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The United Kingdom and the Commonwealth

I thank the hon. Lady most sincerely for that suggestion. I am sure that in west Africa a day without chocolate would be like a day without sunshine. I shall certainly take her up on that offer. If Cadbury is not familiar with the work of Habitat for Humanity, I would certainly be keen to introduce the company to it. As has been mentioned by many hon. Members, the significance of the Commonwealth is too often overlooked. It is possible that too many people in this country did not notice that 10 March was Commonwealth day. I want to make one or two remarks about the unique status of the Commonwealth, its growth and the role that I would like it to play in development in the future. There are many references in newspapers and periodicals to it being fashionable in this country to criticise the Commonwealth and to see it as an organisation that is inherently anti-British and institutionally ineffective. It rather reminds me of the old joke about the bloke who goes into a hardware shop to ask for a particular sort of light bulb only to be told by the harassed shopkeeper, ““You're the 20th person we've told today: there's no demand for it.”” We constantly say that the Commonwealth is undervalued, yet here we are talking about its life and vibrancy. Everywhere we go, we know that people are well aware that the Commonwealth is more than alive and well. It is not in any way a declining institution. Perhaps we see the Commonwealth in a particular way in this country, but when one travels abroad, one sees how much it is welcomed. It is a little like the EU. We can be keen to criticise in the UK, but it is possible to see how important the EU is in the Balkans in providing a framework to settle the conflicts in a region that has been beset by them for too long. I do not buy the idea of the Commonwealth as a declining institution. I am proud of its history, its origins and what it provides today. Colleagues have mentioned the unique aspects of the Commonwealth. It has 53 member nations, representing nearly 2 billion people in a vast, diverse grouping that transcends the north-south divide, a feat that can be matched only by the UN. It puts the rich countries, such as the UK, Australia and Canada, into contact with poorer nations in order to share best business practice and technology and to assist developing countries. It does so not out of pure economic or geographical interest, but out of a sense of relationship, which is so important in world politics. We see so many things happen in the world that are based purely on transaction and on ““What's in it for me? What's in it for you? Let's do something together only if that is the relationship that we have.”” If there is something deeper—in the Commonwealth, there is—it means much more. That sense of relationship will be of great importance in a world that is becoming increasingly reliant on power blocs—a world of shrinking resources and potential global conflict. Whether it is the EU, north America or in terms of the increasing power of China, the world blocs are coming together. Something like the Commonwealth, which straddles those blocs, will be incredibly important in the future. It is that backdrop that has made the Commonwealth's role in conflict resolution so important. We have discussed Kenya and the successes there and the worries about Zimbabwe, but let us not forget Sri Lanka, Kashmir and Cyprus. They are places where the Commonwealth can and should still have a role to play, using its unique background to try to deal with conflict resolution. For a declining organisation, the Commonwealth has a remarkable number of people who want to join it, and that has to be the key test of a thriving group of people. Other colleagues have mentioned the fact that more countries that do not have a link to the old countries want to join. Mozambique has been mentioned. I want to talk a little about Rwanda, and say how much I welcome its application to join the Commonwealth, which has every prospect of success. I and some 43 colleagues from the Conservative party—including eight Members of Parliament, among whom were my right hon. Friend the Member for Witney (Mr. Cameron) and my hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr. Mitchell), who organised the visit—went to Rwanda last summer on the largest international development programme ever devised by a political party in the United Kingdom. We were proud to do so, and we followed in the footsteps of other volunteers working overseas. We pay tribute to all those who do such work all over the world. We were working on projects with the support and backing of the Rwandan Government through the relationship with President Paul Kagame—a relationship that has been fostered by the present Government. We are the biggest international donor to Rwanda, and this country has a terrific relationship with Rwanda, which was much needed. The fact that it is a consensual relationship on both sides of the House is of great importance. We followed a whole variety of projects. Work was done in rebuilding and renovating a school and an orphanage. We made sure that the projects were sustainable and had a legacy. We set up twinning with schools, and colleagues worked in Ministers' offices and in local government. There was a concentration on health. The remarkable Dr. David Tibbutt, a member of one of the teams working there—he is also the Worcester city council cabinet member for urban renaissance and a wonderful doctor—described the work that he was doing as follows:"““Kirambi Health Centre is about 2 to 3 hours drive from Kigali over difficult roads and numerous bridges…The geography of the 'land of a thousand hills' is a major obstacle to accessing healthcare: walking many kilometres is the main means by which people reach a clinic!""At the Health Centre we conducted six all-day clinics. Our visit had been announced previously in the Church. On the first day we were overwhelmed by 150 patients and managed to see about 100: the remainder had to be sent away as it was too dark…and there was no artificial light available. In all we saw 473 patients. It was interesting to note that a large proportion of the ""presented problems were of a musculo-skeletal nature: backache and arthritis. Such problems may seem trivial. However, put into the social context of many hours of daily hard work on the land and walking across hilly terrain it becomes clear how important the management of these problems is.””" So we worked on health care and health projects in rural and city areas, and we of course looked at the legacy of genocide. The whole modern history of Rwanda is tainted by the genocide of 1994, and yet enriched by the extraordinary recovery in that country. The hon. Member for Crosby spoke about the recovery taking place in Sierra Leone from involvement in the civil war, and how forgiving some communities had been in the most difficult of circumstances. That characteristic has also been part of Rwanda's recovery, and it is an extraordinary lesson for us. We looked at the work of the gacaca courts and how communities have come to terms with what happened in Rwanda. We should remember that one tenth of a population of 10 million people were victims of the genocide. A civil court system cannot deal with all this, so it has been done through local community courts. The shadow Secretary of State for Scotland, my hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell), put it this way when he went to see this work:"““that, for me, summed up Rwanda. Whilst there may not be a perfect reconciliation, there is no lust for revenge. As one survivor said to me, 'killing the people who carried out the killings would serve no purpose'. What there is is an accommodation, a common wish to move forward””." This sense of forgiveness and tolerance, in the most difficult of circumstances that none of us here can possibly truly comprehend, is the hallmark of what Rwanda is doing. It is still a poor country, but it is getting somewhere.