Covid-19: International Response

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 18th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I start by drawing attention to my interests in the register. I thank the Minister for securing this debate and for her comprehensive introduction, setting the scene for what I am sure will be an interesting three hours.

This pandemic has highlighted yet again—perhaps more starkly than ever before—just how interdependent our world is. As the UK sits on the G7 in June and the UN Security Council in the lead-up to the summits that will take place in September, it will undoubtedly focus on recovery and future resilience. It is vital that the UK plays a role way beyond encouraging the comprehensive availability of a vaccine to make sure that there is a proper economic recovery globally and that there is a resilience in our systems to help us to cope better everywhere in future.

In that economic recovery, we need to remember the importance of education. It is not just in this country that young children are missing out on education; it is happening in every corner of the globe. In pursuing critical economic and health measures, I hope that the UK does not forget the vital importance of getting children, particularly those in the poorest parts of the world, back to school.

My final point relates to the Decade of Action UN summit planned for September. The sustainable development goals give us a framework for greater resilience in not just our health system but our economy around the world. This pandemic should reinforce our commitment to the global goals and ensure a greater degree of determination, both at home and abroad, in implementing and delivering them in a decade of action between now and 2030.

Africa: Support

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, we remain deeply concerned about the food security situation in Africa. In east Africa alone, nearly 25 million people are at crisis levels of food insecurity. We are supporting farmers in Africa in a number of ways through our global agriculture and food security programme and our adaptation for smallholder agriculture programme. On the export of food from the UK to Africa, I will have to take that back to the department and follow it up in writing to the noble Lord.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, the G7 is due to meet in the United States in June—or perhaps virtually. What action will the UK take to ensure that that summit addresses the economic fragility of sub-Saharan Africa, the supply chains and the international trade that has been disrupted as a result of the Covid-19 international lockdown, and not just the economic needs of the developed world?

[Baroness Sugg]

I assure the noble Lord that we will absolutely take into account the economic and supply chain impacts on the developing world. We have pre-meetings ahead of the G7 where that discussion is already happening, and I am sure it will be on the agenda for the summit.

Covid-19: Overseas Development Assistance

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd April 2020 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the impact of COVID-19 on their Overseas Development Assistance spending priorities in 2020–21 and beyond.

The Question was considered in a Virtual Proceeding via video call.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office and Department for International Development (Baroness Sugg) (Con)]

My Lords, the Covid-19 pandemic is the biggest threat that this country and the world have faced in our lifetimes, and here in the UK and across the globe we are seeing the devastating impact of this virus. The UK is at the forefront of the international response, having so far pledged £744 million in UK aid. This requires a prioritisation of planned spend for this financial year and beyond, both for our immediate response and to support longer-term recovery.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, since 1970, 22 April has been celebrated as Earth Day, when we celebrate and recognise participation and advocacy around the world. It therefore seems appropriate that today we look at the international consequences of the Covid-19 crisis, particularly in the developing world. The sustainable development goals were designed to create more resilient and sustainable economies and societies around the world. Will the Government this year ensure that their commitment to the sustainable development goals, nationally and globally, is strengthened rather than weakened to ensure that we are better able in the future to respond to and cope with shocks of an economic and health nature, as we are currently experiencing both in the developed and developing worlds?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the UK played an instrumental role in establishing the SDGs, and even before Covid-19, we knew that global progress was off track. I am particularly concerned with goal 4, on quality education, and goal 5, on gender equality. The SDGs have a key role in framing and shaping recovery, and the decade of action will be more crucial than ever. We will use the international opportunities we have to build our continued SDG leadership, and we will include in that the SDG summit at UNGA this September and our G7 presidency next year.

International Development: Aid Distribution

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 6th February 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, among the most vulnerable groups, of course, are women and girls trafficked from conflict zones or perhaps affected by extreme weather events who suddenly become very vulnerable at short notice. Many of those women and girls end up trying to cross the Mediterranean, either through the Turkey-Greece route or the Libya-Italy route, to safety in Europe. Following our departure from the European Union at the end of last week, can the Government guarantee that they will continue to work with European partners to ensure safer routes for migration and safer outcomes for those many women and girls from across north-east Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere who end up in that situation?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, gender equality is and will continue to be a top development priority. Girls and women across the world are held back by systematic and entrenched inequality and discrimination; the noble Lord raised some specific examples. Despite leaving the European Union, we will of course continue to work with our friends in Europe to ensure that these girls and women are kept safe.

