Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Carden and Penny Mordaunt

Wednesday 13th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Why does the Secretary of State believe that the UK’s commitment to spending 0.7% of national income on aid is unsustainable?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for allowing me to remind the House that it was under a Conservative-led Government that the commitment to 0.7% was introduced, and it is a Conservative Government who have retained that commitment. What we want to do in future, though, is look at maintaining that with public funds but reducing the burden on the taxpayer.

[Dan Carden]

I ask that because the former Foreign Secretary has called for the Department to be closed, and the Secretary of State has said nothing. Her party colleagues have called for aid to be redefined away from poverty reduction, and she has said nothing. Is it not the sad truth that Conservative Members who are now circling the Prime Minister know that their leadership prospects are buoyed by appealing to the tiny number of Tory party members who hate aid as much as they want to bring back capital punishment? Why should anyone trust a Government who have pushed 14 million of their own citizens into poverty to stand up for the world’s poorest people?

[Penny Mordaunt]

They should trust me as the Secretary of State and as someone who has been an aid worker. They should trust this Government because we introduced the policy and are retaining it. The hon. Gentleman mischaracterises the comments of certain colleagues. For example, the former Foreign Secretary has not said that he wishes to abandon the 0.7%. I encourage the hon. Gentleman to talk about the global goals at the Dispatch Box. We want to deliver them, and to do so, we need additional funding of $2.5 trillion going into developing countries. That is what this Government are focused on delivering.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Carden and Penny Mordaunt

Wednesday 9th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

Globally, 63 million girls between the ages of five and 15 are out of school. Under the auspices of the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin), we are supporting the global education partnership and, within that, the education challenge. We have refreshed our own education strategy to ensure that it is not just about girls in classrooms, but about the quality of education that they are receiving. Only through a concerted effort in that respect, and by asking other partners to step up, will we ensure that every woman and girl has a decent education.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s ambitious strategy on gender equality, which is a heartening step towards Labour’s feminist approach to international development, but these commitments will remain just warm words if, as we learned last month, 20%—600—of DFID’s staff are to be reassigned to other Departments to help to manage the Tories’ Brexit shambles. Will the Secretary of State tell the House very specifically what impact she expects that huge cut to have on her gender equality strategy, and, indeed, on all her Department’s work?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to his new role and sincerely wish him well in it, but his assertion is incorrect. That is not the number of staff who have been redeployed. I think that, currently, the grand total of DFID staff who are helping other Departments is 25. However, if the hon. Gentleman is concerned about a no-deal situation, he knows what he needs to do: he needs to vote for the Prime Minister’s deal.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to the Secretary of State for her warm words, but I note that she did not rule out the possibility of 600 staff leaving the Department.

Many Members will have been deeply concerned by reports in the media last week that DFID’s independence may once again be up for debate in this summer’s comprehensive spending review, although merging DFID with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office would fly in the face of the evidence of how our aid budget can make the greatest impact. Given that more UK aid money is already being spent by other Departments, given the brazen attempts to use aid to win trade deals, and given that 600 staff are on their way out, is the Secretary of State not overseeing the managed decline of the Department for International Development ?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman quotes many statistics and figures at me, so I will help him by quoting some back. All of what he says is not true so, as he starts his new role, I encourage him to talk about the 17 global goals that I hope everyone on both sides of the House is looking to deliver. What he said is not correct.

LGBT Action Plan

Debate between Dan Carden and Penny Mordaunt

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

If my right hon. Friend has a moment—[Laughter.] I will tell him that there are many reasons why people value civil partnerships; it was not just about the absence of the option of marriage. Some people do not want to get married, but they want to have a partnership with their partner. Other people who have been married and then bereaved may not want to remarry, but they may want to establish a civil partnership. People value civil partnerships for many reasons. I know that my right hon. Friend is very exercised about this matter, but I can reassure him that civil partnerships will not be compulsory.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) on her initiative—it is a credit to her that her initiative has engaged with 108,000 people from the LGBT+ community—and I thank the Minister for the action plan.

I was shocked when, last year, a church in north Liverpool was exposed by former Liverpool Echo journalist Josh Parry as giving gay cure therapies, which are some of the most disturbing practices that could be imagined. I have raised such gay cure therapies with Ministers in the House. There had been some contradiction on those therapies before the report, and I hope the Minister will clear up some of those contradictions. The Home Office was initially dismissive, and the Department of Health and Social Care said no action would be taken. Will she clear up the contradictory advice that came from the Government before the report was published?

Furthermore, the report says:

“We are not trying to prevent LGBT people from seeking legitimate…support from their faith leader”.

I push the Minister to give a commitment today that she will not leave LGBT people in faith communities behind when this action plan is implemented.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman those reassurances. We are going to ban these abhorrent practices—with the most severe form involving corrective rape, some of these so-called therapies are appalling abuse—and we will consult on the best way to do that. It may involve legislation, but there will be other things we can do, too. We clearly need to work closely with healthcare.

Obviously, we do not want to close down completely legitimate and needed psychological support and other therapies that people might want to access as they explore their gender identity or their sexual orientation. Those are important supports for individuals, but wherever those other practices are found, including in religious settings, we will have no qualms about tackling them.

Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Dan Carden and Penny Mordaunt

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and thank her for advance sight of it. I am sure the whole House will welcome her update that Daesh has been “all but destroyed as a territorial entity” and that it has lost 98% of the territory it once held. That is testament to the bravery and commitment of those on the ground, including our Kurdish allies, who have fought so hard to expel Daesh from their homelands in northern Syria and to recapture towns such as Manbij.

