I am pleased to introduce this debate on UK relations with the Democratic Republic of Congo.
I studied French at the University of Stirling nearly 30 years ago, so I have always been interested in francophone Africa. In fact, I have visited 15 francophone countries across that great continent in the past 20 years. One thing that I have taken from those numerous visits is a growing concern about the paucity of British political and economic interests in those francophone countries. I want to use this debate to try to ascertain from my right hon. Friend the Minister what measures the Government will take to increase British representation and engagement with francophone countries in Africa in a post-Brexit context.
When I visited Mauritania some years ago, I was shocked to find out that I was the first British Member of Parliament to visit the country in 25 years. I wrote an extensive report about Mauritania which I presented to William Hague, the then shadow Foreign Secretary, and ultimately that led to diplomatic relations being instigated with Nouakchott. I am pleased about that outcome, but it should not be the role of Back-Bench Conservative MPs to try to solicit and entreat our Government to understand and recognise the extraordinary importance both of francophone countries in Africa and of our engagement with them.
Mr Deputy Speaker, you will know that 21 of the 54 African nations are officially francophone, and they act increasingly as a political bloc. We, I believe, have lost votes at the UN periodically because of our inability to engage with and convince francophone African countries to support us. I very much hope to hear from the Minister of State on whether there is in the Department for International Trade or the Foreign Office a dedicated unit with French specialists and experts who will work constructively with the Government to focus on francophone African countries.
According to my information, we are the second biggest donor to the Democratic Republic of Congo, but my friends in Congo describe us, much to my consternation, disappointment and embarrassment, as observers. We give the second largest amount of international aid, yet we are described as observers! The Russians, the Chinese, the French and the Belgians are assiduously trying to engage politically and commercially with the Democratic Republic of Congo. We are falling behind not only our fellow countries, but our potential adversaries—the Russians and the Chinese—in our influence in such an important and large African nation.
As the Minister of State will know, the Russians recently signed a major military contract with the Democratic Republic of Congo to provide it with military helicopters and planes. Unfortunately, it is not inconceivable that we are re-entering an extraordinarily competitive set of circumstances with our Russian adversaries within Africa, commensurate with what we went through during the cold war. Whether it is in the Central African Republic, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea or in Djibouti, the Russians seem to be stealing a march on us.
Thank you very much, Mr Deputy Speaker; it is a pleasure to be here and I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Shrewsbury and Atcham (Daniel Kawczynski) for securing this debate.
Before I set out more fully all that we are doing with the DRC, I assure my hon. Friend of our commitment to that wider francophone African community of countries. Last week, the Department for International Trade hosted a francophone Africa trade summit in London, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office hosted a breakfast with all those Ministers who were present. We are seeing really strong renewed relationships with francophone African countries as they turn to the Commonwealth—my hon. Friend highlighted the work the Commonwealth continues to do, and that is something we should all champion.
The relationship between the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the United Kingdom stretches back decades. The UK has sought to be a dedicated friend to the people of DRC since the country’s independence in 1960, and that has never been more the case than it is today. DRC faces many challenges, but it is also an important partner for the future. Its natural and mineral resources are vital for the future of this planet. Protecting its vast, biodiverse forests is essential to reducing climate change and DRC’s rare minerals, including cobalt, are essential for the production of batteries needed for modern green technologies.
Unfortunately, those opportunities are conditioned by a number of very serious challenges. For the last almost 30 years, eastern DRC has suffered from constant violent conflict. That endemic conflict, combined with weak governance and poor delivery of basic public services, has left the people of DRC in unimaginable poverty. Today, almost half of all Congolese children are stunted, 5.5 million Congolese are internally displaced and 26 million are in crisis levels of food insecurity. The situation for women and girls is particularly acute: 50% of all women and girls have experienced physical violence.
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House adjourned.
I supported Brexit very passionately. More importantly, I am proud that the people of Shrewsbury voted for Brexit. I can see two major advantages to Brexit in our relationship with African nations. First, of course, we are moving to a points-based system to evaluate immigrants crossing our border. I am very pleased about that, because I want Congolese people and all African people to be treated in the same way as Europeans when the assessment is made as to whether they will be granted the privilege of working in the United Kingdom and perhaps ultimately receiving citizenship.
