Kashmir Earthquake
The final item of business is a members' business debate on motion S2M-3407, in the name of Des McNulty, on the earthquake in Kashmir. The debate will be concluded without any question being put.
Motion debated,
That the Parliament expresses its deepest sympathy for the victims of the earthquake affecting Kashmir and Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province which took place on Saturday 8 October 2005; recognises that many families in the west of Scotland and across Scotland as a whole will have lost relatives and friends as a result of the tragedy or are awaiting information about those who are missing; congratulates Islamic Relief and other charitable organisations on their swift response, and welcomes the steps taken by the UK Government to provide urgent assistance to the affected areas.
In a few days from now, it will be the anniversary of the tsunami that led to the deaths of 200,000 people when giant waves battered 11 Indian ocean countries. There was a tremendous response to that terrible disaster from around the world. Many of us saw graphic television images of what happened to those narrow coastal areas and of the buildings, the people, and the lives that were trashed as a result of that huge eruption from beneath the sea.
However, the earthquake that took place in Kashmir has been more hidden from us. The number of deaths was smaller in the first instance: it was around 60,000 at the last count. The tragedy of Kashmir is that the final death toll is likely to be greater than that of the tsunami. The reasons for that are relatively straightforward to those who know the topography of the area in which the earthquake took place. Kashmir is a very mountainous region. The road network is very poor. It is very difficult for air, road or sea transport to get close to where people are in need.
The climate in Kashmir varies incredibly between summer and winter. As the months have rolled on since the earthquake hit, the plight of the people who are affected has become increasingly desperate. The gripping winter cold that results, predictably, from the height and proximity of the region to the Himalayas is the killer; it will lead to people losing their lives. There will not be a great wave, but people will starve and freeze to death slowly as they get into an increasingly difficult situation. People will see other members of their family dying before them and will realise that if they are exposed to the cold continually without proper shelter, they will die too. That is a dreadful situation.
I have to say, with great sadness, that the response of the world community has not been as strong, generous or well organised as it should have been—not in comparison with the response to the tsunami. After the tsunami, there was a great outpouring of support and a lot of resources went into providing instant assistance. The pay-off could be seen; we could see the medical assistance being given and people going in to rescue others. We have not seen that happen in the same way in Kashmir.
The international community has mobilised less effectively, perhaps because of geopolitical issues or because there has not been the same pressure from the general public to respond in such a way. Perhaps it has been genuinely difficult to get the right kind of resources, which in this case might include specialist equipment, food, blankets and tents, into the right place at the right time. In any event, whatever has happened, the response has not been the same as the response to the tsunami.
I agree whole-heartedly that the response has not been as great as the response to the tsunami. Does the member agree that it is not that individuals have not given, because the primary responsibility lies with Governments and Government agencies, whose response has been disappointing in terms of delivering cash and aid?
With a natural catastrophe on this scale, each of us has a responsibility. Brian Adam is right to say that Governments in particular have a responsibility; indeed that responsibility is shared among all Governments throughout the world. However, each of us has a responsibility to do what we can to assist, however limited that might be.
There are tremendous examples of people in Scotland making that response. Communities throughout Scotland have begun to gather blankets, make donations and try to highlight the situation of people in Kashmir. We should acknowledge what has been done by Scottish agencies, the Scottish branches of United Kingdom agencies and people in the ethnic minority community in the west of Scotland in particular, many of whom have family links with Kashmir, Pakistan and the part of India most closely affected. There are terrific examples, of which I am sure the minister is aware, in her constituency, my constituency and in Greenock and Port Glasgow in Duncan McNeil's constituency. Throughout Scotland, people are gathering together to respond in the same way as they did to the Indian ocean tsunami, although that is not happening on quite the same scale.
The Scottish Executive might wish to consider whether some of the things that it did in recognition of the severity of the tsunami could be applied to this tragedy. There may be resources that we can identify or assistance that we can apply for in the context of the international development fund and there may be practical things that we in Scotland can do that will assist people in this circumstance.
