International Development: Sexual and Reproductive Health

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sugg]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what plans they have to make investment in sexual and reproductive health and rights a priority in their International Development Strategy.

[The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)]

My Lords, the Government will publish a new international development strategy this spring that will guide our work for the coming decade and beyond. It will align our development work with the aims and objectives of the integrated review and will continue to prioritise women and girls through support to educate girls, empower women and end violence, including by strengthening sexual and reproductive health and rights and working to end female genital mutilation.

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[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, UK investment in sexual and reproductive health not only promotes health and well-being across the whole of life but also leads to improvements in education, gender equality, political stability, economic development and, indeed, environmental sustainability, so it is a very worthwhile investment. Sadly, SRHR and family planning programmes are extremely disproportionately impacted by the cuts to UK aid. Can my noble friend the Minister reassure me that we will retake our place as a global leader on this issue, that SRHR will be an explicit priority in the upcoming strategy and that funding will be returned to previous levels of around 4% to 5% of ODA as part of the Foreign Secretary’s commitment to restore funding to women and girls?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her campaigning on this issue. Sexual and reproductive health and rights are central to achieving the UK Government’s manifesto commitment to end the preventable deaths of mothers, babies and children by 2030 and our ambitious commitments on girls’ education and Covid recovery. The Foreign Secretary has been clear that we will restore funding to women and girls. The UK plays a vital role in global partnerships and funds to support and strengthen the ability of countries to deliver life-saving maternal reproductive and child health services. We certainly regard ourselves as a world leader in this area and we will continue to be.

FCDO Nutrition Policy

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Monday 21st February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, first I recognise the valuable work done by the noble Lord, Lord Collins, in his work on the APPG, and I wish him well—I understand he is recovering from Covid. In this respect, I also recognise that he has consistently raised this issue and our commitment, underlying the ongoing commitment from the UK, to this important priority. The noble Baroness asks a very valid question about how we can fulfil key objectives. The whole idea is to ensure that, right at the point of planning, all these elements within nutrition are incorporated—not just in the direct commitments on nutrition but that they are recorded as nutrition programme objectives in the wider work that the FCDO does. We constantly review impact assessments as well to see the effectiveness of our work and, of course, I will take back the question of the specific programming that we will be doing as this comes through. As I have said already, we hope the markers will be in place later this year, and at that point I am sure there will be further discussions.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I very much welcome the Government’s new eight-year commitment to nutrition. Can my noble friend the Minister share any more detail on this? What will be the split between nutrition-sensitive and nutrition-specific programming? And what will be the phasing of the spend? My noble friend will know the urgency of this work—by the end of this year, over 30 million additional children could be subject to wasting because of the impacts of Covid-19.

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I fully recognise the importance of both elements of our programming and ensuring that our £1.5 billion commitment covers both nutrition-specific and nutrition-sensitive interventions and investments. We are currently going through the business-planning process, and we will then be able to provide more information on the expected nutrition investments for the 2022 to 2025 spending periods, and I will update my noble friend accordingly. But I can reassure her that we remain among the top 10 bilateral donors in investing in nutrition.

International Development

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Tuesday 8th February 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I absolutely can provide that guarantee. The UK is committed to working to prevent and reduce the frequency and intensity of conflict and instability, and to minimise opportunities for state and non-state actors to undermine international security. As the noble Lord said, it is absolutely in our national interest to mitigate the global impact from terrorism, serious and organised crime, and health threats, as well as regional impacts of conflict.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, when DfID existed, the department regularly published detailed country profiles setting out the purpose for delivering aid, what UK aid had achieved, what it aimed to achieve, how the UK was supporting countries to transition from aid, what the UK was getting from that aid and future spending plans. I do not believe that this information has been updated since the merger, so can my noble friend the Minister tell me whether the international development strategy will include this detailed information? If not, is he able to commit that the department will publish it in the near future?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, priority outcomes will be tracked via a set of headline metrics contained in the FCDO outcome delivery plan, and that will be for all to see.

Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Thursday 13th January 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, as the noble Lord will be aware, there are various strands. The Taliban themselves are not a homogenous group, and there are various factions within the Taliban which control various parts of the country. However, promisingly, I was updated that with the commitments we have made and the support we have given to organisations, such as the World Food Programme, they have been able to distribute humanitarian aid and support not just to a selective number of regions but to most parts of the country. We are encouraged that there is good co-operation on the ground, but this could change very quickly, so we should we remain ever vigilant. I assure the noble Lord that I will continue to update your Lordships’ House accordingly.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, the Answer acknowledges the impact on women and girls, and we have seen brave women protesting in the streets across Afghanistan. Can the Minister tell me if any women have been part of the UK delegations meeting the Taliban, and does he agree that such representation sends an important message of support to women in Afghanistan?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the answer to my noble friend’s first question is positive: it is “yes”. We are engaging directly through our diplomats. Secondly, I have certainly been encouraging other key partners, for example Qatari Minister Al Thani and Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations. Women are an integral and leading part of the world community. If the Taliban want to engage, it is important that we also fully support women’s full engagement. Equally, I can share with my noble friend that some leading lights of the former Afghan Government are right here in the United Kingdom. Earlier this week, I met with the brave, courageous Fawzia Koofi, and we are working directly with Afghan women who were part of the Administration, such as Hasina Safi, the former Minister for Women, to ensure that our next steps and future policies are informed by those who know best, who are the women of Afghanistan.

