt elite while the rest go poor.

This is an important time of opportunity. There is more and more agreement across the world about what needs to be done and about the urgency of doing it, and more and more knowledge about what works in development. We now need to progress more sharply and rapidly with implementing what we have agreed. Extra aid is needed, but we need to use the existing aid better. Only half of the $55 billion that is already in the international system is spent in low-income countries. Much of it is used for foreign policy purposes or gestures or to procure trade for the giving country. If it were directed to the poor and put behind reformers, its poverty-reducing effectiveness could be increased by 50 per cent.

We have redirected the whole of the UK effort and untied our aid, but we need to drive that process forward across the world. As the House knows, the EC is a major sinner in this regard and is getting worse. We have worked for a reform agenda that is being put in place and that will improve the performance of the staff and the capacity of the organisation to spend money, but the way in which it is allocated has moved even further away from poor people, which is a disgrace. We are working hard, and we need parliamentarians across Europe to join in exposing this scandal and to establish a determination to do better.

That problem is the result of gesture spending and old alliances. Lots of resources go to Latin America, for example, where most of the countries are middle-income. They are the most unequal countries in the world, however, and they have lots of poor and excluded people. Those countries do not need aid resources; they need to use their own resources better to include all of their people, educate all of their children and provide work and opportunities to all of their people to improve their lives. We must therefore work to redirect the money available to where it would be most effective.

We also need to implement the commitments made at Doha. The European Union is about to negotiate regional trade agreements with all the African, Caribbean and Pacific countries under the Cotonou agreement. We need to keep an eye on that to make sure that the offers are generous and that they improve the trading opportunities of developing countries.

We must do better in terms of dealing with conflict. The Government have two mechanisms—a global conflict prevention pooled arrangement bringing together the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, my Department and the Ministry of Defence, and one for Africa that I chair. The bringing together of those three Departments and their expertise has really improved UK thinking about conflict resolution and conflict prevention. I am trying to focus sharply on bringing the three big conflicts to an end, which would transform the prospects of the continent. I hope that the House will watch that and try to give support. If the kind of international energy and quality of attention that went into the Bonn agreement for Afghanistan were put into the three conflicts in Africa, they could be brought to an end.

Having recently visited Sudan, I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend on the prospect for peace and the imperative for peace in that country. We commend the efforts that are being made to step up the diplomatic process and influence.

With regard to Angola, which I know my right hon. Friend has visited recently, will she explain further the role that this country could take to try to eliminate some of the desperate circumstances that some of us have seen there, particularly in internally displaced person camps? There seems at last to be an opportunity to get to grips with those appalling circumstances.

Angola has been at war since the early 1960s. It fought the Portuguese for its independence, and the Russians allied with the country, so it declared a one-party state and adopted a Soviet model of development. That led to support from then apartheid South Africa and the United States for UNITA, a rebel movement. A civil war has therefore been going on there ever since independence. Again, although it is a very rich country in terms of natural resources—it has masses of oil, diamonds and other rich resources—it suffers from desperate poverty.

The country has now come to peace, which is a very important opportunity, and it is sincere about wanting that peace to succeed. The UNITA fighters must be disarmed, demobilised and resettled, which is a considerable task. A third of the population of the country has been displaced in the course of the war—4 million people have been removed from their land, and the country is littered with land mines. The resettlement effort will therefore be enormous, but it should be an engine of economic development, given its richness in natural resources.

The UK does not have a big programme in Angola. We do not speak Portuguese and do not understand Portuguese bureaucratic systems—I am not sure how many people do; it is an intensely bureaucratic tradition. I am working to release resources from the Department to help to bring in the best advice on how to demobilise and resettle people, however, and I have offered to enable a team representing the Government and UNITA to come to Sierra Leone to talk to all the people engaged in disarmament, demobilisation and rehabilitation there, to learn the lessons. I had discussions at the World Bank meeting, and a mission is about to go to Angola to help with DDR.

Angola also has terrible problems of corruption, and the IMF programme there has gone off-track. I had discussions with Hans Kohler about looking again at Angola, as it is no longer a country in conflict but a post-conflict country. That does not mean that we should lower our standards on reform, but the effort is worth while. I shall probably contribute some expertise from the UK, too. Angola should be able to access international expertise to help to move its peace process forward.