I have spoken many times at universities throughout the country to try to explain to young people—even today it is quite difficult to convince them of this point—that under the previous system, when we were a member of the European Union, our immigration policy was racist. It was pure racism personified. There was automatic access, with no questions asked, for our fellow Europeans such as the Poles—I am originally from Poland myself—the Czechs, the Hungarians and the Romanians, but the Congolese and those from other African nations had to jump a much higher fence to enter our labour market.
I am delighted and thrilled that at our borders, unconstrained by such artificial concepts, we can now assess an individual based on her or his skillsets, what they will bring to our nation and whether they can convince a British entity to employ them, rather than on where they have come from. I want to attract the brightest and best to this country, whether that is in the healthcare system or in the business world. I want to do everything possible to ensure that we attract the brightest and best Africans to our nation.
The other benefit, of course, is that as an independent and sovereign nation we will be able to slash tariffs—I have been promised that that will happen—on products that we do not make or produce ourselves. Isn’t that interesting? We have hitherto been part of a bloc representing the interests of 28 rather disparate and highly polarised nations. Inevitably, the geographical perspectives of southern European nations and what they grow and produce are very different from northern European nations. I am pleased that we will be able to slash tariffs on products from the Congo and other African nations that we do not produce in the UK. What is the point of having tariffs on oranges? We have yet to devise a way of growing those sorts of products in the United Kingdom, so we should slash tariffs on them.
In the old days, we had to put up barriers to protect Spanish orange growers, Greek olive producers and all those agricultural products that we cannot produce here in the United Kingdom. I look forward to hearing from the Minister—I intend to ask her many written parliamentary questions going forward—what agricultural products she intends to slash tariffs on to send the strongest possible signal to the Democratic Republic of the Congo and other nations that we are serious about trading with them. Yes, aid is an important aspect of that relationship but, ultimately, giving tariff-free access to the world’s fifth largest economy is much more important, and that is what will support African nations more than anything else. I ask the Minister to put a list in the House of Commons Library of the products on which she intends to start reducing tariffs.
The other issue I want to raise is my concern over the conduct of Rwanda. Rwanda is, of course, a member of the Commonwealth, and we have a special relationship with Commonwealth countries. My understanding is that Rwanda and Mozambique are the only non-former British empire countries that have recently joined the Commonwealth. Nevertheless, part of being a member of the Commonwealth is that our relationship is special and is one of mutual respect and understanding. We are friends, and we sometimes have to be quite straight with our friends when we think they are making a mistake.
I am proud of the tremendous work that we did to ensure that South Africa was admonished when she was pursuing outrageous racist policies of segregation and apartheid. The Commonwealth acted extremely well in the 1980s. Of course, her late Majesty was instrumental in bringing the Commonwealth together to ensure that the voice of our friends in Africa was heard. I would argue that apartheid was finally brought down, in part, by the unity of the Commonwealth in explaining that such conduct was completely unacceptable and unsustainable for a nation wishing to be part of this rather special and exclusive club, which I believe has 56 members—although the Secretary of State may correct me.
I have heard from my friends in the Congo that, unfortunately, Rwanda has been repeatedly and consistently funding the M23 terrorist group with guns and money. Thousands of people have died this year in north-east Congo as a result of the terrorist activities and atrocities of the M23 terrorists operating there. Our media is quite rightly full of the killings and violence towards people in eastern Ukraine. We need to understand and recognise the brutality of the Russians towards our Ukrainian friends. However, I am disappointed that our British media does not seem to take the same interest in what is happening in north-east Congo. As I said, thousands of people have been killed, and so concerned is Kinshasa with the behaviour of Rwanda that it did not send a delegation to the recent Inter-Parliamentary Union conference in Kigali. My hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) led the British delegation, and I have spoken to her about this issue. She said that the absence of Congo from the IPU conference was very clear, given the severity of the concerns of our friends in Kinshasa about the conduct of Rwanda.
