World Food Programme

It is a great pleasure to follow my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), Chairman of the Select Committee, in debating the Government's response to its report. I have been a member of the Committee for five or six years, and I am aware of its good work and that of the Department for International Development. In addition to thanking the Chairman and members of the Committee, I thank its support staff, who do great work and produce the detailed questions that must be asked when evidence is taken from the WFP and other experts. The Committee is one of the best Select Committees in the House, and I hope that the team effort delivers what is necessary. In a world where there is enough food for everyone, it is tragic that 850 million people are hungry—that is what I put in my original speech, but since I wrote it, the figure has risen to 1 billion, which is even more tragic. The majority live in developing countries, but the reason for widespread hunger transcends national borders and even regional politics. Food insecurity is a problem of many global factors, and it requires an international approach. That is why the Select Committee's report is so welcome, and why I welcome the opportunity today finally to debate the Government response. Robert Zoellick, president of the World Bank, has said that halving hunger and malnutrition is the "forgotten" millennium development goal. Given the scale of world hunger, we cannot afford for that to be the case. Hunger is one of the most tangible forms of human suffering, and one that we can all relate to, if only at a very minor level. If I were to ask each right hon. and hon. Member here to recall the last time that they were really hungry, and then to think of the last time that they ate too much, I suspect that the former would take some thought while the latter would be much easier to answer. We are the lucky ones, and it is one of our responsibilities in the House to ensure that those who are not so lucky receive our support through the Government. For that to be most effective, the Select Committee's work is vital. We can all make a strong case for increased development aid spending, but only if that money is wisely and efficiently spent. I am sure that I am not the only Member who has been impressed by school and community groups in their constituencies who have sent generous food parcels to parts of the world that have been hit by famine or rocketing food prices. We rightly commend those acts of generosity, but when it comes to international policy for donors and global institutions, food aid is only ever a small part of the solution. The poorest people throughout the world spend up to 80 per cent. of their income on food, and there is acute vulnerability to fluctuations in food prices—my right hon. Friend has mentioned that the price of rice peaked at $1,000, and then settled back at $600 a tonne. In April 2008, there were protests in Egypt where the cost of food doubled in a year, riots in Haiti that left four people dead, violent protests in Ivory Coast, price riots in Cameroon in February that left 40 people dead, and demonstrations in Mauritania, Mozambique, and many other countries. Clearly, food security should be on all development and security agendas. Food insecurity is widespread in many parts of Asia, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, where, amid chronic food insecurity, food rations have reportedly been halved following reduced supplies. In east Africa, more than 17 million people face serious food insecurity because of poor harvests, conflict or a combination of those factors. In Somalia, an estimated 3.2 million people currently require food assistance. In Sudan, the continued conflict and the recent expulsion of some humanitarian agencies in Darfur have caused serious problems for millions of vulnerable people who already faced a dire situation. During a Select Committee visit to Ethiopia, we were told that approximately 6 million people are on permanent food aid. Live Aid was 25 or more years ago, and because the WFP and other agencies in the field are more efficient and effective, fewer people may be dying, but the number who do not know where the next meal is coming from or who cannot provide their own next meal is increasing. In southern Africa, high domestic prices, the slow pace of imports, and high demand during peak hunger months are affecting the food security of around 8.7 million people, including 5 million in Zimbabwe, where the ongoing outbreak of cholera poses a serious threat to the health and nutrition of many vulnerable groups. The global economic recession is causing other problems, as my right hon. Friend has said. Remittances from family members working abroad that often sustain the food consumption of vulnerable households are drying up. I have seen a wide range of food insecurity problems, many of which are referred to in the Select Committee report and the Government response in Darfur in Sudan, Malawi, Somalia, India, Ethiopia and so on. The report rightly identifies the new face of hunger in urban centres where the high price of food, not food scarcity, is the real cause of hunger. People are often surprised that where people are starving, there may be a market with the necessary produce not far away, but the problem is poverty.