I suppose that it is appropriate that we are discussing the motion this week, not only because it is only a few days until the anniversary of the tsunami but because we are only four days from Christmas. I think that we are in a time in which there is unprecedented giving. Campaigns have been mounted by organisations such as Oxfam, the Scottish Catholic International Aid Fund and others to convince us that, rather than giving people things that they do not need, we should, as part of our Christmas giving, be making contributions in practical ways that will help people who have real needs. We might personally consider doing that.
I hope that the United Kingdom Government will review what it is doing and ensure that anything that can be given to assist Kashmir is given. I hope also that the Scottish Executive, in the context of its international strategy, which has been welcomed across the chamber and by the various agencies that are involved in international development in Scotland, will suggest what more we can or should do to deal with the tragedy.
Many people are dying and many lives are being destroyed. We all have a responsibility to address their needs and concerns. Our common humanity requires us to do something to assist them at this time of year.
I commend Des McNulty on a thoughtful and heartfelt speech. How can we possibly realise what it must be like for these people on the hillsides? An earthquake of magnitude 7.6 struck them on 8 October. It was far more powerful than the tsunami—in that regard, I endorse many of the points that Des McNulty made. It is estimated that around 80,000 people in that region were killed instantly. However, many more were injured. We saw the harrowing sights of bodies, partly exposed under mountains of rubble and the remains of the homes of many of Pakistan's poorest people. There were tens of thousands of people with injuries and, although we have worthwhile and hopeful images of a few people being plucked from the rubble, we have more images of men and women lamenting over the loss of entire families. Those images have now given way to pictures of figures huddled around pathetic little fires made out of meagre sticks, of barefoot children in flimsy clothing with the bitter winds of winter upon them and of people of all ages with infected wounds who have been brought in from remote areas where their injuries have been untreated for months.
It is estimated that more than 3 million people are homeless and without shelter in Pakistan—imagine three out of every five Scots being without a home and without shelter.
I will quote an article about the experience of one family in Nullah Chambarr in Pakistan. It says:
"When rain or snow pelts the muddy woods and terraced fields of Muhammad Yunus' mile-high mountainside, his family members scramble to the crude tent that has been their shelter since the Oct. 8 earthquake. All 32 of them.
The family built a frame of sticks and branches, then covered it with a canvas tarp, some flour sacks stitched together and woven plastic mats. On the ground, they spread grass mats and thin, cotton mattresses salvaged from their destroyed or damaged homes after an earthquake that left 3.5 million homeless.
Even when packed with blanket-wrapped bodies at night, the tent is frigid. Many of the 20 children have coughs and runny noses."
One member of the family says:
"Thanks to God, none of us has gotten any bad sickness".
The relief that is available is not always easy for people to reach. The father of that family and those of other families make long journeys to try to obtain cover for the bleak winter ahead.
As Des McNulty says, we face a horrific situation in which people might have survived the earthquake only to be killed by the cold. The problem is incremental. It is not as sexy as the tsunami—if I may say that without sounding frivolous. It is a parked disaster and it is not being given the attention that it requires.
The charities that are involved say that the immediate requirements are medical care and medicines for the injured. All the Government hospitals were destroyed. Teams of independent doctors are there, but they have few facilities in which to work. It is reported that the army medical camp at Muzaffarabad has no bandages, gauze or painkillers. The horror for the people there is something that we can hardly imagine. There is also a need for shelter and clothing as winter sets in.
I commend the relief agencies that are involved. I cannot mention them all, but they include Save the Children, Direct Relief International and Architects for Aid, which is providing shelters for the animals on which people depend for food—the animals are their future. I also commend the efforts of the many organisations of Pakistani origin that are involved, including the Imran Khan earthquake relief fund and the Pakistani eminent lawyers earthquake relief fund. If one does an internet search on the Pakistani earthquake, one gets some 6 million hits.
