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Middle East, North Africa, Afghanistan and Pakistan

As befits my role as Chair of the International Development Select Committee, I will concentrate on the development aspects of this wide-ranging debate. In the context of Libya, I echo the words of the right hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Sir Gerald Kaufman) about the Department's prompt response to the emerging crisis in north Africa, and especially to the evacuation of people fleeing the violence of the conflict. I also commend the non-governmental organisations that are operating in difficult conditions, often under fire, to provide medical relief, assistance and support to those beleaguered people. We all recognise the capacity of the Department to respond to these situations, and the way in which it has done so is extremely welcome, although I think that the Secretary of State would agree that Libya is not a prime target for our aid programme and budget, and nor should it be. Clearly, reconstruction should be carried out within the country's own resources, but in regard to the first and immediate response, it is good to know that we can respond as well as we have done. In passing I would point out that, as and when we get a resolution that enables Libya to start its reconstruction, the prime investment should come from within its own resources and those of its Arab League neighbours, although we will want to have a constructive engagement if, as we hope, a more benign regime emerges from the conflict. As far as the rest of the middle east is concerned, one area of interest is the role of the European Union's external relations strategy. It has focused on the neighbourhood to the east of Europe, which does not have quite the same affinity but which has nevertheless been pursuing a Mediterranean policy. I hope that our Government will encourage the EU to shift the emphasis of its neighbourhood policy towards north Africa a little, rather than seeking to draw down more of the development budget from the UK. It is a matter of some embarrassment that the money we pay into the central budget of the EU goes into a neighbourhood policy that is classified as overseas development assistance, the prime beneficiary of which is Turkey. There is nothing wrong with encouraging Turkey to join the European Union, but it is a little disappointing that that overseas development assistance, which the UK would prefer to go to the poorest people in the poorest countries, is going to those who have the capacity to address their own problems. I hope that the UK has a degree of authority to assert in this instance. Given that we will be the first G20 country to achieve a 0.7% commitment on overseas development assistance by 2013, I think that we are entitled to say to other members of the European Union, which will not have achieved that, that they should not be diverting their aid away from where it could be most effectively targeted. I intervened on the Foreign Secretary about the middle east peace process. We will be giving £343 million to the occupied Palestinian territories over the lifetime of this Parliament, which is a tragedy because we would not have to give anything if a proper peace process were in place. The area is not incapable of economic activity; it is prevented from being economically active by the frozen conflict. We should use whatever influence we have through the Quartet—I accept that the United States is the dominant influence—to point out to Israel that if it responds to the protests of the frustrated Palestinians in the way that Syria has responded to its protesters, the international community has a responsibility to put pressure on Israel to behave differently, even if we have no ability to intervene in Syria. We must point out that, if Israel does not unblock the peace process now, it could make matters much worse in the short to medium term and that it is really missing an opportunity. Afghanistan and Pakistan are totally interlinked. The irony is that it looks as though we have more possibility of achieving stability in Afghanistan, difficult though that might be, than we do in Pakistan. It is instructive to take on board the fact that we are committing £2.1 billion of UK overseas development assistance over the course of this Parliament to Pakistan and Afghanistan combined. We must ensure that people understand why we are doing that. The military engagement in Afghanistan understandably gets all the attention, because our soldiers—male and female—are losing their lives in that operation. At the end of the day, however, it is our ability to deliver real improvements in the quality of life, education, health and livelihoods in Afghanistan that will have the most chance of giving people a sense that our engagement has validity and that we are on their side rather than against them. The same applies, perhaps even more, in Pakistan. I know that the Secretary of State has placed particular emphasis on visiting that country and ensuring that our aid has precisely that effect. Pakistan has a huge, young and very suggestible population who are open to persuasion to take up extreme political positions. The best way to address that—although the outcome is not guaranteed—is to give people access to things that will give them a stake in the future and make them less inclined to join the terrorist activity to which they might otherwise be recruited. I want to summarise the complicated developments taking place all over the world. Just as the collapse of the Soviet Union took place with unexpected suddenness, so did the onset of what is being called the Arab spring. Looking back to the collapse of the Soviet Union, we can see that we failed to hold Russia to a path of pluralism, democracy and human rights, but we were able to offer its satellites the opportunity to break away from the Soviet Union, achieve democracy and join NATO and the European Union. We cannot do quite the same for the Arab states, but we should hold out a hand of friendship and encouragement. To the extent that they can move towards pluralism, democracy and human rights, they will find willing partners to engage with in Europe. We must not underestimate the fact that the Iraq war incensed middle eastern and Arab opinion. It also distracted us from the legitimate tasks in Afghanistan, took our eyes off Pakistan and, in many ways, damaged the legitimacy of the democratic world when engaging in these issues. We need to tread more softly if we are to build trust and respect that can open the way for economic development and poverty reduction, and expand the numbers and proportion of people in all those countries who have a stake in peace, transparency and the rule of law. We need to be a little more humble and a little less arrogant, and we need to use our soft power development funding in ways that build trust and confidence where our foreign policy has not always achieved the same result.