Defence, Diplomacy and Development Policy

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 30th January 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

That this House takes note of the role played by defence, diplomacy, and development policy in building a safer, fairer, and cleaner world.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, 2020 has begun with a flurry of national debates, on HS2, on Huawei and the 5G network, on the upcoming Budget, and on the implications of Brexit, which happens tomorrow, and, of course, we anticipate debates all year on immigration and the situation in our health service.

However, while our political debates may be dominated by domestic concerns, elsewhere in the world this year will also see the 75th anniversary of the United Nations and the 20th anniversary of the momentous UN Resolution 1325, which set out a programme for women, peace and security that has influenced work in that area ever since. COP 26 will take place in Glasgow in November and will try to recover the Paris climate change agreement from the rather disappointing summit that took place just before Christmas in Madrid. A summit in September at the United Nations will seek to energise a decade of action on the sustainable development goals and there will be other international summits and events around biodiversity and oceans, the global vaccine alliance and many other important issues. These international concerns should stand for us alongside those domestic debates as being at least of equal importance.

It was with that in mind that I was so pleased to see in the gracious Speech the Government’s commitment to undertake an integrated security, defence and foreign policy review

“to reassess the nation’s place in the world, covering all aspects of international policy, from defence to diplomacy and development.”

I was equally pleased to see that followed in the gracious Speech by the strategic objective set by the Government for these international relations of the promotion of peace and security globally. Your Lordships’ International Relations Committee, many other committees and many debates in this Chamber have contributed to the development of that international policy over many decades—particularly well, I think, over recent years. I am sure that today’s debate will include many distinguished contributions that will help illuminate decision-making on this review over the coming weeks and months.

I am particularly looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Penn, whom I had the pleasure of working with some years back in southern Africa. I know from that her commitment to both public service and global concerns. I am looking forward very much to hearing her contributions today and in the future in your Lordships’ House.

This review may be overdue, but it is also timely. Tomorrow, we leave the European Union and we seek to put flesh on the bones of the concept of a new global Britain, but unfortunately, perhaps, that will be without answering in advance the question of the UK’s role in the modern world. How do we pull our strengths together to ensure that whatever strategy we have can succeed? Within that context there can surely be no doubt now, in 2020, that an integrated approach to defence, diplomacy and development is central to meeting the challenges we face in the 21st century.

In the UK we have, for two decades now, seen the progressive integration of our policy approach in government to defence, diplomacy and development. In the previous decades the then Labour Government established, for example, the Stabilisation Unit and created the Conflict Pool, pulling resources from the Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and the Department for International Development. It backed, at an international level, the responsibility to protect doctrine and a number of other initiatives to reform the international system to ensure that, for example, peacekeeping and peacebuilding at the UN worked hand in hand, rather than in two completely separate silos.

After 2010 the new Government, led by Prime Minister Cameron, Foreign Secretary Hague and Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell, took that further and put a decision-making mechanism in place, through the National Security Council, that gave the opportunity to put more flesh on the bones of this approach. Through DfID, for example, the Building Stability Overseas strategy was created. This included the commitment of a percentage of our development budget to working in conflict-affected and fragile states, and, ultimately, the UK’s participation in decision-making on the sustainable development goals in 2015, including the commitment to goal 16 on peace and justice as being central to any long-term, meaningful sustainable development. It was all part of the same approach and strategy.

