20 Most Recent Speeches

Debate on Gaza

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to House of Commons on Thu 15th Jan 2009

(HANSARD: 15 Jan 2009 : Column 425-427)

"I am pleased to speak after two of my colleagues on the Select Committee on International Development, the hon. Members for Bradford, West (Mr. Singh) and for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden), both of whom made very pertinent contributions in their own way. Importantly, we on the Committee, which has produced two reports on the occupied territories, have been increasingly depressed at the deterioration of the situation over a long period, and we are obviously horrified at the current situation.

The Department for International Development allocated $10 million for emergency relief, mostly through UNRWA, on top of £243 million that has been allocated over three years to support aid and development in the occupied territories of Palestine. However, not a penny of that money would have been needed if there had been peace. That money could have been spent in parts of the world where poor people need it just as much. It is frustrating for us that aid resources are being channelled in that way-not for development, but simply for first aid-and that conflict is costing our taxpayers.

Malcolm particularly made reference to the plight of the civilian population and teh role of the international community in the House of Commons debate on Gaza

I pay tribute to John Ging and the UNRWA team in Gaza, who are not only supporting the Gazan people through this time, but effectively sharing their suffering. UNRWA has given us detailed day-to-day information on just how horrific the situation has been. Bad and intolerable as the situation has been over the past two years, what has happened in the past three weeks has escalated the suffering, stress and humanitarian trauma to the civilian population beyond anything that can be justified by any provocation. Indeed, I am appalled at Members of this House trying to justify that degree of disproportionate action. Those 322 children have absolutely no responsibility for anything that has happened, and they are now dead. The House should acknowledge that we cannot stand by and accept that.

Not only that, but comments have been made about the role of Hamas. Hamas was democratically elected, and however much we might dislike it or condemn some its utterances and many of its actions, the actions of the past few weeks are likely to make Palestinians in Gaza and the west bank more likely not only to support Hamas rather than less, but even to begin to wonder how they will ever live in an independent Palestinian state alongside an Israel that behaves in the way that it has behaved in the past two or three weeks. It is important to recognise that if we do not take firm action and give a lead in delivering a proper peace process, we may well create a united Palestinian unity, albeit one under Hamas. Then the international community will have to determine how to deal with it.

Our Committee did not agree on how we should deal with Hamas, but most of us took the view that we had to engage in some way. The irony is that the United Kingdom has a long history of doing precisely that kind of thing. We had to deal with Mau Mau, with EOKA and with the IRA. No agreement was ever achieved other than by talking to those groups before agreeing the conditions for concluding an agreement. That seems to be a lesson that we can reasonably take from history.

In a very good statement on Monday, the Foreign Secretary said that the United Kingdom

"supported resolution 1860-to uphold the standards on which Israel and the rest of us depend."-[ Official Report, 12 January 2009; Vol. 486, c. 23.]

However, I would suggest that that resolution goes further than that. This is the crucial point that the Foreign Secretary was making. It is not just that Israel must recognise its responsibility as a legitimate state and a member of the United Nations, with all the obligations that that entails. The point is that the international community, particularly the United Kingdom, which played such a crucial role in creating the state of Israel, would be tainted by association with breaches of international law, flagrant disregard for UN resolutions and the possible perpetration of war crimes if we failed to ensure that a member state with which we are closely associated complied with international law on terms that we subscribe to. If we fail to act, we will be tarnished with collective guilt by association.

That is what our citizens are saying so strongly to the Government. They feel that they share responsibility for the conflict, and they want the Government to accept their responsibility to use their initiative, in concert with others, to try to ensure a resolution. Surely we have to seize an opportunity from the worst and darkest hour. All this death and conflict-and the possibility, as my hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Mr. Davey) said, that Israel has made a tactical error-can be turned around if the new Administration in the United States, with a lead from the United Kingdom and Europe, say that Hamas has to recognise the mistakes it has made, that Israel has to recognise its responsibility and, above all, that we all have to recognise that the Palestinian people should not be exposed to this degree of suffering in future. We have to ensure that the regime that operates in Israel and the Palestinian states is designed to give prosperity, peace and a functioning state to Israel and Palestine, because the alternative is the disintegration of the entire region."

ENDS

Read "Debate on Gaza".

Debate on Aid Transparency in the House of Commons: 13th Nov 2008

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP on Thu 13th Nov 2008

Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): I certainly do not intend to try to follow that pub rant from the hon. Member for Monmouth (David T.C. Davies), which seems to be considerably at odds with the views of the hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) and gives a degree of discomfort to the idea that we have a modern, reformed, liberal-minded Conservative party that wants to engage in these issues. Of course, there is an entirely reasonable debate to be had about how DFID should deploy its staff and its resources and in how many countries, and what its priorities are. My Committee, the International Development Committee, regards its prime function as to call the Department to account, challenge it on its policies and make constructive recommendations, which I hope that we do.

Transparency is one of those issues that is very easy to talk about and a lot more difficult to deliver. It is not always possible to turn every expenditure of cash into a

measurable result, but we must try to do it, as far as possible, for exactly the reasons that have been stated-to reassure taxpayers at home that the money is being spent effectively to achieve the objectives and to reassure people in the countries on the receiving end that their Governments are using the money to good effect.

As I understand it, a significant aspect of providing direct budget support is to try to enable the developing country to build up the capacity to control its own budget and expenditure and to deliver services, ultimately to the point at which the revenues that are generated allow the development support to be phased out and withdrawn. Whenever my Committee and I visit DFID offices in various countries, we always ask the staff to what extent their budget is being distributed under direct budget support, and what engagement they have with the people with whom they are working in government to ensure that as far as possible-allowing for the fact that it is their choice, not ours, what the money is delivered for-it is being spent properly. That is a difficult ask, and the situation needs to be consistently and constantly monitored and improved. Several of the Government's initiatives represent at least an attempt to put in place processes and procedures that will improve the quality of that process. I do not think that they will be offended if I say that we have some way to go, but that is not necessarily to suggest that we are doing the wrong things.

The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield expressed concern about some of the countries that are receiving direct budget support and suggested that our Committee might investigate that, and we are happy to discuss whether and how we might do so in future. I assure him that we continually discuss and ask about direct budget support. We are going to visit Kenya and Tanzania in pursuit of our inquiry into sustainable development in a changing climate, but also with an awareness that Tanzania is the largest recipient of direct budget support in Africa. The Committee will want to ask about that and try to provide reassurance, which I hope might be helpful to the Department as well.

The new Administration in the United States should not be lost sight of in this context. The US Congress and the present Administration have argued that they do not approve of direct budget support and will not give it. It is sometimes argued that they are hiding behind the idea that congressional rules will not allow it, but Congress has the capacity to change its rules. It has been suggested that under the new Administration the United States might be willing to move, albeit gently, towards giving direct budget support in partnership and co-ordination with other donors, and we must not say anything that deters them from doing that. We should not say that it is fundamentally wrong, only that it is challenging and that we must ensure that it is effectively delivered.

Indeed, it is in that context that co-ordination among donors is important. If we can get all the European donors, the United States, Canada and perhaps even Japan to agree to a set of rules, or even to channel aid through the same vehicles, as we are trying to do in Afghanistan, there will be a much greater chance of delivering better accountability, better transparency and better quality aid, and we will do so in such a way that the country on the receiving end will have the capacity to absorb aid more effectively.

Mr. Clifton-Brown: Will the Chairman of the Select Committee make two particular inquiries about direct budgetary support transparency? First, my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) mentioned substitution, whereby giving aid to a country allows their leaders to spend money on jets, for example, which is undesirable. Secondly, will the right hon. Gentleman examine how much money is getting to the projects it is supposed to support on the ground, rather than being creamed off in corruption at the centre?

Malcolm Bruce: I am perfectly happy to do that, but I can also assure the hon. Gentleman that those are the sort of questions that we have asked. On Uganda, about which questions have been raised, it is interesting that the Ugandan Government had an agreement with the community about money being spent on education in which they undertook to nail on the school door a breakdown of the budget allocated, where it was coming from and how it would be spent so that the community could monitor the situation.

That brings me to my second point: we have to develop countries' capacity to monitor their own expenditure effectively. That means working with Parliaments and with civic society. When we have a debate about ownership of aid and development by developing countries, we have to understand clearly that we are talking about ownership not only by the Government, but as far as possible, by the people. We need to give Parliaments information that allows them to call their Governments to account, and work with civic society to challenge MPs and inform the public. That is probably the best defence against money being misappropriated, although we have to accept that in many cases it will take many years for a strong and sophisticated capacity of that sort to develop.

It has sometimes been argued that there is a sort of perverse, inverse relationship between aid and development. Professor Collier calls it the Dutch disease; he asserts that in some cases, the more aid a country is given, the less responsive it is-the poorer it gets, in other words. His argument is that the purchase of local currency creates a drain, which cannot be offset if there is no strong economy. To counter that, I would say that his is an argument for ensuring that the aid is of high quality and is well targeted, not an argument for not giving the aid.

Mr. Tom Clarke: The right hon. Gentleman is making an interesting speech. On Uganda, I remind him that during the visit I mentioned earlier, we had the opportunity to meet the Minister of Finance. He opened the books, and one of the most glaring aspects of what he told us was debt repayment. It was absolutely astonishing. We found that developed countries were already benefiting a great deal from the poorest countries in the world, and given the right hon. Gentleman's experience, I am sure that he would want to acknowledge the progress that we have made in that field.

Malcolm Bruce: I do. It is always difficult when one gets drawn into a detailed debate about an individual country, because of the complexity within. It is absolutely true that debt repayment, and in some cases the liquidation of that debt, has been a key part of the process. At the end of the day, it is important that future arrangements

do not sink into that sort of relationship. Countries should be able to borrow, but on their own terms, not unfair terms, and with debts that can be properly serviced, not what might be called odious debt. We must avoid returning to that situation.

Two or three topical concerns have already been raised, but one has not been, and it is one on which I suspect the Minister cannot make any immediate comment. I was somewhat horrified, just before I came into the Chamber, to see John Ging being interviewed live from Gaza on BBC News 24, saying that 750,000 people there are desperately in need of food aid from the United Nations Works and Relief Agency, and that they have had no supplies delivered since yesterday. He says that the food is on the Israeli side of the border and that the Israelis are refusing to allow it to pass, which is contrary to their international obligations and the law, which permits humanitarian relief.

I hope that the Under-Secretary will at least use his good offices to ensure that the UK applies appropriate pressure so that the food gets through. Those who need it are mostly destitute women and children and unemployed men, who have no other form of income in a small territory where there is no other food to be had. That is not usually the case-even in the poorest countries, it is amazing how food can sometimes be obtained. However, given that Gaza is shut in, the problem is serious.

Yesterday, members of the Committee had the opportunity to ask the Secretary of State about the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We did not get a clear answer-he undertook to write to us-about the reason for the extent of the delay in reaching some people, or even identifying them. It was disturbing to read about and see television pictures of people who had had no food for two or three days, and sometimes up to six days. Clearly, the consequences do not require stressing in the Chamber.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell: The problem is that people are not fleeing to semi-established or established camps. They are fleeing, in the clothes that they stand up in, into a most inhospitable jungle territory. That is why it is taking so long to get desperately needed support to those who are suffering.

Malcolm Bruce: I understand, and I am grateful for that intervention. I am simply trying to say that we can imagine the consequences if we cannot reach those people soon.

Several of us attended the round-table briefing about Afghanistan, which brought us up to date, at the Foreign Office this morning. The results of a BBC poll, based on a stark and rather silly question, were published yesterday and showed that 68 per cent. of the British people wanted our troops to be withdrawn within a year. The question did not provide any context, but revealed a problem. Liberal Democrat Members-and, I believe, most Members-believe that engagement with Afghanistan is necessary. It is in the interests of British security and right for the people of Afghanistan, even if it is a difficult and challenging place to be. There are concerns about the way in which we communicate that.

It is understandable, given that the United Kingdom's military commitment is in Helmand and that significant numbers of men and women in our armed forces are dying in that engagement, that the British people question the reason for putting our troops in harm's way to that extent in such a far-away place. That tends to lead to an exclusive focus on what happens in Helmand, and does not take into account the fact that Afghanistan is a substantial country, and that not everywhere is in the same position as Helmand. Indeed, approximately 75 to 80 per cent. of British aid and development expenditure happens in other parts of the country through the national Government to help achieve important development objectives, such as getting children, including more than 2 million girls, back into school, and impressively providing at least basic health care throughout the country. Other objectives include improving communications and roads and are mostly financed by the United States. In other words, the picture is not all negative and bad.

The nature of society in Afghanistan means that it has never had a unified Government and bureaucracy running the entire country. It has always been run through some form of agency-local leaders, warlords, tribal chiefs and so on. It is therefore not surprising that that continues to happen to some extent. It does not mean that the country is not being governed, that state money is not being properly spent or that services are not reaching the people. However, as our Committee found when we visited, the people of Afghanistan are all too often unaware of what is happening. It is simple for a local governor to pretend that all the largesse-it is not much largesse; we are considering a very poor country-is somehow his creation rather than something that has come from the central Government. Similarly, central Government want to claim the credit, rather than admit that the help comes from the international community.

That is a dilemma. It is a problem if we cannot win the Afghan people's hearts and minds and show them that we are in a genuine partnership-a partnership between the international community and the people, to try to achieve the stability and ability to develop that they want, and between the people of our country and Afghanistan to enable it to build up a viable state.

That is a challenge for us, but we all have a responsibility to fulfil it, at least so that the great sacrifices of our forces will have been made not in vain or for a failed project, but for one that, however difficult, might ultimately be achieved. I suggest-I say this with the Secretary of State in his place once more-that there is scope for more explanation of the interaction between the military and DFID in Afghanistan and of how things work. Those of us who are engaged in the debate understand that, but even in the House and certainly among the wider public, there is a lack of understanding about how those aspects interact. There is a form of transparency that is not about just money, but about understanding aims and objectives and what is happening.

The Secretary of State quite understandably mentioned the undertakings that were made in Accra and has probably read, as I have, Simon Maxwell's blog. Having honestly said that he was not sure what Accra was all about when he went, Simon Maxwell paid tribute to the Secretary of State for the energy that he had expended in trying to secure an agreement that contained real commitments, rather than just platitudinous statements, which is what people told the Committee they feared it

would contain when we visited earlier in the year. I am happy to share that acknowledgment. As Simon Maxwell also said, it is fine to get a lot of countries signing up to a big commitment, but people will want to see what that means in terms of ownership and buy-in.

That leads me back-I am happy to conclude on this point-to the relationship between the donors and the developing countries and the people living there. The reason why DFID was created as a distinct Department was to separate foreign policy from development and to focus on poverty reduction, so that development policy would not be compromised by being an instrument of foreign policy or by commercial interests. That has been a success, both in persuading the British people that our aid programme is worthy of support and in determining our approach, which has helped DFID to achieve a position of leadership throughout the world.

I must also echo what the Under-Secretary said. The entire staff of DFID comprise about 2,500 people, which includes foreign nationals employed in overseas office. That core-the UK part of it, at least-is under the same strictures of staff reduction as staff in other Departments are. That is a challenge for the Department and there is no doubt a shortage of expertise. There are ways around the problem, ingenious or not, that need to be pursued. There are also questions about how one might prioritise-in terms not only of money, but of staff-what we do and do not do, both sectorally and in individual countries.

Although I did not take too much to the style of the speech that the hon. Member for Monmouth made, it is always perfectly possible to conduct a proper review of the number of countries we engage in and how effectively we do so, although I understand that a significant number of offices have been closed this year.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell: The right hon. Gentleman makes a good point about the constraints on numbers that operate across Whitehall, including DFID. Let me reiterate that we think it is absolutely absurd that DFID staffing figures are being restricted at a time when the budget is rising significantly. The staffing level should be set to meet that rising budget, not the reverse.

Malcolm Bruce: I take the hon. Gentleman's point. The Committee has not completed its report this year, but we certainly acknowledge the pressures and have expressed our concerns. The permanent secretary is obviously constrained by the rules across Government, but she conceded that the Department was struggling. That is something that we should take to heart.

I want to pick up the point made by the hon. Gentleman about the website, which I believe has some merit, and to ask the Department to consider it. Perhaps the Secretary of State could give some thought to the exact purpose of the website. Whenever our Committee visits countries in which we have an engaged programme, we visit DFID. I am sure that other Committees visit their relevant Departments. We usually get an extremely thorough, detailed briefing from the DFID office, showing what is being spent, what the priorities are, the breakdown, and an honest question and answer session. A lot of that information could be in the public domain. It would help if we could go to the website and find out exactly what the budget is and what the priorities are in more detail and in a more up-to-date way. That would make the website more interactively beneficial and the Department more transparent. It could address some of the concerns: it is not that people are against what is being done; they just do not know what is being done, which makes them either suspicious or inclined to ask questions. Will the Secretary of State consider whether more could be done to make the information more accessible and transparent?

The Committee's report looked at how we as a country and the international donor community could work more effectively together. It became clear in that process that how effectively we can work depends on whom we are working with. The Committee, in choosing which of our European partners to have a dialogue with, made a journey from Rome to Berlin to Copenhagen and then, via video link, to Stockholm. Not to put too fine a point on it, I am glad that we did it in that order, because the reverse process would have been deeply depressing.

The reality, as far as I can see, is that the Italians have pretty well opted out of supporting the commitment to international aid and development. The previous Italian Government were in the process of setting up their own development agency; the present Italian Government have abandoned it. I am grateful that they are continuing to support the multi-national organisations, but that is probably about saving face among their peers. They support the Rome-based institutions but, beyond that, there is very little commitment.

I do not want to do a qualitative analysis, but there is a group of countries that we, the Foreign Office and DFID call the northern liberals, and which the Scandinavian countries refer to as the Nordic-plus countries-basically, the Scandinavian countries, plus the Netherlands, the UK and Ireland. We are definitely like-minded and work together. Doing so can have a huge impact in driving the right kind of development. By that, I mean development that is designed to reduce poverty, to give poor people in developing countries a degree of ownership and control over the quality of aid and development, and to help them to call their Governments to account. In that way, they can be part of the process of lifting themselves out of poverty and achieving the success and development that they have been denied for so long, but which they richly deserve.

Read "Debate on Aid Transparency in the House of Commons: 13th Nov 2008".

The House Magazine: Forward with federalism

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to The Liberal Democrat Conference Publication of The House Magazine on Mon 15th Sep 2008

The SNP may be in pole position, but the Scottish Lib Dems have reason to be optimistic, says Malcolm Bruce.

Liberal Democrats throughout the UK have mourned the loss of two staunch and inspirational Liberal Democrats this year. First Ray Michie, MP for Argyll and Bute from 1987 to 2001, succumbed to cancer; and in July came the sudden death of Russell Johnston, who was MP for Inverness from 1964 to 1997. Both were strong supporters of home rule and constituency MPs with a great love of the Highlands and the Gaelic language.

Russell led the party and also served as president, presenting uplifting Liberal speeches to a whole generation of Liberals. He was also distinguished in Europe, where he became president of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

Scottish Liberal Democrats have been in the vanguard of shaping modern Scotland and continue to develop policies which command the support of the people of Scotland. The last general election saw the party win nearly a quarter of the votes cast, and the election of 11 MPs. Willie Rennie's sensational by-election victory in Dunfermline took the total to 12. This is more MPs than the SNP have ever secured, yet the significance of this achievement is not widely acknowledged in the Scottish media.

What is more widely acknowledged is the near-demise of the Conservative Party in Scotland as a credible political force, the implosion of Labour's hegemony and emergence of the SNP administration by a one-seat margin in last year's Holyrood elections.

There is no doubt that the SNP has been able to attract disaffected former Labour voters and Tories who see the party, in some areas at least, as the best way of defeating Labour. Yet support for independence has fall and polls generally show that most voters in Scotland want more powers for the Scottish Parliament within the United Kingdom - very close to the Liberal Democrats' federal policy.

But Liberal Democrats have adapted better to opposition than Labour, who have been in disarray, or the Conservatives, who - astonishing for a Unionist party - have cosied up to the SNP, helping them secure their incoherent, inadequately costed and almost illegal budget.

Week after week at first minister's questions in was Nicol Stephen who discomfited Alex Salmond the most, revealing the SNP leader's less attractive side, as he becomes personal and abusive when riled. Nicol's decision to stand down for family reasons is understandable.

Our new leader will need to present a strong case to persuade a majority of Scottish voters that the Liberal Democrats are closest to their interests and aspirations. Opting for a populist movement whose key objective you don't share is a risky decision.

Politics needs to rise about choosing another group to whinge about. It is about securing Scotland's place in a UK with a positive role in the world, based on its domestic tolerance, freedom, inclusion and enterprise. It is about an agenda for a Liberal Scotland in a Liberal UK, setting an example of Liberal Democracy to the world.

Nick Clegg tells us, and I agree, that there are more people of Liberal leaning than vote Liberal Democrat. We have to show them north and south of the border that voting Liberal Democrat will change the character of politics radically for the better.

Read "The House Magazine: Forward with federalism".

Reconstructing Afghanistan

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Westminster Hall, Houses of Parliament, Column 489WH onwards on Thu 10th Jul 2008

Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): The members of my Committee are pleased to have the opportunity to debate our report. Although many things have happened in the fairly long period since we began our inquiry and published the report, we feel strongly that the role of the British Government in Afghanistan is crucial to that region.

I shall open the debate by summarising in a couple of sentences what is needed if we are to secure a future for Afghanistan. The country needs improved security, a crackdown on corruption and a strong human rights culture, especially in relation to women. The international community is helping, and should be striving to help, the Government of Afghanistan to achieve those three key things.

I will not delay right hon. and hon. Members by summarising the report: they can read it for themselves, and probably have done so already. When Committee members visited Afghanistan last October, we took the opportunity to try to get as broad a view of the country as we could. For that reason, not only did we spend time in Kabul and the surrounding Shamali plain, but we divided, with half going to Helmand and the other half, including myself, going to Balkh province in the north and to Mazar-e-Sharif. When we came together, we had a complementary idea of a diverse country, with a great variety of things happening in different parts of it.

I say at the outset, perhaps for the benefit of opinion and the media in this country, that Afghanistan should not be confused with Iraq: the reasons why we are there, what are doing there, and the purposes and circumstances by which we came to be there are fundamentally different.

Mr. Tobias Ellwood (Bournemouth, East) (Con): I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way so early in his speech. I commend him on his report. Many hon. Members have had an opportunity to visit both Afghanistan and Iraq. On analysis, there is a clear concern that the pace of reconstruction and development under the fragile umbrella of security was not apparent in Iraq and is not apparent in Afghanistan, for exactly the same reason. There are therefore lessons for each country to be learned from the other.

Malcolm Bruce: I accept that there may be lessons to be learned on reconstruction, but my point is that often the two engagements are conflated in the British press as though they were similar in context, and they simply are not. That important point needs to be made. Whatever people's views are on Iraq and Afghanistan, the situations

in those countries should be treated as two completely separate engagements, rather than two sides of the same one.

There is evidence of strong support among the Afghan people for the international community's engagement within their country. Indeed, we were repeatedly told that, if anything, people were concerned that we would not stay, or would not stay for long enough. That we should not be there was not a message that we heard to any significant extent.

Nobody should underestimate either the challenges, which are huge, or the uncertainty of the outcome; our report makes that absolutely clear. More than 100 British service personnel have died engaging with insurgents in Helmand. It is perhaps understandable that that has become a strong focus of the United Kingdom media, and rightly so. It is, however, encouraging to note the comment of Sir Jock Stirrup, Chief of the Defence Staff, last month:

"Make no mistake, the Taliban influence is waning, and through British blood, determination and grit, a window of opportunity has been opened."

Windows open and close, but an opportunity has been created.

It is important to recognise that the aim of UK policy in Afghanistan is to assist the country to build up a viable and efficient state, and for public services to create a climate for development and poverty reduction. Although the number of competent administrators is limited-one estimate that we heard when we were there was that there were as few as 200-the education, health and rural development Ministries are markedly improving delivery of basic services. Six million children are in school, more than one third of them girls, a high proportion of the population have access to basic health services, and agricultural production has improved in some parts of the country.