However, there is a huge problem of co-ordination. The public's generosity is to be welcomed, but I would like to see a worldwide strategic team that is ready to step in to meet needs at very short notice in the early days.
I congratulate Des McNulty and Christine Grahame on their clear description of the traumatic and poignant circumstances of the earthquake. I mention my interest as president of the International Rescue Corps, which is a charity whose members include firefighters, paramedics, experts and specialists in saving lives in emergencies, and whose British headquarters is in Grangemouth. It sent a high-powered team to Muzaffarabad in Pakistan and I need do no more than quote one sentence from John Swain's article in The Sunday Times of 16 October:
"There was something that seemed almost superhuman about the endeavours of Willie McMartin last week as he pulled people from the rubble alive."
As MSPs, we are far removed from the action. The least that we can do is to give maximum support to those who put their lives on the line in order to save the lives of others. There can be no dispute that the work of the International Rescue Corps, along with the work of many other charities, saved lives in two ways. First, at least 24 human beings were pulled from the rubble alive. They would not have lived if it was not for the emergency activity by a selfless team of specialists. Secondly, and more significantly, by co-operating with other charities, the International Rescue Corps helped to establish tented cities and enabled food and medical aid to get through. That activity saved an enormous number of lives.
However, I know that those who worked in the emergency conditions, whether for Islamic Relief or for charitable organisations under the United Nations umbrella, were deeply affected by the enormity of the tragedy and were distressed that their best efforts could not go further. As Des McNulty mentioned, some 60,000 people lost their lives.
I congratulate Des McNulty on his timely motion and on the recognition that he seeks to bring to the brave men and women who weighed their own lives lightly in the balance when the cause was the very survival of humanity itself. I also applaud his welcome for the steps that the UK Government has taken. I put on the record my thanks to the Secretary of State for International Development, Mr Hilary Benn, who helped to facilitate immediate support for relief work at the highest level.
This is not the right time to outline all the lessons that need to be learned, but if I had to state one, it would be that all Governments should be persuaded to focus fully on disaster preparedness and mitigation, rather than reacting to events and responding when destruction and devastation have already struck.
Finally, I put on record my admiration for so many of the Pakistani people, who reacted with unbelievable generosity, even though many of them could hardly afford it. As Ahmed Rashid said on the BBC,
"A tidal wave of ordinary people have rushed to help the victims of the earthquake".
The debate is being attended by members of the Pakistan Association of Edinburgh, who can rightly feel proud of the help that has been given, not only by so many in Pakistan but by the Pakistani community in Britain and by British charities such as the International Rescue Corps. We are glad to welcome the members of the Pakistan Association to Scotland's Parliament; indeed, the debate would be incomplete without their presence. I support the motion.
I join colleagues in congratulating Des McNulty on securing this urgent debate. Last month I spent a fortnight in Kashmir. As an occasional volunteer with Edinburgh Direct Aid, I have seen some dreadful scenes in war zones, but nothing can prepare one for the scale of devastation that can be wrought by a big earthquake such as the one that occurred in Pakistan. Virtually every building in the area is destroyed, the infrastructure has been wrecked, millions of people are homeless and more than 100,000 people were either killed or injured when the earthquake struck at 8.52 am on 8 October.
The task of responding to such an enormous catastrophe is awesome. Obviously, it is one thing to pledge huge resources, but it is something else altogether physically to deliver help to so many victims in such terrain. I was half of a team of two that supported a shelter project around the village of Bheri, which is 7,000ft up in the Himalayan foothills and just 6 miles from the epicentre of the earthquake. In that neighbourhood, 1,600 people were killed and 3,000 people were badly injured. Almost all the survivors are homeless and completely cut off from the outside world because the only access is by a long trek over landslides or by helicopter.
