Debate on the Address

My hon. Friend is right. Those are very much part of the focus that Britain should have in its foreign diplomacy and policy. Whenever I go to Africa or central Asia—I am fortunate enough to travel quite a lot at the moment—and sit down and talk to people about their lives and ask them what is the biggest problem that they face in Kenya, Zimbabwe, or wherever it might be, interestingly the answer is nearly always the same. They do not say poverty; they say corruption. Linked to that corruption is a sense of powerlessness to do anything about it. The only real antidote to corruption in the long term is a robust democratic framework that produces good governance; the ability to vote a corrupt Government out of office in a free and fair election; judges of integrity who are independent to challenge corrupt practices at every level in society; a media that can expose wrongdoing; and a strong civil society that can produce and sustain men and women of values in office. My call therefore is for the Government to ramp up our democracy building services in this country by planning for the Westminster Foundation for Democracy to grow into a major global player as a specialist arm of British foreign policy, and in particular to develop more specialisation in the two pillars of democracy that we currently do not really do: to strengthen the rule of law and to underpin freedom of speech in various countries. hat £4 million business should be encouraged to grow into a £40 million business in the next three to five years, which would increase the impact of our work. That money would be crumbs off the table in terms of the DFID budget, and it would be better spent in a more focused and strategic way. WFD is often seen as an underachieving institution—of course, that was not true when the hon. Member for Ilford, South (Mike Gapes) was its chairman—but a process of renewal is now under way. There is an awful lot of hope for the future of WFD, and it is time that the Government changed their attitude towards it by promoting it as a major arm of Government policy. It has started to win contracts, which is a step in the right direction. Our grandchildren will live in an increasingly globalised and inter-dependent world, and decisions made in far away countries will impact on them. Let them at least know that we, the preceding generation, did our utmost to establish strong democratic traditions all over the world.