asked Her Majesty's Government:

What achievable agenda relating to Africa they have set for the forthcoming G8 annual summit.

My Lords, the Africa agenda for the G8 summit includes specific actions to help to build peace and create security across Africa, to help to improve governance and build effective states, to improve the opportunities for good health and education and to tackle AIDS, to create opportunities for growth, including capturing the gains from trade and to increase resources for Africa through more aid, debt relief and improved aid effectiveness.

My Lords, care must be taken not to compound the situation by replicating the worst features that produced the debt crisis. Will the Government firmly address the environment beyond Lomé to enable African industry to be competitive in northbound trade and devise methods to put a halt to fraudulent election processes, notwithstanding the need to address financial and contractual best practice management, civil service reform and corruption?

My Lords, the G8 conference will address precisely those points. Aid is vital at this point and it will be for the foreseeable future, but its contribution in the long term will be less than the contribution made by trade with effective states.

For trade to succeed, aside from the rich world removing its tariffs and barriers, which we must do, there has to be good governance, a democratic and transparent set of political institutions, reformed police and judiciary and, of course, a civil service that is free of corruption. The G8 conference is committed to making sure that those fundamentals are in place. I would summarise it by saying that the methods of providing aid in the past played their parts but, as the noble Viscount, Lord Waveley, has said today, they cannot be the model for the future.

My Lords, does my noble friend not think that the Government have set their sights very high in respect of the money that needs to be raised? What is plan B if all the other nations do not come up with their share?

My Lords, there is not a plan B in the sense that we are very optimistic that the discussions leading up to Gleneagles will yield the sums of money that are needed. We have set the bar high: the needs of Africa demand that we should do so. We believe that we can achieve it by the positive input of all G8 members, the donors and, of course, the African nations who must be partners in all of that.

I do not believe that every country will give aid in precisely the same way. Different traditions will obtain. But the signs are very encouraging from all of those who even a month or five weeks ago expressed doubts that they no longer express.

My Lords, the Minister is right to emphasise that good governance is at the heart of the agenda for Africa, but is not the heart of that problem to be found in the appalling catastrophe now taking place in Zimbabwe? Should that be addressed? Will the Minister confirm that the United Nations is now at last stepping in to examine the latest horrific evictions? Will the Minister also comment on the new evidence that China has been supplying a large number of weapons to Zimbabwe? Has the United Kingdom or anyone else made protests and raised the issue in a vigorous way?

My Lords, in just a moment I will speak about Zimbabwe, but let me preface that by saying that I would hope that this House will feel that the characteristics of that appalling regime should not be treated as though they were a metaphor for Africa as a whole and that we should not judge the progress that is being made across many states in Africa through the compass of Zimbabwe.

The events in Zimbabwe are an illustration of very poor, brutal government and maladministration. Last week, I summoned in the Ambassador of Zimbabwe to make clear the repugnance of the people of the United Kingdom for the steps that have been taken. We will use all of our influence to try to prevent any breaches of the sanctions and any changes in the arms regime flowing to that state. We must continue to look for all other pressure points as well.

My Lords, on the theme of positive things coming out of Africa, does my noble friend agree that one of the great steps forward in the past five years, beginning with NePAD, has been the development of the role of the African Union? By analogy in the private sector was the very important Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative. Maybe there is scope for a parallel initiative with the African Union—perhaps through the European Union, with the G8 and the EU presidency happily at the same time—to see whether there could be a code of practice with some monitoring to ensure that every dollar, euro and pound going to Africa goes through to the public sector. We would know where the money has gone, which would be good for governance within the countries of the African Union, and would help to build up the authority of the African Union.

My Lords, one of the reasons for celebrating the development of much better practice in the African Union is that it represents the decisions by leaders of a number of African nations to take full ownership and authority over some of the more difficult and intractable problems in Africa. There has been a very significant development in that regard; I am looking forward to going to the summit of the African Union just before the Gleneagles conference to do what we can to assist the African Union in those respects.

One of the things that follows from encouraging the leaders of African nations to own the problems of their countries and of Africa as a continent is to say that there must be a good deal of latitude where we feel it is right and desirable to allow the decisions on the deployment of aid for infrastructure to proceed out of the decisions of those countries. In many cases, more specific projects are more appropriate, but in general, if we are to applaud people taking authority, we must assist them to take authority rather than try to curtail it at the same time.

My Lords, following on from the earlier question, could the Minister enlighten us about which protective subsidies might be removed by the G8 nations at the summit?

My Lords, I am not aware of the intention to remove protective subsidies in that way. That is not one of the intentions. The discussions that will take place at the United Nations on the millennium development goals and then at the World Trade Organisation conference in Hong Kong will no doubt look at the liberalisation of trade in a more general sense. Perhaps this is a useful moment to say that the G8 is the beginning of a sequence of conferences through this six-month period during which we hope we will establish a trade regime of precisely the kind that the noble Viscount, Lord Waverley, indicated in his Question.

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My Lords, it is time for the next Question—we are in the twenty-fourth minute.