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Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Order. May I just say that you are not a Front-Bench spokesperson—are you?
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Exactly. I am trying to be helpful to you in terms of convention; I am not trying to be difficult. Normally, you would sit in a seat for a normal Member and speak from there.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Sorry to be procedural at this stage. [Interruption.] That is smashing. Thank you for your help. You will soon catch on to the strange ways within the circus.
Liz McInnes
This is almost a maiden speech again.
People with disabilities make up one of the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups within society throughout the world. Sightsavers estimates that one in five of the world’s poorest people are disabled and that 80% of those people live in developing countries. They are routinely denied their most basic human rights; they are cut off and unable to benefit from mainstream education, employment and health care services. For far too many disabled people, having a disability means they will never receive an education, never have employment and never be independent.
The vast majority of disabled people in developing countries live in extreme poverty. Global efforts to address poverty cannot afford to ignore people with disabilities, yet they are frequently left behind in the international development debate. Estimates by Sightsavers indicate that unemployment among disabled people is as high as 80% in some countries. For disabled children, mortality is as high as 80% in countries where mortality rates for children under five as a whole have decreased to below 20%. Furthermore, 90% of disabled children in developing countries do not attend school.
The millennium development goals, set in 2000, did not explicitly address disability issues at all. One of the goals set was to achieve universal primary education. The deadline for achieving that goal is next year. Significant progress has been made in many parts of the world, but there has been no progress at all for many disabled children. The education goal will not be met because, as Handicap International notes, 19 million disabled children still do not go to school.
Over the next nine months, we must ensure that the sustainable development goals, which will succeed the millennium development goals from September 2015, focus greater attention on those who live with and are affected by disability. World leaders meet in January to begin formal negotiation on the new goals. The UK Government, alongside other Governments, must ensure the retention under the education goal of a target from the Open Working Group outcome document that explicitly targets tackling disparities in provision of education in relation to disability. We must learn lessons from the past, when disabled children were failed when it came to access to education.
We want the UK Government and the Department for International Development to consider disability as a central component of all their development programmes and to target explicitly the needs of disabled people. A good start would be to ensure that all buildings and facilities that DFID funds are accessible to disabled people. Disability has too often been an afterthought; for example, it was only in late 2013 that DFID announced that schools built with its funding would have to be wheelchair accessible.
It is not only in education that global agreements have failed disabled people; being disabled means you are less likely to access health care and less likely to work. In 2012, a joint publication by the World Health Organisation and the Liverpool John Moores university centre for public health reported that a child with a disability is three to four times more likely to be a victim of physical or sexual violence. In nearly all cases, disabled people are the most marginalised, vulnerable and poorest group in developing countries.
Violence against women and girls with a disability is of particular concern. The Violence Against Women with Disabilities Working Group has reported that disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic violence and other forms of gender-based and sexual violence as non-disabled women and more likely to experience abuse over a longer period of time and to suffer more severe injuries as a result of that violence.
We must recognise that disability is diverse and ensure that we have an explicit focus on all types of disability, including motor and sensory disabilities, and mental health.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
In a time of political and economic unrest across the whole world, when disabled people are more marginalised than any other group, it is important that we focus our attention on them. Some 80% of people with disabilities live in developing countries and 20% of those with severe disabilities live in the poorest part of the world. Charities do great work. The Minister, who is newly appointed, is responsive to hon. Members’ opinions. Does the hon. Lady feel, as I and many others outside the Chamber do, that disability issues should be key in the Department’s official role wherever it acts or has influence across the world?
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Order. Before the hon. Lady answers, I will help her. Normally, when there is an intervention, we sit down—you did at the end. The intervention was a bit long; they are not normally that long. It is your debate, and you would normally tell me if someone else wished to speak. If other Members do not wish to make a speech I am happy to take interventions, but they should be short and to the point.
Liz McInnes
I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his intervention.
As the World Health Organisation notes, the global estimate for disability is on the rise because of the ageing population and the rapid spread of chronic diseases, as well as improvements in the methodologies used to measure disability. Disability therefore requires urgent consideration and action from policy makers in development.
Additionally, we must not forget carers. Disability does not affect only those who suffer from it directly; there is also a significant impact on those caring for people with disabilities. We in turn must do more to support them, so that we can ensure that a child’s ability to go to school is not predetermined by whether their parent has a disability. When it is, that leads to a cycle of deprivation of opportunity for millions of children and young people around the world.
