Question: Do you think Bush and Blair's three-pronged campaign of diplomatic, military and humanitarian action is working well in Afghanistan?

John Battle: I think the aims were right. I'm not so sure it's been perceived to be working well. Let me say from the outset, I think it was absolutely vitally important that the response was military, diplomatic and humanitarian - I think that's been learned from crises in Africa in recent times.

So the three strands are right - but can they all run jointly? They need to be given the same weight and emphasis so that one's not seen as just an afterthought, particularly humanitarian aid. And I think there were questions asked when the Americans were dropping aid, about whether it was appropriate aid and an appropriate tactic, and whether it was a genuine effort of humanitarian aid. I think the jury was out on that quite frankly.

But having said that, take the situation in Afghanistan going back some years. When I was in the Foreign Office, I was concerned about famine in Mongolia, a country of four million people. They had two hard winters a few years back now, the cattle folds and the people were starving, and I asked the question can't we do more to help in Mongolia? And DFID answered 'yes minister, but you may like to look at Afghanistan where there are prospects of five to seven million starving because of 22 years of war and three terrible droughts'. And we were asking questions about poverty, starvation, hunger, and the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan before this immediate crisis blew up. And to be fair, I think the Department for International Development put some £32 million into development in Afghanistan on a whole range of things - medical assistance, food aid, conflict resolution - since 1997. The difference of course was there wasn't much interest from the international media, but the spotlight of the world and politics is on Afghanistan now. There was a real difficulty in getting that aid in then and there's no doubt the Taliban controlled aid flows in the areas they controlled, and to some extent the Northern Alliance people as well. Did it reach the places that really needed it, did it reach the poor, not only villages but cities as well? Well we were not really so sure. There are some courageous agencies in Afghanistan itself, there are aid and development workers in Afghanistan, there are what we call gloriously in Britain, NGOs - non governmental organisations - in Afghanistan, working to try and tackle that crisis. But then, I think in retrospect that if the great crisis in September had not moved the world's spotlight to Afghanistan, there was actually a real chance that millions of people could have died of famine. I am now more confident that that will not happen.

Question: This week Clare Short has been critical of the US, saying they're not working very well with the aid agencies. It appears the humanitarian work is in disarray at the moment?

John Battle: Well no because I was actually sat in the room when Clare Short made her comments and that's not what she said. I was a bit amazed when I heard the radio the next day reporting the committee proceedings from someone who I think hadn't been there. I literally leapt out of bed and said 'I don't remember that'. So it was a bit of a distortion of what she said, put it that way.

Question: So the press are to blame for mis-reporting it?

John Battle: I think the great dramas are splits with one character against another character, and I wasn't convinced in Clare Short's case that's what she was saying.

The impression that I got from what she was saying was of course we need to do more, and if, as the World Food Programme suggests, there is now food in the warehouses and for the first time Uzbekistan are letting the World Food Programme store food in Uzbekistan and transport it from the North into Afghanistan, that's a big improvement on what was happening some years ago. But even within Afghanistan, the World Food Programme told us they only lost one warehouse of food in that conflict. So there's food within. The problem is the local distribution networks and mechanisms. When the aid agencies all withdrew, who knew what was happening to that aid? Did it remain in the warehouses? And there's a general view that it did. So there need to be mechanisms to get the food out to the people who need it, and to know where those people are. It's still a place of conflict as we've seen in recent days on the road across the Khyber Pass and in from Jalalabad into Kabul - Journalists were murdered this week, so it's hard to suddenly say you can send a truck in and drive wherever you want to deliver - that is not the situation. There are conflicts all over the place in pockets now.

So I think what Clare was saying is we've a heck of a lot more to do to ensure the aid gets through. There was another question that was conflated in the committee. She was asked a question by the chair of the committee, Tony Baldry, about aid, the targets for aid, and it's something I'm passionately involved in. If we've got targets for 2015 to halve poverty and we set clear targets as the years tick by, well I remember the 1960s - the decade for development, the first decade of development - a target of five per cent growth in every developing country in Africa, South East Asia, Latin America, not achieved. It did a little better in South East Asia and Latin America, but Africa was left out of the equation - a failed decade. The second decade of development, the 70s, was the decade when that target was set - each country to contribute to 0.7 per cent of GDP to development - and there was actually talk at the time of one per cent but it slipped back down to 0.7 per cent, and I think the conversation now is if there is going to be a realistic achievement to reach the targets for development internationally by 2015, there needs to be a timetable for Britain and every other country signed up to those aid budget targets, to get to 0.7 per cent.