Part of the international community's work has been to train the Afghan national army, where there has been positive achievement. That was borne out in the successful NATO-supported action to recapture Musa Qala. On the other hand, training the police force so that local people can trust them is proving to be a challenge, and the general perception still seems to be that the administration of justice throughout Afghanistan is dire. There has been a shortage of police trainers. The Government, who have said that the number of UK policing experts in Afghanistan is rising, are providing support to the EU police mission to Afghanistan-EUPOL Afghanistan-and working with the US-led police training programme. Will the Minister tell us how many EUPOL trainers there are in Afghanistan, how many are UK police, and what progress has been made in increasing the number of female police officers?

Providing security, especially in the south of the country, is crucial to the future, and that makes the role of British forces key. It is important to remember that Afghanistan is a diverse country, which needs to develop national administration that is free from corruption and accessible by all, especially women. During our visit, it was disappointing how often we heard people say, "We appreciate what the British are doing in Helmand; it is a pity that you are not engaged elsewhere in the country." In reality, the overwhelming majority of our aid and development budget is being delivered to the national Government to provide services throughout Afghanistan, yet the focus is on Helmand.

On the role of women and their rights, the context is not the same as in any western country. Afghanistan is an intensely male-dominated society where women's rights have traditionally been limited. It is disappointing that since liberation and the establishment of democratic government, the country seems to be moving backwards. When the Government were created, there were four female Ministers and between eight and 12 female deputy Ministers. Today, there is only one female Minister, and three female deputy Ministers. Apart from the deputy health Minister, the others are all in the Ministry for Women's Affairs. In other words, women are being patronisingly compartmentalised.

Yesterday, I met Afghan journalist, Horia Musadeq, who gave me further cause for concern. Promises that a vacancy for a senior judge would be filled by a woman have not been kept and the post has now been filled by a man. The implementation of the justice action plan is not progressing, and the human rights component of the electoral commission is being diminished, leading to concerns that perpetrators of human rights abuses will continue to dominate the Parliament. Horia also told me that freedom of expression is being restricted by the application of the new media law and the use of blasphemy laws.

I suggest that the international community should make it abundantly clear that the long-term commitment to Afghanistan depends on the country establishing international standards against corruption and upholding the rights of its citizens, especially its women. If Afghanistan is to survive and to develop as a viable state, it needs improved security, a crackdown on corruption and a strong human rights culture. Will the Minister tell us how the Department for International Development, in co-ordination with other bodies, will monitor and prioritise that, and specifically-this was mentioned in the Government's response to our report-how it will apply the gender equality action plan in Afghanistan?

The other focus of interest whenever Afghanistan is discussed is inevitably poppy cultivation. Partly through a policy of substitution that has made 20 provinces poppy-free, and partly because of a market glut, overall production is expected to fall. It is interesting that rising prices for other crops-notably wheat-have also helped. Although it is not always understood, there is a direct correlation between poppy production and insecurity. Some people think that all we have to do is to destroy the poppy crop, but that debate has no resonance because the Afghanistan Government will not allow that and, frankly, I do not blame them, because it would destroy the soil's reproductive capacity. There is no point debating destruction of the poppy crop because that is not going to happen.

It is more to the point to ask why farmers grow poppies. It is not the best crop for money, but the criminal elements who buy it come to the farm gate with cash and take the crop away, which eliminates the need to travel off the farm and thus the risk of bribery and ambush on the way to market and intimidation by criminal elements. If farmers were provided with security in the form of protection from intimidation and with access to the market at reasonable cost and safety, other crops would become more attractive.

Mr. Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con): I am impressed by what the right hon. Gentleman is saying. In paragraph 131 of the report, his Committee emphasises that

"Controlling drug trafficking between Afghanistan and Pakistan"

is "a necessary condition" to tackle the issue. Paragraph 80, which covers a related issue, says that

"greater international pressure should be placed on Pakistan to control more effectively the Federally Administered Tribal Areas."

What he is saying about cultivation and security rings true in two powerful paragraphs in his report.

Malcolm Bruce: Those paragraphs demonstrate that targeting poppy farmers is the wrong approach, and that it is necessary to target the perpetrators of the traffic. It is encouraging that the new Pakistan Government have indicated that they intend to take strong action in the frontier territories to tackle the Taliban and other criminal elements. One must remember that the border is huge and infamous. It is not internationally recognised-only the UK and Pakistan do so-and has a notorious reputation in world and specifically British history. That reputation has not changed much in recent years.

Mr. John Horam (Orpington) (Con): I am interested in what the right hon. Gentleman is saying about drug trafficking and so on. What impression did he get of the border with Iran? What actions are the Iranian Government taking to stop drug trafficking?

Malcolm Bruce: We received a little information in passing on that, but we did not go to that end of the country, nor did we take specific evidence. Clearly, there is a lot of traffic across the border between western Afghanistan and Iran. There was evidence that the behaviour of the Iranian Government could have a positive or a negative effect, and at different times it had had both those effects.

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): I endorse the right hon. Gentleman's last point: our strong impression was that although there had been incidents on the Iranian side, stability in the relationship with Iran is crucial, and the wrong sort of activities on the other side or directed towards Iran could set up a chain of events in Afghanistan that would be far from helpful.

Malcolm Bruce: Yes. The relationship between the Governments and people of Iran and Afghanistan, and the traffic that crosses the border, are complicated. The Iranian Government do not want a lot of drugs imported into their society, so to some extent they take strong action against it, which is helpful. However, they want a relationship with those whom they consider to be their kith and kin over the border. At other times they are a little less engaging. One can tell that when they are doing the right thing in that context, the problem is diminished, and when they are not, the problem is not diminished. That is another dimension to the international problem of how to deal with Iran, although that it not the subject of this debate.

Mr. Ellwood: The right hon. Gentleman says that Iran is not part of this debate, but Afghanistan is a mixture of identities, religions, ethnic groupings and so on. Afghanistan is a patchwork quilt of loyalties, not just one country, and that is where the constitutional model has gone wrong. Does he agree that where things have gone well in the east, it relates to Iran being the only country to invest in a railway line going to Herat? That will allow the east of Afghanistan to start trading. It is trade and investment that will replace poppies.

Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): The west.

Mr. Ellwood: Sorry, I meant the west.

Malcolm Bruce: Of course, I accept that entirely. Although we did not go to Herat, we had many reports of how successful that area was. Certainly, those of us who visited Mazar-e-Sharif saw some pretty lively economic activity. That is important, but at the end of the day, if Afghanistan is given security, good roads, a decent education system and so on, it will have the capacity to create a successful economy. However, there are a lot of presumptive buts and ifs attached to that, which is precisely why the focus of this debate is how we create the climate it to happen.

I shall now go to the next stage and move from the subject of poppy growing to that of the agricultural support that the Committee thought was necessary. We have recently had a wider debate about agriculture and the extent to which the world community has taken its eye off the ball in supporting agriculture as part of the development strategy throughout the world. We should not suddenly come rushing back to agriculture because it is fashionable in this year of high prices; we need to deal with the matter in a way that is coherent and has been thought through.

Let me give a practical example. We visited a village in Balkh where the community had been persuaded by old-fashioned methods-namely, threats-to stop cultivating poppy. The villager had therefore started to grow water melons, of which they had no previous experience. I have no expertise in relation to water melons, but I understand that the problem is that they are prone to attack from a particular kind of flea. When the villagers' water melons suffered such an attack, they could not find anyone to advise them on how to deal with the problem. As a result, they did not say they would be better off with poppy; what they said was, "We've got a crop from which we're not deriving much of an income." They also said, "Thank you for the support you've given us in providing a clean water supply for the humans in the village, but we don't have enough water for our animals, which are dying." The people need irrigation to feed animals and for proper extension services to be provided by the Afghan authorities-perhaps with our support and expertise-to enable farmers to switch to other produce. We also need to ensure that people know how to manage and deal with those alternatives, as it will enable farmers not only to come out of poppy growing, but to find a long-term future from alternative sources.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con): The right hon. Gentleman's excellent speech and the point that is dealt with in some detail in his Committee's report, which has been the subject of a number of interventions, leads me as a matter of courtesy to say to the Minister that it would be extremely helpful if he set out for hon. Members in the clearest possible terms what the Government's counter-narcotics strategy is in Afghanistan. We are spending a lot of money on this important work, so it would be extremely helpful if he told hon. Members from the Committee and other hon. Members precisely how that strategy is determined and what it aims to achieve.

Malcolm Bruce: I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I have a question about the agriculture strategy that relates to his point. The Government have committed £345 million to development in Afghanistan in the 2008-11 spending review. Will the Minister indicate, either now or in writing, how much of that resource will go into horticulture, livestock, agriculture and rural development, and in what form? That is part of our recommendations.

It is fair to say that there are vested interests in the UK in terms of agricultural research, academia and other areas and that, of course, the people involved with that have an agenda; however, it is not one that is not legitimate. Such people say that they have underutilised expertise that they feel could help. We obviously want to build up the capacity of the Afghan Government, not import capacity from outside, but I believe that we can work alongside Afghans and train them to improve the quality of their extension services.

John Battle (Leeds, West) (Lab): The right hon. Gentleman will find that there is a parliamentary question in my name asking for a breakdown of DFID's funds. It is important to remember that our Committee is the International Development Committee and not the Foreign Affairs Committee. I make that point because it is important that we focus on poverty reduction in Afghanistan and make sure that the funds-certainly those from DFID-go into poverty reduction in Afghanistan and do not trickle into other areas. Of course security is important, but if we lose that funding focus, we will not crack the problem of poverty eradication.

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for making that pertinent, timely and extraordinarily important point, which reinforces again the distinction between Afghanistan and Iraq. Iraq is not a poor country, whereas Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world. We should be engaged in helping to reduce that poverty. The truth is that if Iraq were a stable non-threatening country, we would not be there, other than as a trading partner or whatever. That is a fundamental and radical difference.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to make that point and to make it clear to other hon. Members here who are not members of our Committee that our focus is fundamentally on development. However, as in so many cases, it is impossible to avoid the security, defence and foreign affairs dimensions to these matters. I will come to that point at the end of my speech. We completely understand that there are other complex reasons for our being in Afghanistan, but we should never lose sight of our development priority. It is right to ensure that development money is not diverted to other purposes that might be legitimate, but for which development money has not been provided. It is easy to be misunderstood, and people often do misrepresent what is happening and suggest a rather confused idea of what the British Government are doing in Afghanistan.

On a practical point-I do not want this to be seen as in any way ironic-when we visited Afghanistan, we would not have been able to cover the ground and see what we did in the week we were there if we had not had access to a plane that was seconded to the use of the British embassy at that time, particularly because our Committee split and went to opposite ends of the country during a very short visit. At the time, we were concerned-we have mentioned this in the report-that the plane was only available for the short term and was likely to be withdrawn. We have made a specific recommendation stating our hope that the British embassy and British development staff will continue to have access to a plane, because we feel that that would greatly assist their ability to cover the ground. We know that it is expensive, but the reality is that without the plane, those staff would essentially be confined to operating in Kabul and Helmand, and they would not be able to reach the rest of the country, especially given that many of them are on a short-term rotation for security reasons. Will the Minister say whether a decision has been taken and, if so, what decision has been made on the future of the plane or making a similar arrangement?

I reinforce the point that nobody should underestimate the challenges and difficulties of operating in the post-conflict environment of today's Afghanistan; our Committee certainly does not. Conversely, however, nobody should underestimate the cost of failure. Afghanistan is the fulcrum of an immensely unstable part of the world. It is the source of the world's drug traffic and the hub of the world's terrorist training network. A stable, developing Afghanistan has positive implications for its neighbourhood; a failed Afghanistan would hugely destabilise what is potentially the most volatile region in the world. Anybody who suggests that Afghanistan is a far-away place of which we know little and that we should not be there fundamentally fails to understand why it is central to our national interest now, as it has been in the past.

Afghanistan is also a point of concern and focus because of the plight of its people, who have been battered to hell from all kinds of sources and from every different direction. Understandably, they are doubtful and frustrated at not knowing what their future might be. Time and again, we were told that because of their experience, the people of Afghanistan fundamentally do not trust anybody; they simply do not believe that anybody will stay long enough or be consistent. That is why Ministers and others in the international community repeatedly say, "This is a commitment for a generation. We will be there be 20 or 30 years." That is not some sort of bold, post-imperialist statement; it is a real attempt to reassure the people of Afghanistan that we understand that building up a viable state is not something that will be achieved in the short term and that we are there to work with them to deliver that.

Progress is being made, as the Secretary of State highlighted in his speech in Kabul on 29 June. He also highlighted the challenges and opportunities. Afghanistan is our business in terms of both contributing to security and helping some of the poorest people in the world to lift themselves out of poverty. There will be setbacks and shortfalls, but as long as we can engage with constructive partners in the country and recognise the case for long-term commitment, that is what we should do. I urge the British media and the British public to understand and to recognise that what we are trying to do in Afghanistan is a noble venture, and we must stick to it.

ENDS

Read "Reconstructing Afghanistan".

House Magazine Article: Building a Nation by Nightfall

Speech by Malcolm Bruce on security, reconstruction, trade and development in Afghanistan delivered to House Magazine on Mon 2nd Jun 2008

Malcolm visited Afghanistan last year with the International Development Committee to see reconstruction projects

Much of the media coverage on Afghanistan in the UK relates directly to Britain's military engagement in the region. As a committee whose remit concerns International Development, our focus when conducting our recent inquiry was on the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Since reconstruction and development can only be achieved through the maintenance of peace and security, any development work does rely on the success of the military mission. Purely from a Development perspective, the conclusion that can be reached is that the overall military engagement in Afghanistan is far less than it needs to be.

The first major challenge therefore is for the Afghan National Army to reach its capability. There has been progress in this area already, as was shown when Afghan troops played a large part in the successful battle for Musa Qala, alongside NATO forces. Training and mentoring from UK forces has helped the Army, which is just two to three years away from achieving capacity.

The same cannot currently be said for the development of the civilian police force. Reports of corruption, partly attributed to low pay and drug use, within the Afghan National Police, are eroding confidence amongst the general populace. In a bid to speed up progress on this front, training has recently been streamlined and now falls under a joint European mission, but concrete results as yet remain elusive.

One of the main challenges for the EU Police Mission must be to face up to the lack of female police officers. Less than 1 per cent of the 63,000 police being paid salaries in 2006 were women and, in a country where men and women are often segregated, this needs to be addressed if women are to feel comfortable reporting crimes.

The justice system is also currently failing to address the needs of women. Although many women do not have confidence in the state courts, more traditional and informal justice mechanisms, such as Shar'ia, which is still widespread, tend to discriminate against women, children and other minorities. The UK Government has contributed £2.5 million towards a new Justice Sector Reform Project, but what is really needed is advice and encouragement from other Islamic countries about how Afghanistan can establish a judicial system that complies with its international human rights obligations.

Many charities have expressed concern that funding by international donors has disproportionately favoured the development of policing and the army in favour of the judicial and agriculture sectors.

When people think of Afghanistan's agriculture sector they tend to concentrate on opium poppy production - and understandably so, since it counts as the main source of income for 14% of the population. There are clearly real issues to be addressed here, but recent trends and regional disparities show a strong correlation with poppy cultivation and security rather than just income alone.

For instance in Helmand Province, which is responsible for 50% of Afghanistan's cultivation, it is evident that traders often collect the crop directly from farmers, enabling them to avoid check-point payments and road-side bribes, but more importantly ensuring that they also avoid the insecurities of open and dangerous roads. This makes poppies a low-risk crop in a high-risk environment, whereas other crops, such as mint or saffron - and at current prices wheat and other crops - may offer greater returns per acre, but there is no support to help take these products to market safely. In short: security is the pre-cursor to poppy control, rather than vice-versa.

The Afghanistan situation presents many challenges and it is clear that there is a lot more to be done. There are questions over international aid co-ordination, and there is a desire to see the United States' Government commit more of its spending locally in order to bolster local capacity-building.

However, the UK should take pride in its role so far in helping this war-ravaged country reconstruct its institutions and society, and it is right that we continue to work in partnership with Afghanistan's Government in bringing peace and security to the people of Afghanistan.

Read "House Magazine Article: Building a Nation by Nightfall".

Debate on the European Union (Amendment) Bill

Speech by Malcolm Bruce delivered to House of Commons on Wed 5th Mar 2008

Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): Towards the end of her speech, the hon. Member for Morecambe and Lunesdale (Geraldine Smith) was in danger not only of being out of order, but of putting across her preferred European dimension. The trouble is that there are 60 million people in Britain, and in practice, one cannot proceed to determine our relationship with the European Union in that way.

I have been following the most recent process closely. Indeed, I read the draft constitution before the French people rejected it. Personally, I thought that the contents were valuable, and I am glad to say that many of the most valuable parts are in the treaty of Lisbon, which is why I am happy to support that, too. Nevertheless, the constitution was an attempt to create a watershed moment in the European Union, which made it completely different in character from all the amending treaties that had gone before-from the founding treaty, the treaty of Rome, through all the others that have been mentioned, right up to the treaty of Lisbon.

That is why, as somebody who is not an enthusiast for referendums and who believes that many of the reservations that have been expressed today are valid, I nevertheless felt that a constitution that swept up more than 50 years of European Union history, from the founding treaty to the most recent amending treaty, was an appropriate moment to redefine the relationship and give people the chance, which they have not had for more than 30 years, to determine whether the new, reformed, relaunched European Union-that was the intention-was where we wanted to go. That is why I was happy to support my party's commitment at the last election to hold a referendum on a constitutional treaty.

However, at the very moment that we were committing ourselves to that, the French and the Dutch were deciding that no such constitutional treaty was likely to exist. I do not wish to repeat the arguments, which have already been rehearsed today, about the processes by which we moved from there to where we are now. What is a matter of concern, however, is that the process that we are using is far less transparent and consultative than it could and should be. One of the things that I particularly welcome about the treaty of Lisbon is that it gives national Parliaments a more clearly articulated role in that process. In the future-I hope that this will be in the long term, before we get to the next reforming treaty-the process may well involve the 27 national Parliaments.

At the end of the day, however, we must accept that treaties can be negotiated only by Governments. Governments can consult a lot better, but treaties cannot be negotiated by 27 Parliaments, and they certainly cannot be negotiated by 490 million people. There comes a point when, even with the best endeavours that have been made, people have to decide whether something is good enough for them to continue. The disingenuousness and dishonesty of many of the arguments come from ignoring the consequences of that.

Malcolm Bruce Speaking in the European Union (Amendment) Bill Debate

It has been said-but it must be said again and again-that Conservative Members are asking for a referendum on the treaty of Lisbon, which is not a constitutional treaty, because they want to defeat it and because they know that, as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe (Mr. Clarke) clearly articulated, the consequence of that would be to paralyse the Union and destroy Britain's competitive and effective relationship with it.

Mr. Angus MacNeil (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (SNP): Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that 80 per cent. of voters in the north-east of Scotland want a referendum on the Lisbon treaty?

Malcolm Bruce: I do not think it possible to say that 80 per cent. of voters in the north-east of Scotland want any such thing. All tests of opinion, nearly all of which have been less than objective, have indicated that people want a treaty; but the majority of people would like a referendum on Britain's membership of the European Union, not on the Lisbon treaty, about which most of them have not been informed. As someone who reads and pursues the media of the north-east of Scotland every day, I have to say that people's ability to be informed on the contents of the treaty of Lisbon is not very apparent.

Mr. Chaytor: For those of us who find the idea of an in-out referendum at some point in the future extremely attractive, does the right hon. Gentleman accept that his party's decision to abstain on the amendment has weakened its capacity to put forward the very pro-European views that he advocates?

Malcolm Bruce: Absolutely not. Our view is that if we vote against the amendment, we will be voting against the principle of a referendum. The referendum is a principle that we like; what we do not like is the question. I do not wish to test the patience of the Chair, but the House will have noticed that our party has unfortunately been considerably frustrated in our attempts to get the words that we want put before the House and debated in ways that would make our position abundantly clear. We have to live with that frustration, but it has put us in the position of having to deal with what is before the House rather than with what we wish was before the House. I have to say that that is too often the case.

Hon. Members: Resignation.

Malcolm Bruce: Regarding the comments from those on the Benches behind me, one thing that I am proud of is that, in all the time that I have been involved in my party, it has clearly and consistently been in favour of our joining the European Union, being a constructive and engaged member of the European Union, and supporting progressive reform of the European Union. The nationalists, however, have never known which way to turn. They voted no in 1975, then they claimed that they wanted independence in Europe, and now they want to vote against the treaty of Lisbon while somehow or other saying that they are still pro-European. They are utterly and totally confused; they are in a totally tartan dwam as far as this issue is concerned.

Ms Gisela Stuart: The right hon. Gentleman is a genuinely committed European, and I believe that he would like to take the people with him in his vision of Europe. Does he not think that a referendum would provide a much better opportunity to extol the benefits of, and to make the case for, the European Union, rather than blackmailing people by simply asking, "In or out?"?

Malcolm Bruce: No. Perhaps I should not be surprised by the way in which the hon. Lady's relationship with, and attitude to, Europe has changed because of her experience of the negotiating process. I would have thought, however, that she would understand that if the United Kingdom decided now, in the present circumstances, to hold a referendum on the Lisbon treaty, and if we failed to ratify the treaty as a result, we would be faced with an internal dilemma, in that two thirds of Parliament would have voted one way, while the people would have voted the other way. That would be a domestic problem, as the right hon. and learned Member for Rushcliffe has articulated. Also, we would certainly have created a degree of resentment among our European colleagues for having held up a difficult process at a crucial moment. I think that the hon. Lady knows perfectly well that those would be the consequences of such a decision.

I am articulating my party's view, which is that after 35 years, it is appropriate to say to people, "The European Union has been modified by treaties. This is actually a good reforming treaty, which will leave it in better shape than most of the previous ones-certainly Nice and Amsterdam-did," and to ask them, "Will you vote for Britain to be in Europe, but as a package, on the understanding that that is with the Lisbon treaty?" The Lisbon treaty is not optional. We cannot be in Europe and not ratify the Lisbon treaty.

Michael Connarty: It seems entirely consistent, given the policies of the Lib Dems, that they would want both to stay in Europe and to give people a choice in a referendum. I can see how that is consistent. I do not particularly support referendums; I do not think that they fit with, or should be part of, the parliamentary process. Is it true, however, that the Liberal Democrats intend to abstain this evening, rather than voting for the treaty to go through, and against a referendum?

Malcolm Bruce: We have made it abundantly clear that we are voting for the treaty, but that we are not voting for a referendum on it. As I said to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Ms Stuart), I believe that it is fundamentally disingenuous and dishonest seriously to suggest that it is possible to vote against the Lisbon treaty while maintaining that Britain's membership of the European Union would not be compromised by such an act-

Michael Connarty rose-

Malcolm Bruce: The Conservatives' position is quite simple. They do not wish Britain to continue as an effective member of the European Union, and the purpose of their amendment is to start that process-

Hon. Members: Give way!

The First Deputy Chairman of Ways and Means (Sylvia Heal): Order. Perhaps the right hon. Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce) could make it clear whether he will give way to the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Michael Connarty).

Malcolm Bruce indicated assent.

Michael Connarty: I asked the hon. Gentleman what I thought was a simple question, but he did not quite answer it. Following the logic of what he has just said about consistent support for the European Union and getting the treaty through, will he explain why he and other members of his party are going to abstain tonight?

Malcolm Bruce: My colleagues and I have repeated the explanation ad nauseam. If it is impossible for people to hear or understand it, that is their problem, not mine.

We are engaged in a process to determine whether this country is going to be a leading member of the European Union or a continually moaning, peripheral country that is increasing becoming a tiresome irritant to the 26 other member states that want to go forward. That is why we believe that there is a case for having a defining referendum, in which we can ask the people of Britain whether they want to continue with this enterprise, as we do, or to put themselves on the margins of Europe and accept the consequences of so doing.

In September last year, I visited Estonia with a group of liberal democrat parliamentarians and had a very constructive meeting with the Prime Minister, Andrus Ansip. He is, of course, a leading member of the liberal parties of Europe-as, indeed, is the leading opposition party in Estonia- [Interruption.] It would be fair to say that Estonia is probably the most liberal country in Europe. It is worth listening to the voice of the people of Estonia.