When we arrived six weeks after the earthquake, we saw serious gaps in the support that was being delivered. Helicopters were flying from Muzaffarabad with vital supplies of food, but there were no medics to look after the hundreds of people who were injured or ill. The only shelters that were being made available were tents—people cannot survive the freezing Himalayan winter in tents. It is already snowing and freezing and the conditions will get far worse. Cases of hypothermia and pneumonia have already occurred.
That is why EDA supports an initiative to deliver basic materials by helicopter and to help local people to build safe and warm shelters by filling sacks with earth for sandbag walls and with straw for insulation, erecting frames with timber from collapsed buildings and then covering the structures with corrugated iron. EDA then provides simple wood-burning stoves so that people can cook and keep warm. Our little team built four such shelters and arranged delivery of materials for 150 more—local people were busy building them as I left. It was wonderful to see families in those shelters. They will survive to farm the land in the hills in the future; they will not become refugees in distant cities.
Some serious questions must be asked. Why did those people have to wait for a tiny organisation such as EDA to fight its way through United Nations bureaucracy to kick-start that little shelter project? The International Organisation for Migration is supposed to be the lead agency for shelter in Kashmir, but I would like to know where it is and what it is doing. I could also ask questions about the quality of people who are deployed to disaster areas. I have often seen fleets of shiny white four-by-four vehicles swanning around expensive hotels and office blocks a long way from the people who need help. It is a pity that the quality and commitment of managers who are sent to disaster areas is not always what it might be. While I am on bureaucracy, I would like to know why it is so difficult to access the money that millions of us sent for Kashmir to the Disasters Emergency Committee. EDA's low-cost, high-value shelter project was received with great enthusiasm by earthquake victims and was good enough for a photo opportunity with Kofi Annan, but it got very little support from the UN and absolutely nothing from the DEC.
Now that I have got that off my chest, I will conclude with an appeal for more support from Scotland to save lives in Kashmir, and a direct request to the Executive to consider opportunities for Scots to help with the relief effort. Hundreds of teachers and thousands of schoolchildren were killed when school buildings collapsed on top of them. Perhaps we could help by encouraging Scottish teachers to spend a few months working in the area or possibly by assisting with teacher training in Kashmir. That could be a valuable experience for teachers and a vital contribution for children who are in desperate need.
I was profoundly shaken by the suffering and destruction that I saw in Pakistan, but was immensely impressed by the fortitude of people who are determined to build safer homes and to secure their way of life and the future of their communities. It was a privilege to be able to convey practical and moral support from Scotland to those people. I hope that we will be able to do more this winter and that we will be able to do the job more efficiently in future disasters in other parts of the world.
I welcome the debate because we must highlight the plight of the 4 million people who have been affected by the earthquake and the 1 million people who need shelter, food and livelihoods.
For years, I have been in regular contact with progressive socialists who campaign in Pakistan. I first met them when they were in exile in Holland because of General Zia. Those people have been involved in building the Labour Party Pakistan for more than a decade. After I met them, I was immediately and directly contacted by Farooq Tariq, who is the general secretary of the Labour Party Pakistan, and others in the organisation. They asked for solidarity. With the Pakistan Trade Union Federation, Women Workers Help Line, the labour education project and many other progressive labour groups, that organisation has set up labour relief camps in Kashmir and the North West Frontier Province, which has also been badly affected. The people—the ordinary civilians—of Pakistan immediately responded to the earthquake appeal and gave money to different organisations, including the labour relief camps. I think that they raised 250,000 rupees in the first four days to send trucks and for visits.
We must do more than simply talk about sending direct aid because there are a number of international political issues that the people whom I mentioned have raised with me. I am in touch with those people weekly by e-mail and those issues have been revealed as a result of the response to the earthquake. First, the response from the industrialised countries has not been good enough; indeed, the disaster has been abandoned. Oxfam has issued a warning that only 5 per cent of the money that was needed has been pledged; the UN asked for $300 million, but only a third of that has materialised.