I have a couple of points. We are talking about the Sudan, the Congo and Angola, but there are conflicts in other parts of the developing world. Although they may be at peace at the moment, the fact that they are not oil-rich or diamond-rich means that they tend to get neglected. Not too long ago, Ethiopia and Eritrea were at war. In one battle, something like 80,000 people were killed, but that did not even appear on page 17 of The Guardian. It was forgotten about because the countries involved do not have oil, diamonds and so on. Two of the poorest countries—they are both in the UN's bottom six—were wasting huge amounts of resources on fighting each other.

Does my right hon. Friend agree that we need to spend more time and effort on all the countries that are in conflict rather than just on those that are highlighted because of their natural resources? In addition to Sierra Leone, will she consider the success in Mozambique on bringing the former Renamo and Frelimo guerrillas together after the civil war there? That might be a good example for Angola.

I agree that we should bring wars to an end everywhere. I do not agree that the focus on Angola, Sudan and the DRC is coming from people who are interested in investing in those countries. Those countries are in such an appalling state that their natural riches are not being deployed to the benefit of their people. I do not therefore apologise for focusing on the Sudan, the DRC and Angola, as, if they moved to peace, it would transform the prospects of the whole continent.

My hon. Friend is right to say that the Ethiopia-Eritrea war was an absolute tragedy. It was fought out like the first world war with lots of young men thrown at each other and slaughtering each other over a barren piece of territory. There has now been an adjudication on the border, which both sides have accepted. There are no rich resources in that border area, and the war was completely wasteful and caused great loss of life and suffering, and was a setback to economic development.

I am hopeful about Ethiopia. Prime Minister Meles is a remarkable man. He is determined to bring reform to Ethiopia. It is one of the poorest countries, with a gross domestic product of only $100 a head. Some 62 per cent. of its children are chronically malnourished and many of those who do survive are stunted physically and mentally. Even if they get the chance to go to school, they will never be able to develop their natural talents. We desperately need a major reform effort in Ethiopia.

I agree that Mozambique is a great success. It is a very poor country, but has had 10 per cent. economic growth for many years. We need similar levels of growth in other countries in Africa if we are to halve poverty there.

I agree about the importance of focusing attention on those particular conflicts in Africa to get the economies growing again. However, does the right hon. Lady agree that it was counter-productive to increase substantially this country's arms sales to Africa over the past four to five years? I accept that countries have a right to defend themselves, but increasing arms sales, which are usually paid for by increasing debt, goes against sustainable development and the alleviation of poverty.

I have seen the claim about increased United Kingdom arms sales to Africa made in documents produced by non-governmental organisations. I am afraid that I have not checked the figures, but I think that they are largely explained by South Africa's big arms order. Let me make my position clear: properly procured weapons and equipment for properly and transparently managed armed forces are essential to achieve stability and order in the continent of Africa, so some arms sales are legitimate and right. However, there is much corruption in the arms industry throughout the international system. Indeed, Transparency International published a report on that today. Badly procured arms and wasteful expenditure often lead to bloated armed forces, which sometimes results in coups. That type of procurement is the last thing that countries need in order to develop.

Africa needs better, more disciplined, more transparently managed and properly equipped police forces, courts, judicial systems and armed forces. I am pleased that we have agreed to carry out a defence review with Uganda. People from the Ministry of Defence are in Uganda helping it to look objectively at the security threat that it faces, what equipment it needs and the size of its armed forces. It will be possible for it to manage its expenditure properly through public finances rather than secretly, which is how most defence expenditure is managed at the moment. I agree that the issue is important. We are making progress, but we need to make much more progress on supply and demand.

The world is grossly unequal and in danger, but we have an opportunity to make enormous progress. We have great clarity about what we need to do. All sorts of lessons have been provided to promote effective development and some countries are doing very well. Those examples need to be widened. If we also do better at resolving conflict, we could have a period in which countries make enormous advances. It is within the grasp of our generation to remove abject poverty from the human condition, which was only a dream for previous generations. That is an achievable objective, but it is not inevitable that we will be successful. If we are not, the world will become more unstable and more dangerous for us all, and no privileged country will be able to buy its way out of the trouble that will otherwise spread across the world.

