Poverty in the Developing World

Baroness Jenkin of Kennington Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Jenkin of Kennington]

My Lords, I would like to pay tribute to the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, both for securing this debate today and for his campaigning work on this issue for many years, particularly during his time as First Minister of Scotland. He and I first ran into each other during a television debate when fighting seats we did not win in Scotland in 1987, an extremely uncomfortable experience for me to say the least. I doubt that either expected that 25 years on we would both be in this place or working together on the advisory board of the Global Poverty Project. It is a pleasure to follow him.

We are all here in the Chamber because we care about this issue. It is the reason that the noble Lord and I will be joining thousands of others across the world who are supporters of the Global Poverty Project by participating in the challenge to “live below the line” for five days next week. To quote the Prime Minister’s words of encouragement to us all:

“Live Below The Line is a great opportunity for thousands of people to engage with the challenge of world poverty and to raise awareness of the abject conditions in which too many people still live. I hope as many people as possible will sign up, and become passionate about the fight to end poverty”.

In my case, I will be raising money for Restless Development, the youth-focused development agency of which I am a patron, but others will be supporting other partners in this campaign, Think Global, Salvation Army, Christian Aid and Results UK, as well as Positive Women, which the noble Lord supports.

I hope that many noble Lords will visit us in the temporary lunchtime soup kitchen that we will be running here next week for those in Parliament who will be living below the poverty line. I am delighted to be able to tell you that the Lord Speaker is not only taking part in the challenge herself, but has kindly agreed that we can use the River Room kitchen for our communal, though meagre, lunches next week. I am known in my own family as the queen of soups and leftovers, but I have never before knowingly fed them lunch for 40p, which is what I will be doing for colleagues next week. Obviously none of us can ever truly know what it must be like to survive on £1 a day, every single day, but I hope that the challenge here and across the country will help us in some small way to understand it better, and in the process raise money for worthwhile causes.

In a world where over 1.4 billion people will go to bed hungry tonight, it must sicken us, as the noble Lord pointed out in his remarks, that Defra has calculated that here in the UK we will throw away more than £10 billion-worth of food this year. The contrast between our profligacy with the thought of others not eating at all should shame us. Live Below the Line is one way in which we are seeking to raise and highlight the issue and, in some small way, to address the injustice.

How can we best fight extreme poverty? We should be thinking about how we can best support people to obtain individual freedom, how their potential can be unleashed by Governments working for and not against them, and we should give communities the chance to trade their way out of poverty. To do that, communities need access to the basics, in order to achieve the millennium development goals, but they must also go much further: communities capable of fighting corruption must be supported; trade barriers must be broken down; microfinance must be encouraged; and new educated middle classes should be created. This is why I am an enthusiastic supporter of organisations, like Restless Development, that work with young people in some of the most deprived areas of the world to help to develop their potential. With more than half of the populations of the world's poorest countries under the age of 25, we have an opportunity to see a new generation that can stand up and demand more of their Governments, start new businesses and grow their economies.

We in the UK have a role to play. All political parties have supported the commitment to spend 0.7 per cent of national income as aid from 2013 and I especially welcome the Secretary of State's focus on transparency and value for money and DfID's focus on the development of small businesses as the engine for economic growth. The UK is leading the way in each of these areas, becoming the first country in the world to publish aid information to the standards of the International Aid Transparency Initiative; undertaking a root-and-branch review of all British aid spending through DfID country offices and international organisations like the UN to ensure effectiveness and results from our aid spending; and making plans to provide more than 50 million people with the means to help work their way out of poverty.

As we seek to grow enterprise, we must not lose sight of those who are excluded from opportunities in their communities. All too often, as the noble Lord pointed out, it is women who are left out. Women make up half of the world's population and do roughly two-thirds of the world's work, and yet even today it is thought that they may earn as little as 10 per cent of the world's income. The Government's new strategic vision that places girls and women at the heart of their development work is to be applauded. Not only will this focus on the pillars that so affect their lives, such as safe pregnancy and childbirth, economic assets, schooling and violence against women, but it will also mean working towards a positive, enabling environment in terms of women's political empowerment and legal rights.

The issue of empowerment is not a matter of political correctness, but it is absolutely fundamental to this debate. Experience proves that it is the most effective development tool available to us. Women, who look after their families and look after their children, want their daughters to be educated as well as their sons. If a mother has access to microfinance and can start her own business, the stability of the family is secured, even if her husband is involved in tribal conflict or the drugs trade.

I also welcome the forthcoming replenishment round for the Global Alliance for Vaccines and Immunisations, known as GAVI, which the Government are hosting in June. If the international community comes together, GAVI will be able to vaccinate 250 million children and save 4 million lives. For just the price of a cup of coffee we can vaccinate a child against five killer childhood diseases.

Live Below the Line is one way of standing up for what we think is right in the world. In addition to the soup kitchen, next week the Lord Speaker will host an event in the River Room on Wednesday evening to which you are all most welcome. We cannot offer noble Lords lavish canapés, or even a glass of wine, but please join us at that event to learn more, or over lunch on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday, and share with us our 33p or 40p meal.