Mr. Harper rose-

Mr. Austin Mitchell (Great Grimsby) (Lab) rose-

Malcolm Bruce: Let me make this point. One thing that the Estonian people will tell us is that they spent 700 years trying to escape from outside oppression-most recently, escaping from the Soviet Union. They are certainly not interested in buying into some kind of European superstate, which the Conservative party is so afraid of. What they want is a functioning, effective, working Europe in which decisions can be taken by 27 countries, and in which a small country such as Estonia can have its proper place and influence. The Prime Minister of Estonia told me that he sincerely hoped the UK was not going to be instrumental in delaying or obstructing implementation of the treaty of Lisbon. For my part, I said that I would do everything I could to ensure that that did not happen, and that the treaty would be ratified, because I shared his view that ratification was in the best interests of Europe.

Mr. Harper: It is interesting to note that the hon. Gentleman is willing to listen to the people of Estonia, but not to the people of Britain. Leaving that aside, however, will he clarify his earlier comment that if the House were to grant a referendum and the British people were to vote against ratification of the Lisbon treaty, it would in some way compromise our membership of the European Union? That did not happen when the French and Dutch refused to ratify the constitutional convention: they are still members of the EU and no one called that into question, so why does the hon. Gentleman think that it would be any different for Britain?

Malcolm Bruce: I do not know whether the hon. Gentleman travels at all in Europe or talks to our political colleagues- [Interruption.] Yes, we need to bear in mind that our Conservatives do not have any! Those of us who talk to mainstream political groups in pretty well every country in Europe could tell the hon. Gentleman quite categorically that the process by which the constitution was abandoned was painful enough. The follow-up process whereby 27 countries sought to reach agreement by delivering the Lisbon treaty and its many constructive and practical measures-the British Government, along with the German Government, played a constructive role-was also hugely difficult. If the hon. Gentleman believes that it would be willingly acceded to if the UK Government stood up and said, "Sorry, guys, I know that 26 of you are already going to adopt this treaty, carry it forward and start working with it, but we are not, as we want another couple of years to rethink the whole thing," I have to tell him that he is living in cloud cuckoo land. The truth is that we do not know what the consequences of a no vote in a referendum would be, but it would certainly not be in the interests of the United Kingdom, of our reputation or of our influence within the European Union.

Mr. Austin Mitchell: Not knowing the consequences has not stopped the hon. Gentleman from asserting them very vigorously-and, in my view, inaccurately. Amendment No. 296 provides for an enabling power to have another referendum, so would that not satisfy the Liberal desire to have their in-out referendum?

Malcolm Bruce: If the hon. Gentleman had been in his place earlier, he would have heard my hon. Friend the Member for Cambridge (David Howarth) explain that an amendment that would allow the Government to write any question, or no question, as they liked, does not tell the House what is wanted clearly enough. That makes it a non-workable and non-functioning amendment.

To be honest, I take a very simple view. First, we as a party are unreservedly and unapologetically pro the European Union, pro Britain's membership of the European Union and pro a functioning Union of 27 states that can take decisions in an intelligent format. At the same time, we believe that the British people deserve the right to have a real debate about what kind of Union it is-because we cannot create it in our own image-and whether they want to continue with the enterprise.

That is a risky venture, but one that we as a party would be willing, indeed enthusiastic, to take to the people. If we had been given a vote on it and the House had supported us, that is the referendum that people would have had-and I believe that it would have been won-rather than a referendum in which there is an attempt to persuade people that it is possible to vote for continued membership of the Union without ratifying the treaty of Lisbon. That is a dream world: it is not reality, it does not make political sense, and it will not be supported by our party.

To access the full text of this debate, please follow this link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200708/cmhansrd/cm080305/debtext/80305-0019.htm#08030572001579

Read "Debate on the European Union (Amendment) Bill ".

Scottish Liberal Democrat President's address to conference

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Scottish Liberal Democrat Spring Conference, Aviemore on Sun 2nd Mar 2008

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Where stood Scotland 500 years ago? At war with the English and trying to retake Berwick. Not much change there, then. Except a lot has happened in the intervening period that has been for the better.

Throughout the years there is one thing we in this party and its predecessors have always stood for - Home Rule for Scotland in an outward looking Liberal United Kingdom.

Of course our core values have been rooted in Liberal freedoms - freedom from oppression and exploitation and freedom of expression and the means to self improvement.

That is why we support business and enterprise tempered by strong competition policy to prevent monopoly and by care of the environment and partnership between employer and employed.

It is why we support strong, high quality public services fairly distributed and accessible to all on the basis of need.

As John Donne said, no man is an island. By the same token the mainland we live on is Great Britain, and Scotland, while including many islands, is not an island and has never been insular.

All of us are shaped by our relationships - especially with family and neighbours in our communities, work place or other institutions with which we engage.

Of course we also define them very subjectively inventing sometimes our own relationship myths - like behind every great man is an astonished mother-in-law.

That is also true of our national character. Scots define themselves by selective recollection of our history. Many people believe, for example, that we were conquered and subjugated by the dominant English - rather than 'bought and sold for English gold - such a parcel of rogues in a nation.'

My eldest daughter has been researching our family tree. On my father's side we were ordinary folk closely connected with fishing and ships - two centuries and probably more of Fifers.

My mother's side was more colourful - consisting of traders and merchants around Angus, Perthshire and Stirlingshire although there is also a direct line to Dutch farmers who came over with William of Orange.

I guess the ancestry of most of us is similarly mixed yet we choose to remember it selectively.

It was the Scots who forced Mary Queen of Scots to abdicate for being to Popish and too French. It was the Scots who then enlisted the help of the English to drive out the remaining French yet we prefer to remember the Auld Alliance.

There were more Scots on the side of the King at Culloden and Flora MacDonald was no Jacobite just anxious for Charles Edward to leave Scotland as soon as possible and spare further embarrassment. Her family were loyal to the Crown in the American war of independence and returned to Scotland once the colonies were lost.

The Act of Union was controversial but it was thoroughly debated and voted on in the last Scottish Parliament and by the burghs.

It was the Union of two sovereign nations motivated by business opportunities and a mutual desire to secure the Protestant succession. The end of an auld sang.

It paved the way for the Scottish enlightenment: a partnership of Scots and English in the development, trade and administration of the Empire to which and from which Scots contributed and benefited disproportionately.

Throughout that period Scotland preserved its distinct identity, with its own legal and education systems, and established Presbyterian church. The cross-fertilisation of people and ideas was energising for the whole UK.

It was in recognition of this, and the rights of the Irish and the Welsh whose role in the Union was not the partnership the Scots enjoyed, that Liberals stood out for reform, extending voting rights and the case for Home Rule as a means of delivering a Union paradoxically strengthened by devolution from the centre.

That is also entirely compatible with the recognition that, just as some aspects of sovereignty deliver better results if devolved, so pooling sovereignty with other nations extends our reach, opportunity and influence.

Our party called for Britain to be a founder member of the Common Market, and still today will argue the case for the UK to be a fully participating member of the enlarged and transforming European Union.

Yet in some quarters it is fashionable to poor scorn on the Union, its achievements and its still positive dynamic, which would weaken us all if it broke up.

A bit like the dolphins leaving earth in the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy with the parting shot "so long and thanks for all the fish", nationalists say good riddance to the empire. It's Scotland's oil, goodbye.

Well just haud the bus and consider what that means.

Of course over the centuries not all of Britain's actions have been noble or right but they have been collectively taken.

Last year we marked the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in the British Empire. It is true and we were all happy to record that Glasgow abolitionists played a large part in the campaign against slavery.

But we should also acknowledge that some of the largest plantations belonged to Scots who were among the largest slave owners in the Americas.

As post war Britain liberated its Empire Scots were as prominent as they had been in its acquisition

In the liberation of Europe from fascism, Scots forces played a heroic role within the British forces and alongside our allies.

More recently, this party voted together against the invasion of Iraq and we have been vindicated.

Nevertheless, we did support the action in Afghanistan and the prospects for that poor war-torn country would certainly have been brighter today if we had not been distracted by Iraq.

There has been wall-to-wall media coverage of Prince Harry's active service in Helmand. While attention is focused on him let us remember thousands of his fellow service men and women, including many from Scotland, have been deployed with dedication and courage, risking, and sadly in some cases losing, their lives, and we unreservedly salute their bravery and dedication.

The transformation of the UK from an imperial power to a post industrial service-led economy has not been easy, and has brought pain and change to many parts of Scotland.

But there is a new dynamic which has seen population decline reversed and new energy spreading to many parts of the country including the once ailing Highlands.

Internationally, Britain has recovered from its sick man of Europe identity and is watching as France and others have to face up to the challenges we have already confronted.

As someone who travels internationally as part of my Parliamentary responsibilities, I can confirm that, although we have been damaged by Tony Blair's unquestioning support for the Bush administration Britain is seen as a regenerated nation, with a genuine commitment to tackling inequalities and poverty in the world and at least through some of its agencies a beacon for democracy.

Through the Department for International Development, the UK is now one of the world's largest bilateral donors for development. We are the largest contributor to the World Bank's International Development Association programme and World Bank administered trust funds.

Almost half of DFID's UK staff is based here in Scotland at East Kilbride - around 560 people - and many Scots are active in country development programmes in 65 of the poorest countries around the world.

Reducing poverty is a huge challenge as so many factors are at play.

Today is Mothers' Day and the International Development Select Committee marks it with the publication of a report on Maternal Health in developing countries.

While there is concern in the UK about the shortage of midwives and the high level of Caesarean births, this pales into insignificance when compared with the horrors facing expectant mothers in many poor countries.

In Niger, for example, 1 in 7 women can expect to die in childbirth compared with 1 in 8200 in the UK.

Globally, international agencies cite a figure of 536,000 maternal deaths a year. Yet, research carried out by an internationally-backed team led by Aberdeen University, suggest the figure could be nearer 872,000.

And for each woman who dies 30 become disabled, injured or ill as a result of their pregnancy. This means millions of mothers suffer death, disability or illness as a result of pregnancy, making it a truly frightening experience.

DFID is a leading agency in seeking to tackle this scourge. Millennium Development Goal 5 - to reduce maternal deaths by 75% by 2015 - is the most off track of the UN's 8 millennium development goals, and this has implications for others such as child mortality, education and poverty reduction.

Yet it doesn't have to be that way. Mothers-to-be need skilled birth attendants, access to emergency obstetric support and basic drugs and equipment.

Unsafe abortion and lack of contraception are major causes of deaths in pregnancy so it follows that denying women access to contraception and safe abortion is effectively condemning millions of women a year to death and disability.

In International Development, the UK is seen as one of the best players having untied its aid from UK commercial or foreign policy interests and concentrating on what will reduce poverty and achieve the United Nations Millennium Development Goals.

We are on target to achieve a contribution of 0.7 per cent of GDP in aid by 2013 - behind the Nordic countries but well ahead of the other G7 players both in quality and quantity.

Another unique British institution is the British Council, committed to extending the English language as it is spoken on this side of the Atlantic and British culture and learning - in association with our universities. No wonder an increasingly monolithic, Kremlin-manipulated Russia doesn't like it - proof in itself of the relevance and the demand for its services wherever it operated and requests for it to open where it does not.

Our armed forces, small and overstretched as they may be, are professional and dedicated in the difficult theatres we choose to deploy them, where others fear to tread. I don't mean Iraq, from which we are rightly withdrawing but the Balkans, Afghanistan, Cyprus and Sierra Leone.

The BBC, for all we moan about its London-centredness, is still the envy of the world. We rightly call for more creative capacity to be developed in Scotland, and we should promote that, but Scots and Scotland are important components of the BBC.

In the theatres of international diplomacy and influence the UK is a significant player, with weighted voting rights in the EU, a permanent seat on the Security Council and influence within the Commonwealth of which the Queen is head.

Similarly, the UK has diplomatic representation in many more parts of the world than Scotland could possible aspire to. Many Scottish businesses will testify to the value of services they can access through British Embassies, High Commissions, Consulates and Trade Centres.

Together, we must police the borders of our island state, manage immigration and share our defence and foreign policy needs.

To break up the United Kingdom is to put all this and more at risk and for what purpose? To enable Alex Salmond to strut and swagger on the world stage like a tartan peacock?

We would reduce the impact of every citizen of the United Kingdom. Because the population of England is around nine times that of Scotland many of these institutions would continue but they would be smaller and qualitatively poorer without the input of Scots.

For many in Scotland the horizon of opportunity would be foreshortened and opportunities reduced.

So let us consider where the SNP wants to take us.

Economically they have acknowledged that they would keep the pound for an indefinite time - so our currency and interest rates would be managed by a foreign Government which is also our prime market.

They haven't told us what our defence and foreign relations capability would be or what it would cost. They wouldn't join NATO (a departure from their usual comparison with the Norwegian example).

The SNP attitude to Europe is as confused and inconsistent as it always was. They campaigned for a NO vote in the 1975 referendum. They subsequently claimed they wanted independence in Europe and have no voted against the Lisbon Treaty which would have the effect of marginalising us in European councils.

Of course there is room to improve the EU and its engagement with citizens. The debate over Britain and the EU is mind numbingly repetitive.

We believe that the UK must be a fully participating member arguing the strength of our case. If the majority of the people don't want that they should vote to leave and face the consequences.

A Scottish Broadcasting Corporation, a Scottish Council, or a Scottish International Development Department would all require separate administrative overheads and yet, even if we could afford them, they would never match their British counterparts.

Yet our new minority administration buoyed up by a 'here's to us wha's like us' attitude would trample all this underfoot in the rush to a spurious independence.

They will seek gratuitous fights with London.

Mr Salmond continues to protest at the negotiations between the UK and Libya for mutual return of prisoners, brushing aside repeated assurances by UK Ministers that individual decisions rest with the Scottish authorities and ignoring the fact that Mr Magrahi is currently pursuing an appeal against his conviction and could if he wins return home anyway.

Watch out for the progress of the SNP's plans for Scottish Futures Trust.

First they scrapped all new PPP projects (while claiming credit for those going ahead which were approved by the previous administration). They offered minimal access to alternative capital grants and forced local authorities and other agencies to put many urgent developments on hold.

Aberdeenshire, for example, urgently needs new schools and leisure facilities. It is no good the SNP calling for swimming lessons for all and smaller class sizes while making it impossible to provide new facilities.

And what happens when the Treasury says no, as they have indicated they will? Messrs Salmond and Swinney will blame what they call the London Government.

Grandstanding by the SNP in their mission to destroy the UK - for which they have no mandate - is no substitute for delivering the essential facilities our children and local communities need.

Ah, but you support an independent Kosovo and Estonia, why not Scotland?

Well there is one vital difference. Kosovars, Estonians and others need their independence to be free people. Scotland is a free society.

Independence is not needed. Bill Anderson, when he spoke at our conferences, always concluded by saying what Scotland needs is more independent Scots not more Scottish independence.

Just as we believe that there is room to improve the EU we want to continue to move towards greater home rule within the UK -we especially want the Scottish Parliament to have a significant share of the taxes in Scotland.

But devolution shouldn't stop at Holyrood. Local authorities and health boards should not be in thrall to central control from Edinburgh. By itself, replacing council tax with local income tax will not change the fact that local authorities are heavily straitjacketed by Ministers in Edinburgh.

A freeze on council tax comes at a price of cuts in services.

As Nick Clegg said on Friday, devolution should not stop at Edinburgh. As a party that champions local income tax, let me suggest we go a radical stage further.

Instead of all taxes, bar the discredited council tax going to the Treasury to be top sliced, wasted and lost. Let us keep more of the taxes where they are collected.

What councils and health boards need is their share of taxes paid in their locality, raising their access to income from local sources to 75 or 80 per cent of their total budget, leaving the grant from Holyrood for new services and to adjust for income inequalities.

This would offer us a new cause for campaigning - local taxes for local services.

That is the opposite of the SNP's 'one Scotland' approach.

Our commitment to Home Rule is deep seated and long lived. It is not a response to nationalism, it is driven by a desire for reform and to make Government more transparent and closer to the people.

This contrasts with Labour, which has had to be led down the path of devolution driven by fear and trepidation.

Even now they are in a state of confusion. Gordon Brown seems like one of the Lost Boys who can't find his way to the Wendy House - perhaps because of Cairns pointing in the opposite direction.

Perhaps he would be more comfortable taking UK-wide initiatives that would broadcast the breadth and depth of the Government's commitment to the Union and Scotland's place in it.

Why not have the vision of the French and build high speed trains to all parts of Great Britain, bringing us all closer together? Paris to Marseilles is approximately the same distance as London to Aberdeen yet the journey time of the former is three hours three minutes compared with seven and a half hours.

Such a service would easily switch much freight from road to rail, benefiting both the environment and our balance of payments.

Similarly, also to the benefit of Scotland and the Union, would be support for robust interlinks for transporting energy to enable Scotland to deliver its wealth of renewable resources from tidal power in the Pentland Firth through wave, wind energy and even solar.

So come on Gordon - don't get lost, get real.

Let us face up to it. The SNP are hell bent on one mission alone - to end the United Kingdom. Labour are unfit to respond. They are confused and scared and simply cannot handle Home Rule.

The Tories have sold their previous strong commitment to the Union for a pretty short tartan-crested spoon to sup with the nationalist devil.

No wonder the Liberal Democrats, under Nicol Stephen's leadership have become the effective opposition. We are determined to expose the inadequacies of the SNP's bluster and spin over promises broken because they were never intended to be kept.

We alone have the Federal vision and the Liberal flair to offer an alternative which matches the aspirations of the Scottish people far better than tiptoeing along the precipice of separation.

If you want Scotland with Home Rule, and greater freedom for citizens and communities to set their own priorities, if you want a federal, liberal United Kingdom with external relations of which you can be proud not ashamed, you know where to turn.

I share Nick's view that there are many more people who share our Liberal aspiration than have yet voted for us. Our task from now to the next election is to go out find them and bring them home to the Liberal Democrats.

ENDS

Read "Scottish Liberal Democrat President's address to conference ".

Westminster Hall Debate on Cross-Border Rail Services

Speech by Malcolm Bruce delivered to Westminster Hall on Tue 29th Jan 2008

Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): I very much welcome the opportunity to raise some issues in this debate. I assure the House that I do not intend it to be what we in Scotland call a greeting meeting, where we just catalogue all the complaints. There will be some of those, but I hope that we can focus on what we can and should be doing to fulfil ambitions for the services. I say that with some feeling, as I represent a constituency that is literally at the farthest end of the east coast main line. In that context, may I stress to the Minister my earnest hope that he will make it clear that the east coast main line runs from London to Aberdeen, not from London to Edinburgh? That is a genuine concern, not least because it is London to Edinburgh when investment decisions are being made, but London to Aberdeen for operational services.

I hope that the Minister will understand that those of us who represent constituencies and stations north of Edinburgh are campaigning energetically for some commitment to improve the quality of the service, not least because if the time comes, as I hope it will, when we have high-speed links to the central belt, the north of Scotland will also have at least relatively high-speed links to enable passengers to access cross-border routes effectively.

Debates about cross-border rail routes have been going on as long as there have been such routes-perhaps 150 years or more. It is a matter of regret to me that I rarely travel on the cross-border routes, not from any prejudice against trains-quite the reverse, I enjoy travelling by train-but because, frankly, the journey times are impossible for somebody who travels as often and as regularly as I do.

As it happens, Aberdeen airport is in my constituency. It is expanding in both passenger numbers and services, but there are people who object to its expansion. They offer the usual arguments about pollution, noise and climate change. I point out to them that although I am sympathetic to their arguments, the truth is that the airport is the lifeline communication for an economy such as ours.

I would like to believe that there is an aspiration to ensure that people have real choice, and that surface transport, particularly rail, is a genuine, viable alternative for more people more often than is currently the case. For the record, the journey time between London and Aberdeen is between seven and seven and a half hours. Indeed, most journeys are in excess of seven and a half hours, and that is only the time from station to station. By the time one adds on access to the station, particularly city centre stations, and travel across London, one is talking about a journey of nearly nine hours, as compared with my air journey yesterday, which, even though delayed, was about four hours. I am sure Members will understand that there really is no contest when people have to make a choice.

At present, several issues have clearly caused concern and anger. The Minister will not be surprised to hear me refer to the disruption caused by the engineering works at Christmas time. Virgin has estimated that it lost £10 million in revenue, and 50,000 people were affected by the disruption and the fact that it went on well beyond the predicted time. Somebody sarcastically said, "We are back to BR," but "BR" meant bus replacement rather than British Rail.

Dan Roberts wrote in The Daily Telegraph about the problem. To be fair, taking the whole article, he acknowledged that given the age of the infrastructure, it is surprising that for much of the time our trains run on time and provide a reasonable service. The problem is one of predictability. He states:

"The perverse paradox of Britain's bungled privatisation experiment"-

I do not expect the Minister to defend privatisation, as he and his Government were not responsible for it-

"is that railways are expensive and unreliable because they are so popular. There's not enough slack in the crowded system to allow trains to route around maintenance closures. But rather than spend the billions needed to lay new track, Network Rail and its dysfunctional private counterparts seem happier letting rising prices keep demand in check.

Sadly, profits have little to do with operational effectiveness and everything to do with how poorly or otherwise the contracts are negotiated."

A discussion that does not deserve mileage in this debate is whether Virgin, Arriva or National Express is better or worse, or whether Network Rail is responsible. We tend to hear enough over the airwaves of train operators blaming the track operator and vice versa-presumably the track operators blame the train operators for having the discourtesy to run trains on their tracks and generally making it inefficient for them to operate a network-but such debates do not really get us anywhere. What is really required is to bring all this together in ways that will meet the needs and expectations of passengers.

There are three passenger franchises covering the cross-border rail services: National Express on the inter-city east coast main line, Arriva-owned CrossCountry Rail, which took over the franchise in the past few months, and, of course, Virgin on the west coast. As they are relatively new services it is not possible to evaluate them, although there is anecdotal evidence. No doubt in due course we will be able to determine how well they are performing.

Many people regret the passing of the Great North Eastern Railway, or GNER. The irony is that one of the most popular franchises lost its right to operate because of the failure of its parent company, not because of shortcomings in its operations. Indeed, it was the franchise that passengers put at the top of their preferences. The new franchise clearly has quite an act to follow, and we hope that it will maintain the standard.

The other problem is that since the new franchises have taken over, they have announced some of the biggest fare rises on all the routes. National Express East Coast fares will increase by 6.6 per cent., and CrossCountry by 7 per cent. Both increases are measured at the retail prices index plus 2 per cent. That is significantly above the average 5.4 per cent. increase across the whole network, which itself is above inflation, and may bear out the comments that I just read out from The Daily Telegraph.

The Government may argue that above-inflation fares are needed to enable services to be improved, but I believe that passengers would like services to be improved first, rather than think that they are paying for something that may not materialise. In any case, if we are serious about the long-term aspirations of developing the network and encouraging more people on to it, it is reasonable to expect that fares will not increase above inflation. Indeed, in an expanding network that was actively encouraging people to transfer to it, one would hope that, if anything, fare increases would be below the overall RPI.

There are some other worrying indications. I need to press the Minister a little more about the negotiations and terms of the contracts, about which I have had some correspondence with him and others. When Arriva CrossCountry came through as the winner of the franchise in July last year, it said that it would introduce an older fleet of trains and cut back on-board services such as toilets and shops. I was contacted yesterday by my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Mr. Beith), who would have been here were it not for the fact that his Select Committee commitments prevented him. He asked me to point out his concerns about the services that pass through his constituency, in particular through Berwick. He is appalled to hear suggestions that hot food services could be cut in standard class between Dundee and Penzance.

Evidence suggests that not many passengers take the whole journey on that train, but the train makes the whole journey and people have the right to do so, too. If people taking a significant chunk of the journey from Dundee to Penzance are told that they will be on the train for hours but that no hot food will be available, it is pretty poor provision. Perhaps the Minister will tell us what is happening. If the argument is that by not having hot food and having fewer toilets we can seat more passengers, it means that more passengers will be offered a poorer service. Are those the expectations? Is such provision within the contract that the Government negotiated? What is the justification for that? I hope that the bid was not accepted because it cost the least in subsidies, rather than because it met the balance between cost-effectiveness and passenger need. Will the Minister share with hon. Members how the Government balance the two factors of value for money for the taxpayer, in terms of a lower subsidy, and comfort and efficiency for the passenger? It is not right for one to be completely traded for the other. I hope that the Minister agrees.

