PERGAU DAM AND PREVIOUS PRIME MINISTER'S ADVISERS

That this House believes that it is a striking coincidence that some of Baroness Thatcher's closest advisers when she was Prime Minister are now directly and closely linked with the major beneficiaries of the ú234 million aid given for the Pergau dam project; wonders why Sir Charles Powell and Sir Tim Bell did not recognise that inevitably there would be questions of conflict of interest when, respectively Sir Charles Powell as a director of Hong Kong Land, accepted a directorship at Trafalgar House, while Sir Tim Bell became an adviser to the Malaysian Government; regards it as disingenuous of Sir Charles Powell to claim that it is not the job of private secretaries and civil servants to have views'; recalls that he was at No. 10 when the then Prime Minister's undertakings were given to the Malaysian Government and remained there after the final Pergau decision was taken in February 1991; regards this as especially important because it was on foreign policy rather than on aid grounds that Ministers justified going ahead with this 'abuse' of aid on an 'unequivocally uneconomic' project; and hopes that the Foreign Affairs Select Committee will give serious consideration to calling Sir Charles Powell as a witness and exploring whether his role was as benign as he would have people believe.