David Brandt: "Britain should develop north Montserrat"

Cautious Welcome for British "Action Group"

Mr Brandt said: "I hope that this committee will go to work immediately and release the funds which have been promised. So far they have announced that they have allocated £41m to Montserrat but most of the money had been spent on administration and the emergency."

He said: "People in Montserrat are still living in churches, in schools, they are still sleeping in their cars."

The island's British Governor Frank Savage has acknowledged that some aid programmes being funded from London are on hold while the number of islanders taking the chance to leave is assessed.

Mr Brandt argued that infrastructure projects should be allowed to go ahead because the scientific evidence was that the north of the island was basically safe to inhabit.

He said scientists from Japan, the United States, France and the University of the West Indies all agreed that the risk involved in living in the north of the island was acceptable.

The creation of the new action group was dismissed as "too little and too late" by Tory international development spokesman Sir Alastair Goodlad.

"The Government's dithering has left the new committee with much work to do," he said.

Meanwhile, the Liberal Democrat spokesman for international development, Dr Jenny Tonge, has called for an emergency meeting of a Commons select committee to discuss Montserrat.

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