Mr President, I have to say that whenever I hear Mr Robles Piquer speaking about Cuba I never fail to be amazed at how anybody can have such a one-sided view of events in the world. To hear him speaking you would not believe that the poverty in Cuba at the moment has anything to do with an illegal and vicious economic embargo imposed by the Americans. You would not believe the political atmosphere has anything to do with the fact that the Americans have constantly tried to destabilize the Cuban Government to the extent of the illegal CIA attempts at the assassination of Castro. To hear him talk you would not believe that the current difficulties have anything to do with the hurricane that destroyed the Cuban harvest two years ago. In Florida this led to millions of pounds of aid but in Cuba the international community virtually ignored the situation. You would not believe that any of this had any influence on the current situation in Cuba.

And, of course, you would not believe that what we are seeing is yet another example of the illogical nonsense of American foreign policy. One minute it bribes Cubans to come to America and the next minute, when too many come, it tells them they cannot come and sends them back. It talks about reform but does not allow the atmosphere and the economic conditions to prevail to encourage that reform. When this House has talked about Central Eastern Europe and encouraging reform we said we would give trade to regimes even if we are a bit dubious about them to encourage the reform process. Why can we not do the same to Cuba?

Reform is happening. Greater reform is needed but it will not be helped by the situation that is continuing with an economic embargo which is totally illegal and which is oppressing the people.

Having been in Cuba in the last couple of months I could tell the Right that the Cubans do not want to go back to what they had before. They do not want to be a colony of the United States. They do not want to be a casino for US playboys. They do not want to be a brothel for American gangsters. Castro did not destroy - as one gentleman said - Cuban democracy, he restored Cuban self-respect. They are determined to retain that and we should be helping them in that process. We should be giving them support and aid, encouraging reform and not trying to destroy it which is what the American embargo is all about.

(Applause from the left)