Wider issues relating to international debt and what was discussed at the G8 summit are involved. Pakistan has huge foreign debts—it pays $5 billion in interest a year, while it is estimated that the rebuilding costs in all the areas that have been affected will be $5 billion. If Pakistan's interest were cancelled for one year, it would have the $5 billion that is required.
However, there is a political problem. Currently, the relief effort is completely militarised. The organisations that I mentioned have raised that issue. There is no civilian response; army generals have been put in charge of the relief commission, rehabilitation work and all the other jobs and are trying to control things. People in Pakistan have said in the material that they have sent that the effort has been militarised and that the generals want control. Helicopters from India were refused because of the question of Kashmir, which India and Pakistan occupy. That refusal is having a massive effect on the relief effort. We must raise such issues because we are talking about a military regime, not a democracy.
I do not have much time left, but I want to make one more point. There is another problem. A week after the earthquake, the military Government signed a deal for $1 billion for six Swedish Saab 2000 jets. There should be an outcry about that. Progressive organisations in Sweden have opposed the breaking of Swedish arms law.
It is incumbent on us to discuss such issues as well as to discuss the need for aid. This is not only about the western world raising more and more money, but about what is happening in Pakistan and about people being empowered by the society in which they live so that they can deal with such disasters. Parliament should support the progressive forces in Pakistan that raise such issues. The Scottish Socialist Party will continue to give to the labour relief camp funds through the movements and campaigns in which I am involved.
I add my name to those of members who have congratulated Des McNulty on bringing this debate to Parliament. It is appropriate and well timed.
In addition to the organisations that have been mentioned, I would like to acknowledge the contribution of the Academy for Disaster Management Education, Planning and Training—ADEPT for short—which was established in India following the boxing day tsunami. I quote from a report from ADEPT, dated just a few days ago:
"The rising carpet of the first snows that drifted over the quake-hit villages is threatening to swallow the hundreds of fragile, makeshift sheds and tents that the quake's survivors raised after their homes here were reduced to rubble.
Border areas were snowed in under more than 2 feet of snow, cutting off villages for around five days.
The task of getting adequate shelter to the survivors remains colossal, and the increasingly harsh winter conditions threaten to generate a second wave of deaths"—
from malnutrition, respiratory diseases and sepsis from wounds that have not been treated because it has not been possible to get doctors to people.
The report continues:
"A UN official reported that 90% of the tents distributed so far are unsuitable for the Himalayan winter."
John Home Robertson made the point that the tents are no use. The report also states:
"After the snowfall, the temporary shelters, built of tin sheets distributed by relief agencies, have been turned into freezer boxes. Men have been posted to clear the snow from roofs to prevent them from collapsing under the weight of the snow.
In the cold, respiratory infections have begun taking their toll, and healing of injuries has become a remote prospect."
Immediately after the earthquake, ADEPT sent out a tentative international request for help from climbers. Within a few days, 50 experienced climbers had volunteered. Scottish climbers are now part of a core of experienced, fit and acclimatised mountaineers who will enable the mobility of additional personnel—medical and others—to conduct overland transport of equipment and medical and other logistical support to mountain villages. However, those international personnel cannot move into the affected areas without permission from the Government, so they are currently restricted to attempting to train local people, using inadequate mountaineering equipment, in mountain rescue techniques. Although in the longer term a body of home-grown rescue expertise will undoubtedly be an asset, people who survived the initial earthquake are dying for want of basic medical and other supplies. That point has been reinforced by members' speeches.
Volunteers who have travelled to India at their own expense could be delivering aid. Although I welcome steps that the UK Government has taken to provide assistance, I hope that it will be possible for it also to prevail on the Indian Government to permit access within Indian Kashmir, in the same spirit in which the Indian and Pakistani Governments have permitted greater freedom of movement across the border or line of control than they have permitted in years. The door is part way open, but our Government could help to push it much further open by putting more pressure on the Indian Government.
