Parliamentary Questions - Commission for Africa

Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con): The report is excellent, but the test will be success at the G8. It behoves all of us who want the report to work to lobby colleagues in G8 countries. Will the Secretary of State help us with that by providing a bullet-point summary of what the Government hope to achieve at the G8? What does he hope that the minutes will show after the G8 conference? Could such a summary be provided in the G8 languages, because we must carry many others with us? The debate is not between ourselves but between us and the G8. We need to be able to lobby those countries, otherwise the Government and the commission could have put in all that work only for it to be a lost opportunity unless it translates into action in the summer.

Hilary Benn: The hon. Gentleman is right about the big test being to turn the recommendations into action, especially by the G8 at the Gleneagles summit. In essence, the Government want, first, a doubling of aid to Africa. That means persuading countries, which may not be entirely convinced, that more aid will work effectively. The analysis in the report is clear that absorptive capacity exists and that properly used aid undoubtedly makes a difference.Secondly, we want to reach agreement on up to 100 per cent. multilateral debt relief for all the reasons that everybody understands, not least because debt relief provides predictable sources of finance. Thirdly, we want to create the political space to allow the trade talks in Hong Kong in December to open up trade on a freer and fairer basis so that Africa can trade and earn its way out of poverty.

Those are the three big issues and the hon. Gentleman is right that we will all have to work hard to persuade other countries that may not currently be persuaded or those in which there is not much domestic pressure to do any of that. If there is no domestic pressure, we must create international pressure.