In nearly all cases, disabled people are the most marginalised and vulnerable and poorest group in developing countries. We want the UK Government and the Department for International Development to provide more support to organisations for disabled people in developing countries and to include more disabled people and groups in the design and delivery of programmes.
Disability has been absent from the development agenda for far too long. As the world meets over the next nine months to finalise the sustainable development goals—the successor to the millennium development goals—we must ensure that we learn lessons from our past mistakes and make explicit reference to targeting the needs of disabled people.
Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)
Before I call the Minister, I remind hon. Members that they can intervene on him if they wish, to reinforce a point or get, perhaps, a better answer than the one they think he is giving them—although I am sure that, as ever, he will give comprehensive answers.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)
I will not be alone in congratulating the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes) on making her mark on this vital subject so early in her parliamentary career. It is a subject in which her predecessor took a particular interest, and I am confident that she will fulfil that role.
As you said, Mr Havard, the hon. Lady occupied the Front Bench inadvertently for a few moments, but I am confident that if merit had anything to do with occupation of the Front Bench she would be on it by right. I am certain that after today’s performance that is just a question of time. I hope that I can reassure her on all the concerns that she has raised, and I hope to reassure the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), who is rightly always in his place for these important debates, on the point that he raised. I pay tribute to the Minister for Crime Prevention, my right hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) who, when she held this brief, was a real champion for disabled people. She has much to be proud of in her record.
The hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton is right. Of the world’s 1 billion disabled people, 80% live in developing countries. One in seven of the world’s poorest people are disabled. She quoted the figure from Sightsavers for extreme poverty, which is one in five, although I am not sure whether the figure is even higher. The unemployment figure for Burma is 3.5% among the population at large, but 80% of disabled people have no means of providing for themselves. I do not believe that there is any prospect of a reduction in the number of disabled people. Indeed, the thrust seems to be in the opposite direction, and with increasing disasters, more violence, particularly targeting civilians, and ageing populations, we need to take more cognisance of the needs of the disabled.
The hon. Lady was right to say that an opportunity was missed with the millennium development goals and that we must not miss that opportunity again when we review the post-2015 development agenda. I am glad that when the Prime Minister chaired the UN working group on that agenda, it came up with the essential principle that we can eradicate poverty within a generation if, and only if, no one is left behind in respect of their ethnicity, their gender, where they live or their disability. That must be the key principle driving us forward. No one must be left behind. We cannot tackle extreme poverty, or even poverty, without tackling disability. That will be the guiding principle.
Let us assume that we now have a goal to pursue. We will not be able to pursue that goal effectively unless we have data to measure our progress. The hon. Lady pointed out that we only recently had an internationally agreed definition of disability. We are seriously short of data to disaggregate the figure, which we must do to see how people of different ethnicities, in different geographical regions, with disabilities or of different genders are affected. That must be measurable and the singular contribution of my right hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green was driving forward that data revolution. Last month, she co-hosted the UN a conference here in London on that subject. We have been the driving force for that agenda.
Let us assume we have a goal and that we have developed the data to pursue it. What should be the motor? I believe it must be inclusion. Inclusion must be our guide at all times. For too long, disabled people have suffered from a stigma and that must be eradicated. That inclusion, as the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton said, must include consultation with disabled people on the formulation of the very policies in which they will be included. It is absolutely right that we work with the advocacy groups, and we have done so. “Nothing about us without us” must be the principle for consultation. I am glad that the Department works with the Disability Rights Fund, ADD International and some 400 disability groups.
I was once told quite forcefully and bluntly by a constituent who was severely disabled but nevertheless was organising a community project that she did not want my pity; she wanted help. She wanted help not just so that disabled people could fend for themselves, but so that they could contribute to the community. Our ambition must be that disabled people are not a burden but are an asset to our communities. That gives rise to four implications for policy.
First, prevention remains important. If we can prevent people from becoming disabled, we will be able to concentrate more resources on those who are disabled. The hon. Lady drew attention to the vital issue of maternal health. For every mother who dies in childbirth, 30 will suffer severe disablement. Maternal care and sexual reproductive health is a vital ingredient of the agenda, as is the prevention of disease.