I welcome the continued humanitarian support that the UK provides through the Department for International Development. Given the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the conflict in Syria, it is right that the UK has played its part by getting humanitarian aid as quickly as possible to affected areas and by channelling substantial financial resources into helping to save lives in the years since the conflict began. I join the Secretary of State in condemning the appalling attacks on humanitarian workers across Syria, including on the 167 White Helmet volunteers who have lost their lives. Humanitarian workers must never be a target in conflict. Will the Secretary of State update the House on what steps she is taking to ensure full humanitarian access, especially in those parts of Syria that are now changing territorial control, both around Afrin and Ghouta?

I note that the Secretary of State warned Turkey that it must avoid “actions that undermine our shared efforts”, but is that really the strongest language that the Government will use to condemn Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria? That incursion is neither legitimate nor justified, has no basis in international law and should never have been allowed in the first place. This Government have stood by while Turkey and its band of rebel militias have marched into another country on the pretext of combating terrorism, while they have seized Afrin, while they have forced thousands to flee and while they have pulled down Kurdish statues. Does the Secretary of State agree that it cannot be right that this Government have not offered even a word of real criticism or condemnation, even as those same Turkish forces now advance and threaten to attack towns such as Manbij and seize those same Kurdish homelands? The Government must not abandon our Kurdish allies, who have given so much in the fight against Daesh. Will she condemn Turkey’s aggression unreservedly today?

One particularly sad story to emerge from the Turkish assault on Afrin is the death of UK national, Anna Campbell, who went to Syria last year to volunteer to fight with Kurdish forces against Daesh and insisted on being sent to the Afrin front at the outset of the Turkish assault. She was killed by a Turkish airstrike on 15 March, shortly before the fall of Afrin. She is one of eight British volunteers killed serving with the YPJ, the Kurdish women’s protection unit, and the first woman. While her father, Dirk, has expressed pride in her bravery and sacrifice, he has been angered in recent days by the Government’s inability to help repatriate her body for burial. Will the Secretary of State tell us what the Government are doing to help retrieve the body of this young woman who did her part in the fight against Daesh?

The United States has made it clear that the objective of coalition forces in Syria is to carry out what it calls “stabilisation activities” in “liberated areas” in the north of the country and to use those areas as a base to achieve the eventual transition of Syria from the Assad regime. Whatever one thinks of those activities, one thing is clear: they are a million miles away from the mandate for military action given to the Government by this House in 2015, which was exclusively to stop Syria becoming a safe haven for Daesh. Is it not time for the Government to come back to this House, set out their new strategy in Syria and seek a fresh mandate?

[Penny Mordaunt]

On behalf of all in this House, may I say that our thoughts are very much with Ms Campbell’s family at this incredibly difficult time. I am sure hon. Members will have heard her father’s incredibly moving tribute to her—she was an inspirational young woman. Obviously, we cannot provide consular support in Syria, but we are in touch with the family and will do everything we can to be of service to them, including in trying to repatriate Anna’s body. This is a very difficult situation, but I reassure all hon. Members that we are in touch and will do everything we can to bring her home.

On the wider issue of Afrin, we recognise Turkey’s legitimate security concerns, but we would support de-escalation of the situation. It is vital that we continue to defeat Daesh and that we continue to have greater stability in the area so that we can move to a political process, which is the only way this horrendous war will end. The indirect effect of what Turkey is doing is to remove fighting resource from the Euphrates valley area, which is clearly not beneficial to the coalition’s efforts in defeating Daesh.

I apologise to the House for the length of my statement, but I wanted to get on record some of the humanitarian atrocities that have taken place since the Foreign Secretary’s statement last year. The activities in eastern Ghouta are particularly shocking. The Foreign Office and DFID have made a continual combined effort to get access, whether it be for aid convoys or for the medical evacuation of casualties, particularly to remove children from the area. Despite the agreements, and despite the opportunities we were told they would be given, the partners we are working with on the ground have found it incredibly difficult to do that—one aid convoy was shelled after being given permission to go in.

We will continue to press for full humanitarian access to eastern Ghouta, and we are also looking at other areas of Syria that may be about to suffer a similar fate. We are trying to ensure that we do everything we can to protect civilians.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Dan Carden and Penny Mordaunt

Wednesday 28th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) is looking at these issues. We have particular requirements in funding agreements when working in particular locations, and where we see abuses taking place, we will not hesitate to raise them with the Government in question.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Today is the final day of UK LGBT history month. One of our nation’s lasting legacies has been the exporting of anti-gay laws around the world, and 36 of the 53 Commonwealth countries still criminalise homosexuality. The upcoming Commonwealth summit in April, hosted by the UK, is a golden opportunity for us to champion LGBT rights. However, reports in the Canadian press last week suggest that the Heads of Government communiqué is unlikely to mention LGBT rights. Will the Secretary of State consider what extra development assistance and funding she can now provide to LGBT activists and civil society across the Commonwealth, to ensure that we do not give up on change in the Commonwealth?

[Penny Mordaunt]

The hon. Gentleman should not be disheartened: we will still raise the issue. It is a strand of work that is going on. In addition to the UK Aid Connect programme that I have just outlined, I relaunched the DFID LGBT network at the start of the history week. Strengthening the support that our staff have to raise these issues—including staff who are LGBT themselves and who are required to work in-country—is vital to furthering this agenda.