People are so weary of politicians carping about each other that I want to begin by congratulating the Government on holding this debate on the occasion of the publication of their annual report on international development. We asked for that during the passage of the International Development Act 2002, and although the amendment was rejected, we are delighted that it has been accepted in spirit. I think this is the first time that the publication of the annual report has given rise to an annual debate. All of us with a deep interest in international development appreciate the opportunity that that offers us.

I also thank the Secretary of State for letting me have a copy of the annual report at 3 o'clock yesterday afternoon. That certainly made a difference to my ability to prepare. However, speed-reading a document of about 136 pages is not the best way to achieve close scrutiny, so inevitably my remarks are based on a mixture of what I read in the document and what I have seen of the Government's work in practice.

On the positive side, last year we saw improved responses to international crises in Goma, Gujarat and Afghanistan. There is no doubt that the Department's emergency relief model is becoming more refined. We applaud the Department for that, and it is right to place that on the record. We also gave a warm welcome to the Home Secretary's decision to incorporate the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development convention on bribery and corruption into emergency legislation following the events of 11 September. We pressed for that to be part of the International Development Bill, and thank the Home Secretary for giving credit to the Conservative party for pressing for its inclusion.

There are many positive aspects to developments, but there are also some serious concerns. In the report, there is a deafening silence on the Commonwealth Development Corporation. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle (Mr. Barker) for raising that in an intervention, and also my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest, East (Dr. Lewis), who secured an Adjournment debate in Westminster Hall on that very subject.

The Commonwealth Development Corporation was a model of its kind. It was established in 1948 specifically to encourage, through investment, small, mostly agricultural enterprises in the third world. What made it different was that there was never an expectation of a return on the investment of more than about 8 per cent. It was something good, something that worked, something that did not cost a lot of money, something that was constructive and something that had dignity.

So what happened? The Government abandoned the guiding principle of the concept to replace the scheme with a planned public-private partnership. Investment will move away from small businesses with low profits to be invested instead in more high-tech high-yielding enterprises with greater profits. As likely as not, those will he companies that could attract investment without any help from us. What madness!

After we debated that issue recently in Westminster Hall, I received a letter from a former employee of the CDC. Without wishing to exaggerate in any way the investment success of the CDC, he says:

"it has delivered numerous examples of sustainable agricultural businesses throughout Africa, which employ large numbers of rural Africans…CDC's withdrawal from this sector has resulted in large-scale redundancy programmes, declines in standards of management and business ethics, and an apparent investment void."

He cites the example of a CDC-supported teak company that made 80 per cent. of its work force redundant in one of the poorest regions of the country before re-employing many of them on a casual basis and without the benefits that went with the CDC's terms of employment. He asks the question, and I echo it: is this development?

I find it extraordinary that the Conservative party has adopted a posture of supporting sub-optimal public sector-led investment that gets a rate of return to which the private sector would never respond. If the hon. Lady is saying that Africa and other regions in which the CDC operates can get investment only at that level, she is suggesting that the private sector will never invest in those countries and they will be marginalised from the globalising economy for ever. [Interruption.] I am not missing the point. If the CDC goes for a lower rate of return than the market would accept because it is not possible to make better investments in such countries, those countries will be marginalised for ever.

We have not wrecked anything. I suggest that the hon. Lady looks at the CDC's annual report, published a short time ago. Perhaps the Select Committee will decide to reconsider the issue. We obviously need to ensure that we get things right, but the hon. Lady seems to be making a Communist argument.

It is not just the Conservative party that is raising serious concerns about the CDC. If the right hon. Lady consults the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, who responded to the Adjournment debate, she will discover that not one Labour Member spoke in defence of the Government's actions. Indeed, the hon. Member for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) crossed the Floor to speak with the Opposition. The lack of support for the Government from any part of the House on that occasion should at the very least be cause for concern.

rose—

rose—

I will give way first to my hon. Friend the Member for Bexhill and Battle and secondly to the hon. Member for City of York (Hugh Bayley).

Does my hon. Friend accept that it may be right, as the Secretary of State says, to modernise the CDC, but that the right hon. Lady does not appreciate the huge leap implicit in going from a rate of return of 8 per cent. to one of 25 per cent? That cannot glibly be regarded as modernisation. It is a massive step change to get a return on equity of 25 per cent. Surely a much better model for Africa would be in the form of the old 3i corporation, which was seen as seed-corn development, pump priming where other equity will follow, with returns on capital of perhaps 15 to 18 per cent. either as equity or mezzanine debt. I speak as someone with venture capital experience, and I do not think that the Secretary of State grasps the nature of a 25 per cent. return on capital.

