Africa (Poverty)

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at 4:56 pm on 30 June 2005.

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Photo of David Anderson David Anderson Labour, Blaydon 4:56, 30 June 2005

I thank John Bercow for giving me such an easy act to follow—I don't think.

This House has a proud history of fighting for social and economic justice, and today we have the chance to write another chapter in that history. We must support the Make Poverty History campaign for trade justice, full debt cancellation and more and better aid. As Tony Baldry said, if we can do it on the basis of consensus, then so much the better. It is a disgrace that in 2005 the world's poorest countries are still forced to pay millions of pounds a year to the rich world in debt repayments. It is a further disgrace that rich countries agreed to give 0.7 per cent. of gross domestic product as long ago as 1970, yet so far only five countries have managed to reach that target. It is a disgrace that sadly our Government and our country are yet not one of them. It is an injustice that the poorest 49 countries on this planet make up 10 per cent. of the world's population but their share of international trade is under 0.5 per cent.

Nearly 500 trade unions, campaign organisations, development agencies and faith groups in the United Kingdom have come together in an unprecedented coalition to say to us and to our Government that it is time to bring about progress on trade, aid and debt. The people are not just with us on this—they are ahead of us.

This year is a unique opportunity. Our Government have the presidency of the G8 and the EU. It is only 10 years until the world is meant to meet the millennium development goals. Poverty is supposed to be halved by 2015, yet it is 20 long years since the world called for change at Live Aid. Today, we must persuade the world to choose the right policies on trade, aid and debt. We really do have a chance, if we choose, to make poverty history.

Late last year, I had the privilege of leading a delegation of public service workers to a conference in Johannesburg organised by my trade union, Unison, where 70 delegates from 10 southern African countries met to plan their response to the HIV/AIDS pandemic that is sweeping sub-Saharan Africa. The whole conference was paid for by Unison. It was money well spent on behalf of ordinary men and women—people who, as Mark Durkan said, had quite likely been killing each other previously, but had decided, in southern Africa as in Northern Ireland, that the only way to achieve genuine reconciliation is to work together.

Workers came from Angola, Zimbabwe, Malawi, Mauritius, Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and South Africa. They worked in different public services, under different political regimes, and faced different cultural systems. Three things united them, however. They all wanted to deliver world-class public services for their people. They all wanted to develop a role for working people and their organisations to beat the pandemic of HIV/AIDS. Most crucially, they realised that the key driver of the pandemic is poverty. It is a poverty that does not cause AIDS but helps to spread it. It is a poverty that makes people live in houses unfit for animals. It denies human beings the right to good, clean water. It prevents men, women and children from being properly educated. It breeds on ignorance and allows cultural exploitation, especially of women and young girls. Above all, it is a poverty that does not have to exist, which is what we should be arguing.

We live in a world that spends more on obesity, erectile dysfunction and pet medicines than on the so-called neglected diseases of Africa. We live in a world in which the most powerful nation tells the weakest ones that the real cure for AIDS is abstention. What an attitude—when all else has fallen around one, even the comfort of the person one loves would be denied by those of us in the west who know better. We also live in a world in which more money is spent on protecting the monopoly of drug corporations than on alleviating the needs of sick and dying children. That must be wrong.

There is a shift in attitude and in world opinion. Employers in southern Africa have realised that HIV/AIDS is their business as well as the workers' business. If workers are sick, dying or off work because they are burying their relatives, they are not producing the goods for their employers. That might be sustained for a while, but not when millions are sick and dying, and definitely not when, as in the case of Africa, more than 70 per cent. of those with HIV/AIDS are in the work force.

For example, mining companies have come to realise that it is ridiculous to retrain, employ and recruit people and then see them fall away from the work force. They are therefore implementing programmes that help people to take time away from work. They are introducing sex education lessons. It is sad that in much of southern Africa, public services are not reflecting the work that private companies are doing—that comes from someone who does not often sing the praises of private services over public ones.

The resolution of the situation is a win-win for all of us. It is not just a way for us to be do-gooders and spread largesse. If we do not attack poverty, its causes and its symptoms, we all become weaker in every way. That is why the events of this coming period are so important.

Most of us in the Chamber probably came into politics to change the world. Before too long, we realised that we had problems changing our socks. Now is our chance—our generation's chance. Many of us are diametrically opposed to other parties in this place, and sometimes even to our own. Many of us have concerns about our relationships with various nations on this issue. My advice is simple. For this period, let us put aside our differences and unite with each other. Let us follow the lead that the people of our country and the world are giving us. Let us say enough is enough. Let us accept our responsibility. Let us acknowledge that poverty is not inevitable. Let us believe that poverty is a human creation that humans can change. Let us put our money where the starving mouths of the world are. Let us make a difference. For once, let us make our kids proud of us. Let us make poverty history, and let us do it now.