International Development Strategy

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I look forward to the publication of the international development strategy. A lot has changed in the UK since the previous strategy was published in 2015. Some of that change has been caused by factors beyond our direct control, such as the Covid pandemic, crises from Afghanistan to Ethiopia, and the impacts of extreme weather and climate change around the world. However, some of that change has been due to decisions made by this Government: the merger of the FCO and DfID, and the move from our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on international development, while we have been assured is temporary. I look forward to that returning.

I do not want to dwell on this but will make one point on vaccines. The events of recent weeks have shown that we must redouble our efforts. As well as causing millions of deaths around the world, Covid is putting at risk the gains that we have made on development in recent decades. Counting our funding for vaccines within the self-imposed ceiling of 0.5% will inevitably hamper our efforts to help the rest of the world—and, therefore, ourselves—to deal with the virus and the variants that we will continue to see emerge from unvaccinated populations. There is little better investment that we can make at the moment. I strongly encourage the Government to think again and to fund global vaccination efforts over and above that 0.5% so that we can do more. The economic case, even if we look solely at the UK, could not be clearer.

There was little on development in the integrated review, so I look forward to the strategy fleshing out the details. In an attempt to be constructive, I acknowledge that the merger may bring some benefits, if the strategy recognises that development genuinely sits at the heart of the new department, as we have been repeatedly reassured. I hope that a new international development strategy, a new framework, will give a new impetus and direction of travel to the department, and involve the traditional diplomatic expertise from what was the FCO alongside the development expertise from what was DfID.

This strategy must lay the groundwork for rebuilding back to 0.7%, so it is critical that we get it right. While our work in international development is firmly in our national interest, I hope that we do not lose sight of the belief that tackling the world’s biggest challenges is a reason in itself. The strategy must recognise the continued need to work to end extreme poverty, to leave no one behind and to achieve the sustainable development goals ably championed by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, whom I thank for tabling this debate.

I hope that the new international development strategy has women and girls at its centre. I have been very pleased to hear the Foreign Secretary repeatedly say that her focus will be on women and girls, and I look forward to seeing the detail of what that means. It is certainly needed: global progress on gender equality is under threat, and the welcome advancements of recent decades are at risk, with the coronavirus pandemic and its secondary impacts disproportionately affecting women and girls. We are seeing a shadow pandemic of gender-based violence. Women remain economically restricted in many regions and, in some countries such as Afghanistan, their rights are being radically rolled back.

Ultimately, I would like to see the UK adopt a fully integrated feminist foreign policy. I believe that this approach is the best way for the UK to enable women and girls to flourish. This in turn helps achieve sustainable peace, build our allies’ economic strengths, reduce poverty and support our national interest.

But, today, we are discussing the development strategy, so let us start there with a genuine feminist development policy. I have three suggestions for that, first on crisis response. Supporting gender equality around the world is one of the best investments the UK can make to help mitigate the impact of the pandemic, violent conflict and the climate crisis. The UK can improve the delivery of UK aid by using feminist principles to ensure that women and girls are included at every level of decision-making and that more resources are channelled directly to women-led organisations.

Secondly, the UK should lead the way to recovery from the pandemic by implementing the strong recommendations from the G7 Gender Equality Advisory Council. We will improve the pace and sustainability of economic growth if we adopt gender equality as a guiding principle for all economic recovery programmes.

Finally, sexual and reproductive health has sadly seen its funding cut by 85%. I declare my interest as co-chair of the APPG on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. Ensuring that women and girls can access vital health services and are able to make their own reproductive choices is critical to ending preventable maternal, newborn and child deaths. It is also essential to enabling all girls to receive a quality education to help them prosper, achieve their potential and contribute to economic growth in their countries.

Through the development strategy, the Government have a real opportunity to re-establish themselves as a leading supporter of the rights of women and girls to have control over their bodies and lives. The UK SRHR Network is calling for a commitment to spend an average of £500 million per year on sexual and reproductive health, which is only 4% of the UK aid budget and that is the same proportion as a year ago. That would make a critical contribution to supporting access to modern methods of contraception for the 218 million women and girls who want to avoid a pregnancy, and would help end the hundreds of thousands of maternal deaths and the millions of unsafe abortions we see every year.

I have just two questions for my noble friend the Minister on women and girls. First, will the Government publish the equalities impact assessment relating to the UK aid cuts? That has now been shared with the High Court as part of a recent legal case and, after nine months, I would welcome an answer on whether the Government will publish it. Secondly, I accept that we are waiting for the details on the announcement of the restoration of funding to women and girls to pre-cuts levels, but we should at least be told which year will be used as a benchmark for this.

The pandemic has impressed on us all that we are interconnected, and that the UK’s peace and prosperity cannot be secured unless progress on gender equality is made across the world. The international development strategy can and should help us achieve this.