This approach has been developed over the last two decades in the United Kingdom and we have used that commitment to try to influence the international debate, but I would say that we have not—until now, perhaps—refreshed that approach ready for the challenges of yet another decade. That is why I welcome this review so much. Look around us at the world today. None of the problems that we debate regularly in this Chamber and that we see having such an impact, not just in other places but here, too, can be solved without an integrated approach to international policy formulation. Whether it is the challenge of migration, which is so affected by conflict, climate change and extreme poverty, or the many examples of conflict—many of which take place today within borders but have implications way beyond them—or the climate emergency and its impact on not only migration and displacement but development and economic prosperity, in all these areas there are elements of the absolute need for security in the prevention of conflict and the preservation of our own security at home. There are elements that require real expertise from our diplomats here in the UK and those involved in the multilateral organisations and many critical countries around the world. Of course, our development budget contributes to trying to alleviate, prevent and deal with the causes of many of these problems alongside the diplomats and those who seek to defend us.

In that world of such complex problems, we see a changing multilateral balance: the United States increasingly looking to its own interests rather than the global interest; Russia increasingly influential again beyond its borders; and China emerging as not just an economic superpower but a diplomatic and development superpower as well. There is also the growth of regional blocs such as the African Union and ASEAN in south- east Asia, pulling together smaller countries that could be much more influential if they work closely together, not just on economic grounds but in the fields of diplomacy and development.

The United Kingdom is uniquely placed to intervene in this complex tapestry of international organisations, interests, challenges and debates. We may not be the number one most important country in the United Nations, but we have a seat at the top table. We may not have the biggest defence budget in the world, but we are influential not just in NATO but far beyond. We have a role in the G8. We still have an important role with our European partners, as we saw recently when the Prime Minister worked so closely with European leaders in dealing with the crisis around Iran, Iraq and the United States. We also have an influence in the World Bank and the Commonwealth network, which is so critical for our soft power around the world. Add to that the private businesses headquartered in the United Kingdom and our cultural and educational relationships around the world, and I would advocate that the UK is uniquely placed to promote the principles of diplomacy, development and defence working together to try to help shape a better world.

I shall raise four points as we move towards the Government establishing this review today, and I look forward to hearing what other Members of your Lordships’ House have to say during this debate. First, while it is important in principle to integrate the work of diplomacy, development and defence, having three departments working together strategically creates more impact than the individual departments would have working alone, or that two departments would have. The case for a separate Department for International Development is well made on all kinds of grounds, but it also gives that element of this integrated approach a seat and a voice at the top table in the National Security Council and elsewhere. The case for retaining a separate Department for International Development is not just about better spending and more effective aid but a better integrated defence, diplomacy and development approach in the United Kingdom, because all three would be represented at the top table in discussions.

We should ensure that in that approach we look beyond those three government departments and the Ministers that lead them to the other areas where the UK has influence—in effect, I suppose, DDD-plus. Looking at our cultural impact or the impact of our sporting teams and individuals, and the events that we host and contribute to, or the impact of our companies around the world, good and bad—and it can always be better—or the impact of our education system and the professional bodies that are housed in and led from the UK, in all these areas we can add to that approach and ensure that we have that impact and influence in every corner of the globe.

Secondly, we need to demonstrate in action what we talk about on paper or in ministerial committees. I will give three quick examples of that. We were one of the architects of the sustainable development goals. This year we are five years into a 15-year programme; we are far behind and the rest of the world is not in a much better place. We need to lead the way this year in upping our game and ensuring that the decade of action that is being launched this year for the period up to 2030 actually is action and that we are involved in it. We also need to take up every tool at our disposal and ensure that we do not just convene a COP 26 in Glasgow in November but lead the world in coming together in Glasgow to make meaningful decisions that are then implemented to tackle the climate emergency. Thirdly, if we put women, peace, security and some of the principles and actions that are central to that agenda at the heart of this review, we can help ensure that the debates and summits that take place this year on that agenda at the global level have a meaningful UK influence that makes a real difference.

