Zimbabwe

Part of the debate – in the House of Lords at 2:57 pm on 3 November 2008.

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Photo of Lord Malloch-Brown Lord Malloch-Brown Minister of State, Foreign & Commonwealth Office, Minister of State (Africa, Asia and the UN) 2:57, 3 November 2008

My Lords, I am happy to—I hope—reassure the noble Lord. I did, indeed, follow up on his previous question, because I am always worried that he may know something that I do not. In this case, the fact that our aid is overwhelmingly humanitarian and is provided through international agencies directly to NGOs, means that the possibility of money being siphoned off within the reserve bank is extremely limited and is, we hope, kept to a small minimum. More broadly, it is correct that the essential "dollarisation" of the economy means that the army and others increasingly seek their pay in dollars—requests that are becoming impossible for the regime to satisfy.