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Burma

The Government should be commended for moving quickly and offering material aid, but as the Select Committee on International Development made plain in its report on humanitarian responses, we cannot focus solely on such aid. We must focus on getting people to Burma to ensure that aid is delivered properly. One of the problems with air drops in such circumstances is that the aid would be dropped on water rather than land, which was not the case in Ethiopia. We should concentrate on access, and the need to persuade the Burmese to admit independent experts from the United Nations and the NGOs to ensure that aid reaches people on the ground, because no one is in a position to deal with that now. That should be the focus of the efforts of Members throughout the House.