Just this week, there was a demonstration by passengers on First Great Western, boycotting that railway, refusing to pay or using fake tickets. I do not want to make too much of that, but there are clearly pinch points where passengers feel aggrieved because although they are paying, in some cases, significant sums to use trains, they are not getting the service they expect so, not surprisingly, their anger rises.

The Government, perhaps understandably, are anxious to control or reduce the level of subsidy given to the railways-we need a debate about that. However, that has to be part of a genuine public engagement about where the burden is shared. If it is simply a matter of the Treasury reining back on the cost of the railways and, in effect, offloading it on to passengers by saying, "We do not have the capacity anyway, so we can charge them more and more and actually it will be helpful if they go elsewhere", that ignores the wider debate about climate change, pollution, congestion and so on.

One of the reversals of progress, compared with 150 years ago, or even in my lifetime-50 years ago, say-is that people used to be able to walk into a station, ask about the route and find out which fare, by whatever class they wanted to travel, provided the best value from A to B. That is no longer an option. The amount of questioning, effort and research that is needed to find the best route and the best fare is disproportionate to the result.

Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con): When I was researching for the debate, I was intrigued to see that one of Arriva's commitments for its new cross-country franchise was to provide a website showing clearly the cheapest fare and the quickest way to make journeys. Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us whether he or his constituents have any experience of whether that website is up and running yet?

Malcolm Bruce: I do not know, although I will give a sample of fares for part of that route later. However, the hon. Gentleman makes my point. It is all very well saying, "We have a route-one route-and we can tell you exactly what the best fare is on it", but many people travelling cross-border have to change trains and operators, particularly when going from north-east to south-west, or vice versa, and that is where the difficulties arise. That was true in Victorian times, too, but there was none the less an integrated timetable and fare structure, so it is not something that was possible only during the British Rail era.

The whole fare-pricing structure involves the price, the name of the ticket and its validity, any conditions attached to it, its variability and whether it is appropriate for the journey that people are taking. Increasingly, people are prepared to use the internet, hoping that it will have done the work for them, to search for the best fare. However, that is a matter of trust; people do not know how good the internet service is and the extent to which it has provided the right answer. In any case, they have to ask the right questions.

A considerable amount of research is still required to find the cheapest price. People have to book early in advance, if they can, for the cheaper, fairer prices that the Government say are available, but which are often buried in an obscure area, for an obscure train at an obscure time. If that is so, it is a meaningless option. The French have a "most recently bought" competitive fare, which enables passengers to know which fare people buy most regularly and how it compares with other fares.

As information is not available and people cannot find the best deals, journeying by rail is becoming increasingly beyond the means of the majority of people in this country, particularly if they are travelling, as I have sometimes tried to do, with a family, notwithstanding family rail cards and the like. My office priced a journey for a long weekend next month, travelling on Thursday and returning on Monday, from Huntly in my constituency to Bristol. That is not an unusual journey-it is not true that everybody wants to go to London-but the cheapest price for one adult is a saver return at £168.30 on a restricted ticket. When I talked to someone from my local newspaper about that, he said, "Don't you mean £68.30?" I repeated that the ticket cost £168.30. A standard open return ticket costs £279, which is a pretty steep jump.

People can pay a cheaper fare if they have the patience and time to investigate the single fares on offer. Of course, that has become the great catch. Most people assume that if they are buying a return ticket there is a discount-a deal. However, increasingly, the way to find the best deal is to buy two singles, independently, from opposite ends of the proposed journey. If people do that for a return journey from Huntly to Bristol, they can find a return fare totalling £92, but the tickets are valid only on specified trains. That is a serious problem, because even people who are pretty clear about when they want to travel can find that circumstances change, and their whole ticket would be invalidated if that happened.

Just for the record, the train journey from Huntly to Bristol takes 10 and a half hours. According to the AA, the road journey takes nine hours and 55 minutes on 547 miles of road. Although I am not sure that I believe that figure, I shall use it for a comparison. Would a family, or even two or three adults, even contemplate a 10 and a half hour train journey that cost, at a minimum, nearly £300 and might cost £500 or £600, or would they take the car?

Although people can find competitive fares, it is not reasonable to expect them to do all the work themselves. There is no guarantee that they will get the most appropriate fare or deal for their circumstances. We need to take a much more radical look at how all these things are operated and reported on. That is not just my view. The Select Committee on Transport has, not surprisingly, looked into the matter and was pretty critical about what it found out in its sixth report of the 2005-06 Session, "How fair are the fares? Train fares and ticketing". The Committee commented on the costs and said that

"on the whole, there is little doubt that walk-on rail fares in the UK are more expensive than in many European countries."

It also criticised the lack of flexibility, particularly for walk-on fares:

"It is essential that when rail passengers walk up and buy a ticket immediately before departure, they do not have to pay over the odds. Fully flexible open fares may need to command a price premium over other less flexible tickets, but the prices now charged by many long-distance operators are absurdly high. The 'see how much we can get away with' attitude of operators has put the thumbscrews on those passengers who have no option but to travel on peak-hour trains, using fully flexible open fares. Such behaviour has brought not only individual train operators, but the passenger railways in general into disrepute."

The Committee issued a rebuke about the complexity in unregulated fares. The Government have said that they are putting in place a simplified system, but it is not clear how effective it will be or whether long-distance operators will apply it. If the Minister can give an update about exactly what is being done to try to simplify the structure so that people can access and manage it, I would be grateful.

It is worth recording that although things have improved, the three cross-border routes attract a high number of complaints. When I asked the Library for information, I was told that in 2006-07 there were 1,229 complaints against the three train operating companies offering cross-border services, which outnumbered the 973 complaints made against all the remaining 18 train operating companies. There were more complaints against those three operators than the other 18 by a factor of four to three. I accept that the cross-border routes involve longer journeys, but given that many people do not bother to complain and only three operators and three routes are involved, it is indicative that there have been serious problems. However, I acknowledge that the figures seem to have improved.

The situation is not all bad. We have some good operators and some new franchises, but there is still some uncertainty. People want reliability, improved journey times and fair and competitive fares, but we have a long way to go, even within the existing structure, to deliver people's expectations.

I turn to the vision thing, or perhaps I should call it the lack-of-vision thing. Many people have travelled on continental railways. People travel internationally, so they are aware of what other countries are doing, and they feel that the United Kingdom is falling embarrassingly behind. Japan sets a high standard in reliability, punctuality and cost. My parliamentary researcher, who went to a wedding in Japan over the Christmas and new year period, reminded me of how efficient the Shinkanseng-the bullet train-is in time and price.

I have made some comparisons between the UK and France. France may be the aspirational model, but it is our next-door neighbour and it is reasonable to ask why we are so far adrift from what the French have done. There is no doubt that what has been achieved in France has been the result of genuine political leadership, vision and determination. I shall give an example. The trip from Paris to Marseilles is about 411 miles, compared with 397 miles for the trip from Aberdeen to London. That is the distance as the crow flies, and I accept that the track does not follow the crow, but I am comparing like with like. The journey time is hugely different; from Paris to Marseilles it is three hours and three minutes, compared with seven hours and eight minutes on a comparable line in the UK, so there is no contest.

Even given the favourable exchange rate, the TGV fare is significantly more affordable. The most popular, most bought fare is £36 return. Recently, I helped helping my daughter to book a summer rail trip from London to Avignon, which is a direct service that runs in the summer and take five and a quarter hours. The return fare is £189, which is a fantastic bargain in time and price compared with anything in the UK.

When the Government commissioned a feasibility study on high-speed trains, as they did for their last manifesto, they estimated that £30 billion would be required for a high-speed Scotland to London line. When the White Paper was launched last July, the Secretary of State dismissed proposals for a high-speed railway and suggested that it would not be considered again until 2012, presumably because then we will have digested the Olympics and it will be after the next election. That is not a satisfactory response. The Secretary of State said:

"If the economics or the environmental calculations change, it is right that we consider them in due course"-[Official Report, 24 July 2007; Vol. 465, c. 695.]

I suggest that they are changing, and changing fast.

There are issues of climate change, congestion, pollution and economic diversity in the UK. My constituents and I consider ourselves to be major contributors to the British economy in terms of the goods that we supply, particularly food, to the home counties market. We are heavily engaged in oil and gas, paper and other industries. A high proportion of our customers are in the south of England, and communication with people and goods to the south is of mutual benefit, yet one has the impression that the south of England is quite happy, despite our balance of payments deficit, to import competitive products from the near continent rather than from the UK's hinterland. Part of the reason for that is that the near continent has invested in high-speed rail links that are not available to the further parts of the United Kingdom.

That economic disadvantage hampers not only the parts of the UK that have the capacity to serve domestic markets, but our own economy, because it means that instead of using domestically produced goods, we are importing them. That is partly due to the lack of infrastructure investment. A fast rail link between Edinburgh and London would help to redress the north-south economic divide, and I am sure the Minister acknowledges that.

We should consider journey times in France, and what a high-speed rail link would do for the United Kingdom. Journey times to the central belt of Scotland could be only two and a half hours, which would have a huge impact on domestic capacity at airports, allow more international flights from domestic airports and reduce the number of journey connections. There would be benefits in reducing aviation, reducing pollution and increasing efficiency.

When I spoke to Virgin, the company said that there is substantial capacity to switch people from planes to trains on, for example, the Glasgow route. It obviously has an obligation to run its services, but it needs upgrades and improvements on the lines to do so. Its plea is for both parts of my submission: first, that we keep investing in existing services to cut down journey times and increase efficiency and reliability, or enable rail companies to do so and, secondly, that we have the vision in the long term to connect to a high-speed link as and when that investment is made.

It is easy to ask where £30 billion or more will come from, but that is where the political will comes in. It is a lot of money, but it can be spread over many years. Governments have a way with figures. When they want to show how much they have spent, they total a huge number of years and say that they are spending billions, and when they want to say how unaffordable something is, they do the same. When they want us to believe that identity cards are a great idea, they say that the cost is just a small amount each year and absorbable within the overall cost. It is a matter of will.

The chief executive of Network Rail favours such an investment-as he would. He talks about London to Glasgow, via Birmingham and Manchester, London to Edinburgh via Leeds and Newcastle, and London to Cardiff via Bristol. There is talk of a possible route linking London, Birmingham, Manchester, Leeds, Newcastle, Edinburgh and Glasgow, perhaps with a branch to Liverpool-[Interruption.]

David Taylor (in the Chair): Order. That is the third occasion on which the debate has been interrupted by an electronic device. Will all hon. Members and observers please ensure that such devices are switched off?

Malcolm Bruce: I apologise, Mr. Taylor. I assure you that my phone is now firmly off.

The argument is that we can invest in rail if we want to. Such investment would have a huge transformational effect on the sense of unity of the United Kingdom and its land area. As a Scottish MP who believes in the Union, I say to the Minister that a strategic focus of that kind is a classic example of what the Union can achieve. It will bind us together in a common interest rather than drive us apart.

I make no complaint about the fact that a significant amount of the funding for the railway network in Scotland has been devolved to the Scottish Executive and the Scottish Parliament. I do not quarrel with that because clearly they have more local knowledge. However, I hope that the Government will acknowledge that devolution does not absolve them of strategic consideration for rail services that affect Scotland and England. I do not mean just those that straddle the border, but linking services, too. It is not commonly recognised that if one is in the central belt of Scotland, there is more than 300 miles of Scotland to the north. My home village of Torphins is 220 miles from the English border, but it is also 220 miles by road from Orkney. Such distances are really important, and railways contribute hugely to shortening those journeys.

I am not arguing for a high-speed link all the way to the north of Scotland, but for real investment in services across the central belt. We need a real commitment to invest in high-speed trains for journeys that include the central belt and we need investment in efficient connecting links. There would be little point in building a high-speed line that cuts the journey time from London to Edinburgh to two and a half hours, which would be comparable to what the French have achieved, if it then takes two and a half hours or more to get from Aberdeen to Edinburgh-a journey of little more than 100 miles-to connect with that service. There needs to be a comparable upgrade in all the services to enable such a high-speed line to work.

I want to make two small local points. One of them is within the remit of the Scottish authorities and the other is not, so I shall speak to the Minister's colleague, the Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Poplar and Canning Town (Jim Fitzpatrick) about it. Network Rail made a commitment to upgrade the Aberdeen to Inverness service and to provide for the possibility of a commuter rail link between Inverurie, the main town in my constituency, and Aberdeen, which would have huge benefits for consumers, at a cost of between £60 million and £70 million. Network Rail handed over that responsibility to the Scottish Executive who, so far, have shown no real will to pull together the money. They have argued that the project needs to be phased, showing a complete lack of understanding. The project does not lend itself to phasing, because the track, passing spaces and signalling have to be provided before the rolling stock can be introduced. Once those things are in place, the rolling stock is immediately required. I hope that Network Rail has not handed us a duff transfer.

The other issue is rail freight. A very worthwhile effort to provide subsidy to encourage traffic from road to rail had led to the development of services into and out of Aberdeen. Asda, in particular, was bringing in food for its stores in the north-east and a consortium of local transport organisations was putting together an initiative, too. The rules of the franchise were that there had to be a stopover point in Scotland. As a result, the southward part of the service does not attract subsidy, which means that the service will become non-viable. I hope that Ministers will readdress that point. As I have said before, if we are supplying our goods to the home counties, it seems illogical to enforce a stopover point in Scotland to qualify for the subsidy. I hope that it will be possible for the matter to be concluded.

I have indulged myself, Mr. Taylor, on the grounds that I have not had a huge number of interventions. It has given me the opportunity to range more widely over the course than might otherwise have been the case. I hope that hon. Members will recognise the existence of some very serious issues. I do not suggest for one minute that the Government have no interest and no commitment, and have done nothing. Such a comment would be unreasonable and unfair, and I wholly accept that a significant amount of taxpayers' money is involved. Those of us who were sceptical about privatisation always acknowledged that would be the case anyway, and that achieving a balance was the issue.

I have avoided going into the whole argument about the structure of the railways because that is for another time, another place and another debate. To those who say that we cannot control everything, I point out that all we are concerned about are two issues. Can we have more reliable services, which run more quickly and are more competitively priced, and can we have an aspiration to provide rail investment that will put us on a par with the substantial investment that is taking place across the country?

I hope that the Minister will give us some answers, certainly on some of the detailed points that I have raised, although I am not sure that he will be able to answer my second question. However, that is the kind of vision that our country needs. I submit to the Minister that there is a very strong case for the United Kingdom to recognise that strategic investment of the kind I described benefits the UK economy and all its parts, reduces our balance of payments deficit, increases the efficiency of the distribution of people, goods and services within the United Kingdom and is probably one of the biggest single infrastructure developments that would put us in a competitive position with our continental counterparts. I urge the Government to look for that kind of vision. I am disappointed that so far they seem unwilling to do so.

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Westminster Hall Debate on Thai-Burmese Border

Speech by Malcolm Bruce delivered to Westminster Hall on Thu 6th Dec 2007

Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD): I can say on behalf of members of the International Development Committee that we are extremely pleased to have the opportunity to debate our report. Naturally, we think that all our reports are important and relevant, but this one is particularly timely. It is important for the House to understand that the Committee undertook an inquiry into the situation in Burma before the recent events took place. After all, the plight of the people of Burma has been serious and deteriorating for 60 years, but, clearly, what has happened since our visit has put into sharp focus just how desperate it is and how important it is that the world does everything that it possibly can to alleviate the suffering there.

Members of the Committee visited the Thai-Burma border in May. We met groups that work cross-border to try to support internally displaced people close to the Thai border but on the Burmese side. We also met exiled groups that were operating out of Thailand to support the Burmese people, and in both Chiang Mai and Bangkok, we met a variety of charities and non-governmental organisations that are involved.

As I said at the outset, Burma has suffered from 60 years of civil war-my lifetime-and 45 years of a military rule that is callous, inhumane and entirely destructive. We had the opportunity to visit one of the largest camps on the border, Ban Mai Nai Soi, and to speak to the refugees. Many told us of how they were subjected to forced labour and harried out of their villages and into the jungle.

The Committee spends a great deal of time discussing poverty, but the kind of poverty that was described to us in Burma is beyond comprehension. Poverty is often described as earning less than a dollar a day, but for the internally displaced people in Burma, it is earning and having nothing. They have no access to food, medical care, education, shelter or anything. They had to flee into the jungle and were constantly harried.

David Taylor (North-West Leicestershire) (Lab/Co-op): The right hon. Gentleman refers to poverty in Burma. The poorest state in Burma is probably Chin, which is on the Indian border. Does he think that there is considerable scope, as Christian Solidarity Worldwide urges, for cross-border initiatives to relieve the poverty in that state, as well as to promote democracy and human rights, in the way that CSW and other organisations have done for such a long period?

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful for that intervention. Naturally, the Committee was not able to visit all the border sites, but the report does refer to the fact that there are refugees fleeing across the borders with India, Bangladesh and China. Obviously, there are displaced people in those countries as well. The answer is simple: we should support efforts to provide relief to people along any of the borders. There is evidence that more could be done on all fronts, but, clearly, the biggest pressure is from eastern Burma into Thailand, which is why the Committee went to that area. However, the hon. Gentleman's point is correct.

John Battle (Leeds, West) (Lab): I am listening carefully to the right hon. Gentleman's speech. He led my colleagues on the Committee and me in producing an excellent and timely report. Could I suggest to him that the poverty that we saw is not just about an inability to get resources to live on? The fact that people are displaced across a border means that they are in no place with no hope for the future. We saw absolute desperation driven by violence. I think that we sometimes underestimate poverty, which can also involve oppression, violence and statelessness.

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. Of course poverty is all those things. We saw poverty, but what we heard about was even more serious. We spoke to the people who had actually made it across the border and were receiving some kind of support in camps. Their situation was pretty bad, but the stories that they told of how they got to the camp and the suffering that they saw before they managed to get there were, as I said earlier, beyond comprehension-and, for many people, beyond endurance.

We were told by the support agencies about the completely brutal actions of the military forces. For example, we were told that the head people of villages were forced to kill their own families in front of the village or be killed themselves. They were then harried out of the village, which was destroyed. Women were subjected to continuous and violent rape and, after enduring all of that, fled for their lives, taking nothing with them. They survived on what they could gather in the jungle or what cross-border agencies could get to them until they managed to arrive at the camps, where we encountered them. It is important to acknowledge that providing aid across the border is itself a difficult and dangerous operation, but it provides an essential lifeline for the people in that area who have literally nothing.

We were told that villagers were forced into labour by the soldiers who destroyed their village. They were then forced to plant crops and work their own fields but were driven away into the jungle while the crops grew and matured. They were then rounded up and forced to harvest the crops for the benefit of the soldiers-none of the food went to the villagers. In such a situation, even the basics of subsistence are not provided, let alone things such as health care and education, which we regard as fundamental to even a rudimentary civilisation. In many cases, none of those things was provided.

The situation on the border represents a huge dilemma for the Royal Thai Government, who clearly have a problem. They are concerned that, if they provide too much support, they will attract even more refugees and increase the burden. Nevertheless, they are not lacking in compassion. It is estimated that there may be 1 million or even 2 million Burmese refugees living illegally in Thailand.

Ann McKechin (Glasgow, North) (Lab): I thank the right hon. Gentleman and Chairman of the Select Committee for his introduction to this important debate. Would he agree that the international community must do more and offer resettlement for refugees? Frankly, it is unlikely that many refugees will be able to return in the short to medium term, and the Thai authorities have been left with a truly dreadful dilemma, as they try to cope not only with the people in the refugee camps but the 2 million who live in Thailand outside the camps. Should not the international community do more and offer permanent resettlement in their own countries?

Malcolm Bruce: I certainly agree with the hon. Lady, but, in that context, we could also do more to help Thailand. We should all share its economic burden. Of course, many of the illegal refugees are gainfully employed, but there is the danger that they may be deported at any time. Clearly, that is not a satisfactory situation.

I entirely agree that other countries should be willing to help, although I believe that the hon. Lady would acknowledge that that in itself would create a dilemma if it were to result in taking leadership away from the camps-they have more to offer-and leaving the poorest and least-skilled people behind. There is a dilemma even in trying to ensure that a social structure is maintained.

Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab): I am following with care what the right hon. Gentleman says, and I agree with everything so far. On the situation with the refugees-he may be coming on to say something about this-it is clear that we need to sort out our own co-ordination. As far as the UK is concerned, the Foreign Office is responsible for refugees and DFID is responsible for several things relating to internally displaced people. Equally, on an international level, the respective roles of the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees need to be brought together in a much more consistent way if we are to do the right thing by the refugees.

Malcolm Bruce: I completely agree with that. The hon. Gentleman will be aware that the co-ordination of all kinds of agencies is an issue that comes up in almost every situation that the Select Committee investigates. It is certainly true in this context that more effective co-ordination would be of benefit to the refugees and displaced people.

The hon. Gentleman anticipated the point that I was going to make about the operation of DFID and the Foreign Office and the location of offices. We were a little surprised to arrive in Bangkok and find that the DFID office was in the process of closing. The decision, which had been taken some years ago, was perfectly understandable, in that Thailand is a middle-income country and DFID's commitment is to poor countries. In that context, the Committee would not expect Thailand to have a DFID office, but the reality in Burma is that DFID has a serious daily responsibility to be in touch with the plight of people operating in Thailand to support people in Burma. We have asked the Government to reconsider their decision to operate entirely from Rangoon with no DFID staff in Bangkok. I do not expect the Minister to give a commitment to act on that, but I should be grateful if he at least undertook to look closely at the practice. I told the Secretary of State informally that my guess is that, if the groups that operate out of Bangkok were asked whether they are frustrated at the absence of the daily contact that they previously had, they would say yes and that they would appreciate a more regular contact.

Sir Robert Smith (West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine) (LD): As a member of the Committee on the visit, I reinforce the need for co-ordination in Bangkok. Many organisations can freely co-ordinate their activities in Burma through direct aid and across the border only when they leave Burma. They must meet outside, because there is no way that they can meet and speak freely about what they are doing within the regime.

Malcolm Bruce: That is exactly the point. People were prepared to say things to us during meetings in Bangkok and Chiang Mai that they would not have been prepared to say in Burma. In that context, the Government say in their response to our report:

"We will arrange meetings at least every 3 months with those groups who provide cross-border support, and with those who lobby for political change from outside Burma. This will ensure a regular flow of information and ideas."

I suggest that a meeting every three months does not compare with daily contact, which is what happened before relocation to Rangoon. The Government continued:

"Second, we will continue to engage with all donor co-ordination initiatives both in Bangkok and Rangoon. The flight from Rangoon to Bangkok only takes one hour."

The problem is that one does not know when to fly if one does not know what the issue is, and that comment demonstrates remoteness from the need to engage with groups in Thailand.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell (Sutton Coldfield) (Con): I shall return to this point if I am fortunate enough to catch your eye, Mr. Gale, but it may be helpful to say now that, as the Committee Chairman knows, the Conservative party strongly supports his point. We hope that the Government will look again at the excellent section of the report that argues that point, and we want to encourage the Minister, even now during our debate when he has his officials behind him, to consider whether he can change policy on that important matter.

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful for that intervention and support. The Government should consider carefully whether they can continue to maintain the close links, co-operation and working relationship with groups operating in Thailand if they do not have a permanent member of staff or two based in Bangkok.

We were, however, impressed with the work of the Foreign Office and the embassy in Bangkok, and we do not wish in any way to criticise that work, particularly in support of refugees. We believe that a DFID engagement is necessary in addition to, not instead of, the Foreign Office engagement. I hope that the Minister and the Department will think carefully about the decision that has been enacted and consider whether, in practice, they need to revisit it. I hope that they will do so, because we are not convinced that the close relationships that were maintained before the office closed can be continued under these arrangements.

