Steve Baker
Main Page: Steve Baker (Conservative - Wycombe)Department Debates - View all Steve Baker's debates with the Ministry of Defence
(11 years, 3 months ago)
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Mr Hammond
I will alert my right hon. Friend the International Development Secretary to the hon. Lady’s last question and ensure that when a further statement is made to the House—I anticipate that it will be made very shortly—that issue will be covered in it.
I am not absolutely certain, but I assume that the £5 million that I referred to will come from the conflict pool, which is a cross-Government, tri-departmental pool of money. If I am wrong about that, I will write to the hon. Lady and place a copy of the letter in the House.
Steve Baker (Wycombe) (Con)
My right hon. Friend has emphasised the issue of ungoverned spaces. Mali is five times the size of the UK, or thereabouts, with a quarter of the population, and Algeria ten times the size with a population three fifths the size of ours. What are his expectations for the proper governance of these vast, empty spaces?
Mr Hammond
Governance should not be confused with policing. Proper governance is about a system for bringing the people of the northern part of Mali into the overall governance of the country, making the Tuareg population feel part of the overall structure and having a demonstrably fair system for sharing the nation’s resources and wealth. That will be the key. As my hon. Friend rightly says, the sparsity of population and the vast spaces defy any aspiration to be able to police them in the conventional sense.