Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Caroline Spelman

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swayne]

We have not withdrawn funding. After the 2011 multilateral review, we withdrew core funding because we had reservations about value for money and we wanted to shift our focus to fragile states. We continue to work with the International Labour Organisation. We have a £7.4 million project with the ILO in Bangladesh, and, together, we are pursuing the Work in Freedom project. We will review that work with the International Labour Organisation at the next multilateral aid review, as the Secretary of State has already said.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the Government’s inclusion of a specific clause on transparency and supply chains in the Modern Slavery Bill will help to improve dialogue between workers and management in Bangladeshi garment factories?

[Mr Swayne]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend’s analysis. Getting corporates to take control of their supply chains is crucial and the Act, as it will become, will be vital in that respect.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Caroline Spelman

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swayne]

I hope that I will be able to give the right hon. Gentleman that assurance. Perhaps he would like to meet me to discuss the work of that non-governmental organisation.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Our troops have been withdrawn from Afghanistan, but there remains a legacy of unexploded ordnance and many disabled Afghans. Will the Minister tell the House what DFID will be doing to help those who suffer disability as a result of the armaments left by several conflicts in that poor country?

[Mr Swayne]

We will continue to work with the Halo Trust to dispose of that ordnance. Equally, we have an ongoing commitment to Afghanistan and to providing aid to deal with the problems that my right hon. Friend has mentioned.

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Caroline Spelman

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Swayne]

I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. That is the nub of the argument. As the Select Committee in the other place pointed out, international development aid can be misspent, and it can have a perverse effect when that happens. However, this has been one of the most transparent Governments, and we have set up the independent commission to ensure that what we spend is well spent.

I shall digress briefly. There is a minor issue on which I take a different view from that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), the promoter of the Bill. I am confident that the procedures and institutions that we have put in place to hold the Government to account on their commitment—the Select Committee, the independent commission, questions in this House—are adequate. That, however, is a matter that we can return to in Committee, and I was glad that he acknowledged that fact.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

On the subject of welfare dependency, is not India a measure of the success of transitioning poor countries into sustainability? It has the largest number of people living in poverty, but DFID now focuses its aid resources on only the two states that are most in need of help. The other states have now succeeded in moving to sustainability; indeed, they are now our trade partners.

Forestry (England)

Debate between Desmond Swayne and Caroline Spelman

Thursday 17th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mrs Spelman]

I hope that the hon. Lady will have heard in my statement what I said about the helpful contributions of the large grass-roots campaigning organisations to debate on this subject. I am quite sure that they will be part of the wide group that we will draw in on our independent panel.

[Mr Desmond Swayne (New Forest West) (Con)]

I welcome the statement, and I do so also on behalf of my hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Dr Lewis), who as you know, Mr Speaker, is detained elsewhere. [Interruption.] On the business of the House, Mr Speaker!

[Mr Swayne]

Does my right hon. Friend agree that the course she has set is much more likely to ensure that some of the opportunities inherent in her proposals for the New Forest will be brought forward and implemented than would have been the case under the previous means of consulting the House? May I also say to you, Mr Speaker, that I am surprised and shocked by the singular lack of grace shown by some hon. Members?

[Mrs Spelman]

I would certainly like to give my hon. Friend that assurance, and the vehicle of an independent panel representing a wide range of views to advise Ministers is, as he suggests, likely to produce a better outcome.