I have said before that the United Kingdom and Rwanda are Commonwealth partners. Under both the former Home Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), and the current Home Secretary, there seems to be a determination to continue with the policy of sending to Rwanda those who enter the United Kingdom illegally via the English channel. By the way, I totally support the Government’s determination to break the business case of the ghastly criminal gangs that prosper to the tune of tens of millions of pounds from trafficking these people illegally across the English channel, but if the Home Secretary is to continue on the path of sending these illegal immigrants to Rwanda when there is growing concern that Rwanda is funding terrorism in a neighbouring nation, serious questions have to be asked. Unless those questions are answered satisfactorily, I will not be able to support any move in this House to undertake that policy of sending illegal immigrants to Rwanda.
Interestingly, Robert Wood, the American representative at the UN Security Council, gave a speech at yesterday’s Security Council calling for Rwanda to stop supporting these terrorists in north-east Congo. Will the Minister, on the Floor of the House, echo the sentiments of Robert Wood and our American allies by publicly calling on Rwanda to stop funding these terrorists? I would be extremely obliged for her views on this. Can she assure me that she will raise these concerns directly with the Rwandan Government?
President Tshisekedi of Congo visited London on 18 October for a major economic summit, and he spoke passionately about the importance of trying to engage bilaterally with the United Kingdom in a more constructive and effective way from the point of view of trade. I speak as one of the Prime Minister’s trade envoys, and I returned this morning from Mongolia after a 20-hour plane journey. I understand the importance of the trade envoy programme. We are currently working on opportunities in Mongolia worth hundreds of millions of pounds, and I am very proud of the trade envoys’ work in promoting bilateral trade with key strategic partners around the world. In a post-Brexit context we have to stop our obsession with our small, shrinking continent and reach out to parts of the world where we have historically not been able to grow our exports.
I pay tribute to Lord Popat, who is doing an extremely important job as our trade envoy to Uganda, Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I am not ashamed to say it, although it may be slightly controversial—this is nothing against Lord Popat—but when two countries are at odds with one another in such a profoundly difficult way, I do not believe it is appropriate for one trade envoy to cover both countries. I urge the Minister to ensure that there is a dedicated trade envoy purely for the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which in itself is the size of western Europe. She will know, without my going into them, all the tremendously strategically important bilateral commercial interests we must enter into to ensure that the Russians do not steal a march on us.
Finally, I know that in my portfolio of Mongolia £2 billion has been set aside in credit exports from UK Export Finance. On the Mongolia desk, we are working assiduously to try to spend the Minister’s money as quickly as possible. The day before yesterday I heard of productive and extensive one-to-one discussions with the Mongolian Prime Minister to ascertain the key strategic projects that they would like us to get into. I hope the Minister will let us know how much is available for Congo and that she will encourage British companies to enter this extremely important and very exciting market.
Those challenges also rightly engage this Government and speak to the values of the British people. DRC is a UK priority country for humanitarian action, human rights, combatting modern slavery, ending preventable deaths and preventing sexual violence in conflict. As a nation, we are fully committed to fighting poverty and we use all the tools at our disposal to end conflict and bring peace. We abhor sexual violence in conflict and believe that supporting women and girls to access education and health services lies at the heart of a sustainable approach to future prosperity.
I will focus my intervention on five priority areas: climate, critical minerals and trade, human development, women and girls, and conflict and humanitarian need. DRC is critical to solving the challenge of climate change. As the largest country in the Congo basin, it has 155 million hectares of rainforest and 105,000 sq km of peatlands and is the world’s largest carbon sink. That carbon sink—try to get your head around this, Mr Deputy Speaker—sequesters 1.5 billion tonnes of CO2 every year. Importantly, it also regulates much of Africa’s weather and rainfall, so the responsibility is transnational; this is an unbelievably important part of the global ecosystem. But, of course, 80 million people also live there, and they depend on the forest for their livelihoods.