The Government have acknowledged that support for refugees and cross-border organisations and in-country support for the Three Diseases Fund and the civic society group are not mutually exclusive, and we had a considerable debate about that. We had the impression at one point that the Government were arguing that cross-border support was something that other people provided, and that DFID and the Government had an advantage in providing in-country support. I should like to make it clear, as I am sure would the Committee, that we commend DFID's work in Rangoon and want it to do more of it, but looking at the problem of Burma in its entirety, we do not believe that we can do that without providing support for cross-border agencies and exile groups at the same time. It is not an either/or matter; the approach should be dual-pronged.

In the light of developments since our visit, will the Minister tell us by how much, for example, the funding of the Three Diseases Fund can and will be increased and whether it is still possible to work with civic society and faith groups in-country in the wake of the recent clampdown? How closely supervised are DFID staff, and how restrictive is the supervision by the junta Government and their officials? Were any of DFID's key partners inside Burma directly affected by recent events? Those constraints and problems are being confronted on the ground.

I welcomed the Secretary of State's announcement on 29 October that aid to Burma will be doubled from £9 million to £18 million by 2010. I also welcome the fact that that will be reviewed and could lead to the quadrupling of aid, which our Committee called for, on the same time scale. Although, not surprisingly, there has been some concern that the Government should go further and faster, it is fair to say that they have responded positively. The hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell) looks rueful, and no doubt he will explain himself, but we asked for a quadrupling of aid. The Government have not ruled that out and have immediately doubled it, so it would be churlish to deny that that is a positive response.

A small matter of Committee sensitivity is that it received the Government's response to our report on 15 October, and in response to our call to quadruple aid they said:

"we will be considering an increase in funding for our programme in Burma following the Comprehensive Spending Review settlement in October."

A week later, they announced their decision to double it and that they might further increase it subsequently. It would have been good for parliamentary relations if they had acknowledged the report and the response to it, rather than implying that they had made a spontaneous decision unrelated to anything that was going on. We shall claim the credit anyway.

James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend, East) (Con): I hope that the Minister was listening and that, when he finally accepts the full recommendations and quadruples aid, he will commend the Committee on its work.

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful for that intervention. There is a serious point, because the Committee worked extremely hard and made serious recommendations. It is gratifying when the Government accept all or part of those recommendations, but Ministers seem to be reluctant to acknowledge that they are responding to parliamentary pressure. It would be a virtue if Ministers welcomed that and publicly acknowledged it, but perhaps that is for the future.

John Battle: I would like the right hon. Gentleman to emphasise one point. Aside from the increase in funds, the business of the Three Diseases Fund is crucial, because 70 per cent. of the population are at risk from malaria, and Burma now has the third highest HIV prevalence in the whole of south-east Asia. Moving on from our report, I suggest that DFID and other international donors should start to look at alternative mechanisms for tackling the three diseases. We saw from the maps that were presented to us that there is no way that their present strategy will cover people's needs.

Malcolm Bruce: I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I certainly hope that the Department will provide more detail on how it is using the extra money to scale up delivery of those services. I agree with him that a stronger and deeper infrastructure is necessary for that to happen. The point is that the Burmese Government-if one can call them a Government-spend almost nothing on health care and provision and, as the Committee has discovered from looking at aspects of health care in other parts of the world, if there is no health service infrastructure it is extraordinarily difficult to provide even the most basic treatment. Nevertheless, the evidence is that the Three Diseases Fund has been successful in reaching at least some people, and it would be worth the Government explaining in more detail how they propose to extend it to reach more people more quickly.

In the present situation, development in Burma is virtually inconceivable; all we are offering is absolutely basic aid. When I say that development is inconceivable, I mean that it is inconceivable as long as the country is under the thumb of a brutal military dictatorship that holds normal human values in contempt and cares nothing for the people of Burma, still less for the ethnic minorities in the country. Some of those who participated in the recent protests-since the Committee visited the area-have said that they are now so poor and so repressed that it is worth dying to change things, because life offers so little. A question hangs in the air: is change likely as long as the junta is in power? Is there any prospect of change from within? I say to the Minister that-obviously, in co-operation with the Foreign Office-every effort must be intensified to bring that brutal regime to an end.

The tragedy for Burma is that it is rich in natural resources and has a potential for development that other countries would give their eye teeth for. However, the country's resources are being exploited by the dictatorship simply to sustain itself in power, rather than to provide anything for the people in terms of economic, health or education benefits, or any of the normal perquisites of civilisation. The country is being developed with no regard whatever for the people.

We must also consider Burma's neighbours. Clearly, the military regime is sustained by the fact that Burma can find customers for its resources abroad. It is therefore worth asking what China, India and Russia especially are doing. Will the Minister say what protests have been lodged against Russia's plans to build a nuclear power station for the regime? The Government are worried about Iran, but I hear no protests about the fact that Russia wants to build a nuclear power station in Burma. How can India hold its head up as a democracy-the largest democracy in the world-and as a member of the Commonwealth while continuing to provide arms for the regime? What protests have the Government lodged and what engagement have they had, with the Indian Government on the matter?

Finally, and perhaps most important, what discussions are the Government holding with China? Of the three countries I have mentioned, China is the one with which some degree of co-operation and understanding might be the most productive. Clearly, the Chinese want assets-oil, gas, electricity and water-for eastern China, and nobody can blame them for wishing to secure them from a close source. However, China also needs security of supply, so it must consider whether a military regime whose people are suffering and who are beginning to protest provides a secure basis for future supply, or whether it ought to apply pressure to ensure that the regime delivers some democracy, freedom and services for the people, to create a stability that will in turn provide future security for China's investment in Burma. What talks are being held with China to that effect?

The Committee believes that there is scope for a significant increase to DFID's in-country aid to Burma. We welcome the Government response, but we want them to go further. The Government must ensure that money goes to all the appropriate resources, whether in-country or out of country, where they can be reached and be effective. There must be no continuation of a debate that says we can do one thing and not another. As the hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) said, we need to co-ordinate with other agencies to ensure that whatever we do is done most effectively and reaches the maximum number of people, and we should pile pressure on the junta to accept its responsibilities to the people whom it subjugates and represses.

In conclusion, recent events suggest that if we cannot prise the generals' fingers off the levers of power in Burma, the 60 years of suffering might end in a bloody and awful denouement. In the meantime, we must do everything in our power to relieve the suffering of the Burmese people and to bring an end to a brutal and repressive regime.

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BOND International Development Disability Day

Speech by Malcolm Bruce delivered to Methodist Central Hall on Mon 3rd Dec 2007

It has been sobering to listen to Graham Teskey (Head of Governance and Social development, DFID) and Isaac Kute (ADD, Chief executive). There is a book that has recently been published by Paul Colliers "The Bottom Billion". It talks about how to reach the billion poorest people in the world and deliver development. When you hear there are 600 million disabled people in the world and that 20% of the world's population is disabled, you wonder how many people in that bottom billion are actually disabled. A significant proportion of the world's poorest people are disabled people.

I do not wish to direct any criticism to Graham Teskey, but one needs to acknowledge that mainstreaming disability issues in development policy and in practice is a challenge. I'm delighted to hear that the "How To Notes", recently published by DFID, provide practical guidance to country programmes as to how to include the needs of people with disabilities in their work. Despite a majority of the world's population being women, it is difficult enough to mainstream gender into programmes! How much more difficult is it to prioritise disabled people? One should look at the West first before looking at developing countries, to see how far we have to go.

I got involved in issues surrounding deafness because my daughter was born deaf 30 years ago. I was confronted with something I did not know about and had not previously had to deal with. Over the 30 years that I have known her, and witnessed the challenges she has faced, I have learnt a lot about the obstacles facing people with disabilities. There is little recognition of the skills or the potential people with disabilities have. It is hard to find jobs and, if they do, hard to find work which is appropriate to their level of skill and experience. It is difficult to access professional training, etc.

There are many other obstacles. For profoundly deaf people, for example, recognition and access to sign language is frankly abysmal! I have been campaigning on this issue for 30 years, 25 of them as an MP, and we have made little progress. In fact, I wonder if we are going backwards! There is official recognition, and substantial financial support for minority languages such as Welsh and Gaelic. It is well known that a lot more people use sign language than Gaelic, yet, Gaelic receives millions of pounds a year to support its use and promotion. Sign language actually receives no direct support.

If it's challenging being disabled in a country like the UK how much more difficult is it in the Democratic Republic of Congo or another developing country where challenges arising from disability are compounded by poverty and, for many, the struggle for subsistence? Many disabilities in these contexts are acquired because of the state of the country and because of poverty.

The key Millennium Development Goals are about delivering maternal health and education, tackling diseases and building up health services. These are institutions which are required to support disabled people and their inclusion. If you are in a country where people are living on less than a dollar a day, what is the possibility of you being able to acquire and afford necessary hearing aids? What's the chance of a wheelchair? What's the chance even of spectacles when these actually cost more than individuals earn in a year? What is the chance of competing with people who are poor but not disabled for those resources which are disproportionately expensive?

These arguments underline the huge importance of including the needs of people with disabilities into the development strategy. I hope Graham would agree with me, we don't talk in the UK so much about overseas aid, as overseas development, and rightly so. Aid is like sticking plasters or for an emergency. But the real objective is to support people in their own countries to help themselves, so they can ultimately deliver these services themselves. It is crucial to involve organisations representing disabled people in developing countries to identify their needs and their aspirations to find out how international development processes can build them in to the establishment of systems that are needed for the whole Community.

The International Development Select Committee is currently looking into maternal health. One of the privileges of being on such a committee is that you are confronted with lots of information you wouldn't necessarily find out about unless you chose to go looking for it. When you are told that over half a million women a year in developing countries die in childbirth, it is difficult to understand. Of course, and this is relevant to today's discussion, for every one who dies there are probably many who survive but are disabled in some way. Many children are also born disabled as a consequence of poor maternal health, new-born health services, malnutrition, lack of support, etc. So, it's a vicious spiral where poverty and disability are interdependent.

I think having an event like this today confronting the argument that disability should be built into the development strategy is important. What I would say to you is do not consider it special pleading; it isn't special pleading its essential! If the objective is to make poverty history then supporting disabled people is essential to achieving this. Some of the poorest people in the world are disabled, if they are not included in programme work then, by definition, you are not attempting to make poverty history. You are guaranteeing that poverty will continue to be a reality for people with disabilities. I believe there are ways of including people with disabilities. The challenge to you and all your partners in other countries is to identify and prioritise those things which would best support disabled people and their inclusion in society.

If I come back to the personal anecdote of my daughter, she is 30 years old now, and has a digital hearing aid, she has a computer, a phone, a textphone, and has means of communication. These have helped her, they haven't solved everything or fixed her communication challenges but they have assisted her. And how much did that cost our society? We have to ensure those benefits are spread as widely as possible. We have to recognise, and this is exactly the point I think Graham was making, that we are talking directly to disabled people, that disabled people are allowed to speak for themselves, and that they are integrally included in international programme work. I regularly visit DFID country offices as part of my work as Chair of the Select Committee, and I will make a point of asking them how they are building disability into their work.

I would like to say, just in case anybody thinks I'm levelling criticism here, I have been to more than a dozen, 15 I think, DFID country programmes in the last 18 months. The work that DFID staff do, I can honestly say, is something this country can be inordinately proud of. They do a wonderful job and do it with huge dedication and relatively small numbers. But they also have a huge challenge. You can't be entirely surprised then that on occasions knowing which issues to prioritise is difficult. I think we have to help them to make sure that disability is one of these priorities. I'm quite sure that Graham is making damn sure that they do and, for my part, I will ask them how they are getting on when I'm next visiting them. My next stop is West Africa and then China and that will be a good start and I will report back to you.

Thank you for asking me here, and having this conference, and please rest assured that you have the right to be heard, and the more practical help you can feed in the greater the chance we have of building disabled people's issues into the mainstream. But at the same time remember we have to keep fighting at home. If we can't set a good example here and ensure equality at home, there's not much chance of poor people in poorer countries achieving this either.

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Debate on Global Poverty

Speech by Malcolm Bruce delivered to the House of Commons on Thu 15th Nov 2007

Malcolm Bruce: I greatly welcome the opportunity to engage in this debate. In the short time available, I thought that I would comment on some countries in which we have been engaged recently as well as on the general thrust of today's report. I should like to place on the record my thanks to the staff of the International Development Committee for ensuring that the report was available today; that required a degree of effort but has added to the value of our debate.

We have been concerned with a number of countries in the past year. The Secretary of State referred in his opening statement to Burma and we recently published a report on that country. I want to thank the right hon. Gentleman first for his very prompt response in announcing the doubling of aid and secondly for his indication to the House today that that does not limit the aspirations. After all, we can always talk about money, but the ultimate point is always effectiveness. We all agree that there is a greater capacity for more aid to reach poor people in Burma than has been delivered. We greatly welcome the Secretary of State's commitment to achieve that.

The Committee was concerned, however, although we understood the reasoning, about the basing of the entire Burma DFID staff in Rangoon. Many of the expatriate organisations supporting the Burmese people in a whole variety of ways are perforce operating out of Thailand. The suggestion that a quarterly meeting with those groups is sufficient and that Thailand is only a plane ride away does not fulfil the need for regular contact. I thus hope that the Secretary of State will think again about whether a permanent DFID presence in Bangkok might still be necessary and justified, as the Committee recommended.

The Committee visited Pakistan some time ago in the wake of the earthquake. Obviously, more recent events in that country are a considerable cause for concern. Will the Under-Secretary say whether consideration is being given to the way in which aid might be delivered in Pakistan in the changed circumstances? Put simply and starkly, it would be wrong for DFID money to go directly to a President who has suspended the democratic process. The people of Pakistan must not, however, be denied the effective aid that is needed to deal with issues of poverty and development.

My colleague the hon. Member for Glasgow, North (Ann McKechin) has alluded to the fact that the Committee returned two weeks ago from a week-long visit to Afghanistan, where we had the opportunity to visit not only Government agencies, NGOs and our representatives in Kabul, but the field around Kabul-part of the Committee went to Helmand and part of it to Mazar-e-Sharif-to get some idea of the scale and diversity of the challenges facing all the agencies in Afghanistan, from the Government to the people and the international community. The Committee will produce a detailed report, but I do not think that I am anticipating that unreasonably by saying that, difficult and challenging as the situation is, we all recognise that we should be in Afghanistan and that it is a long-term commitment. It is a poor country and our objective must be to give it a chance to develop. The balance between military and civil development activity will probably need to be reassessed, but we will write shortly to the Secretary of State with our interim views, and then publish a detailed report in the new year.

The Committee remains somewhat unhappy about the Government's policy towards the Palestinian occupied territories. Some of that is history, on which it is probably not appropriate to dwell too long. A huge opportunity was missed, however, when there was a Government of national unity, to provide some kind of continuing support. The Palestinian community is now very divided, and the international community has taken sides, supporting one half and isolating the other. Let me make it absolutely clear that I hold no brief whatever for Hamas, but it was elected by the Palestinian people. If we are trying to build a viable Palestinian state, there is a danger of being part of the process of increasing the wedge and division within and among the Palestinian people.

Mr. Douglas Alexander: Let me reassure the right hon. Gentleman. As he will be aware, when the Prime Minister spoke on foreign affairs on Monday evening he indicated his intention that I travel to the Palestinian territories and Israel in the coming weeks. Obviously, we are looking ahead to the Annapolis meeting. As was indicated in Prime Minister's questions, there is a willingness for financial resources to be committed in support not simply of the peace and reconciliation efforts, but of the economic development needs of those communities. I assure the right hon. Gentleman that the matter is receiving urgent attention from the Government and Ministers.

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful for that. Perhaps this is a subject for a another debate, but I remain concerned that, as things stand, the international community has added to, rather than solved, the problems of the people of Palestine.

Having made those specific comments about countries where we have a direct engagement, one positive story was our visit to Vietnam in the summer. The Committee was impressed by DFID's contribution and the value that it added to the programme there. Given that we are contributing £50 million a year-a substantial amount-to a country in which we do not have a long-standing record, part of the reason for the visit was to determine whether we were adding value that other donors could not provide. We were persuaded that we were doing that. It is worth placing on the record that Vietnam has the look of a success story in development terms: it has every prospect of making the transition from a low-income country to a middle-income country in short order.

That brings me on to the wider issues of how DFID can deliver effectively the 0.7 per cent., to reach the largest number of poor people in the largest number of countries. The right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr. Clarke) rightly made much of our collective aspiration to reach that target. As our report stated, however, simply saying that we will spend more money to achieve an aspiration is, as I am sure that the Secretary of State will acknowledge, unique to his Department. If any other Minister were to talk in such terms, he or she would almost certainly have his or her knuckles rapped by both the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for saying "What I want to know is not how much money you will spend, but what you are going to achieve-what the outcomes will be." I am not suggesting that DFID does not concern itself with outcomes, but I think it reasonable to say that in these unique circumstances it is important for us to persuade the British taxpayer not just that we are meeting United Nations aspirations, but that we are determined to ensure that the money is spent as effectively as possible to deliver poverty reduction.

Although the Committee has made it clear that it understands and accepts the staffing constraints, we are concerned about what the implications may be, and there may come a time when we take a different view. Providing budget support, advice and the detailed range of practical measures that is required is people-intensive. In evidence to the Committee, DFID staff have acknowledged that the present constraints may lead to consequences that are not driven by policy: we may be forced to invest more than we would otherwise have invested in multilateral agencies over which we have less direct control, give more to consultants than would otherwise be appropriate, or reduce the number and range of programmes that we commit to and the number of countries in which we operate. If that happened, the Committee would want to think again about whether the Department should be under such constraints.

Mr. Alexander: I am sympathetic to the case that the right hon. Gentleman makes about the need to review staffing levels constantly, but given that-notwithstanding the success that has been enjoyed-DFID accounts for approximately 8 per cent. of global aid flows, is it not reasonable to seek to increase our commitment to the multilateral institutions, not just because they are currently capable of contributing to poverty reduction but because they are the means by which we can secure influence over institutions which themselves have considerable influence over the effectiveness of aid globally?

Malcolm Bruce: Absolutely. Indeed, the Committee is heading for Washington in two weeks for detailed discussions with, in particular, the World Bank to try to ensure that that happens. However, we want DFID and the United Kingdom to exert their influence, which is substantial in the World Bank, to ensure that there is congruence between our Government's policy objectives and those of the international agencies. If we are satisfied of that, it is clearly appropriate for more resources to go in their direction.

Mr. Andrew Mitchell rose-

Malcolm Bruce: I will incur a penalty in terms of time, but I will give way.

Mr. Mitchell: I am extremely grateful.

Is it not the case that what the Secretary of State says is absolutely right, as long as he makes the decision because that is the right thing to do rather than because he has not enough staff to do anything else?

Malcolm Bruce: Of course that is true. It is partly why I think we should have a full-time director of the World Bank to ensure that Britain's influence is given full measure. I believe that we should use consultants and multilateral agencies, but for the right reasons. We should do it because it is the best option, not because we are constrained.

Another important issue that the Committee is about to examine in detail is the role of donor co-ordination, which is becoming increasingly critical. There is a proliferation of agencies, both multinational agencies such as the United Nations and those in individual countries, all trying to do their own thing. If there is no co-ordination, it is impossible for the Government of a developing country to deal with receipts of aid and development on such a scale. At a recent seminar, Louis Michael said that in Tanzania there were more than 600 health projects worth less than €1 million, emanating from a variety of organisations in the European Union. He may have his own empire to build, and when he says that he would prefer a single project worth $600 million he probably intends it to be under his direction, but his point is valid. How on earth can Tanzania deal with 600 agencies rather than one? The same applies even to national donors.

We certainly believe that greater co-ordination is necessary. Afghanistan is a clear case in point. The British Government, including DFID, play a very constructive role in trying to promote that degree of co-ordination, and to encourage the development of a simpler and more transparent route for the delivery of aid. I personally commend the Department for doing that and urge it to do more. It may be that as our aid budget rises and our influence and clout as a development provider increases, we have more success. The Committee will explore the extent to which there are potential partners for that kind of co-operation and co-ordination.

I conclude by saying that it is fair to say that the Department for International Development may well turn out to be the greatest achievement of the Labour Government. The untying of aid began in principle under a Conservative Government, but it was certainly not completed. Even if it was not universally agreed at the time, the clear separation into two Departments, with poverty reduction as the overwhelming strategy, is certainly universally accepted now and is the right way forward. It creates tensions and debate as to how we deliver effective aid and whether we can still advise middle-income countries, but it is the right model. It is important to ensure that aid and development are delivered for their own sake, not as an instrument of foreign policy. As long as that is the case, I am sure that it will carry the widespread support of the British people and of their tax budgets.

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Westminster Hall Debate on the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Speech by Malcolm Bruce delivered to Westminster Hall on Thu 5th Jul 2007

Malcolm Bruce: It is particularly appropriate that you should be in the Chair for this important and timely debate, Mr. Bercow. I welcome the new Minister to his post and give him my good wishes. I wrote, on behalf of the International Development Committee, to the new Prime Minister before he took up office to ask him to beef up the Department for International Development and to give it an appropriate number of Ministers. I am glad that he has done so, and I expect that the Minister appreciates having three colleagues rather than only one, as would have been the case in the previous Administration. I look forward to hearing the Minister's reply and to the future engagements that I am sure that members of the Committee will have with him.

Obviously, events have moved on since we produced our report, and not for the better. When it was published, in January, after our November visit to Palestine and Israel, we were particularly concerned, from a development point of view, that although an increasing amount of development aid was going to the occupied territories, poverty was also increasing at a high rate. The reasons for that were not hard to find, and I shall address them, as the report has done. We said in the report that the situation was unsustainable and would deteriorate, stating:

"The danger of the current approach is that it might push Hamas into a corner which encourages violence rather than negotiation."

We also pointed out that:

"Hamas now has closer links to governments like that of Iran than it had two years ago."

The events of the past two or three weeks show that that was not an inappropriate analysis. Indeed, last year, Jan Egeland described Gaza as a "ticking time bomb". Unfortunately, it has now exploded and the fallout is not yet clear. The takeover of Gaza by Hamas was brutal and unjustified, but the failure to secure recognition of its election victory may have contributed to its frustration, at least in part.

Mrs. Louise Ellman (Liverpool, Riverside) (Lab/Co-op): I follow the reasoning in the right hon. Gentleman's report and in the comment that he has just made, but do not comments from Hamas about "keeping the flame of resistance alive until our Palestinian flag will fly anew over the walls of Jerusalem, the shores of Haifa and Jaffa" indicate a Government who not prepared to accept the existence of the internationally recognised state of Israel?

Malcolm Bruce: We know that, and I might come to that point later. I could retort to the hon. Lady that Israel is illegally occupying a significant piece of territory that does not belong to the state of Israel, and yet it does not always suffer the same degree of international condemnation for so doing, but I do not want to justify one wrong against another. I shall address her point in slightly more detail later.

Like all hon. Members, I am sure, I very much welcome the release of Alan Johnston this week. His kidnapping was deeply stressful and was damaging to the Palestinian cause. Clearly, Hamas will want to take credit for the release, or at least to tell the world that it indicates that it has control of the security situation in Gaza. We were unable to visit Gaza because of the security situation. The previous Secretary of State managed to get in shortly afterwards, but others have found it difficult. It is effectively a prison, sealed off by land, air and sea, with virtually no resources and no functioning economy. The question that we have to concern ourselves with is: how is the basic essence of life to be maintained there?

Our former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, is to take up the role of Quartet representative. He faces an awesome challenge and a crisis of credibility with the Palestinians given his close ties to the Bush Administration and to Israel. How can he mobilise international assistance, as he has been specifically asked to do, let alone develop the economy of Gaza in those circumstances without talking to Hamas? He will have to do so sooner or later. If he were here, I would say to him that Hamas will have to be involved in talks at some stage, as part of the wider process, just as on the path to peace in Northern Ireland he had to talk to Sinn Fein and the IRA.