Now in 1977, the level that Britain left was about 0.5 per cent, we would have made it on the graph in 1979 when Labour government left office. Since then there's been 20 years of cuts - down to less than 0.2 per cent. It's up to 0.32 and 0.33 next year so we're on a rising graph, we've turned the corner. But we want more, and that's what Clare was referring to when she was asked the question are we doing enough in terms of development - the answer was no. But then she was asked a question what about America - they are spending 0.1 per cent of their GDP on international development. If they were simply to double to 0.2 per cent, it would double the total aid globally - because of the size of American GDP of course, the strongest and largest economy in the world, it would double the amount of aid in the world. And she was asked the question by the chairman shouldn't the Americans do more? And the answer unequivocally is yes. But in the reports that was then wrongly conflated with the military strategy, I think.

Question: Has September 11 and the war in Afghanistan led to a feeling internationally that we need to pay more in aid?

John Battle: Yes

Question: How realistic, looking at a possible economic downturn, are the US and UK governments going to give more funds to development?

John Battle: I think what happened when those planes crashed into the Twin Towers was people all over the globe realised that the world was a more interconnected, smaller and vulnerable place than they imagined, and what happens in one neighbourhood, affects what happens in your neighbourhood. So I think that interconnection means that we're not just a global economy, it is now quite an intimate global village.

I remember once making comment as Foreign Minister on affairs in Pakistan when with General Musharraf there was a coup and general politics was rubbed out, and we're still trying to press to get back to democratic politics. I was critical of that. But I have to tell you within four hours of a press release going out in India under my name as the Foreign Minister mildly asking the General to resume normal politics as soon as possible so that Pakistan could return to the Commonwealth, there were demonstrations outside my house in Leeds by Kashmiri Muslims who thought that General Musharraf was the best thing to hit Pakistan since sliced bread. And what I realised from that was my comments in another language on the other side of the globe linked to the village I live in in inner city Leeds. So the politics are interconnected and I think we're realising that day by day.

In 1987 when I came into the House of Commons, aid and development was one of the themes I campaigned on to try and say North and South need to be more interconnected - poverty in inner cities in Britain is part of a figure of eight linked to poverty in the South and the global systems exclude the poor whether you live in the inner city of a large mega city in the North or live in the poor South. And so at that time, when I realised these matters to make the connections between inner city poverty in Leeds and international poverty, people would write to me and say no we're not too keen you raising international matters, can we stick to poverty in Leeds please first. And if I'm deadly honest, the general shyness and feeling of charity begins at home, that kind of line, I think that tone has changed. I've no fears now of raising international matters and I'd say there is general support.

Question: But do you think this government will put their money where their mouth is on international development?

John Battle: The government is putting its money where its mouth is in terms of development programmes. The government put in £7 billion in aid and I think sometimes the government's aid programmes are looked upon as if they're very residual and minor in the history of the world, but they're not and we've increased aid. I think the key to it is public support - there isn't public hostility to spending money on development now. There was 10 to 15 years ago. In the House of Commons last week there was a meeting with Gordon Brown and Clare Short for Labour MPs to brief us, and for us to brief them before they went off to Ottawa. In that same room in 1988 I was with Tom Clarke MP who campaigned on international development and championed it at that time. There were two of us in the room. And at that time it was a time of cuts and complaining about other people's and other government's practice. We can make a difference now - there were 60 to 70 MPs in that room this time round who were interested in development.

If MPs feel they can be interested in development, that's because they know they've support in their constituencies. That is a sea change from 10-15 years ago. We're an interlocked, networked world and the big question is globalisation - does it really challenge, tackle, root out poverty? How does it do that, how is everybody included in the processes of globalisation, so it's not just for a few and making a few richer and the rest a lot poorer? And I think people are addressing that question.

Question: Do you think globalisation has neglected world poverty in the past?

John Battle: Yes absolutely. I went to South East Asia in the week that Clare Short's department published their White Paper - Elimination of Poverty: Globalisation to Include the Poor, and I was at the South East Asian conference with the heads of government and Prime Ministers of all the South East Asian countries from China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia, Japan. And when I put that document on the table, there was an amazing response from the delegates from South East Asia who said at last, people in the Northern countries are sharing our questions. They understand our questions. As one Philippino minister said the world has been run on a trickle down theory that if the economy spins fast enough, everyone will benefit - there's a metaphor that a rising tide lifts all boats. Our problem in Thailand and in the Philippines is that the only boats floating into our harbours seem to be the rich yachts from the north - what about the local fishing boats? And I thought that was a brilliant question - it challenges trade structures, development in general. Is the global economy just rising the level of the rich or is it actually generating and supporting options for the poor as well?

Question: Do you think there is an appetite in the UK for more of the public spending allocation to be spent on aid efforts in foreign countries?