One of my first meetings after assuming my present role was to meet Bill Gates to discuss the GAVI—the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisation—programme to which we are the largest contributor. In 2012-13, we put £139 million into work on preventable disease. It is our objective that from 2011 to 2015 we will have vaccinated 80 million children against preventable diseases and the 2014 report shows that that objective is on track.
Secondly, we must design programmes aimed specifically at disabled people—I make no apology for that—that fit within our overall strategy. For example, in Mozambique, there are resource centres for 24,000 children with special needs, and in Ethiopia, Braille products are being produced for 10,000 children between the ages of four and 17. Our funding to the International Committee of the Red Cross in 2012 allowed it to provide 240,000 people with prostheses, orthoses, wheelchairs and physiotherapy.
Thirdly, having developed programmes specifically for the disabled, we must tailor all our programmes for everyone, so that they take account of the needs of the disabled. The hon. Lady was particularly strong in her remarks about what we need to do in education. I take her point. Accessibility for schools is vital. I am glad that we made our announcement in 2013, and I share her disappointment that that is an agenda that we have got on to only lately, but it is right that we pursue it. It right that we pursue accessibility not just when dealing with schools, but when dealing with water and sanitation, so that disabled people have access.
We are working closely with the Global Partnership for Education, UNICEF and others to ensure that when we are taking forward the education agenda disabled people and their needs and special needs are included, so that they can be identified and assisted.
Jim Shannon
Is the Minister aware of the campaign that goes on in probably every constituency’s schools for an education for every child? We take petitions to the Prime Minister at 10 Downing street every year. Primary and secondary school-age children show great interest in and knowledge of education provision throughout the world. Does the Minister recognise how good that campaign is?
Mr Swayne
I do; I have participated in it every year. I have been to schools and collected those petitions. What is more, when I was the Prime Minister’s Parliamentary Private Secretary at Downing street, I was on the receiving end, ensuring that the Prime Minister saw the petitions and responded. Some of them were fantastic art works and quite intricate.
One of the most heartening and enjoyable things to me about my constituency duties is going to schools in June and July to collect those petitions. There is usually a fantastic presentation by the pupils. Each time I go, I tell them that I am heartened and encouraged by their concern for their fellow pupils throughout the world who may either not go to school or go for only part of the day but instead must work or go elsewhere. I tell the pupils that I want them to go home and give their parents the same enthusiasm; because it is taxpayers who, more often than I would want, write to me to complain about the level of international development funding. The children have bought into the idea that the hon. Member for Strangford has raised, and we need their parents to do so as well.
Andy McDonald (Middlesbrough) (Lab)
The Minister is making a powerful case and I agree with all he is saying, but before he moves off education, I wonder whether he will help me to reconcile his strong attitude in favour of assisting disabled people overseas with recent UK domestic pronouncements about the disabled students allowance. A completely different message is being sent about our support for people who need access to education and assistance in overcoming disability.
Mr Swayne
Unfortunately, I do not speak on domestic affairs—my remit is, with respect, international development —but I shall ensure that I get a quality answer to the hon. Gentleman’s question and pass it on to him.
The fourth implication from the principle of inclusion is that there is a gap in our knowledge, to which the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton rightly drew attention, with respect to mental health. We lack knowledge about what works in countries without the resources that we have in the developed world to attend to some ailments, disabilities and mental health issues. We pay for international studies all the time, and we have launched PRIME—the programme for improving mental health care—which is a significant study of what works in mental health in low-resource economies.
The hon. Member for Strangford asked for my reassurance about how we take things forward. The Select Committee on International Development set us a challenging task in its report on our response to disability, which was published during the previous Session. We accepted virtually all its recommendations, and the principal one, in my view, was that we should publish a framework setting out exactly how we would make progress with the issues and informing DFID staff of how they should react to and take account of disability in all they do; we should appoint a disability champion in the Department and double the number of its staff working on disability. That framework was drawn up with enormous consultation with stakeholders, particularly disability organisations. It will be published on the international day of people with disability on 3 December, and thereafter it will be a living document, to be revised in line with what works and the representations that are made. It will be republished every year.
I look forward to the reflections of the hon. Member for Heywood and Middleton and other hon. Members on that document, because the agenda is one we must take forward together. I thank the hon. Lady again for drawing our attention to it by obtaining this important debate.