The challenge we face is to create the conditions in which the Government and the Congolese people can be key allies in the fight against climate change and be able to value their forest and peatlands. At COP26 in Glasgow last year, the UK Government joined donors in making a landmark pledge of $1.5 billion over five years, to protect and sustainably manage these important forests. The UK’s commitment of £200 million supports the Central African Forest Initiative and a brand-new programme for the region that will focus on community-based grassroots interventions. DRC hosted pre-COP27 meetings earlier this month, where the COP26 President reported that donors had collectively met a fifth of that pledge so far.
Importantly, DRC’s natural riches of critical minerals present huge opportunities for UK businesses, but the barriers to trade remain disappointingly significant, including high levels of corruption and an uncertain business environment. We have secured a regular forum between the international community and the DRC Prime Minister to identify and eliminate barriers to trade. We are also working closely with UK businesses already in the DRC, and others that might be interested, to establish how we can expand our support.
It is estimated that more than $1billion is lost each year from state incomes to corruption, from a budget of less than $11 billion. We continue to work with the Government on that public financial management reform, which is so important in helping them to make use of their resources for the greater good.
DRC has made significant progress in its health development, with child mortality having halved over the past 15 years, but the country remains significantly off track in meeting wider sustainable development goal targets. It is home to 9% of the world’s extreme poor, and a projected 70 million people will be living in absolute poverty by 2025. The population is projected to double within 24 years. A young and growing population offers the prospect of an economic boon, but only if matched with investment that delivers jobs and allows basic public services to keep pace.
The UK will continue to be a long-term development partner of DRC. We have worked to improve the lives of millions of Congolese people. Our development programmes provide targeted funding and, importantly, technical assistance. But those alone will not deliver change. Fundamental reforms to public administration are overdue and critical.
Our efforts in DRC have real impact. Since 2017, we have supported 17.5 million people to access better healthcare services. Since 2018, through our women’s integrated sexual health programme, we have averted more than 300,000 unsafe abortions and 4,000 maternal deaths.
Just 53% of children are fully immunised in DRC. As a result, in 2018 DRC experienced the world’s largest measles outbreak, tragically resulting in more than 2,000 child deaths. We are the largest national donor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and we are helping to protect all children from preventable disease. We continue to play a leading role in supporting DRC’s response to Ebla outbreaks.
Importantly, and very difficultly, DRC has among the highest rates of gender-based violence and sexual violence in the world. The UK is a global leader in tackling conflict-related sexual violence. In the past 10 years, we have committed more than £50 million to support projects that tackle sexual violence around the world. Next month we will host the second international conference on preventing sexual violence in conflict, and DRC is one of our key focus countries. Since its launch, the UK has provided £2.7 million to the Global Survivors Fund, which has supported more than 1,000 rape survivors in DRC, providing access to health and post-traumatic support, as well as education and financial support.
Perhaps the hardest ongoing issue to tackle is that of conflict, which has raged in eastern DRC for more than 25 years, resulting in almost 3 million deaths and leading to the displacement of tens of millions of people. More than 130 armed groups are now active, committing serious human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law. My hon. Friend is right that regional tensions have escalated this year following the resurgence of armed group M23. These developments risk continuing to further destabilise that already incredibly fragile region.
The UK Government are working closely with neighbouring countries to call for calm and de-escalation. That diplomacy is being ably led by Lord Ahmad in the other place. The UK Government will continue to support efforts to build stability and to reduce violence in DRC. We do so through our support to the UN peacekeeping mission. In the past financial year alone, we have contributed £47 million to MONUSCO as part of our wider contribution.
It is vital that, when we speak of 25 years of conflict, we remember the human reality: the highest number of food insecure people in the world, including 3.3 million children under five who are acutely malnourished. We lead on humanitarian advocacy and we work with the Government on improving adherence to humanitarian law, the protection of civilians, and building the resilience of a vulnerable population.
Since 2017, our humanitarian programmes have provided more than 2.5 million people with cash, vouchers or food, 2.4 million with shelter and household items, and treated nearly 350,000 children with severe acute malnutrition.
The UK is proud to be a leading humanitarian actor in DRC. The Democratic Republic of the Congo is a land of opportunity—for its people, for its partners and for the world. As friends of the Congolese people, we have to understand the challenges that they face and work together with them to find a better future for their citizens. This Government will continue our work to do just that.