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Lord Bach: My Lords, I am sorry if I have not made it clear. The payments will begin in February. The bulk of those payments will have been paid by the end of March.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, I am so sorry; my hearing must be going as well. The only thing that the Minister has not touched on—again, I would be glad of some steer on this, so perhaps he can write to me afterwards—is this whole question of applications through which people register for the single farm payment. As I said earlier today, I have drawn another case to the Minister's attention, which is that farmers still cannot submit their applications and secure agreements on the size of fields and on mapping and so on.
We discussed bulk earlier, but I did not press the Minister on that because I realise that would be nearly impossible for him. Until all the applications are in, he will not know how many are outstanding. My understanding is that there is still a problem in certain
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parts of the country in that farmers cannot get their applications dealt with. I am sure that he will be as concerned as I am that there is a delay. My wish was that he might follow that up and try to determine what is still outstanding within the RPA and that, where there are blockages, applications might be fast-tracked, because it is not in the Government's interest—it is certainly not in the farmers' interest—that these payments are delayed. The farmers will not be paid until the first lot of applications have been dealt with.
On a second related point, in a debate a couple of weeks ago, the noble Lord, Lord Carter, said that some farmers had received payments up to June 2005. That is quite true, but they were only for money due in 2004, not for money due in 2005. That is why I raised this issue, because I am tied up with quite a few of the rural stress groups and rural support groups. Unfortunately, applications are coming in quite heavily and quite fast, because we have moved to a single payment rather than having smaller payments paid throughout the year, and there is a big cash-flow problem. That is why it was so important that we had the opportunity to raise the matter today. The Minister is nodding, and I would be grateful if he could keep an eye on the issue.
Lord Bach: My Lords, I cannot speak for my noble friend Lord Carter, but if I remember the context correctly, we were talking about 2004 payments and when the last one would have been made. He said that some, not most, would have been paid as late as June 2005.
Baroness Byford: My Lords, other Members understood that the payments were for 2005, but they were not; they were for 2004. I wanted to have the opportunity to set the record straight, because my understanding is exactly that; those payments that were made up to 2005 were, in fact, due to payments that should have accrued in 2004.
I am grateful to the Minister for the way in which the Government are addressing the issue. I would like to say that all is well. There are challenges to be met, as all of us realise, but it is important that we grapple with them. I beg leave to withdraw the Motion.
Common Agricultural Policy Single Payment Scheme (Set-aside) (England) (Amendment) Regulations 2005
4.02 pm
Baroness Byford had given notice of her intention to move, That an Humble Address be presented to Her Majesty praying that the regulations, laid before the House on 19 December 2005, be annulled (S.I. 2005/3460) [20th Report from the Merits Committee].
The noble Baroness said: My Lords, the Motion is not moved. .
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Tsunami Relief
4.03 pm
Lord Naseby rose to ask Her Majesty's Government what analysis has been undertaken of the results achieved and lessons learned in Sri Lanka and the Maldives from the aid moneys donated by private and public sources for tsunami relief and reconstruction since the disaster on 26 December 2004.
The noble Lord said: My Lords, my involvement in the Maldives and Sri Lanka goes back to 1963, when I worked for the Reckitt and Coleman Group and had responsibility for both those countries. I have also had the privilege of starting the all-party groups and of chairing both across the two Houses. I visit both countries very regularly, and when the tsunami hit on 26 December 2004, I and many millions of people in this country watched in absolute horror what was happening. The response from the British people was quite amazing, as was the way in which the money flowed in to help those poor people so very quickly.
It seemed to me that there was no point my being chairman of an all-party group and sitting at home wondering what was happening, so I decided that I would get out there and see whether I could help. My wife and I went out and, I believe, did some good work. We got there in early January 2005, and having made that visit and produced a report for Her Majesty's Government, I decided that it would be sensible to go back a year later and see what had actually happened on the ground, not least because there had been a fair amount of critical press comment about what was not, or what might not be, happening on the ground.
The Maldives was the smallest country of those affected, with just 300,000 people. In some ways, it was the hardest hit: not in numbers of deaths, because, thankfully, only about 100 people died, but 15,000 people out of 300,000 were made homeless. The key crunch area was the economic effect. I ask noble Lords to picture 1,192 beautiful islands, of which 199 are inhabited. They are no more than six feet high: the waves that came in were more than 12 feet high. Of the inhabited islands, 190 were hit. There was no power, no means of communication and some of the islands were completely flattened. There was nothing left on an island called Vilufushi, which I visited last year and again this year, where one-third of the population was directly affected. Tourism, which is the biggest industry, was brought to a halt with 21 of the 68 resorts knocked out. More than 200 fishing boats were destroyed. We should remember that these islands are miles away from the capital, Male. Everything has to go by sea: there are no motorways.
Phase 1, which provided emergency aid, worked well. Oxfam provided water. The Royal Navy and the Red Cross got generators going. We also provided a couple of landing craft. It was a job well done and well administered by the Government of the Maldives. Phase 2, restoration, took place during the past year. When I went back, I found good progress. Fishing is nearly back to normal. Only 10 islands are still closed to tourism. Occupancy is back up to around 75 per cent.