I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. It shows the benefit of having the opportunity to debate what can be done to improve the present situation. My hon. Friend's expertise in venture capital was valuable when we debated these matters in an Adjournment debate.

The great difficulty is that the sort of returns that it is now the strategy of the CDC to secure are extremely difficult to achieve from agriculture. Agriculture is the bedrock of civil society in many developing countries. The loss of investment through the CDC in agriculture is extremely serious for many developing nations.

I shall defend the Government's policy on the CDC. For the hon. Lady's argument—that it is a bad thing that the CDC is beginning to move away from its agricultural investments—to be convincing she would need to make the case that the CDC is a better source of finance for agricultural development than the Department for International Development.

The Department is increasing its investment in agricultural projects. As the hon. Lady has said, that is because they would not necessarily generate a commercial rate of return. Surely it is right to get each part of the development operation addressing the problems that it is best attuned to addressing.

The hon. Gentleman makes a revealing point about what may be at the back of the Government's mind in connection with the CDC's change of strategy. During the passage of the Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 1999, the former Member for Hertford and Stortford, Mr. Bowen Wells, made exactly the point that the root cause of one of the problems was innate competition between what the CDC could do and the work of the Department. At the time, that was strenuously denied by the Government spokesman. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has brought out an underlying truth that needs to be addressed. There is still a fundamental problem, as many United Kingdom farmers know too well, which is that with a low rate of return in agriculture, it is difficult to secure the necessary investment for the essential modernisation of agriculture. Our deep concern is that opportunities are moving away.

I would welcome a debate. I hope that the usual channels are listening

I have had a hint from the Secretary of State that she might be prepared to allow another debate on the CDC in Government time. There may be an important reason for doing that. Is it not better, when something is going wrong, that we admit that honestly together and try collectively to work out how to put things right? Perhaps all hon. Members whose hearts are in this matter could contribute to a subsequent debate.

For the sake of clarity, I must point out that I do not have the power to allocate time. I would welcome the chance to debate the CDC; we need more informed debate. Some of the allegations are misinformed, but I am sure that they are well meant. We should find a way, either through the Select Committee, on the Floor of the House or elsewhere, to pursue the issues properly. I give that undertaking—but unfortunately, I cannot allocate time.

I am well aware that the usual channels have major control of how parliamentary time is allocated. However, the right hon. Lady has made a welcome suggestion. I am sure that, with the presence of the Chairman of the International Development Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), a number of us can bring pressure to bear.

It may be for the convenience of the House to know that the Select Committee has a firm date in the diary to take evidence from the chairman and senior members of the CDC. I hope that that will enable the Committee to ask the sort of questions that the House would like it to ask.

I hope that the usual channels are listening to the calls on both sides of the Chamber for the opportunity to be given to us.

My intervention has already been answered. I heartily concur with what the hon. Lady is saying. I know that many Members have reservations, as I did when the Commonwealth Development Corporation Act 1999 was passing through the House, and as did the previous Member for Hertford and Stortford, Mr. Bowen Wells. The Chairman of the International Development Select Committee has said that he will take the matter on board and have a thorough investigation. I am sure that the Secretary of State would welcome that, too.

I thank the hon. Lady for her support in our endeavours to secure an opportunity to rework things together. We shall all contribute to try to make that possible.

Without turning these proceedings into a mini-debate on the CDC, I wish to defend the individual who sought to give me his perspective of what is really happening in the organisation for which he worked for most of his professional life. The letter from the former employee was thoughtful, and should not be too quickly dismissed as having no relevance to this discussion about where the CDC is heading.

The ex-employee pointed out in a measured way that

"at least the old CDC made small investment returns and operated with the best intentions. Its former staff knew how to plant tea and coffee. Until 1999 CDC made only one loss in its fifty year history: the combined losses in 1999, 2000 and 2001 are likely to exceed £150 million."

He asks, and I join him in asking, whether it

"is too late for the DFID to consider taking over CDC's existing agricultural businesses and managing them on a trusteeship basis?"

That is a constructive suggestion, to which the Government might like to give time. Together, we need to see what can be done to retrieve the situation.