Our report, and its timing, were motivated by the fact that while international aid and the UK's contribution to the occupied territories was rising, incomes were falling and poverty was increasing, with the most vulnerable-older people, women and children-suffering the most. I shall not go into the statistics now, but they show how deeply people were affected in practical ways. As our report says, that situation was directly attributable to two facts, the first of which was the withholding of revenue from the Palestinian Authority: both the customs revenue collected by Israel on behalf of the Palestinian Authority and budget support from international donors. The second fact was the effective blockade of Gaza and the total disruption of access and movement around the west bank, both of which were imposed by the Israeli Government.

John Battle (Leeds, West) (Lab): Our Committee's focus was the alleviation and tackling of poverty, but we cannot tackle poverty in the west bank and Gaza without considering the politics and economic realities. The right hon. Gentleman rightly pointed out that although certain groups have used blood-curdling rhetoric and carried out serious attacks of violence and terror in the past, they eventually had to be brought into talks to bring about a peace agreement. I suggest that it might not be simply his view and that of the Committee that in order to tackle poverty in the west bank and Gaza, there will have to be dialogue with all the parties, including Hamas. That might now be the wider view.

Malcolm Bruce: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, because that is the essence of our argument. Our report is an International Development Committee report, but I make no apology for straying into politics, because we cannot deliver development in the occupied territories without some form of political settlement. I want to know how it will be possible to deliver humanitarian assistance and support to the people of Gaza if we do not talk to the people who are in control there. I do not see how that assistance can be delivered in any other way.

The consequence of withholding aid, which might now be restored-I want to ask the Minister a few questions on that-was that the Palestinian Authority effectively collapsed. Its employees, by which I mean not only civil servants but nurses, teachers, doctors-essential workers-went unpaid, and, as a result, many went on strike. Economic activity was paralysed by the restrictions.

The Quartet is unequivocal in its requirements of Hamas and, if I may say this to the hon. Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs. Ellman), completely equivocal in its approach to Israel. Paragraph 60 of the report specifically states:

"However, while severe pressure has been placed on the Hamas-led PA to change its policies and accept Quartet principles, no comparable initiative has been taken with the Government of Israel to encourage it to put into practice agreements it has signed up to or to end clearly identified practices which are causing poverty and suffering in Gaza."

The imbalance causes a great deal of resentment and is a practical obstacle to progress.

Mrs. Ellman: The right hon. Gentleman talks as if Hamas is a normal political organisation. Is he aware that article 32 of its charter talks about the Jews' plans being "embodied in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion"? Is that not just one example of plain anti-Semitism?

Malcolm Bruce: I am sure that the hon. Lady will have many more such quotes. I want to reassure her that I endorse nothing of what Hamas says, stands for or does in terms of violence. I am not here as an apologist for Hamas; I am here as a political realist, accepting the fact that, whether we like it or not, Hamas was elected by the people of Palestine. However, it has been denied the right to have any kind of engagement.

Conditions are legitimate, but we have imposed similar conditions in the past on all kinds of movements, for example the IRA, EOKA and the Mau Mau, and ultimately, we have to deal with the facts on the ground. That is the essence of my point. I am not asking anyone to like or appreciate Hamas, but at some point we will have to talk to it. It is my belief that Tony Blair, in his position, may have to talk to it sooner rather than later.

What is the state of life in Gaza? I wonder whether the Minister can answer this direct question: is there enough food? There were indications of difficulties in that regard. Are hospitals and schools functioning? What measures are in hand to provide long-term support-access and movement? Is the temporary international mechanism-TIM-continuing or are steps in hand for salary payments to be restored directly, through the Palestinian Authority? If that happens, will they be backdated, and if so, will TIM contributions be in any way deducted from or charged to the PA? While we were there, that possibility was mooted.

On the west bank, are the number of restrictions increasing or diminishing? Is work continuing on the security fence? Is the development of E1 still on hold? Are other settlements on the west bank still expanding? Those are real questions; we need to know whether the situation has changed positively or negatively. I suspect that I know what the answers are, but if the Minister has up-to-date information, hon. Members would be happy to hear it.

I appreciate that the Department has given £1 million to the Red Cross for humanitarian relief in Gaza. Will the Minister indicate what other aid the UK is providing directly and indirectly, and whether it represents an increase compared with the previous two years?

Tony Blair faces a huge challenge if he is to move from the present crisis to establishing even the beginnings of a viable Palestinian state. I believe that Israel and the Quartet are taking a significant risk by investing their support so directly and completely in President Abbas. His Fatah party was defeated at the elections to the Palestinian Authority largely because of public disaffection with extravagance and corruption in the past.

Many Palestinians, most of whom had voted for Fatah, told the Committee that they felt they were being punished for a democratic vote. One woman told us that the UK, "Had invaded Iraq to impose democracy but refused to recognise the Palestinian democracy resulting from a free and fair election." When I put that to Tony Blair on his appearance before the Liaison Committee, he replied:

"We have recognised the Government."

That slightly surprised me. When I queried it, he said:

"We have recognised Hamas as having won the election."

He continued:

"Let us be absolutely clear what the problem is. The problem is not whether we recognise Hamas have a mandate and have won the election, the problem is that if they want money from us...we need to make sure that that money is not being used for them to buy weapons."

That is a fair point: it is our money and aid money. That issue needs to be addressed, but it does not apply to the Palestinian Authority's own money. Its money had been collected, on its behalf, on the borders by Israel and had been withheld. That was the biggest single factor in bringing about the effective collapse of the day-to-day functioning of the Palestinian Authority. The Department for International Development, among other donors, had invested so much time, effort and resources into building up that body.

There is real anger and frustration among ordinary Palestinians. I am not necessarily talking about those who support what Hamas stands for, although some might have voted for it. The Palestinians have made many mistakes for which they are paying, and Israel has legitimate security concerns, which they are addressing robustly. Nevertheless, we face a long haul, in which the ordinary, beleaguered Palestinians face unreasonable hardship, are prevented from developing their own economic salvation from what should be a productive economy, and find that Israel is free to impose disproportionate reprisals, seal off activity and continue an illegal occupation without let or hindrance. The essence of our report, and, indeed, the up-to-date comment to add to that report, is simply: how long can this go on?

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Westminster Hall Debate on Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Reconstruction

Speech by Malcolm Bruce speaking in Westminster Hall on Thu 22nd Mar 2007

I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate this report. By definition, conflict is a difficult and huge subject that has many interweaving strands. Although I hope that our report was constructive and useful, it does not and could not cover every aspect of how to prevent conflict and how to rebuild after it.

We felt it important to carry out such a report, because we were only too aware of the devastating effect of conflict and of how it is incompatible with aid and development that one conflict can wipe out the effect of the world's entire aid budget for a year. The people who are most affected by any conflict are the most vulnerable, especially women and children, who suffer the greatest poverty and hardship. Countries affected by conflict have the lowest prospect of achieving the millennium development goals, because the capacity to deliver services is simply destroyed.

The other problem is that conflict affects neighbouring states. It does so either by spreading the conflict into them or because people in neighbouring states use it as an opportunity to take advantage of a vulnerable, failed or conflict-prone state. Given those facts, we took the view that it is essential that the Development for International Development has a strategy for dealing with conflict states. The strategy for Africa and for poverty reduction will simply not be achieved unless, in co-operation with other donors and agencies, we can deal with conflicts as they arise. That is particularly borne out by evidence that about half the states that have had conflict fall back into it within a few years of a peace being settled. I suspect that we shall hear examples of those during the debate.

No one on the Committee believes that there are simple, off-the-shelf solutions, and we accept that a number of different factors come into play. I welcome the Department's publication last week of "Preventing Violent Conflict", which gives practical examples of where the Department has promoted initiatives that it hopes will reduce conflict-in some cases, the Department can provide evidence that such initiatives have made a contribution to doing so. The Committee also appreciated the work of the cross-departmental conflict prevention pools and the post-conflict reconstruction unit. As our report said, these would be much more helpful if the Department of Trade and Industry were involved, and I intend to return to that point later.

The Committee held some interesting sittings at the outset about the causes of conflict. They were somewhat theoretical and academic discussions about the role of greed and grievance, and the regional dimensions to conflict that I have mentioned. In a sense, we were trying to establish whether general principles can be developed to deal with conflicts. We were resistant to the idea, which some academics advance, of a nice, simple analysis that defines things. By definition, the seeds and courses of every conflict are different, although there are some common factors.

We could not possibly undertake a definitive review of all of the recent conflicts in the world, so we did not attempt to do so. For example, we did not examine the conflict in Sri Lanka, which appears to have the capacity to continue indefinitely. It would be unhelpful if I were to comment on what the answers should be in that country. I simply put it on the record that we recognise that there are conflict situations that we did not examine and thus cannot comment upon usefully.

Given the importance of Africa to the Government's development strategy and the degree of conflict that there has been in that continent, the Committee visited three specific African conflict zones-northern Uganda, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, although I am not sure whether that is an appropriate name for it. The Committee split into two for the first two visits. The right hon. Member for Leeds, West (John Battle) led the group to Sierra Leone, while I went to Uganda and the DRC. I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will catch your eye later, Mr. Illsley, because he will have more to say about what he found and learned from the Committee's visit to Sierra Leone. I am sure that he will observe that while peace has been re-established, the factors that could lead to the re-emergence of conflict are still in place, but I shall leave him to elaborate on that.

In northern Uganda, we saw at first hand the consequences of 20 years of the sinister and bloody activities of the Lord's Resistance Army, which has terrorised people by attacking villages, abducting children and brutalising them as soldiers, and raping and enslaving girls as well as turning many of them into soldiers. Although we would not blame the Government of Uganda for causing that conflict, we found underlying concern that there is a clear division between the Government supporters and the Acholi people, from whom President Museveni's predecessor, Milton Obote, drew his support-those people tend to vote for the opposition. There is a mutual suspicion between the Government and the Acholi people in the north in respect of who is to blame and what could, and could not, be done about the situation. There were situations where the Government said that people were free to return to the land, but the people said, "Yes, but we have been told that we will be shot should we try to do so. We are not sure whether Government forces are there to protect or contain us."

People have fled in fear from their land into grossly overcrowded camps, whose facilities are poor. For too long, the Ugandan Government appeared content to allow the situation to rest, sometimes claiming that the insurgency was almost crushed and at other times saying that they were going to promote peace negotiations. Last year, there were the beginnings of what looked like a serious attempt at peace negotiations, but they seem to have run into the sand. One hears slightly disturbing reports that the LRA are recruiting again in the bush, and I would be grateful if the Secretary of State were to share any up-to-date information on that front.

I made a second visit, courtesy of Oxfam, six months after the first trip towards the end of last year, when I saw that something encouraging had taken place in the interval. The area of land under cultivation reaching out from the camps had substantially extended from being 1 to 1.5 km outside the camps to being 8 to 9 km distant. There were also outreach camps, which had a huge impact on the amount of land under cultivation and helped to diversify the access to food supplies and the restocking of livestock.

The fact remains that there is still no peace settlement and no signs of one. There were outbreaks of cholera in the camps. Without a peace agreement, the people were too terrified to return to the land. Even if they were to do so, they would clearly need a substantial amount of aid support to restock and to re-establish their livelihood within such areas.

The Committee made specific reference to its concern that last year the international community gave $200 million in aid collectively to that one region of Uganda, yet in stable camps under the watch of Ugandan Government forces, we found little or no education, poor health care provision-where there was such provision, it was provided not by the Ugandan Government, but by international agencies-and virtually no policing. If there was criminal activity in the camps, it was up to the victims to transport the accused to court, which is ridiculous because an impoverished refugee without transport in a camp cannot and would not expect to do that.

It seemed that the Ugandan Government were failing in their obligations to provide services to their own people and had left it to the international community to pick up the pieces. I venture to say that it suited the Ugandan Government not to have that responsibility. It may not be a direct consequence, but there is concern-the Secretary of State will acknowledge that this is the aid dilemma-that the process of providing aid lets the Ugandan Government off the hook. If they had to meet all the costs, they would have much greater motivation to solve the problem. It is a chicken-and-egg situation, and I should be grateful if the Secretary of State would give an update on that.

That situation brings home something that we mention in the report. I hope that it is history now, but the international community, including our Government agencies, have invested too often in people rather than institutions. People as leaders are unpredictable and unreliable, and we may have invested too much in President Museveni and not enough in ensuring that Government institutions function properly in Uganda. I hope that we will put more emphasis on the institutions and the mechanisms.

Uganda is a conflict state, but settling the problem of the Lord's Resistance Army and having a peaceful Democratic Republic of the Congo at its border would put Uganda back on the road to growth and development in a much more inclusive and unifying way, and it would make Uganda less aid-dependent in the long term. The questions that hang in the air are whether there is the remotest chance of that happening and what our Department can do to help to bring it about.

Our visit to the DRC was different. The Secretary of State tells me that there are problems there as we speak, and perhaps he will give us more information about that. When we visited the DRC, we were overawed by the scale of the devastation that had been wrought by that long conflict, but there was hope that the steps that the United Nations and others were taking to pave the way for elections and perhaps the rebuilding of effective government could move the country on from being unquestionably a failed state. If today's reports of fighting in Kinshasa are accurate, and if that fighting leads to further breakdown, it would be a worrying setback, but setbacks do not always destroy the momentum for peace, and we must hope that the latter applies.

We were in the DRC during the run-up to the elections, and I was given the honour, with the Foreign Minister of the DRC, of turning the first turf for the Department for International Development's new offices. Having done that, it was interesting that the questions from journalists attending the event were about which local company had got the contract to build the DFID offices or to supply the fixtures and fittings. No one asked about the benefit to the citizens of the DRC of DFID's increasing activity in that country. Perhaps that shows how far we must travel for people to understand the engagement in more than the most basic and material terms of immediate cash in their hands.

We were told about the problem of how a local leading politician corrupted DFID's painstaking work to build up capacity for road building based on locally recruited Congolese specialist surveyors, engineers and so on. The project had to be put on hold, because old-fashioned leadership styles cut across the development agenda. Will the Secretary of State indicate whether that problem has been, or is in the process of being resolved so that the infrastructure developments that should have flowed from that do so? I commend what DFID was trying to do to build up that capacity, but it shows how quickly it can be undermined when the tradition is corruption and self-serving, rather than engagement to deliver development results.

The Secretary of State acknowledged that one of our specific successes during the inquiry was the growing engagement of the Department in non-English-speaking countries-Francophone and Portuguese-speaking countries. That brought home to us the need for the Department's senior personnel in the country to have the same quality of language training that is available to Foreign Office personnel, because those people negotiate with Ministers and their Departments on development, budget support and so on. The Secretary of State acknowledged that that was necessary, and I am grateful to him for having done so.

As we travelled from Kinshasa to eastern Congo, we were as impressed as anyone by the beautiful setting of lake Kivu, and we had not expected to find something rather like Switzerland in the heart of Africa. Africa is a vast continent with a lot of wonderful scenery, but more surprising was the bustle, trade and business activity on the streets of Bukavu, because we had not expected that from what we had been told was a failed state. That was a clear indication of the country's resource richness and the way people were enterprisingly privateering and developing their contacts and business. The problem is that those very resources provided the money to sustain the warring factions and to prolong the conflict. It could be argued that Congo did not have a classic civil war; it had privateering on a grand scale by lots of individuals with their private armies, which minerals and other resources helped to fund.

We saw the direct consequences of the appalling suffering that ordinary Congolese people experience from disease, hunger and in particular the systematic and brutal rape of women as an instrument of conflict. We visited the local prison, where conditions were poor and justice appeared to be rough. We went to the Panzi hospital where we were moved and impressed by the wonderful work to support victims of sexual violence. They were victims twice. They were victims because they were brutalised, attacked and sometimes physically destroyed; then they were rejected by their communities for having been raped, and were outcasts. In the hospital they found support-not just medical support but rehabilitation and re-engagement, which was extremely important and useful.

What worried us at the time was that the European Commission's Humanitarian Office was considering withdrawing support from the hospital on the grounds that the conflict had supposedly ended. I am glad that DFID did not take that view, and tried to argue differently. Will the Secretary of State give an update on what is happening in that context? We would be appalled if such activity did not continue for a considerable time. Although the conflict was officially over, raped women were still coming into the hospital at the rate of 10 or 15 a week. Clearly, the conflict was not over for them.

Joan Ruddock (Lewisham, Deptford) (Lab): On that point, does the right hon. Gentleman agree that Security Council resolution 1325 gives Governments the opportunity to see all those aspects-particularly the prime victims, who are women and children-through the prism of a women's agenda? When trying to recover from conflict and build the peace, it is critical that women become centrally involved-for their health and psychological well-being, in particular.

Malcolm Bruce: I completely agree. The hon. Lady will acknowledge that during my time on the Committee, and from the number of visits that I have made, I have become more and more aware of the key role that women must play not only in conflict resolution but in aid and development. I am absolutely convinced that giving women power will unlock many problems in Africa, and I just wish that more men in Africa would begin to understand that it is to their advantage to do so. I shall not discuss some of the mischief that we heard about when we were in Ethiopia-but it was women's revenge.

There is one point of difference between the Committee and not necessarily the Secretary of State's Department but the Government. We received evidence-we also saw evidence when we were in the DRC-from Global Witness, ActionAid, Rights and Accountability in Development, a non-governmental organisation, and Thomas Eggenburg of Krall Métal Congo. They clarified for us not only the regional dimensions of the war in the DRC but the extent to which it was sustained-either knowingly or without adequate checks-by companies transacting in minerals that had been procured illegally and often by force. The revenue enables rival groups to supply, pay and equip their forces, and in turn, they pray on the local population for further support. To be honest, I am not satisfied with that area of the Government's response, which was, otherwise, a good and positive recognition of and update on what they are doing.

The Committee was told in the Government's response that a number of companies are alleged to support the trade in illegally acquired resources, including some British companies. We discovered that the UN panel that submitted the names and identified the allegations processed them as "resolved". One would assume that a word such as "resolved" implied that, somehow, the allegations had been dismissed; however, the UN panel-the people who published the names-said that "resolved" should be interpreted as meaning not that it invalidated the panel's findings but that an agreement had been made that such activities would stop. The implication was that the UN expected responsible Governments-in the case of British companies, the British Government-to investigate the allegations further and to take appropriate action. The Government's response to our report shows inadequacies. The UK authorities appear to have done little or nothing.

Mr. Ketan Kotecha of Afrimex, one company against which the allegations were made, said that it had not had any contact with the DTI before and had not had any contact since, which is frankly astonishing. He also told us that he was unaware of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development guidelines, which for a small company, may be unsurprising. However, once the allegations were made, one would have expected the DTI to be engaged with the company, but it has not been.

We appreciate Mr. Kotecha's giving oral and written evidence to the Committee-somewhat naively, because he then tried to redress the balance. However, nobody from Alfred H. Knight International was prepared to do so. It is a reputable British company, against which serious allegations were made, and they were neither investigated nor addressed. The Committee does not have the capacity, inclination or responsibility to investigate those complaints, but we expect that the Government should have.

Given what I have said about the use of the word "resolved", when the Government say in their reply that the national contact point took "resolved" to be a reason for no further action, when they pray in aid that no NGO came forward with further information, and when they say that the information relating to Alfred H. Knight International involved German companies and was therefore passed to the German Government, it seems to be a washing of hands, an unwillingness to engage and a "not wanting to know". It is one reason why the DTI should be involved in cross-departmental groupings on conflict resolution.

The DTI needs to understand much more the potential damage to aid and development that British companies can do-consciously or unconsciously, deliberately or because they do not take enough time or enough care. The Committee proposes to take evidence from the DTI on the issue, and I hope that, together, we can get something useful going. The national contact point has done some useful work, but it would be able to do more if the DTI were brought in. Notwithstanding those comments, which were about one point that emerged from the Committee's investigation, overall we welcome the Department's focus on conflict issues. It is finding ways to use aid to resolve conflicts and prevent recurrence.

As the second largest donor in the DRC, the Government clearly envisage an opportunity to focus specifically on a conflict zone and find ways of using substantial amounts of aid to help for the future. I had written on my notes that there are risks in that strategy, and clearly, today's news is an example of one such risk. However, I still argue that they are risks worth taking, because if one can sow seeds of good governance, and lay the foundations of a functioning state, ultimately a whole region will benefit.

The DRC is rich in resources, and the tragedy is that if it were well governed, it could provide its people with peace, security and all the opportunities that they deserve. The people are entitled to look to the international community for help with the reconstruction of infrastructure, skills and capacity, but they must provide leadership. We must reach a point at which grievances are addressed and government is not an instrument for personal corruption and the franchising of public resources.

On Tuesday, the Committee met Sundeep Waslekar of the Strategic Foresight Group, whom we have met on several occasions and is based in Mumbai. He produced research that shows-unsurprisingly-that the rise of extremism and terrorism is sustained in areas where there is a deficit in development, democracy and dignity. It offers a transition in which aid, as a means of conflict resolution, provides support for policies that offset those deficits, restore dignity and democracy and provide the space for real and sustained development.

I wish DFID well. Conflict resolution is a big task, and every conflict is different, but I hope that the Government, in their engagement, will be able to demonstrate that they have found helpful policies. I hope also that at the end of the debate, the Secretary of State will be able to answer some of the specific questions that I have put to him.

To access the full text of this debate, please follow this link:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200607/cmhansrd/cm070322/hallindx/70322-x.htm

Read "Westminster Hall Debate on Peacebuilding and Post-Conflict Reconstruction".

Debate to commemorate Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP speaking in the House of Commons on Tue 20th Mar 2007

The range of speeches in the debate has shown a balance between dwelling on the offence and commemorating its abolition. I was born within 5 miles of Pier Head, I lived briefly in a tobacco baron's house in Glasgow, and I now represent a constituency in Aberdeenshire, from which some of the richest plantation owners originated. I guess that I have made a journey through the UK that has quite a lot of close connections with slavery and the slave trade.

In light of the speeches made by the hon. Members for Brent, South (Ms Butler) and for Hackney, North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott), it is worth recording that, in 1796, 30 per cent. of the estates in Jamaica were owned by Scots. In 1817, 10 years after the abolition of the trade, 32 per cent. of the slaves in Jamaica were owned by Scots. We must acknowledge and face up to that. On the back of that trade, Glasgow claimed to be the second city of the empire, but I guess that, in that context, it is a pretty close call between Liverpool and Glasgow. Subsequently, Glasgow became one of the great powerhouses of the campaign to abolish slavery altogether, so there was some recognition among the population of Scotland that abolishing the slave trade was not enough; the condition of slavery needed to be abolished. It is a slight irony that some of the campaigners-not Wilberforce-wanted to abolish the slave trade only because they thought that the lack of supply might make the slave owners treat their slaves better. I guess that one must start with half the argument before the other half becomes the logical conclusion.

Having read up on the subject, it is probably worth putting on record some of the arguments put forward. James Ramsay, a cleric, made the following ironic comment against slavery:

"Had nature intended negroes for slavery, she would have endowed them with many qualities which they now want. Their food would have needed no preparation, their bodies no covering; they would have been born without any sentiment for liberty; and possessing a patience not to be provoked, would have been incapable of resentment or opposition".

Because they are just like us, however, they did not comply and fought for and ultimately won their freedom, as has been pointed out.

The arguments put forward in the campaign still make pretty harsh reading. The committee on behalf of the plantation owners stated:

"the African trade is so blended with our commerce, and so interwoven with our general interests, that if at any time, through neglect, mismanagement, or misfortune, this nation should be deprived of its benefits, it will then suffer a very great and irreparable loss, a maim in its commerce, dignity, and power, of which it is impossible it can ever recover."

That is a damning comment, and it was an argument put forcefully in defence of slavery and the slave trade at the time, with, I guess, campaigning zeal. That shows why it took more than 20 years to secure abolition.

Like other Members, I am grateful that Scotland is acknowledging its role, and that several events are taking place in and around Glasgow and my city of Aberdeen that will enable the present generation to focus on that.

Another legacy of the way in which African slaves were treated is racism. They were treated as sub-human: the animals were probably better looked after than the slaves in transit. It is heart-breaking to read that not only were the conditions abominable but that family connections and loyalties were totally disregarded: families were split up, sold and moved around different plantations, never to see each other again.

Slavery has a long history. Greek and Roman civilisation-in which the origins of European civilisation lie-were founded on slavery and slave ownership. It is probably true that Aristotle and Socrates would not have had the time to think their philosophies through if they had not had the labour of slaves. We must acknowledge that.

