HE’S met children whose limbs were blown off by landmines, women whose babies starved to death in their arms and families living under sheets of corrugated iron after civil war left their homes in ruins.

But Birmingham MP Andrew Mitchell believes he has the best job in politics – because he is leading Britain’s efforts to give the victims of war and famine better lives.

As Secretary of State for International Development, he knows he has to justify every penny of the Government’s £8 billion overseas aid budget when everyone at home is feeling the pinch.

But he argues that the nation should be proud of the help it provides to people in desperate need across he world.

The MP for Sutton Coldfield spoke to the Birmingham Mail about his work days after returning from Afghanistan, where he saw for himself how British money was being spent.

“I visited a Red Cross hospital in Herat, a city in the west of the country, that deals with amputees. One little girl there had both her ankles blown off by mines, of which there are a large number in Afghanistan. It was an amazing experience seeing the way these kids, whose lives have been wrecked by these mines, could come into this hospital, have a mould made for their feet, an artificial limb fitted, be taught how to use it. Some of them were running around and it was very uplifting.

“Britain is a very strong supporter of the international Red Cross. For example, in Libya recently the Red Cross has been doing an absolutely fantastic job.

“I think any British person who had seen this fantastic work would be proud of what they have seen.”

Youngsters he met included ten-year-old Qabila, who lost a leg to a landmine just two weeks previously but had received treatment and a prosthetic limb from the Red Cross, thanks partly to funding from the UK.

One of the most moving experiences for Andrew was visiting the Dadaab refugee camps in northern Kenya where nearly 400,000 people – the population of Manchester – are living. Many have fled from violent chaos in neighbouring Somalia.

He said: “I went in the early morning to see a group of refugees from Somalia who had arrived in the course of the night. It was a very unusual scene because in Africa you never see mums and children silent. They are always bustling around. These kids and their mothers – there were virtually no men there – were absolutely silent in the morning sunlight. They were traumatised. Some of them had walked for 30 days. One mother had lost a child from starvation on the way.

“Their feet were cut to pieces and bleeding. It was an horrific sight.

“And hearing how they had been brutally attacked, some of them raped, what meagre possessions they had taken with them had been robbed by bandits – it was an enormously upsetting experience.”

But the MP had seen how British aid saved lives with his own eyes, he said.

“In many parts of the world I have visited places where there is deep malnutrition. You see these kids whose physical shape changes as a result of malnutrition. Little babies just like our little babies but in a desperate position.