The third thing I will mention is that we need to be brave in leading the debate for global multilateral institutional reform. We still have a global multilateral system that is pretty much based on a combination of the outcome of the Second World War and the following years that we now know as the Cold War. It is now 31 years since the Berlin Wall came down, yet we still have a system designed for that period rather than for the 21st century. The United Kingdom is uniquely placed to lead a debate on the role and structure of the United Nations, the role, aims and objectives of the other multilateral organisations, and the way in which new powers are brought to the top table, play a role and accept responsibility as well as rights. We should stop seeing the debate on reform of these multilateral organisations as being about the next speech, headline or summit, but about how in 10 years’ time we can in the way that people did in the 1920s and 1930s start to shape the next generation of institutions that will be more meaningful, rather than simply basing our reforms on the actions and decisions of the period from 1945 to 1989.

[Lord King of Bridgwater (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord referred to a safer and fairer world and the lead that the United Kingdom might play in global discussions on this. He talked about mass migration of people and the challenges of poverty and climate change. However, so far he has left out the most important single issue of the lot—the huge explosion in population. Does he believe that the United Kingdom should play a role in trying to get a better understanding of that problem and addressing it before it is too late?

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

If your Lordships will allow me to take a few extra seconds to deal with that point as well as finishing my own, I absolutely accept that the challenge of the growth in global population is fundamental to all these other issues and makes each of them even more complicated and difficult. That should not lead us to intervene just to try to restrict the growth in population; rather, we need to find new ways of supporting those nations with the largest population growth to secure jobs, opportunity, investment and progress for the people who live there. To me that is part of the challenge that we face. If I may include that under the umbrella of the need for more action on the sustainable development goals, I see population as one of the most important challenges that is addressed by those goals collectively.

My final point, which I will make very briefly, is that, in all of this, of course our membership of NATO and our relationship with our NATO allies is vital, not least because of the situation with Russia today. Our European partnerships and the Commonwealth are important, but in the 21st century this is perhaps a moment where we should be looking at new alliances and allies.

It seems that there are a number of important countries around the world that have a strong economy, a strong democratic system, the rule of law and a commitment to that globally, with which we could work more closely together. I would like to see the United Kingdom doing more to work with Japan, New Zealand and Sweden, stable democracies that are now emerging in parts of Latin America, Africa, and elsewhere in Asia, to build a global alliance for human rights, the rule of law, democracy and progress that can ensure that we not only talk the language of reform and do the right things in our own Whitehall system but ensure that we deliver the cleaner, safer and fairer world that we all want to see.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale]

My Lords, the Minister might feel that she has not satisfied Members of your Lordships’ House in her reply but all involved in today’s debate will join me in saying that she manages to include a remarkable amount of detail in the way in which she closes these debates. I am sure I speak on behalf of everyone in saying that we are grateful for that. At the risk of making her job more insecure with praise from the Opposition Benches, I hope she will be able to take part in the next debate on this topic at some point in the future, depending on events over the next two or three weeks.

I also thank the noble Baroness, Lady Penn. I congratulate her on her maiden speech, which showed the impact she will have on our debates in your Lordships’ Chamber in the future. We look forward to that.

Two brief points arise from this debate. First, all of us who have spoken in today’s debate have shown the value that we attach to all three departments— the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development—the professional work that they do and the networks that they give us throughout the world. In looking for an ever more integrated approach to policy, we all understand the critical importance of all three in strengthening that integrated approach. I hope that message is conveyed back to the Prime Minister.

Secondly, on this important date, the day before we leave the European Union, when there has been much talk about our role in the world—either from those who opposed that decision and are worrying about it, or from those who supported it, believing that there was an opportunity for a more ambitious global role—today’s debate has shown the desire to have the United Kingdom placed globally in a role that makes the maximum impact on creating a fairer, safer and cleaner world. If we can take that message forward in 2020, after all the division and difficulties of 2019, I hope today’s debate has made a contribution.

Motion agreed.

Polio: Pakistan and Afghanistan

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Thursday 24th October 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

I thank the noble Baroness for her question—on World Polio Day, as she highlighted. I am absolutely in agreement that we must ensure that those trying to bring life-saving support to the most vulnerable are not subject to violence. She is sadly right that we have seen attacks on vaccinators both in Pakistan and Nigeria, and we are working very closely with Governments to ensure that those attacks stop. We are also working with religious and traditional leaders to ensure that these people are kept safe. We have recently seen a very welcome fatwa issued supporting Pakistan’s polio vaccination programme in an effort to end that violence.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, are the Government aware of the recent outbreak of polio in the southern Philippines, where there have been two confirmed cases and a number of tests are outstanding which might produce more confirmed cases? Is this not the result of protracted conflict in Mindanao and the resulting poor health and vaccination services, and does the international community need to do more to ensure that areas affected by conflict and the poor local health services that result do not suffer these outbreaks of polio that can then spread the disease much further than Afghanistan and Pakistan?