Sadly, as others have said, slavery has not been abolished. The United Nations estimates that 27 million people are effectively enslaved today. The International Labour Organisation says that 12.1 million people are in forced labour of one form or another. In the spirit of the commemoration, we must take that issue forward and give a lead on it.

With regard to trafficking, a lot of the focus, as the hon. Member for Totnes (Mr. Steen) pointed out, is on the sex trade and sex traffic. In fact, about 50 per cent. of those who are trafficked are men and 50 per cent. women. In the sex trade, it is 98 per cent. women and2 per cent. men. Men and boys are still being sold into slavery in a variety of different ways, and that needs to be addressed. Clearly, however, this country is at the receiving end of a great many women who have been trafficked or sold into slavery.

It is shocking to read that women from eastern Europe and the Balkans, including places such as Moldova, have effectively been sold into slavery for cash by their own families-their brothers, fathers and supposed husbands. That is knowingly done on the clear understanding of what is happening. The girls are deceived and told that they are going to take up a job or opportunity. Only when it is too late do they realise into what they have been sold. In some cases, they might have had a good idea that they were being sold into some dubious activity, but they probably thought that they would have free choice and opportunity, not be imprisoned, brutalised, beaten and denied any of the revenue generated. Even worse, they can effectively be sold into slavery and then be told that they owe the slave owner money for the cost of getting them where they are and for their keep. Therefore, all the money that they earn is taken, and their reward is to be beaten, raped and denied their basic requirements.

I do not wish to be misinterpreted, but I want to press the Government a little harder on the issue of the UN convention on trafficking in human beings. As the Deputy Prime Minister knows, the cross-party advisory group that he has put together discussed the importance of signing that convention. It would be impossible to commemorate the abolition of slavery and not be a signatory to the convention. Forty-six or, if we count Montenegro, 47 countries are potential

signatories. At present, 34 have signed, and Britain is one of those countries that have not. It is true that only five countries have ratified, and that 10 are required to do so for the convention to be implemented. If one looks at the countries that have not signed, however, one sees that we are not in the best of company. The major countries that have not signed are Russia, the United Kingdom and Spain. France, Germany, Italy, all the Scandinavian countries and most of the countries where the trafficking originates have signed.

I very much welcome the fact that we are going to sign the convention, but having tried to find out exactly what the Government's reservations are, I hope for clarification soon of their timetable for ratifying and of the final legal framework. Until the convention is ratified, people who are trafficked do not appear to have any recourse. They are constantly told that they are illegal immigrants and have no rights, and that is one of the threats used to keep them quiet. They are told, "No one is going to help you, because you should not be here anyway." They need to know and understand, if we can communicate with them at all, and if they can gain any information, that the United Kingdom has ratified a treaty that gives them rights: at least 30 days' grace plus, possibly, reflection time, and no conditions on whether they testify in relation to how they are treated. It would be helpful if the Minister were able to tell us a little more in her reply. We need to find out shortly what the conditions are and what will be the passage of time between the signing and ratification of the convention by the United Kingdom. That would make a good and sound connection between the commemoration and the current situation.

The parliamentary campaign that led to the abolition of slavery has rightly been acknowledged as a model, which has probably never been equalled. It required such extraordinary expenditure of effort that perhaps it inevitably gained a resonance, whereas nowadays there are so many campaigns and means of campaigning that it is difficult to raise above the above the rest and achieve such change. Nevertheless, engagement that involves people on the ground matters more than anything if a campaign is to be effective.

Points have been made about the inequalities that persist between Britain and Africa, and the descendants of slaves and the countries in which slavery operated. Much remains to be done. The International Development Committee, which I chair, had an informal briefing this morning from the Strategic Foresight Group. Its ideas about and analysis of the causes of division, terrorism and extremism are interesting. It also makes some practical suggestions about tackling that. It pointed out that, in the United States, which, as nobody needs telling, is the world's largest economy, a significant proportion of households in 29 states have an income of less than $25,000-a per capita income of $10,000 to $15,000. Of course, the group acknowledged that that would be a high salary in African terms, but it is a low income in the United States. The group made the point that Pentecostal Christianity and white supremacist groups have grown in precisely the states where such pockets of low-income earners are abundant. that the that the that the legacy of slavery survives where there is racial discrimination and deprivation.

We heard the example of the British version of the free-trade state, next door to the American version, which has also been racked by a destructive civil war. It can be difficult to know where blame lies when there is poor quality local leadership. I believe that we should apologise unreservedly and show shame for our actions, but that we must also challenge, and acknowledge that the world cannot go on trading apologies instead of delivering leadership and action that move things forward and create change. There must be a partnership between leadership in leadership in leadership in leadershipin the communities that we are considering. Our approach is not to tell countries what to do-we are not neo-colonialists-but to work with them and help them achieve what they want to do. That requires integrity, good governance and transparency. The good news is that, where that exists, we are beginning to see benefits.

Some countries in Africa clearly provide the beginnings of potentially sustainable growth. I hope that that example will persist, and that people perceive the benefits of a partnership that provides real money from developed to developing countries, gives genuine ownership to developing countries and adds to open, transparent good governance, so that those countries that do not benefit realise that they must follow the same route. We cannot have a position whereby people are enslaved by their leadership and the elite does not understand the need to share and include.

One of Africa's tragedies is that it remains probably the richest continent on the planet yet it has a high concentration of the world's poorest people. More poor people live outside Africa, but the proportion of the population of Africa that is poor is much higher than elsewhere. Those people live in the middle of great wealth, which is not properly shared in some African countries. Partnership between the Department for International Development and other international agencies will flourish only if we get the balance right.

One of the least edifying spectacles in the world at the moment is the continual bickering between the two great developed trading blocs about who is to blame for the failure to deliver a trade deal that constitutes a development round for the poorest countries. The best testament to the end of slavery that we could provide is to drop our protectionist barriers, if we genuinely believe in free trade, and open our markets. We should also provide the capacity, through aid for trade, for developing countries to flourish in their own way so that they can access their markets in real terms, not only in theory. That means delivering the Doha round. If that does not happen, we must find another, better way of ensuring that such partnership can continue.

Whether the colonial legacy or that of slavery is to blame, we cannot look at the state of Africa and feel anything other than shame. It may not be all our fault-I believe that we have now got our approach right-but we must deliver our part of the bargain before we can honestly expect the countries of Africa to get their fair share of the world's resources and an ability to participate as full and growing partners who are not dependent on aid. Dependence on aid is neither in their interests nor in ours. Escape from aid dependency restores dignity, and the restoration of dignity abolishes aid dependency. It is a perfect circle, if we can only break the current cycle. It is up to us to deliver-we have not yet done so.

To access the full text of this debate, please follow this link:

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Read "Debate to commemorate Bicentenary of the Abolition of the Slave Trade".

Westminster Hall Debate on Sign Language Support

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Westminster Hall on Tue 6th Mar 2007

I am very glad to have the opportunity to debate this issue. I have campaigned on it over many years, and I shall be intensifying the campaign, because sadly we have been going backwards rather than forwards.

Although I have no commercial interests in the issue, I have many personal interests that I should like to record. I am an honorary vice-chairman of the National Deaf Children's Society, a trustee of the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and chairman of the all-party group on deafness, and I have a grown-up deaf daughter, who of course has been the driving force behind my interest in the issue. She has just celebrated her 30th birthday, but I worry that if I had a deaf daughter today-and I have small children-she would not receive the same quality of education as my daughter did, because the provision of support for deaf children and their parents, particularly in the sphere of sign language support, has gone backwards rather than forwards.

There have been significant advances. There are much earlier diagnoses of deafness and much improved technology, with digital hearing aids and cochlear implants, providing extra support for deaf people-both children and adults-but there is no cure for deafness, and still three deaf children are born every day. Many will benefit hugely from sign language support, but for many other children and parents in many parts of the country, it is simply not available.

I attend many events, and there are many active and lively young signers in their teens and twenties in the population who complain to me vehemently about the lack of access to interpreters, and about their consequential exclusion from many activities in the hearing world.

During previous Parliaments, I was a member of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, and during my time there I was honoured to be rapporteur on sign languages. I was particularly pleased when the Assembly overwhelmingly supported my report calling for legal recognition of sign languages, on a par with other minority languages, which in UK terms include Welsh, Gaelic and even Cornish. I am that in that in spite of such support from parliamentarians throughout 46 European countries, the Council of Ministers has been extremely dilatory in introducing a legal instrument that would provide such a guarantee.

I find it interesting that the countries that most proactively support the role of sign language are those where bilingualism is well embedded in their society. The trailblazers are by far and away the Scandinavian countries, where in mainstream education children have to learn English as well as their mother tongue, as a curriculum requirement. As a result, those countries have no difficulty persuading the parents of deaf children to learn sign language and the mother tongue as their equivalent of bilingualism.

Although the debate and my questions are about England, examples elsewhere in the UK are important. In Wales, where bilingualism between Welsh and English is well established, the Assembly has recognised that another minority language in Wales is British sign language. It has undertaken a radical programme-radical for the UK, not across the piece-to raise the provision of sign language interpreters to the European Union median, which is one in every 45,000 of the population.

At the programme's outset, there were 12 sign language interpreters in Wales; at its end in 2008, they hope that there will be 64. In Scotland, there are fewer than 30 interpreters, and we would need to train more than 80 to meet even the Welsh aspirational standard. In England, 700 additional interpreters would need to be trained to meet the Welsh standard, which is the EU median. We have not met that-and it is nothing like the ideal standard. We must treble the number of interpreters in the UK simply to deliver the European average of support for deaf children and their parents.

Those are some practical facts. If you want to know the aspirational best, Mr. Amess, I shall point you in the direction of Finland, which with a population of 5.5 million has more than 600 interpreters. If the UK were to aspire to the same level of performance, we would need 6,500 interpreters, compared with the present estimated total of 435, which is a huge deficit.

I shall begin with education and schools, because that is where support is vital. Will the Minister recognise that the right of deaf children and their parents to learn and be supported in sign language should be fundamental and guaranteed? Will he acknowledge that it is a function of his Department at least to monitor and possibly to require delivery, not simply to say that it is up to local education authorities to deliver? It is absolutely clear that many authorities neither deliver nor even aspire to do so.

There are 35,000 deaf children in the UK, and we must address what happens when a child is diagnosed as deaf, and what support the parents receive. Then we can ensure that the child is granted the maximum opportunity to attain the communication skills that will give them the best chance of making their way in life.

First, parents should be advised about the role that sign language can play-I do not seek imposition-in their children's education. They should also be given the right to learn sign language-a right that they should be able to exercise without having to pay for it. It should apply to the immediate family, too, because they will give the closest support to the parents.

Indeed, under the Every Disabled Child Matters aspirations, the service that a deaf child requires is access to sign language for them and their parents whenever they wish. That, I am afraid, is neither a Government target nor even an aspiration.

My hon. Friend the Member for Harrogate and Knaresborough (Mr. Willis), who very much wanted to attend this debate but is away on Select Committee business, has tabled his own early-day motion on lip reading and sign language services. It has attracted many signatures, and it speaks for itself about the growing frustration in many parts of the country. People have to pay for support, and more often than not classes are over-subscribed, and the number of interpreters available to provide teaching and support is nothing like adequate.

Indeed, sign languages interpreters and other communicators for the deaf often have to travel 200 or 300 miles to support a meeting, because communicators are not available locally. It creates huge extra expense and delay, and it indicates the shortness of supply.

I have received from many sources examples that amount to a catalogue of frustration. People have been unable to access classes or obtain support for sign language education, they have been actively discouraged from the idea that sign language should be used in the education of deaf children, and they have found that provision is patchy across the UK.

In London, for example, Frank Barnes school for deaf children in the borough of Camden provides access to the national curriculum for deaf children through the medium of BSL. Camden is in the process of redeveloping the site, and although no decision has been taken, there is a concern that the service, which is provided to boroughs right across London, may no longer be available in the future.

I want to try to anticipate some of the Minister's replies in the hope that he will not go down that avenue. Yes, it is a matter for local education authorities to determine provision and they have discretion in that, but it his Department's responsibility to monitor what is provided, set minimum standards and ensure that deaf children throughout the country get access to the sign language support they need. If necessary, it should intervene where that is not happening. My challenge to the Minister relates to the fact that it is not happening, and there is no evidence that his Department is prepared to intervene.

For 30 years, I have been involved in many discussions on this matter, and it disappoints and distresses me that a debate I thought we had dealt with 30 years ago seems to be reasserting itself. There was a school of thought in this country that suggested not only that deaf children should not be taught sign language but that it should be actively suppressed. The oral tradition was a very vigorous school, which regarded sign language as an obstacle to learning and held that because the hearing world did not use it, deaf children should somehow be forced to learn to speak and lip-read. If the outcome had been that every child was able to speak and lip-read, the method would be totally applauded, but that was not the outcome. Many deaf children are simply not able to acquire that degree of speech and lip-reading understanding, and they rely on sign language.

I contend, perhaps more controversially, but I have no evidence to the contrary, that sign language gives profoundly deaf children access to an understanding of speech and communication much more effectively than the lack of it would. I profoundly believe that, so to deny them sign them language is, in my view, to deny them the means to acquire the best possible understanding of the spoken and written language. My own daughter would certainly have had considerable difficulty in acquiring the level of speech and linguistic understanding she has without sign language support. Incidentally, she often says to me, "I don't really use sign language." She tries not to, and has to do without it in most circumstances, but when I see her with deaf friends, it is suddenly all sign language, and speech goes out of the window, which is true of many young deaf people.

Does the Minister have information on the current number of school and pre-school children who are deaf? The estimated figures that I have come from organisations such as the Royal National Institute for Deaf People and the National Deaf Children's Society. Does he know how many schools offer specialised training for deaf children? How many of them provide BSL in England, and how many pupils are benefiting from that, whether they are in special units in special schools or in mainstream schools with support? How many interpreters are currently being trained? Those are the most important questions, because if we do not have that information how can we tell whether deaf children are getting access to the services that they need?

Consideration should be given to offering the teaching of sign language, as a language, as an option in schools. After all, we have given legal recognition to the spoken minority languages of the United Kingdom-Welsh, Gaelic and Cornish-but we have no such recognition or teaching of a minority British language used by at least 70,000 deaf children, and there are probably many more who communicate with them.

If the Minister were to go to Sweden, he would find that Swedish sign language is offered as a language on the national curriculum, and in any given year 10,000 people are learning Swedish sign language. That massively increases the understanding and acceptability of sign language across the whole community in Sweden, and it increases the provision of potential interpreters, who have had their appetite for sign language whetted and are then encouraged to provide interpreter support in the deaf community.

When my daughter signed the national petition to Downing street calling for such action, she got a reply from the Prime Minister that entirely addressed the English curriculum and said nothing about Scotland, even though she was writing from Aberdeen, and also said that it was entirely a matter for local authorities. I beg to differ. The Prime Minister often tells us that education, education, education is his priority, and he often wants to direct in very great detail how the school curriculum should develop. In that context, it would be regrettable if sign language did not have the same level of campaigning support from the centre. I have received a heartfelt plea from Sense, which is a charity for deaf-blind children. For many such children, sign language that is touched on the hand is a vital means of communication, but again there is no absolute right of access to such support.

I am anxious that the Minister should have time to respond, and in conclusion, if his Department wants to pursue the matter further-I hope that it will-many agencies representing the deaf community will be happy to supply him with detailed anecdotal information on the huge variation in provision across the country, and the huge frustration for parents denied sign language for themselves or their children, who feel that their children lose out as a result. There are many instances of young people and children diagnosed as having behavioural problems that, when analysed, are found to be entirely due to the fact that they are unable to communicate effectively. They are frustrated because they are not understood and are not able to make themselves understood. In some specific cases, giving them access to sign language support has been the practical solution to that problem.

I urge the Minister to recognise that it is simply not good enough to deny deaf children and their parents the right to be taught sign language, use sign language and be educated with the support of sign language in their school environment-in a special or mainstream school. I urge him to ensure that he knows what is going on. If he does, and agrees that it is inadequate, will he tell us action he proposes to take to put the matter right?

Read "Westminster Hall Debate on Sign Language Support".

A Liberal Democrat Motion on the Final Report of the Steel Commission

Speech by The Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference on Sat 14th Oct 2006

In moving this motion, I believe it is timely to record the extent to which this party has shaped and continues to pioneer the future of Scotland and our relationship with the rest of the United Kingdom.

When I joined the party in 1962 we had but one MP in Scotland. We had a proud history with deep roots back to the great reformers Lloyd George, Keynes and Beveridge.

We were then passionate believers in Home Rule - a banner we have proudly carried for more than a century.

Liberals and the Liberal Democrats signed the Covenant and worked in the Campaign for a Scottish Assembly. In the dark days of Thatcherism when the Tories resiled from the declaration of Perth we joined forces with other progressive elements of Scottish Society to work in the Scottish Constitutional Convention.

The Government poured scorn on us and few in Scotland took the convention seriously. Yet the work that we did there effectively shaped the Scotland Act.

What might have been an assembly, elected by first past the post, with fewer powers than the Scottish Office became a Parliament, elected by PR with more powers.

And that outcome was substantially because we Lib Dems engaged and led the debate. The SNP, remember, walked away and have actually delivered nothing on policy or the constitution.

Funnily enough, when I was campaigning in Turriff I met an SNP voter and suggested that I and the Liberal Democrats had done more to deliver a Scottish Parliament than Alex Salmond or the SNP.

She asked what I meant. I explained about the convention. She said she didn't see the point of a Scottish Parliament. I then explained that the SNP were in favour of independence with our own army and air force and a seat at the UN. She said "That's completely mad>" Why do you vote SNP then. "Because I'm Scottish," she replied.

So it is the Liberal Democrats who deliver change. Devolution was not our objective but a step on the road to a federal United Kingdom.

Unlike the SNP who are unwilling to work with others to bring about change the Liberal Democrats have worked within the devolution settlement to show how we can deliver on policy.

We remain committed to federalism but have allowed devolution to bed in.

The Steel Commission is therefore our contribution to the next round of reform.

We have set out in some detail our proposals for more powers to the Scottish Parliament for a transfer of taxes.

But, more importantly, we have set out a proposal for how all those who want further transfer of powers can come together in a practical and democratic fashion.

Even the Attorney General Lord Goldsmith has recognised the need for a written constitution. The debate about terrorism and human rights underpins this. When a Tory leader can threaten to play ducks and drakes with our commitment to the European Convention on Human Rights, we need it. When Lord Tebbit and the Daily Mail threaten to cut Scotland loose from the Union we need it. Federalism requires it.

Within such a settlement, we need to determine the best level at which different powers should rest. The Steel Commission identifies the case for a further major transfer of powers to the Scottish Parliament.

The allocation of the revenue from taxes and the power to set and change taxes is essential for proper accountability. It is the essence of fiscal federalism.

It would also put into a fair and proper context the fiscal transfers that take place and their justification. Recommendation 18 makes the case for tax transparency to inform the debate.

The whole point of fiscal federalism is to increase the accountability of each tier of Government and to give each tier the instruments to deliver policy options that can improve performance and competitiveness. That is why local Government needs a similarly entrenched settlement.

Those who assume that transferring more tax powers to the Scottish Parliament will lead to higher taxes miss the pressure of competitiveness. It makes more sense for Scotland to expand its tax base rather than to tax its existing base harder.

That is why Liberal Democrats have cut business taxes and plan to go further. It may well make sense to cut other taxes if it stimulates investment and increases revenue.

There is no upswelling of mood that suggests people really want the divisive and disruptive effects of breaking up the union. Rather people want to improve the delivery of devolution.

A second constitutional convention would secure agreement at the highest level as did the first. Liberal Democrats led the first and we can do so even more effectively if there is a second.

If we win next year's election and Nicol Steven is Scotland's first minister we will establish a Second Constitutional Convention. The challenge to the SNP and the Tories is to say whether they will join it or do what they did the first time - boycott it and forfeit all influence over the shape of Scotland's future.

ENDS

Note: Malcolm Bruce was moving an motion on the Final Report of the Steel Commission at the Scottish Liberal Democrat conference, for further information see: http://www.scotlibdems.org.uk/conference/autumn06.shtml

Read "A Liberal Democrat Motion on the Final Report of the Steel Commission".

Britain's Global Responsibilities: the international rule of law

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Liberal Democrat Conference, Brighton on Thu 21st Sep 2006

Last week Hilary Benn withheld £50 million of UK funding from the World Bank saying he wanted reforms in the way the bank dealt with developing countries - especially in imposing conditions on development support.

This was inevitably welcomed by international NGOs although it was lightly at odds with previous claims by ministers that such criticism of the bank were out of date and the UK was influencing Bank policy.

However, it reveals Hilary Benn's dilemma. As the UK| aid budget rises exponentially and DFID's staffing levels are being cut the department lacks the capacity to deliver the aid money directly.

As a major aid donor the UK, through DFID has a deserved reputation for the quality of aid, for taking a lead and co-ordinating effectively with other donors.

Nevertheless it is inevitable that more of the rising aid budget will be diverted to international agencies such as the World Bank and the European Commission.

Alternatively donors and international agencies will provide more aid through direct budget support which has problems - witness the Government cuts to budget support in Ethiopian and Uganda.

Tonight, in Aberdeen, I will be launching the Orskov foundation. Bob Orskov is a constituent of mine and is a remarkable man. A research scientist in his mid seventies I frequently meet him at Aberdeen Airport en route to or from some of the remotest and poorest rural areas on the planet.

He has just returned from the high plateau of Tibet.

Bob works with local people to help them improve the output of their agriculture boosting livelihoods and quality of life. He tells me that his community projects achieve a great deal with remarkably small funds.

That's the problem for large agencies. It is difficult to reach the grass routes and the long gap between the source of funds and recipients allows leakage through admin, diversion and corruption.

We need thousands of Bob Orskovs. The Orskov foundation will support research projects by students in developing country so will make a contribution.

For aid to be effective we need to find mechanisms that shorten the travel distance of funds and engage as directly as possible with poor people.

I understand what move Hilary Benn to his gesture. I look forward to hearing his report back to the Committee I chair as to how he has ensured the money we give through the World Bank reaches the poor in ways that meet their needs and will directly reduce their poverty and help create viable livelihoods.

There are many causes of poverty- but one of the worst is war and conflict - especially in large swathes of Africa. The world holds its breath over Darfur. Tension and uncertainty surrounds the outcome of elections in the DRC.

War may have ended in Sierra Leone but poverty remains a huge challenge.

I have just returned from my second visit this year to northern Uganda.

After 20 years of terror people are beginning to dare to hope that this frozen conflict may soon be resolved.

Against all predictions the LRA and the Government of Uganda are engaged in peace talks in Juba brokered by the Government of South Sudan.

This appears to have been brought about by effective operations by the UPLA, the Ugandan Army; the loss of safe haven for the LRA in southern Sudan, the strong plea by northern leaders that the war is undermining their culture; and the issues of arrest warrants against the LRA leaders by the International Criminal Court.

Peace negotiations are fragile and may best be resolved by the parties directly affected. There must be justice for the murder, rape, mutilation and abductions perpetrated by the LRA.

But if peace is agreed it would not reflect well on the international community if the only obstacle to allowing 2 million people to return to the land was applying the jurisdiction of the IDC.

If peace is secured then aid can be diverted to development and bringing an end to poverty - and the same challenge will apply - getting the aid to the people for whom it is intended.

ENDS

Malcolm Bruce was speaking in favour of the policy motion on the international rule of law: F51 Britain's Global Responsibilities: the international rule of law. For further information see: http://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/agendalist.html?day=2006-09-19&navPage=conferenceagenda.html

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Fairer, Simpler, Greener: tax reform policy

Speech by The Rt Hon Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Liberal Democrat Conference, Brighton on Tue 19th Sep 2006

I was the Treasury Spokesman for this party who introduced the 50 pence rate of tax. Indeed two weeks after Paddy appointed me to the job a policy working party of which I knew nothing published proposals to increase the 40p rate to 60p.

This was at a time when Labour was moving towards claiming they would not change the rate of income tax and would stick to Tory spending plans.

