Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2018

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Thursday 22nd March 2018 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I welcome this debate and I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Geidt, on his maiden speech. I shall long remember his previous function in this place—he once replaced a dry-cleaning ticket for the Queen’s Speech, and I thank him for that. I note that the aim of the Commonwealth conference is to deliver,

“a more prosperous, secure, sustainable and fair future for all its citizens”,

and that one of the forums will be devoted to women’s issues, which is of course what I want to concentrate on.

No country can achieve the aims stated unless it uses the talents of half of its population, who are women. Those talents are lost. If a country wants a sustainable and prosperous future, women and young girls must be valued and not left destitute by out-of-date laws and policies. The sustainable development goals must be remembered, SDG 5 in particular.

No woman can be empowered to take a full part in society if she is not given power over her own body—to choose the number of children she has and to resist the horrors of FGM and child marriage. When she can do these things, she and her children have a better chance of education and joining fully in their society and its workforce. The World Bank has shown that when fertility rates fall—that is, family size—the economy of a country improves, there is less strain on natural resources and less tendency for people to want to migrate. It is therefore crucial that the conference promotes sexual and reproductive health and rights for women and girls, and ensures that they have access to family planning above all things.

“Family planning” is such a mumsy phrase. It sounds like too much of a detail and is not the stuff that men usually talk about at international conferences—I know men and I have been to a few of those conferences. But it is so important and it will benefit all of society when Finance Ministers, not just Health Ministers, take it seriously. Our Government recognise its importance and the Department for International Development is concentrating resources on sexual and reproductive health. It is our Minister’s job to convince the heads of Commonwealth countries that that is so. It is a simple and inexpensive intervention, and requires no coercion.

Much research has been done on the benefits of providing family planning facilities in a country. A figure widely quoted is that for every dollar spent on family planning, the economy of a country will benefit by $120—not a bad investment. Where does that figure come from? It has not come out of my head or that of any other family planning enthusiast. It is a figure endorsed by the Department for International Development, US AID and the Guttmacher Institute, and in many other academic papers written in the last 10 years.

Three years ago a Danish economist, Bjorn Lomborg, assembled many teams of economists plus representatives of the United Nations, NGOs and business, to look at the most effective way of achieving the sustainable development goals, which we hear so much about. The most beneficial measure according to all their research was, not surprisingly, lowering barriers to trade, which I know is very important in Africa. But the second most effective measure was to provide sexual reproductive health services, including family planning, confirming the figures we all like to quote. I repeat: for every dollar spent on family planning, the economy will benefit by $120. Importantly, sexual and reproductive health services must include access to safe abortion, and many Commonwealth countries do not provide this for their women. Malta, for example, which this country is succeeding as Chair-in-Office, prohibits abortion entirely, even to save a woman’s life. Maybe women in Malta can afford to travel abroad when they need an abortion, but women living in the global South and many Commonwealth countries cannot afford this and will seek a dangerous illegal abortion.

I draw attention to the hearing report launched by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, which I chair. Our report is called Abortion in the Developing World and the UK, and it quite clearly states that the abortion rates are the same whether legal or illegal in a country. The important difference is that women who take matters into their own hands because there are no facilities are frequently maimed for life or die. This is another loss to their country and a great expense on their health services. It is a totally unnecessary expense if that country provides access to family planning and safe abortion.

Finally, I return to impressing on this House the importance of all countries providing sexual reproductive health services and family planning for their populations. I beg the Minister to take these issues forward at the conference and make sure that this is mentioned in the final communiqué.