Covid-19: Vaccine Donations

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Tuesday 14th December 2021 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Baroness Sugg]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many of the 100 million COVID-19 vaccines they have committed to donate to the rest of the world have been delivered and where they have been sent.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon) (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom has delivered over 21.2 million doses to recipient countries. Some 16.6 million have been distributed through COVAX, a further 3.4 million doses are with COVAX for allocation and distribution and another 6.3 million will be delivered to it directly from AstraZeneca in the coming weeks. In addition, 4.6 million doses have been delivered bilaterally to 17 countries, including Jamaica, Kenya and Indonesia.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, unvaccinated populations will mean more variants and we must redouble our efforts to help to vaccinate the world. Will my noble friend agree to update the House in writing at the end of this calendar year, and at the next deadline of June next year, with details of how many vaccines the UK has shipped and indeed delivered? Responsibility for global vaccines seems to sit across multiple departments: FCDO, DHSC, BEIS, DIT and of course the Treasury. We have seen the success of our domestic vaccine efforts, thanks to a focused and dynamic Minister, so will the Government consider giving one Minister responsibility for global vaccination?

Covid-19: Vaccine Donations

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Monday 29th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the Government strongly agree and we are committed to supporting rapid, equitable access to safe and effective vaccines through multilateral co-operation to end the acute phase of this pandemic. That is why the UK supports the COVAX facility and was one of the first countries to do so. It is, as the right reverend Prelate knows, a multilateral mechanism that supports access by pooling resources to accelerate the development, manufacture and delivery of vaccines. More than 537 million vaccines have so far been delivered globally through that scheme.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I appreciate the Minister setting out what the UK has done, but when we look at vaccination rates in low-income countries, it is clear that the UK and, indeed, all high-income countries have just not done enough. Can the Minister say how many vaccines the UK has drawn down from the COVAX facility and how many vaccines have been destroyed as close to or past their use-by date?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

As my noble friend will know, COVAX is designed to work for both high and middle-income countries; this allows for the pooling of investments behind early vaccine candidates. The UK has procured 539,370 doses of the Pfizer vaccine through COVAX; those were delivered early this year. These doses help the NHS to deliver our vaccination programme as quickly as possible. No further doses have been received by the UK from COVAX. I am afraid I cannot answer my noble friend’s question on the waste of unused vaccines, but clearly, it is in all our interests and a key priority that we minimise any potential waste.

International Development Strategy

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Thursday 25th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Yes, my Lords, the international development strategy builds from the integrated review and articulates the Government’s strategic development goals, which are very much in line with the priorities identified by the right reverend Prelate. It will establish an ambitious and, above all, positive vision for the UK’s approach to development in a new global context and lay out how the UK plans to remain a leader on development.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, I welcome the Foreign Secretary’s commitment last week to restore funding to women and girls to pre-cuts levels, although that is bittersweet as the funding will have to be found from further cuts to other important programmes. What year will be used as a benchmark for this, and when will the funding be restored? Will it include restoring full funding to sexual and reproductive health, which has suffered cuts of 85%, affecting women and girls all around the world?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, we want to ensure that everyone has the ability to thrive and meet their potential. That is a key focus of our approach. We are restoring funding to women and girls to pre-ODA cut levels, focusing on giving more girls a quality education, ending the appalling practice of female genital mutilation, supporting girls’ health and ending the abhorrent use of sexual violence around the world, particularly in conflict. Educating girls is one of the best investments that we can make to fight poverty. Following the recent SR, decisions on specific allocations and individual programmes will be published shortly.

Ethiopia: Tigray Region

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Monday 22nd November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the UK is engaging with Ethiopia—in fact, with both sides of the dispute—at every level imaginable and at every possible opportunity. We have a frank but constructive relationship with the Government of Ethiopia, which enables UK Ministers and senior officials to raise our concerns and have forthright discussions about the conflict in Tigray with them. We will continue to do this and raise all credible allegations as they are put to us.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, we have heard horrific allegations of sexual torture and rape in Tigray. Far too often, the perpetrators are just not held to account. I very much welcome last week’s announcement that the Government will host an international conference on preventing sexual violence in conflict. Can my noble friend the Minister say what the Government hope this conference will achieve?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, in 2022, the UK plans to host an international conference to mark 10 years since the launch of the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative. The conference will bring together partners from all over the world to end violence against women and girls. This will be an important opportunity to review progress, identify challenges and agree further action on sexual violence in conflict, as well on wider gender equity issues. Further information on the conference will be made available shortly.

Charities: Landmines

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Monday 15th November 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

My Lords, the UK remains a leading donor in this sector, notwithstanding the recent cuts, and our demining work will continue to save lives. We are committed to all of our international treaty obligations. We are finalising our plans for GMAP3—the global mine action programme. As I said a few times, we will release details as soon as we can.

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

My Lords, it has been only in the last few weeks that NGOs have heard that the cuts they will face will be between 75% and 80%, so I welcome the confirmation from my noble friend the Minister that this is being reviewed. Could he tell me when this review will be completed and assure the House that we will be informed of its findings?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question. I will have to get back to her in writing when I have a date that I can share.