International Development

Part of Topical Debate – in the House of Commons at 2:41 pm on 15 November 2007.

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Photo of Andrew Mitchell Andrew Mitchell Shadow Secretary of State (Home Office) 2:41, 15 November 2007

The hon. Lady referred to my Government, and I am sure that she is wrong merely on a matter of timing. I can assure her that we fully understand the importance of using direct budgetary support where we can—indeed, I was making that very case—and where we can, the next Conservative Government will certainly do so.

I know that the Secretary of State has studied with interest the proposal that I announced at the Conservative party conference to boost the ability of British doctors and health professionals to work, train and teach in developing countries. Our plans have been backed by leading non-governmental organisations, including Voluntary Service Overseas, the Tropical Health and Education Trust, and Merlin. The Secretary of State will know that working abroad is a particularly intensive and demanding form of training for our doctors, but they return with an expanded set of skills and are better doctors for British patients as a result.

Every doctor I have ever met who has worked in a developing country speaks of the huge benefits, personal and professional, that they have gained, but too often doctors and nurses in Britain face serious obstacles to achieving their aim of making a contribution in poor countries. Time spent abroad is often not accredited and does not help doctors to progress in their careers. Sadly, the Government's modernising medical careers initiative has made things significantly worse. We Conservatives want to reduce the barriers that British health professionals face when they want to work in poor countries. A Conservative Government will establish a new health systems partnership fund—worth £5 million a year to begin with—that would pay for VSO to organise year-long placements for up to 250 British health workers to work in developing countries. It would pay toward the pension contributions of these long-term volunteers, pay for THET to expand its efforts to link British health care institutions with those in developing countries, and match pound for pound money raised by health care institutions to fund international links and visits, up to a maximum of £10,000 per institution. It would also help to fund an electronic health exchange called HealthBay, where requests for help from the developing world would be matched against offers from developed countries. I hope that the Government will make it a priority to introduce proposals in this area in the near future.

I turn to trade, and the role of the private sector in particular. The Government need to work harder to secure a successful outcome to the Doha round. As the Secretary of State acknowledged, this trade round was always meant to be about development, and much more needs to be done. Conservative proposals for a real trade campaign, set out by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the Opposition in the Rwandan Parliament in July, called on world leaders to open their markets to goods from poor countries and to invest in aid for trade to help countries, particularly those in Africa, to tap into the potential of the global market. We believe that the proposals command genuine cross-party support and hope that the Government will embrace them.

Will the Secretary of State tell the House what he and his Ministers are doing to rescue the Doha trade round from the deadlock that prevails? Does he agree that a deal was tantalisingly close earlier this year? What steps is he taking to progress this important agenda?