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As I went from island to island, rehousing was bursting with activity, being led by the Red Cross. The various factions of the Red Cross will provide 84 per cent of the new housing. There is no Red Crescent representation, although I hope that there will be in the future. The British Red Cross is run by Jill Chambers. I watched the beginnings of 744 houses being constructed to a good design and which are liked by the potential occupants, who can choose the colour of tiles and the roof that they want. How nice to see housing that people want to live in. There is good consultation.
The press say, "Why did it take so long?". We forget that everything has to be imported. Even a warehouse had to be built, which takes an enormous amount of time. There is one big problem—the shortage of overall funding. That gap is calculated at £145 million. It behoves Her Majesty's Government, the Disasters Emergency Committee and the UN agencies to address that issue, for which I have two suggestions. The British Red Cross operation is running well. It would be a tragedy to wind it up after 744 houses, when at least another 500 are needed. I hope that the DEC and DfID can find a means of financing at least another 250 houses. I also ask DfID to look at the safe island policy, in particular with respect to education, and the materials for schools. The estimated cost is $5 million. I hope that we can provide all the materials. If we cannot do that, let us at a minimum adopt at least one island: I suggest Vilufushi. There is an efficient government and good progress. Since we have a special relationship with the Maldives, we should respond in their hour of need.
Sri Lanka was hit by the tsunami and 35,000 people were killed, 500,000 people were made homeless and there are 40,000 widows. However, the core of its economy is unaffected. Both last year and this year I went to the south because, on security grounds, I was not allowed to go to the east. Again, great work is being done everywhere that I went. During the emergency conditions, 900 camps were set up, which were tented accommodation originally. There was good, clean water, food, shelter and no disease. That is no mean achievement. Slightly more than 41,000 transitional housing units were built—they are not perfect, but they are not bad—and 9,000 simple, two-bedded, single-storey houses have now been built. I talked to some of the residents of the new houses—they like them. I talked to a fisherman, a tailor and a widow. I visited a village erected with Marks & Spencer money. It was actively built by its supplier, MAS, and overseen by CARE. It consists of 41 houses, a little shop and a small community centre. It is running on the ground and I hope that someone from the press will go and look at it.
Further, I visited Belgian Red Cross houses and more CARE houses around Hikkaduwa. Have enough been built? Not yet—but there is the inevitable problem of finding out who owns them, because when something is destroyed a number of people can claim that they own it. The work has been held up, of course, by the problems caused by the buffer zone. But at least
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that has been resolved and the matter has now been left to the local planning authority to sort out—and it is being sorted out.
Do I think I was hoodwinked? No, because I did not tell the Government where I was going. I know the country well and it seemed rather simple to get hold of a car to carry out the visits, and to ring up a few personal friends to ensure that I knew exactly where I was going.
As to livelihoods, it was a joy to see the fishing vessels, which are all brightly painted now. The only ones missing are the trawlers. It was nice to see some English names on the sides of the little fishing boats. The micro-industry work being carried out by Oxfam is very encouraging and Adopt Sri Lanka, a new charity, is doing good work in lace-making, tailoring and so on. I went to the port to check on the delays there. There were delays in February and March but the warehousing in the port is now empty.
There is a problem in the eastern area because of the security situation. I am afraid that the NGOs there are pulling out because of the number of bombings and so on. But, with the Geneva talks settled and due to start in 10 days, it is to be hoped that we will see an opportunity for those NGOs and the Government to go back in.
But there are two shadows overhanging any real recovery from the tsunami which affect each country in one way. The easier one is in the Maldives, where its people are grappling with a new constitution as part of the transition from a one-party state. There are now four political parties. One party has pulled out—the MDP—and I encourage Her Majesty's Government, who I know meet representatives of the MDP in the UK, to ask it to co-operate. After all, that is what democracy is about.
It is more difficult in Sri Lanka, where there have been troubles since 1983, when there was a war. We have had peace for the past three years, but no contact between the two parties. The LTTE is a problem. The Government can do two things. First, they can take an initiative to encourage the international community to provide housing and so on for the 400,000 displaced persons. Secondly, they have to recognise that the LTTE here is operating by extortion and money-laundering—every garage around London seems to be controlled by a Tamil with, I suspect, money-laundering underneath—and there is a bogus charity, the White Pigeon.
Above all, no one seems to be doing anything about enforcing proscription. There is now very worrying information that the LTTE—which is a past master at suicide bombings—has some link with al-Qaeda. While clearly the Foreign Office is the Minister's department, the police and the Home Office are not. But they need to be stimulated into action to put some real pressure on the LTTE so that when we come to reconstruct the east of the country it can actually happen.
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I finish on a brighter note. The people I spoke to in the Maldives and Sri Lanka are enormously grateful to the British people for the huge amount of money that was given, both directly by small charities and provided from our taxes through DfID. If people want to do anything else, I suggest they go on holiday. These countries are two of the most perfect places in the world and if people go on holiday there the money will filter down.
4.14 pm
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