I join other members in congratulating Des McNulty on securing this debate and on the work that he is continuing to do in the Parliament, through the cross-party international development group, to raise awareness of such issues. I also join other members in recording my recognition of the losses that the Pakistani community in Scotland has experienced as a result of the earthquake in Kashmir. Equally, I recognise the immense contribution that the community has made, of which it and we can and should be immensely proud.
I pay particular tribute to John Home Robertson for his work in the area. His comments on the work that he has done were very understated. He will not thank me for saying this, but we should be pleased that one of our own has made such a meaningful, sustained contribution over a number of years through Edinburgh Direct Aid. I cannot speak with his insight or knowledge about the situation in Kashmir, but having visited Sri Lanka in the summer and seen at first hand the post-tsunami situation as it was eight months on from the disaster, I will share some of my experiences, which might be relevant to today's debate.
I underscore what John Home Robertson said about always being heartened by the sheer resilience of the human condition and by people's ability to support one another, sometimes in circumstances that the rest of us can barely contemplate. I was humbled to see some of that.
I was struck by the scale of the reconstruction effort that needs to be made following a major natural disaster. Although we know that the physical reconstruction takes years, the fact that the human reconstruction of lives, families and communities takes a generation really registered with me. One of the pleas that I make today is for us to realise that our support for countries that are affected on that scale needs to continue not just for months and years, but for decades.
My third point concerns the impact of international aid based on my observations in Sri Lanka. I realise that often when people make contributions to situations that are far from home, those situations can feel quite remote. I want to share my sense of the huge impact that international aid had and will continue to have in that part of the world for some time to come. As the months following the disaster went by, targeted, smaller support was as significant as some of the big, blanket, multibillion-pound—or multibillion-dollar—aid that went in immediately after the disaster struck.
For example, providing a sewing machine to a woman who had lost the main breadwinner in the family to enable her to provide an income for her family was vital, as was providing training in the special skills that health professionals did not have but which they needed to cope with the psychological consequences.
My plea to the minister is that, through the continuing work that the Executive does in this area, I want us to think about how Scotland can contribute to that on-going sustained support, which may often be on a quite small but vital scale.
We can be proud of a number of agencies that have developed in Scotland. I mentioned Edinburgh Direct Aid, but smaller charities, such as Scottish International Relief, Spirit Aid and others, have a particular role to play. I hope that the minister might consider how the Executive could work more closely with those smaller organisations to look at how their efforts can be targeted and information got out to them on accessing small pockets of money, which would enable them to do quite remarkable things. The bigger aid agencies employ full-time staff to monitor such information and to know where to go to access funds, but that is much harder for smaller charities.
Volunteering is also vital and I mention again Edinburgh Direct Aid simply because it is the organisation that I have seen at closest quarters. It is important that we think imaginatively and creatively about how individuals can give of their time and energy, as John Home Robertson and many others have done, to provide practical support.
We can all learn a great deal from experience, whether personal or global, of the disasters that have affected and will continue to affect our world. It is clear that urgent needs must be addressed in Kashmir, but I hope that we can think about how we give sustained and sustainable support both now and in the future.
I, too, congratulate Des McNulty not only on the work of the cross-party international development group, of which he is the convener, but on securing this debate at a time when, as he said, we are approaching Christmas and the anniversary of last year's tsunami.
As a number of colleagues have pointed out, this year has seen an unprecedented number of natural and man-made disasters such as the Asian tsunami, the on-going food crises in Africa and the earthquake in Kashmir. Those terrible tragedies have not only shattered many communities but affected many people in Scotland. I am grateful to Des McNulty for this opportunity to discuss the matter in the Parliament and I know that all members will want us to express our condolences and sympathy to those who have lost loved ones in, or are otherwise suffering from the impact of, those disasters.
