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Asian Tsunami: Emergency Relief

My Lords, I well understand the noble Lord’s very good point that somebody on the ground should look at the situation to ensure that the categorisation is still correct. I shall certainly feed through that point. The noble Lord makes an interesting suggestion in relation to JCBs. I shall also follow up that very practical suggestion. I turn to monitoring and evaluation. To ensure that   UK Government funds are spent effectively in the region, DfID humanitarian advisers are going on a series of monitoring missions to affected countries during June and July to evaluate the support provided with those funds. My noble friend Lord Giddens was right to emphasise the need to ensure that there is no gap between pledged aid and aid which is delivered. I noted all the points raised by my noble friend Lord   Giddens in relation to natural disasters and economic disasters which could result from globalisation. I shall undertake to follow up his points. My noble friend also stressed the importance of global risks. It is clear that natural disasters have a disproportionate and catastrophic effect on poor people. That is one of the reasons that the Government have been investigating the issue. As my noble friend Lord   Hunt of Chesterton pointed out, some lessons have been learned about natural disasters, but more needs to be done throughout government and current methods need to be improved. I trust that the Government will be able to assist with the training he suggests so that scientists and technicians have all the necessary skills. In response to the noble Baroness, Lady Rawlings, £66 million out of the £75 million for humanitarian aid has been programmed through UN agencies, NGOs and DfID direct action. We are considering disaster risk reduction for the remainder of the money. As I mentioned, the Parliamentary Under-Secretary is visiting the region this week. He will make decisions on future spending when there. I was very struck by the noble Baroness’s point about the aid that was left in containers and not properly dealt with. I am told by my colleagues in the department that the international response to the tsunami was unprecedented, as we all know, and that that presented logistical challenges in particular. Therefore, it was necessary for the relief agencies and the affected governments to prioritise the items that were distributed, and I can only presume that whatever was in the containers was not a priority for the Governments. I am sorry about that. To conclude, the exceptionally generous response following the Asian tsunami has meant that the initial humanitarian relief effort in all the affected countries has been successful. Any potential further consequences of the disaster, such as major outbreaks of disease, have been prevented. We are committed to playing our full part in helping to meet these exceptional needs. But six months is a very short time and the challenges of reconstruction are still enormous. It is of course absolutely right, as the noble Lord, Lord Naseby, said, that we should continue to monitor the situation. I welcome his suggestion that there should be a follow-up debate in six months’ time. I have no doubt that in the mean time noble Lords will continue properly to question the Government on the issue, which has such a profound effect on the people whose lives and livelihoods were shattered by the Asian earthquake and resulting tsunami. Where I have not responded to questions from noble Lords, I shall do so in writing. House adjourned at thirteen minutes before six o’clock. Correction In cols. 1020 to 1024 on Thursday 9 June, the first paragraph of the Lord Brooke of Sutton Mandeville’s speech on museums was accidentally deleted, with the result that the rest of the Lord Brooke’s speech was wrongly attributed to the Lord Waldegrave of North Hill. The first paragraph of the Lord Brooke’s speech should follow the Lord Waldegrave’s closing words (““rather than for the museums to be anxious that they might suffer.””) at col. 1020 and should begin, ““My Lords, it is a disappointment not to be following the noble Lord, Lord Wilson of Tillyorn, but it is a great   pleasure to be following my noble friend Lord   Waldegrave of North Hill, whose personal scope so impressively covers both science and the humanities. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Eccles . . . ””