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Zimbabwe

I believe that that is the case and I am glad to hear the hon. Gentleman, who has been vocal on this issue for as long as I have been a Member of Parliament, stating that as clearly and as forcefully as he just has. The all-party group wanted to do two things in our report: to set the record straight and to look forwards, not backwards—to try to develop ideas about the types of policies that would provide the basis for a new and better relationship between our country and Zimbabwe. The report set out three broad objectives: first, to establish what was actually agreed at Lancaster house; secondly, to document what development assistance has been provided by the UK to Zimbabwe, for land reform specifically and more generally; and thirdly, to examine what future land reform policies would re-establish a productive agriculture sector in Zimbabwe, which would support rural livelihoods and offer job opportunities once again for the many farm workers who have lost their jobs through the farm invasions. We sought and obtained evidence from the widest possible range of people. They included representatives of the UK Government, and we are grateful to the Secretary of State for International Development for providing a detailed draft of written evidence. Through the Zimbabwean ambassador in London, we received evidence from ZANU-PF. We also received evidence from various participants at the Lancaster house talks, including members of the ZANU and ZAPU teams who were legal advisers to their respective party presidents, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo. Furthermore, we received evidence from Lord Carrington, who gave oral evidence in a very sharp way. He remembered a huge amount of detail and it was important to capture that detail to understand what actually happened in those discussions at Lancaster house. In addition, we sought and obtained evidence from academics, both in the UK and Zimbabwe; from Chester Crocker, the US Assistant Secretary of State who had special responsibility for Africa at the time of the Lancaster house talks, and from others. In all the evidence that we obtained, we found no evidence that Britain had betrayed promises on land reform made at Lancaster house. In fact, the most interesting evidence of all came from ZANU-PF. The Zimbabwean embassy in London did not claim that there was a secret deal that the UK would provide funds to pay for land reform. It is true that both Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo sought commitments on land reform at Lancaster house—land reform was a very important issue for those who had been involved in the liberation struggle—but the UK had to broker a deal between Ian Smith and his regime's military on the one hand and the liberation movements on the other hand, and there was no agreement on land. At one stage in the talks, Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo threatened to walk out of Lancaster house, but a great deal of pressure was put on them by the Presidents of the front-line states, particularly Zambia and Mozambique, which were used by the Zimbabwean liberation movement fighters for their training camps and supply lines. Pressure from those neighbouring countries was put on the Zimbabwean liberation movements to agree a deal so that the war might end. The leaders of those movements were urged to compromise, and they did. There is nothing in the Lancaster house agreement promising to pay for land reform, and nothing in our conversations with the principal western Ministers involved at the time—Lord Carrington and Chester Crocker—suggested that there was any secret deal to do so. Nevertheless, Britain made aid available for land reform on a "willing seller, willing buyer" basis, and by 1986, 71,000 families had been resettled on land formerly owned by commercial farmers. The Economist described it at the time as""one of the most successful aid schemes in Africa"." However, by 1985, the scheme had slowed down, and in the 1990s it stopped altogether. In 1997, Robert Mugabe was losing support within his party, ZANU-PF, and came under pressure from war veterans for pensions. He capitulated to those demands, seeking support from a constituency within his party, but his capitulation did not end the demands. The veterans came back with more demands, including demands for land, and in 2000 Robert Mugabe instituted a fast-track land reform process. From that time onwards, Zimbabwe's relationship with the UK, the European Union and the United States deteriorated. As a result of fast-track land reform, Zimbabwe's agricultural output has fallen by 60 per cent. and the economy more generally has gone into freefall, with mounting inflation. I came back from Zimbabwe recently with a note for either 50 million or 50 billion Zimbabwean dollars—I cannot remember which. I should have looked at it again this weekend. At the end of the inflation spiral, prices were doubling every 24 hours.