John Bercow condemns the prospect of Sudan's chairmanship of the African Union and calls for a UN mandate on Darfur.

John Bercow (Buckingham) (Con): I am extremely grateful to the hon. Member for Stroud (Mr. Drew) for—characteristically generously—giving me this opportunity to contribute to the debate. It was a privilege to go with him to Sudan, including Darfur, in the summer of 2004, and I agree with everything that he has said.

I want specifically to pick up on the point that the hon. Gentleman made about Sudan's prospective chairmanship of the African Union. I cannot think of a single step that would be simultaneously more absurd and better guaranteed to undermine its reputation, and I very much hope that that is avoided.

In Darfur, it is extremely difficult to establish with any precision the numbers of deaths—as the Minister understands, and doubtless will himself proclaim. However, we can confidently say, without fear of exaggerating or of being contradicted, that death is still taking place in Darfur on a daily basis and on a significant scale—death through violence, through disease and through malnutrition, and I want briefly to focus on two points. First, given the capacity and funding constraints experienced by the AU mission and the recognition by the mission itself of the need for a step change in tackling the violence in Darfur, would it not now make sense for the international community to go for a direct transfer to a UN mandate? That would allow for the AU force to be blue-helmeted, would make greater resources available, and would speed up deployment. That is my first and very specific challenge to the Minister.

I will now make my second point, after which I will listen attentively and respectfully to the Minister's reply, and to anything else that might be said. The international community in the form of the United Nations has adopted the responsibility to protect. I do not want to sound pious about this matter. We in this Chamber know very well that there is a pervasive cynicism about politics and politicians. That is a recurrent theme in debates on many different subjects; that cynicism applies to politicians irrespective of whether we are operating on a domestic terrain or discussing international issues. If the responsibility to protect is not to be merely a pious piece of rhetoric designed to make those who have crafted it look and sound good, but is to be translated into practice for the betterment of the human condition in some of the most difficult and ravaged parts of the world, the time is now for that to happen in Darfur.

That is simply not happening at present; it is not true to say that we regard it as a great priority to tackle the savagery and the cocktail of barbarity that has been served up there, principally by the Government of Sudan in recent years. There has been what I would describe as a holding operation by the AU—a new institution that is genuinely committed and that is doing its best with pathetic resources and with delivery on the promises of increased resources being very slow.

My anxiety is that we are in danger of becoming desensitised to death on a dramatic scale; it is almost as though the number, range and seriousness of conflicts around the world are causing us to be numbed by the seeming inevitability of it all. I know that we cannot change everything overnight, but we have a duty to act. I would like the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and the Minister to be championing the cause for a UN mandate and for a much greater intensity of activity on a daily basis. That is what I want to hear about from the Minister, and I shall now resume my place in the expectation that I might.

12.48 pm

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