I recognised that Liberal Democrats could stake out a distinctive position if we were prepared to increase taxes in a targeted and transparent way. This would enable us credibly to commit to the extra spending needed to turn round our under funded public services. I also set out our case for introducing green taxes and using the revenue to ease the tax burden on the poor.

Our costed programme included the extra penny on income tax to fund education, earmarked tax increases on tobacco to fund health and a 50p tax rate on earnings over £100,000.

I argued from the outset that this should be used to reduce the tax burden in lower income earners. It was a straight transfer from the highest earners to those near the bottom of the income scale.

Subsequently the revenue from this tax was diverted to spending and the help to lower tax payers was deferred - justifiably given the priority for funding health and education.

I sent in a submission to the latest tax commission arguing the case for the retention of the 50p rate provided it was dedicated exclusively to reducing the tax burden at the bottom.

I have no idea whether my submission was discussed but I was surprised and delighted when I saw the outcome was a far more radical redistribution than I had thought achievable and one that went much further than the 50 p switch could achieve.

Let's be clear there are real offsets to be taken into account. Phasing out the capital gains tax tapers, which we opposed from the outset, delivers substantial revenue to redistribute to the poor. Restricting pension contribution relief to the standard rate of tax, likewise, is a progressive transfer from upper income groups to the poor.

Gordon Brown has been the most meddling Chancellor ever. I have long argued that when he goes we will need a reforming Chancellor to simplify the tax system and make it transparent and effective.

Looking around I can see that this will have to be a Liberal Democrat Chancellor and this tax paper gives a credible framework for delivering that reform.

To those who want to hang onto the totem of a 50p rate as a sort of radical virility symbol I say this. Just as the penny on income tax served us well but has been superseded so the 50p rate was right for its time.

I do not believe those from the political centre left we are winning need such a totem to stay with us come over to us. Those on the centre right may, by contrast, misunderstand our position as a progressive party offering transparency and fairness across the spectrum.

If the real objective is to spend more than the other parties, then I frankly believe that suggesting to the users of public services that these can be delivered in a pain free way simply by taxing further the rich is disingenuous.

If we believe that the tax envelope should be expanded to deliver our political promise then we should say so and engage all tax payers as we did with our penny for education.

When I led for the party on Treasury matters I was conscious of the fact that we needed a balance and coherent package that would stand up to scrutiny. I believe that stance stood us in good stead in the 1997 election when I debated with Ken Clarke and Gordon Brown.

I believe that was why Ken Clarke was able to say at this time that the Liberal Democrats had acquired a coherent and credible economic policy.

This tax paper builds on this and brings it up to date. It is a balanced package that should be passed without amendment to maintain that hard won reputation for economic coherence.

ENDS

NB: Malcolm Bruce was speaking in support of the motion on tax reform: F28 Fairer, Simpler, Greener (Tax reform policy paper). For further information see: http://www.libdems.org.uk/conference/agendalist.html?day=2006-09-19&navPage=conferenceagenda.html

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Malcolm Bruce gives the keynote address at a conference looking at the future of Africa

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Foreign Policy Centre on Mon 10th Oct 2005

A Canadian friend - not an expert on international development I stress - recently suggested to me that he could solve poverty in Africa by sending a fleet of jumbo jets over the Continent dropping billions of dollar bills.

That way, he argued, at least all those people living on a dollar a day or less stood a fighting chance of seeing some of it. Were the money given through Governments or aid agencies he was less convinced they would benefit.

I am sure many of you here would take strenuous issue with this, and even he agreed when I pointed out that with guns readily available in Africa for only $6 his proposal could easily make things in often conflict-torn Africa much worse.

I don't need to rehearse the damning statistics that attach to Africa today. Nor do I need to stress that the picture is not uniform and there are successes to highlight even if swamped by the scale of the statistics of failure.

The British Government has put Africa at the top of its development agenda and used its influence to persuade others to do the same. Tony Blair has said that Africa was for him "a passion". Gordon Brown has led the way in promoting the case for debt write offs.

Africa was to the forefront of the G8 agenda at Gleneagles under the UK presidency and is being promoted up the EU agenda during the British Presidency.

The Africa Commission, chaired by Tony Blair, is a fascinating, informative read with many interesting illustrations of good and bad practice and practical suggestions.

Nevertheless, I won't be the first or last to point that targets and good intentions achieve nothing unless they lead to practical action.

Debt write offs have been widely welcomed but most of these debts would never have been repaid anyway so a tidying up of the balance sheet must be followed by a new climate of partnership addressing the shortcomings of both donors and recipients.

As a politician I agree with Overseas Development Institute Research Fellow, David Booth in his question "What about politics?". Many African states clearly need stronger and better political institutions and the interaction between Parliamentarians in donor and recipient countries needs to be strengthened.

In particular corruption in all its manifestations needs to be confronted if we are to deliver clean water, health, education and the ability to conduct successful economic enterprise to many of the poorest people.

That, it seems to me, explains why 40% of private wealth is held outside Africa compared to 3% for South Asia.

Corruption is estimated to add 25% to the cost of procurement. It explains why in one of the most damning sentences in the Africa Commission report the poorest families "dare not risk ambition".

So here is a challenge to the UK during its current Presidencies. Isn't it time we ratified the UN Convention Against Corruption?

We must ensure that British companies do not collude with the maintenance of bribery and corruption. We should prosecute British companies and individuals who engage in it. We should work with partners in Africa to expose and control it there. If necessary we should name and shame organisations that are tainted. We must not accept it as ingrained and unchallengeable

No doubt I am one of the millions of people who have been charmed by Scots writer Alexander McCall Smith's books on Botswana in the series of the Number 1 Ladies detective agency.

It is reassuring to see that his rose tinted view of that country is born out by the Africa Commission's confirmation that this is a success story achieved through strong political leadership and sound management.

Poverty has diminished, growth has been sustained and the need for aid has reduced. Sadly, however, Botswana has been one of the countries most ravaged by AIDS.

The devastating effect of AIDS are on a scale comparable to the medieval plagues that swept Europe in the Fourteenth Century. And they have the same affect of undermining the potential for economic recovery and growth.

It is estimated that by 2010 one third of the children in Zambia will be orphans.

How can we achieve the basic health and education levels we need without tackling this head on? Teachers and doctors are dying or fleeing to countries where they are freed from the threat of AIDS and can prosper.

So health and education depend crucially on tackling AIDS.

There are no simple solutions but their must be practical ones. Bob Geldoff's cry "Just give them the effing money" is all very well but if it is stolen again or siphoned off in bribery and corruption the cycle will not be broken.

We must try and end destructive conflicts and improve governance but in so doing we cannot and must not deny people who have no responsibility for or power to prevent these circumstances, access to the basics that will give children a chance to grow up and thrive.

Increased aid will mean nothing to individuals and families unless they can secure the free health they desperately need and access to free education at all levels.

As a politician and a Liberal who has spent a lot of my time focussing on trade, finance and investment issues I am disturbed when people try to suggest that these are somehow inimical to the needs of the developing world.

I agree with Kofi Annan when he said "It is the absence of broad based activity, not its presence, that condemns much of humanity to suffering. Indeed, what is Utopian, is the notion that poverty can be overcome without the active engagement of business."

Trade has driven the engine of growth in Asia. It can and must do in Africa. Of course, that doesn't mean immediate multilateral free trade. And, equally, given the still considerable importance of agricultural activity on the Continent we must challenge the distorting effects of export subsidies provided by the EU, USA and Japan.

The economies of many African countries need to diversify to escape

the spiral of what one of my old economics lecturers called immiserising growth brought about by over-dependence on a narrow range of price-unpredictable commodities.

How can it be justified for us to continue to subsidise European sugar or US cotton, such vital commodities for developing countries?

The Commission identifies that poor infrastructure costs adds 80% to Ugandan textile exports. Aid can surely be targeted towards the kind of infrastructure investment that would enable internal and external trade to flourish.

The Hong Kong Trade talks in December have really got to achieve agreements that meet the needs of developing countries and help - not hinder - their ability to develop beneficial trade.

Growth will come from private investment and enterprise by small and medium as well as large enterprises. We need to unlock investment and trade by tackling corruption and investing in infrastructure, health and education so that African people can lead the way out of the cycle of stagnation.

My committee in the next few weeks will be asking the British Government, the World Bank, the IMF, the European Commission, the United Nations and the World Trade Organisation what changes they will be making to their programmes to achieve the ambitious targets of the G8 summit.

Global targets mean nothing unless broken down into manageable components. Targets are not a policy, only a framework for formulating policy.

So let's tackle AIDS and other health issues as practically as we can. Let's provide education and build infrastructure. Let's take responsibility for controlling the anarchic and destructive trade in small arms and let us tackle corruption at both ends of the spectrum

As Chair of GLOBE UK, I am campaigning hard for action to tackle climate change. The causes of climate change have been industrialisation in western countries. The main victims, as always are the vulnerable poor. Even in the USA, Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that.

However the effects of major flooding and desertification are seen at their most destructive in poor countries of Asia and Africa.

Also, in an increasingly urbanised society, tackling urban deprivation and encouraging economic diversification will all put pressure on the environment.

We cannot impose emissions restrictions on Africa that will stifle development.

However, nor should we dump obsolete polluting technology. On the contrary, we should work to put Africa at the heart of green growth encouraging truly sustainable development both in the technology we apply and the way we organise society.

I was impressed when visiting Ivory City during the World Summit in Johannesburg to see a poverty alleviation scheme using the greenest of ideas - environmental design to maximise the sun in winter and the shade in summer, solar cooking, reed beds for sewage treatment, recycling initiatives for business opportunities.

So often the frustration in looking at aid and development and alternative energy is that it is all available and demonstrable and yet too often it is not happening.

Aim for the stars and you may reach the moon is an admirable proverb. But in aspiring to tackle global problems and meet ambitious targets too often we lose sight of the small scale the simple and the practical.

Much that will put Africa on the road to success will be done by the individual actions of millions of people.

Let us monitor success and spread best practice. Let us own up to failure so as not to repeat it.

Given the crucial role that women play in all the key areas they must be empowered in politics, in land reform and in the wider economy. I know I am a mere man but my party has seen the future in that the four youngest MPs at Westminster are Liberal Democrat women. In Africa it is time for the emergence of more influential women and that includes land ownership, enterprise and public administration - not just as teachers and nurses.

I wish today's proceedings success. Success will be judged by practical recommendations that can be implemented soon and show a real difference within a year or sooner. By the same token it will also require that what works is supported long term not cut short by changed priorities.

I have one child of six and two under five. My heart bleeds for the children of Africa. Let us strive each day for at least some of them to turn despair into hope and hope into fulfilment.

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Scottish Liberal Democrat Conference Address

Speech by Malcolm Bruce MP delivered to Scottish Liberal Democrats on Sun 27th Feb 2005

There's good news and bad news.

The bad news (and it is bad) is that the world is an unstable, confusing and, at times, frightening place.

We are in fear of terrorists, AIDS, avian flu, crime and the effects of accelerating climate change. The good news on that is that Russia has signed up to Kyoto. The bad news is that the United States hasn't.

The good news is that the number of democracies has increased in the past year. The even better news is that, in the face of all these uncertainties and the frightening certainties of the neo-conservative agenda, Liberalism (with a big L) is on the advance.

Did you know, for example that eight of the European Union commissioners are members of Liberal, Democrat and Reformist parties (that's more than any other political group).

Liberals are in Government or heading for Government in an increasing number of countries across Europe as well, of course, in our own beloved Caledonia. During the Cold War the clash was between capitalism and communism. Now the clash is between neo-Conservatism and Liberalism.

At home and abroad we face confusion and uncertainty. Yet, slowly but surely the case is being made that the Liberal agenda offers hope in a climate of despair.

One interpretation of the word Liberal is generous. The reaction of the Scottish people to the Tsunami disaster was truly Liberal, shaming the Government into raising their commitment - and we must make them deliver.

I don't want to oversell our case but six years into the Scottish Parliament, we have abolished tuition fees and resisted top up fees; we have pioneered Freedom of Information and Human Rights Legislation; we are delivering free personal care for the elderly and we will reform the voting system for local government.

I could take you on a tour of my constituency and show you a new state of the art primary school at Strathburn, Inverurie, a brand new secondary school at Oldmeldrum, new primary schools in an advanced state of construction at Kintore and Rothienorman. Other major school developments are being planned.

In the parts of Aberdeen City Gordon constituency reacquires under boundary changes I could show the Scottish Executive funded music school for talented musicians at Dyce Academy. A long overdue new bridge over the River Don is firmly planned and under Liberal Democrat leadership recycling levels are raising rapidly from the abysmally low levels we inherited from Labour.

Incidentally the only Liberal Democrat Lord Provost (the first ever?) John Reynolds and his wife Helen, recovering well from a stroke, are superb ambassadors for the City as are Aberdeenshire Provost, Raymond Bisset, and his wife Heather (also a councillor).

By the way, these two councils are both ably led by women - Kate Dean in Aberdeen and Audrey Findlay in Aberdeenshire. If we are as successful as we hope in the General Election I look forward to being joined in the House of Commons by several more talented women Scottish Liberal Democrats.

We have able men too in the North East and Nicol Stephen as Transport Minister delivered a double Christmas present when he announced the ending of Skye Bridge tolls and the introduction of free bus fares nationally for older people from next year. Thanks Nicol, we oldies appreciate it!

At a recent briefing to MPs and MSPs, Grampian's Chief Constable informed us that he had a net increase of 200 police officers since 1998 and that further increases promised would provide another 120 over the next two years raising the force to 1500 officers.

As the Scottish Trustee for the RNID I am pleased that the Liberal Democrats insisted on extra funding for audiology in Scotland. It is a good start; keep it coming!

Of course the Tories regard all this as waste.

There are many other things our ministers and MPs are achieving for Scotland. That doesn't make us satisfied nor should it. Let's face it dentistry is in crisis across the UK and here in Scotland.

Quite rightly we are committed to introducing free dental check-ups as well as eye tests. However, with people unable to find an NHS dentist at all in many areas this will be cold comfort.

It is not a purely Scottish problem. We have to compete across the UK (and beyond) to attract and retain dentists. They need job satisfaction and good pay. Initiatives, such as training finishing in Aberdeen and determined recruiting of NHS dentists should help but our aim must be that everyone who wants an NHS dentist can find one in their area. I want to read no more stories of my constituents taking out second mortgages on their house to pay for a teenager's dental treatment privately because it is not available on the NHS.

Putting the Liberal Democrats into Government in Scotland has made a positive difference for the better. Of course we cannot deliver on everything. Even if we were the lead partner we couldn't but I like to think we would achieve more.

So let us issue this challenge to the voters of Scotland. Give us a chance to take the lead.

The first step down that road will be the Westminster election everyone expects in a few weeks time.

You know, I was really irritated by some BBC broadcasts during the last election. You may remember they had 15 minutes extended onto the news bulletins to accommodate election coverage.

On one occasion I monitored the distribution of time - not among the parties you may be surprised to know. I can't remember if these figures are exactly right but they are not far out. I concluded that of the fifteen minutes, one minute twenty-nine seconds consisted of interviews with politicians. The remaining 13 minutes thirty-one seconds consisted of BBC staffers interviewing each other.

No disrespect, guys, but who elected Andrew Marr or John Humphreys?

On another occasion they transgressed even more seriously. They featured one part of the UK where the election was largely irrelevant. You guessed it. Scotland.

Because we had our own Parliament which took decisions on education, health, law, local government etc the General Election would have little significance to Scottish voters, they said.

They seem to have lost sight of the fact that almost all our taxes are levied and collected by Westminster, that our Parliament is funded by a direct grant it does not control; that significant areas of policy such as pensions and benefits, interest rates, company law, defence and foreign policy, war and peace, drugs, firearms and human rights for example are decided at UK level - and they do matter to Scottish voters.

Tony Blair took us into an illegal war, on a false premise the outcome of which we cannot yet foresee. He deployed Perth and Tayside's own regiment the Black Watch in a dangerous frontier at the Americans' request and promptly announced a the end of their tour that their long and honourable history would be summarily terminated.

Westminster doesn't matter to Scottish voters?

Tony Blair protested somewhat feebly about British citizens incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay while presiding over our own unlawful detentions at Belmarsh.

He is now struggling to find a way through the law lords' ruling on this breach of the European Convention on Human Rights. Charles Clarke is perpetrating the undemocratic fallacy that he has responsibility to provide security meaning he is demanding the right to detain without trial people he deems to require it.

Without a proper judicial process his proposals will be just as illegal and were he to persist would mean that the UK was creating political prisoners. This measure would include British citizens.

Westminster doesn't matter to Scottish voters?

Of course, the Government is persisting in its pursuit of identity cards.

What kind of example is that to set to the new democracies of Europe let alone the post Soviet states that have not achieved democracy or, in the case of Russia is busy stamping it out.

I'll come back to Russia later but meanwhile let's return to ID cards.

There is a story about Churchill in the Palace of Westminster shortly after his defeat at the end of the war. A newly elected Labour MP got into the lift that rises from outside the Members' Dining Room to the Upper Committee corridor. Churchill was already on board.

As the lift rose Churchill turned to the rooky. "What party are you then?" "Labour, sir", replied the slightly overawed new member. The lift arrived at the second floor.

"I'm a Liberal", said Churchill. "Always have been" and strode off leaving the freshman open-mouthed.

One thing Churchill was Liberal on was identity cards. He accepted they were necessary for the exceptional circumstances of the war. Even when they were introduced he asserted we were fighting the war for the day when such devices would not be necessary and it was a Churchill-led Conservative Government that eventually abolished them in 1952.

There is no such language from Tony Blair. If he has his way the ID cards will be for keeps, for everyone and compulsory. He argues they are needed for the present threats. But it will take years to introduce, cost billions and eventually require non passport holders to register by compulsion. And the terrorists will find a way round them by forging them, transferring them or, cunning devils, being British. After all if you are a suicide bomber, lying low for years, you do not need to hide your identity only your intentions until it is too late.

Aside from terrorism we are told that ID cards will prevent social security fraud and be required to receive public services. The Scottish Executive has gallantly said it will not have anything to do with ID cards. However they do not issue passports or deliver benefits or other services. So be not lulled. Scots will require ID cards.

Westminster doesn't matter to Scottish voters?

I said at the start that there were more democracies than a year ago. Unexpectedly, the people of Georgia took to the streets in the rose revolution and after a stand off Mr Scheverdnadze gave way to Mr Sakaashvilli. I have had the privilege of meeting him and hearing him speak. He is undoubtedly seeking to move Georgia into the free and democratic world and stamp out endemic corruption.

Who said the future is bright the future is Orange? I know what you are thinking but Mr Kilroy-Silk, who regularly sat on the bench in front of me in my first Parliament, is not the author - possibly because he has no political future. Nor is Ian Paisley.

Actually Mr Victor Yushenko didn't say it either but he should have done.

I have a friend and colleague, Serhei Holovaty, a former Ukrainian Justice Minister and newly elected as the Liberal Chair of the Legal Affairs and Human Rights Committee of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

A few weeks ago at a Liberal dinner, I sat next to Myroslava Gongadze, the young widow of Georgiy Gongadze, whose beheaded body was found after extermination threats by ex President Kuchma were recorded by a security officer

In the climate of the Kuchma regime Serhei was in despair. He never believed the democratic revolution could happen yet the Orange revolution in Ukraine is almost certainly the biggest political event in Europe since the fall of the Berlin wall.

And let me tell you, Mr Vladimir Putin and the Kremlin do not like Roses or Oranges one little bit.

I attended a hearing of the US Senate foreign relations committee a week ago. They took evidence first from executives of Yukos, Russia's most successful post Soviet company, destroyed by the Kremlin, whose executives are in the final throes of a Soviet style show trial.

Then they took evidence from a variety of academics. The views expressed were strident and uncompromising. Russia is not a democracy it is an anti democratic force. Witness Mr Putin's endorsement of the fraudulent result in Ukraine.

Senator Lugar asked the witnesses what they thought the United States should do. The answers were hard-hitting. Russian should be denied membership of the WTO, a G-8 summit in Moscow (and membership of the G-8) and, by the way why are President Bush and Tony Blair proposing to attend the celebration of the triumph of Stalinism over eastern Europe at the end of the war?

Russia being anti-democratic a bit strong? Consider this. Over seventy per cent of the people running Russia are former KGB agents (as of course is Mr Putin). At a seminar at New York University School of Law this question was posed. Are we back in the USSR? The answer was no. The KGB was never as strong in the USSR as they are now in Russia.

Next you should know; regions will no longer elect their Governors they will be appointed by the Kremlin. There will be no constituencies (therefore no chance of electing popular favourite sons or daughters). Only parties who have 50,000 members or more across more than half the regions (Alex Salmond, I think your policies are rubbish but I will fight to the finish for your right to try and peddle them) will be allowed to contest elections at any level. The threshold for election to the Duma is increased from 5 to 7 per cent of the popular vote.

There are no independent television stations nor independent courts.

Let me tell you something else. You may take the view that Mr Khodorkovsky is an oligarch who made billions out of flawed privatisation. (He wouldn't be the first). But consider the treatment of Svetlana Bakhmina. She was a lawyer working for Yukos who was in London for the final meeting of the board before the company's demise.

Yet within hours of her return to Moscow the security services came to call. She was dragged into custody in front of her pre school age children who were left abandoned. Within hours of being taken she collapsed and was taken to hospital. Her captors waited outside the door until she was deemed sufficiently recovered to leave.

They took her back into custody where she remains a hostage within what passes for a legal system in Russia.

Should we care? I think we should

It is true that Russia has an economy the size of Belgium's. However, Russia has a large footprint and if we do not insist that they deliver on their commitment to democracy the world will come to regret it.

It will be a supreme irony if Tony Blair and George W Bush are so distracted by imposing democracy on Iraq by force that they collude in its extinction in Russia.

Vladimir Putin has told George W Bush that Russia has made an irreversible commitment to democracy. Sadly, this is totally inconsistent with the evidence of what he has done in the past twelve months.

Democracy in Russia and its near abroad is not secure.

Viktor Yushenko was horribly poisoned. The Prime Minister of Georgia died in mysterious circumstances. Dark forces are at work to undermine liberal democracy. We need to be vigilant and we need strong voices to speak out for Liberalism, democracy and the rule of law. And you won't find any of those among the present Labour cabinet.

Tony Blair has no respect for constitutions or human rights. 'Trust me I'm Tony' was no substitute for a gut sense of Liberalism but right now hardly anybody trusts Tony and there are a string of reasons for wanting him gone.

Tomorrow he will be asking the House to vote for the creation of more political prisoners in Britain. He certainly wasn't there to hear the outburst from one of his MPs who finished his speech by saying. "This is the Labour Party's descent into hell and the Government be damned for it."

Barbara Follett, whose first husband was shot dead by South African security forces, likened the control orders to the notorious pass laws.

Tony Blair shows cavalier contempt for the constitution and human rights. He led us into an illegal war. No wonder he won't publish the legal advice. A Government that couldn't even get the legal advice right for a Royal wedding cannot be trusted to have got right the legal basis for war.

The forthcoming election is more important than just offering a menu with prices on the usual issues.

It is an opportunity indeed an obligation to make a stand for the fundamental principles on which our democracy was founded and are under threat from an increasingly overmighty and authoritarian Government.

A proportional voting system has tamed Labour in Scotland and enabled us to deliver many Liberal Democrat policies.

The undemocratic Westminster system is a different beast. Firstly, as Charles Kennedy has made clear we could not prop up a Government that had lost its overwhelming majority and we will not.

Faced with the arrogance of Blair's Labour Party and duplicity of Michael Howard's Tories there must be no limit to Liberal Democrat aspirations.

The election is only weeks away and the message must be clear. Give the Liberal Democrats the chance to end this Government's endless spin. Let us reconnect with the people. Let us join the advance of Liberalism and put the Liberal Democrats on the road to Government.

Tony Blair is not fit to be Prime Minister of this country and the one sure way to remove him is for people to vote Liberal Democrat in overwhelming numbers. Let's go out and campaign our hearts out to make election day Tony Blair's nemesis and a victory for the people.

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