Sahel: Climate Change

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 24th July 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, under Prime Minister Cameron and the noble Lord, Lord Hague, when he was Foreign Secretary, the UK had a very strategic focus on the Sahel, including a very high-profile special representative. Such focus and strategy were lost under their successors as Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. Will the Minister make representations to whoever is appointed Secretary of State for DfID and the new Foreign Secretary over the next 24 hours to ensure that that strategic focus comes back into government?

[Baroness Sugg]

I completely agree with the noble Lord on the importance of having a focus on this area. The Sahel is marked by chronic poverty, instability, high levels of gender inequality, and is one of the world’s regions most vulnerable to climate change. We are stepping up our presence there already. It is in all our interests that we bring together the UK’s world-class development, diplomacy and defence expertise to help to build a safer, healthier and more prosperous future. Should I have the opportunity, I will certainly raise that with the new Secretary of State.

Sustainable Development Goals

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 10th July 2019 Grand Committee

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I draw attention to my interests listed in the register, some of which impact on my work on the global goals. I am grateful that the voluntary national review mentions the All-Party Parliamentary Group on the UN Global Goals for Sustainable Development that we set up in 2015, which I think was the first such group in the world to be established in a parliamentary setting.

The UN global goals for sustainable development are the most ambitious set of commitments ever agreed by the international community. We know that the gender inequalities that exist pretty much everywhere but at a very extensive level in many countries, the lack of rights and the lack of education are all interlinked. We know that poor health, poor sanitation and hunger—lack of access to food—can all be very closely linked. We know that conflict, climate change and economic underdevelopment are combined key drivers of migration and of some of the problems created around the world for individuals, families and countries by that. We know that all those problems are complex, and therefore the solutions have to be comprehensive.

That is where the strategy adopted by the United Nations in 2015 to develop those comprehensive goals in a strategic sense has been absolutely right. We also know that in developing the millennium development goals, there was a lack of attention on the causes of underdevelopment and poverty, as opposed to some of the remedies. As a result, no conflict-affected or fragile state anywhere in the world achieved even one of the MDGs. Throughout the period of the MDGs and since, natural disasters have destroyed years of development in a matter of minutes or hours. We know that where there is a lack of access to justice, democratic institutions and peace, all development that takes place is at risk. Therefore, the fundamentals of a democratic and just society must be in place if we are truly to end poverty and meet the other global goals.

The global goals provide answers to complex problems, and they are important also because of the strategic overview they give of how we should approach our global relations. The UN said, first, that the goals would be universal, that no one would be left behind, and that it was not just a case of the rich world contributing more to the poor world—the goals would apply everywhere to everybody. Secondly, the goals tried to address the key causes of underdevelopment, poverty and conflict around the world, but had a system of accountability built into them. That system revolves around Governments—countries as a whole, preferably—having national strategies. Those national strategies then develop into three or four-yearly reports to the United Nations through the voluntary national review process, and that process should include Parliaments, parliamentary debates and decision-making.

My starting point is therefore to thank and congratulate the Minister on securing this debate today. It is very important that we have a debate in advance of the VNR being presented to Parliament, although I must say that I seriously doubt the wisdom of the judgment by the Whips on all sides to move this debate to the Grand Committee, away from the main Chamber, to make way for a debate on public toilets. That perhaps says a lot about the state of British politics today.