John Battle: I think there probably is actually. If it was spelt out, if we were to say that at present only 0.7 per cent of the government's money, i.e. the people's money, taxes, is spent on international development. If people were to be asked to pay 1 per cent of their taxes into international development, I think there wouldn't be resistance, frankly, and people are generous and do realise the need. And I think it's in these terms - 36 million people have been displaced in the last five years. Many are refugees within their own country, they are internally displaced persons. Most go to the country next door, as we've seen in Afghanistan, but some wander round the world and end up in Britain as refugees. There's a great argument and row about asylum seekers and refugees, of course, but what people understand is if people live in dire poverty, why be surprised when they turn up when there are jobs in Britain. If their own economies were thriving, they could get jobs where they lived, and it settles the world down a bit so they aren't pushed over the borders, and I think that's something that people do readily respond to. So it's aid but also development. And people would be willing to contribute to that.

Question: Is there support in the government to this idea that one per cent of public spending goes to international development?

John Battle: I think the government is getting there and there will be popular support, and I notice it among colleagues here - I've got an Early Day Motion down suggesting faster progress to the target of spending 0.7% of GDP on aid, and there's a conversation going on with the Chancellor and that conversation is moving on, I'm glad to say.

In terms of the public, I think they would be prepared to see Gordon Brown give a greater share of the cake to development, so we reach these targets. But I also think, would the people themselves increase their giving? And the answer, I think, is yes. And that's why Gordon Brown has done things to boost giving through gift aid and extra tax relief measures. So it's not that the government is going out to collect 1 per cent from all the people and do all the administration, but if they want to give to Christian Aid, or Cafod or Islamic Relief, then actually it is beneficial to them and that their generosity is acknowledged in their tax system. I see no reason why we shouldn't do that and that's the road that Gordon Brown has opened up in recent times.

Question: You've talked about us living in an inter-connected world - how crucial is the state of the Middle East peace process to finding a solution in Afghanistan and healing the international disruption caused by September 11?

John Battle: I think it is pretty crucial, but not the only situation. One of the things that I would say is treatment of Palestinian people is a running sore on the conscience of the world. That's evident and there have been real attempts to restrain Israel who have been over-reacting and taking advantage, some have said, since September 11. So that whole question is a big one but it's not the only question.

I was in a meeting in the House of Commons where I put it to Professor Fred Halliday in quite crude terms - given the two problems of Palestine and Kashmir which situation do you see as the most intractable? Kashmir is a particular situation between Pakistan and India, and a lot of Muslims in Britain come from Kashmir, I think 70 per cent. And he said without a doubt, it's Kashmir, and he'd put his money on sorting out the Palestine- Israel question long before we've sorted out the question of Kashmir.

So if you were to ask me in terms of real politics, I think the Israel-Palestine question plays rather large in America for obvious reasons. Some of the comments we've seen from Senators recently that Israel should have gone in even harder, there is more of an awareness of Israel-Palestine in the Senate. I think here, there's a lack of awareness, we need to increase our awareness and efforts to tackle the problem of Kashmir which seems even more intractable, not least because our histories are tied in there.

Question: What are you hoping to achieve with the select committee's visit to Pakistan?

John Battle: I had in front of me in the select committee last week a report of the World Food Programme that says the food is in the warehouses. We know the aid agencies did the best they could when the communications were down to find out what was going on, but I had another piece of paper in front of me, by the International Red Cross, saying no, food is not getting through to the parts that need it. So we need to have conversations in Islamabad with the agencies on the ground, and indeed in Peshawar where there is a route through for delivering aid.

We need to ask a number of questions. Is it true that there are warehouses full of food, is there back up, is the money all there, how does the food get through? Will it be taken by trucks, are the roads open? Do there need to be delivery by air, air lifts as opposed to air drops where people flag the plane down on to an landing strip and the food is carefully taken out and distributed properly rather than dropped from the sky at 30,000 feet - is that a strategy to be adopted? Do we need to be campaigning and asking for that here? So what's needed now because in recent weeks listening to the evidence of the select committee, my heart has risen a bit because the perverse irony of September 11 could well be that people do not starve in Afghanistan this winter. And that perhaps snow ploughs from Russia are driving the roads through. I just want to make sure that food is in the warehouses and make sure it finds its way through to the people who need it. So we need to know from those on the ground whether in fact they've got what they need, whether they can deliver it, and if they need any further help. Do they need military protection to keep roads open or airports open - because then we need to be campaigning and spelling out that that's the strategy. If they need more diplomatic initiatives to talk with leadership in local towns and cities, then that has to happen as well. So we'll get as close a view on the ground as we can. We hope to get in to Afghanistan if it's safe to do so.