I would simply say that I hope that all countries—particularly oil-rich countries such as Venezuela—will encourage a climate in which inward investment from foreign countries is welcome. If I have time, I should like to show that inward investment in the Venezuelan oil industry is desperately needed. It could be much more effective if it had such investment, and it would then produce more revenues for the people of Venezuela. What President Chavez did was not necessarily helpful.

A lot of comments have been made in this debate about the economy, and it is difficult to know whether it is performing well. With high oil prices, it could do much better. An article in The Economist of 16 February stated:

"Higher prices have quadrupled Venezuela's annual revenue from oil exports since 1998. Nevertheless, the country's Catholic bishops claimed last month that poverty was 'accelerating rapidly'. Not so, replied Mr Chavez. It has 'begun to decrease slowly and progressively'."

So we can choose whom we wish to believe. The article goes on to say:

"In the five years to 2003, Mr. Chavez's performance was disastrous (see chart)."

The chart does tend to indicate that the oil price has gone up, yet poverty has also increased, so there is something slightly wrong there.

"The proportion of households below the poverty line increased by more than 11 percentage points. By 2003, a quarter of Venezuelans were living in 'extreme poverty', unable even to feed themselves adequately. It was the first time since data were collected that poverty rose even as the oil price did too."

Jeremy Corbyn has described the so-called missions, which are President Chavez's personal missions to engage in emergency health, education and welfare programmes. There are conflicting stories about those programmes, but they certainly are not democratically accountable. They do not appear to be as effective as they might be. Indeed, the article went on to say:

"Whatever the merits of the missions as emergency programmes, they stress quantity over quality. Meanwhile, Venezuela's public infrastructure, such as roads and hospitals, is crumbling. A deficit of 1.5 million housing units is widening. Only a quarter of the 11,000 new houses needed each year are being built, because of the public sector's incompetence and its unwillingness to involve the private sector."

That may well be. I respect The Economist; it is one of the most respected journals for producing balanced articles. It may be that the person who wrote that had a biased view, but there is no doubt in my mind that the Venezuelan economy could perform better.

Another article in The Economist—it might be by the same author; I do not know—on 31 January 2006 stated:

"Fiscal profligacy will keep the public finances in deficit, despite high oil prices."

It continued:

"Most non-oil investment will continue to be put off by the uncertain legal and regulatory regimes and by price and exchange controls . . . The Ministry of Finance has been overborrowing in recent months, and has built up substantial Treasury cash balances".

As has been mentioned, President Chavez has taken on other south American countries' debts. For example, Venezuela has taken on £538 million of Argentine debt. The same pertains to Ecuador.

The President is trying to use the oil wealth to buy influence. That is not unprecedented elsewhere, provided it is done in a benign way. I hope that we can see that it is done in a benign way. We can see from this constructive debate that it is important that south America should be brought to the fore in this Parliament more often and more positively. We have always had good trading relationships with south America and they are, on the whole, friends of ours. We should maintain good trading and diplomatic links, and the debate has been a helpful and positive step. I hope that we can now reach more normal relations after the unfortunate remarks made in past months.