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Debate on the Address

My Lords, I, too, welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Taylor of Bolton, and the noble Lord, Lord Malloch-Brown, who is to respond to this debate. The noble Baroness may remember that we worked together in a previous existence in another place on the Standards and Privileges Committee and became known as the sleaze busters. Exactly five years ago today, almost to the minute, I suffered a heart attack, so it is with great pleasure and some relief that I rise today to add my comments on yesterday’s Queen’s Speech. I wish to address my main remarks to the words in the gracious Speech: "““Reducing global poverty will be a high priority for my Government, with renewed efforts to achieve the millennium development goals””." In particular, I shall address how that relates to the provision of clean water in Africa. Noble Lords will be aware from my entries in the Register of my interests in Botswana in Southern Africa. In over 13 years in another place and just over two years in your Lordships' House, I have developed an interest in the whole continent of Africa, and have visited a number of countries from Ghana to Mozambique, from Senegal to Namibia, and this summer from South Africa and Botswana to Kenya and Burundi. Every time I return to this country from Africa, two challenges are uppermost in my mind: water and jobs. This year we have seen devastating floods across much of Africa. We know that a lot of rain falls on the continent, yet all too often we also see on our television screens pictures of people struggling to survive because of drought. Animals die, starving children and emaciated mothers suffer and aid agencies find their resources stretched and inadequate to provide sufficient help. Meanwhile young men stand idle with no jobs to do. I take Burundi as an example. I visited Burundi in September with the Inter-Parliamentary Union. That country, half of the former Belgian colony of Ruanda-Urundi, has been plagued by civil war. Aid agencies are there in force, not least our own Department for International Development. The newish Government have been in power for two years and regard that as an achievement because they have not been overthrown in a bloody coup. Yet everywhere young men stand around idle, a tinderbox waiting to explode again. In Kenya, I heard of women—it is almost always women—who walk miles every morning to go and fetch water. They walk home, cook the family meal, go to bed, wake up in the morning and go and fetch more water. That is not living; that is a grinding existence. I know some of the difficulties of having no water supply. I live in Gloucestershire, where the Mythe water works on the outskirts of Tewkesbury were flooded in July. For two weeks we had no water supply. It is true that bowsers were promptly delivered to key points and bottled water was also supplied, but to fill the toilets we took large containers to a nearby stream and carried them home. It was a nuisance for us, but for those Kenyans having to walk miles to get water is more than a nuisance. The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting will take place in Uganda in a couple of weeks. In 2001, I visited Uganda with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association and saw a Rotary-backed project to secure a water supply coming out of a hill. The water had originally formed a pool that became polluted. The project had surrounded the water with concrete and installed pipe work leading to taps. Unfortunately when I was there no water was coming out of the taps. The people explained that there had been no rain for two years and they had no water for their animals or crops and precious little for the people. It was one of those moments when it was difficult to find words. I think I mumbled, ““I'll see what I can do””. An hour later, while enjoying a rest at the Jinja sailing club, the sky darkened and we experienced the most dramatic thunderstorm. The manicured lawns disappeared under water, and for the rest of our visit Michael Howard, before his leadership days, claimed the credit for bringing the rain. Even in Botswana, the most successful country in Africa, where they found rich mineral and diamond deposits and did not have a war over them, there is a water shortage. Last year, after good rains, there was grass everywhere, animals looked healthy and well fed and the main dam in the country’s capital, Gaborone, filled up. This year the rains failed, the dam became depleted and animals wandered the streets looking for food. Yet Botswana has invested much of its resources in constructing a north-south water carrier, so that surplus water in the north of the country can be pumped to the south where most of the population live. Without that the situation would be much worse than it is. We hope for better rains this year. There has been criticism of the Government’s programme because it contains no vision, so may I suggest a vision for them? Cannot the global community make a commitment to sort out the water problems of the world? Some aid agencies do their best. WaterAid scratches at the surface of the problem, yet its total annual budget is less than the amount spent by Thames Water on improving the quality of water in London from 99.98 per cent purity to 99.99 per cent purity. We know vast quantities of rain fall on Africa every year. The problem is that when there is an abundance, the water is not stored and there is little infrastructure to deliver water to areas of shortage. Climate change threatens to make rainfall less predictable. The time for action is now. What a project this could be: building dams and reservoirs to store water, installing pipes and pumps to move water to where it is needed and providing work for unemployed young men and women who need jobs and hope for the future. We know it is possible because of the success of a prototype: Botswana’s north-south water carrier. Yes, it would cost a lot of money, and noble Lords would be right to ask where that will come from. Let me put it this way. Since 2003 the United Kingdom and the United States of America have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on an unnecessary, and in my view unjustified, invasion of Iraq. The country was knocked down at great expense in finance and human lives and now the country is being rebuilt at huge cost. The result was that we made a lot of enemies, and we are told that our country is now less secure than it was. By contrast, the project I have outlined would probably cost less than the adventure in Iraq, and we would end up making a lot of friends. So the next time our friends in Washington—and they are our friends—suggest knocking over another country—let me take one at random; say, Iran—it would be preferable for our Prime Minister to say, ““No, hang on a minute, I have a much better idea". This is a vision. I tried it out on a gathering of aid agencies in Burundi in September. Those people are in the front line of delivering the millennium development goals in Africa. Their unanimous view was, ““Why don't you get on with it?" Why indeed? The Government should eagerly adopt this vision and put the United Kingdom at the heart of a brave and worthwhile project. I hope they will.