An issue that is significantly underplayed in the report, but to which the Secretary of State rightly gave great attention, is the question of our overseas aid given through the European Union. There is a fairly bald statement on page 83 of the report that the

"share of EC official development assistance going to low income countries fell from 52% to 38%".

That is in direct opposition to our national aim of helping the poorest. As the Secretary of State said, this situation cannot be allowed to continue.

There is not much in the report about how to improve on such a disastrous situation. By coincidence, this week the Select Committee published the results of its inquiry into EU overseas aid, which amount to a discerning critique of the failures. It is worth highlighting a few points from the report, and I am sure that members of the Committee will raise these matters today.

For example, the aid budget is vulnerable to being raided for political purposes. There is a weakness, compared with our capacity, in focusing on where aid is given. There is a lack of transparency as to which funds are intended for poverty reduction. There is too much of a focus on middle-income countries at the expense of developing countries. It seems that wherever we go in the world, no one has a good word to say for the EU assistance development programme.

While I was in India, the European Commission representative in Delhi came up with one constructive idea for tackling the lamentable delays and inefficiencies of the EU aid programme. He suggested that a member state such as ours might contribute manpower and expertise at grass-roots level to oversee the programmes in which we have a share.

There is an oblique reference to that idea on page 30 of the annual report, in the context of delegating more responsibility to the EU's overseas offices. However, those offices have few staff. Perhaps by that means we could help to avoid duplication. Fundamentally, we must face up to the criticisms that abound about EU overseas aid, and together work out how it could be made more effective.

If the EU aid budget is a thorn in the side of the Secretary of State, Tanzania must be another. I could find nothing in the annual report about the notorious BAE Systems deal. We know that it was a test case to find out whether the good intentions of getting debt-relieved nations to spend money on health and education would work, and it failed. The Secretary of State might have had more chance of opposing the deal if she had found out about it earlier. BAE Systems applied for a licence in 1997, but as the Secretary of State told me in a written answer, she was not informed until October 2000. A constructive suggestion would be to improve that process in Government.

The Secretary of State will be aware of the sustainable development amendment to the Export Control Bill, which was recently approved in another place. It was supported by Conservatives, Liberal Democrats and bishops, and might give the Department for International Development a greater say in such matters. I call on the right hon. Lady to have the courage of her convictions and tell the House that she will support the sustainable development amendment.

As I read the report, my big concern is whether our aid programme is really effective. We cannot be complacent or rest on our laurels. To her credit, the tone in which the Secretary of State presented her review of international development showed no complacency. I welcome that.

There is much rhetoric about helping the world's poorest, but the truth is that much aid is determined by political motives. The vast majority of European development aid goes to central European countries hoping to accede to the EU. Although my hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge (Mr. Randall) rightly drew attention to the genuine plight of a nation in central Europe, I feel deeply uneasy about the fact that more European development assistance goes to Poland than to Asia, Africa and Latin America put together.

The largest recipient of British overseas aid is India, from which I have just returned. We are about to treble the amount that we give from £110 million to £300 million. India is a country of terrible poverty, with a third of the world's poor living there. Imagine my surprise when I opened The Times of India to read an editorial with the headline "Who needs foreign aid anyway?"—a startling point of view from a major recipient country.

The editor points out that incoming aid just about cancels out the interest on loan repayments, and all the while India is undergoing phenomenal growth through foreign inward investment, especially in computer services. I need to be clear: I am not saying that India should not receive aid, but the way in which it is given is crucial. If the Indians themselves challenge the way in which we do that, perhaps we should stop and listen. There should be seed-corn capital for investment, grants for projects and assistance to kick-start local initiatives, but not dependency-creating loans. There is a crying need for internal reform in India, and our expertise in good governance is almost as important as money.

The hon. Lady refers to an editorial in The Times of India suggesting that we should withdraw aid from India. Is that her position?

I thought that I had made it clear that I am not in favour of ceasing to provide aid to India. The question is how it is given. In fairness to the Government, there has been considerable refocusing of the way in which the Department for International Development is working in India. I met DFID' s head while I was in Delhi. We are now focused on four of the approximately 30 Indian states. My concern after visiting that country is that although there is no doubt that we can achieve greater effectiveness through backing politically reforming states such as Andhra Pradesh, where there is a state Government with a zeal to modernise agriculture, one of the consequences is that the poorer states, such as Bihar, will fall further and further behind.