Although we have been horrified by the scale of the disasters, we have also been overwhelmed by the response of the Scottish people, who have not only taken part in demonstrations of public sympathy and grief but shown unprecedented levels of generosity. Although I take on board Des McNulty's comments, I should point out that, as a result of people's pledges to the earthquake appeal, the Disasters Emergency Committee has now raised more than £40 million, which makes that appeal the third most successful that it has organised. Throughout the year, the people of Scotland have continued to show their generosity and concern by donating significant amounts of money and time to help those who have been directly affected by the horrendous events.
Lord James Douglas-Hamilton was right to highlight the efforts of the organisation of which he is president, because UK organisations were responsible for 14 of the 24 live rescues that were carried out in the earthquake's immediate aftermath. Such small but significant acts of life saving can be enormously helpful in boosting people's confidence and morale when they might be at their lowest ebb.
The media should also be applauded for their sensitive coverage of the earthquake and the year's other disasters; for the support that they have given to the appeals that have been launched; and for their efforts in raising awareness among the Scottish public.
The Executive's experience of responding to last year's tsunami disaster has taught us that international development organisations are best placed to co-ordinate responses to natural disasters. I have met representatives of Scottish agencies that are involved in disaster response to identify ways in which we can work together and prepare for future disasters. We are committed to continuing our support for those organisations and their hugely worthwhile work.
As with the tsunami last December, we have offered secondments of staff to the Disasters Emergency Committee to help to relieve the administrative burden of the fundraising appeal. Immediately following the Asian earthquake, I met organisations undertaking emergency response activities and families in Glasgow who had lost relatives in the disaster. We will continue to work closely with those organisations as reconstruction work continues and will support their work wherever possible.
I might not have time to do so in the debate, but I am happy to speak to Susan Deacon about her comments on the sustainability of work that is being carried out in the areas in question and on how we help smaller organisations and charities. We are taking that kind of work forward and will continue to do so.
On Des McNulty's specific points about Kashmir, he knows that, a week or so ago, I indicated to the cross-party international development group that we were considering extending our funding stream to include areas that have been affected by the earthquake. We have now agreed to do that and my officials are in contact with the non-governmental organisations that are involved to ensure that they are aware of our decision and that we can get funding to them as quickly as we can.
This year's disasters bring home to us the importance of meeting longer-term development goals, such as the millennium development goals. Although the earthquake is a natural disaster, the ability of nations to respond to such events is very much constrained and dictated by how poor they are. Unfortunately, it is no surprise that the world's poorest people are also its most vulnerable. In that respect, I very much agree with Frances Curran.
John Home Robertson talked about enabling teachers and perhaps other professionals to go and work in Kashmir. I am very sympathetic to the idea, which we have pursued in other parts of the world through our work with Voluntary Service Overseas. In one of my conversations with the earthquake victims' relatives, we discussed the fact that a number of the people who would normally administer civil society in the affected areas were lost in the tragedy and we spoke about the possibility of seconding people in such circumstances. A difficult balance needs to be struck in that respect. We have to be guided by the people on the ground on when it is appropriate to make those kinds of interventions. We do not want to be sending in extra mouths to feed and additional people to be looked after at a time of crisis. However, we are happy to work on the issues and to take forward the proposal. We will work with VSO to allow such secondments to take place at the appropriate time.
I recognise the fortitude and nobility of the people in the disaster area. I also recognise the support that the Indian and Pakistani communities in our country have given to their compatriots. The way in which that has been done has been entirely appropriate and very much to be welcomed.
In 2005—the year in which the G8 leaders met in Gleneagles to discuss the ways in which the wealthiest nations can do more to assist the poorest—we have had an opportunity to address world poverty. In every one of the disasters to which members referred in the debate, poverty was a significant factor. The commitments that were made will make a significant difference to the lives of the poorest. We also acknowledge that much more can be done and needs to be done. We need to continue to build on the generosity, enthusiasm and understanding that developed this year. We also need to capitalise on the public and political desire to fight the injustice of global poverty and, hopefully, change the world for good.
Meeting closed at 17:47.