The VNR is a distinct improvement on where we were about 12 or 18 months ago. If we are being honest, the UK was slow off the mark. Having been intimately involved with decision-making on the global goals prior to 2015—the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, was one of the many Ministers involved in that—we took our foot off the pedal. We did not have the clarity of national strategy and co-ordinated action across the Cabinet that should have been taking place. However, the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, the Secretary of State, Rory Stewart, and their two predecessors—in particular, the noble Lord, Lord Bates, and Penny Mordaunt MP—have ensured that over the past 12 to 18 months the goals have become much more central to the work of DfID and perhaps occasionally other government departments, and that is welcome.

However, although the VNR has many positives, it has unfortunately been a bit of an opportunity missed, due to the political circumstances of the moment. On the positive side, we are perhaps showing other countries around the world how to produce objective data properly by using the Office for National Statistics and objective data that may not all be comfortable for the Government, it having been published and given to the UN back in May.

In our VNR we quite rightly comment on both the UK and the global picture—there is a balance between the two—emphasising the universal nature of the goals. While the commentary is largely positive, it is not all positive. I think the Government have tried, occasionally, to be humble and reflect that there are negatives as well. That is welcome and something we need to build on. It reflects the role of the devolved Governments, local government, business and civic society. That is all positive. Being honest, we are four years into a 15-year challenge—the biggest challenge the world has ever set itself—and we have to admit there is some way to go.

I shall briefly emphasise the areas where there needs to be urgent attention between the presentation of the VNR to the UN next week by the Secretary of State—I hope I should not say the outgoing Secretary of State—and the important SDG summit on 24 and 25 September that will take place as part of the UN General Assembly weeks. There are areas where we in the UK—I emphasise “we” because, yes, it is the Government’s responsibility, but these goals are everybody’s responsibility, so we all have a part to play—need to strengthen our resolve and make some firm decisions. The first is that the responsibility for these goals, under any new Cabinet or Prime Minister, needs to move from DfID to either the Prime Minister’s Office or the Cabinet Office. There needs to be a proper cross-department, cross-government committee responsible for implementing the goals at home and abroad. That is also true in relation to our overseas development assistance because so much of that is now spent by other departments.

Secondly, we need a proper stakeholder body—there is a reference to this in the report—that brings together business, civic society and others in the UK to build a proper partnership inside the UK that can drive action on the goals over the next 11 years. Thirdly, we need to take the initiative in the UK; because of our role in global business and because of the key role that business can play in delivering these goals around the world and transforming people lives, there should be a specific initiative to try to establish more momentum in the UK in every sector, particularly in global businesses, to ensure that the way they treat their employees and customers, source products and invest around the world is in line with these goals. The UK Government could take a greater role in that. Fourthly, we need to establish some kind of independent mechanism for reporting to Parliament that would ensure that the responsibility beyond government is recognised and that we have a very honest and clear reporting mechanism that allows us to debate these goals on an annual basis.

The UK had a key role in leadership in advance of 2015. We need to recapture that role. We have an opportunity to do that this September. It is intolerable that in 2019 we live in a world where hundreds of millions of girls do not go to secondary school and lose out on all the opportunities in life that result from it. We know that there are countries around the world where people do not have basic rights and democratic choices. We know the craziness of the world today where there are more mobile phones than domestic toilets. This is an intolerable situation in 2019, one-fifth of the way into a new century. The UK could and should take a greater lead to step up action on the goals globally, not just within our own borders. We could do that, particularly on goal 16 on peace and justice and democratic institutions to which we direct a high level of our aid spending, but we have a role on the Security Council and elsewhere on conflict prevention and peace-building. We should do it more in relation to our overseas development assistance by linking it directly to the goals and insisting that there is a link between implementation of the goals nationally elsewhere in the world and our aid.

Finally, we need to ensure that through the UN Assembly in September there is an agreement for a big push in 2020, the 75th anniversary of the United Nations, to say that in the final 10 years of this programme of delivery on the goals we are really going to make a difference and leave no one behind.

Global Gender Equality

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Monday 17th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, when visiting areas affected by conflict over the years, whether in the southern Philippines, northern Nigeria, the DRC, the Central African Republic, Myanmar or many other places, two significant trends struck me as unavoidable. The first is that, increasingly, conflicts around the world are internal and based on identity. They have at their core a dispute between people of different identities, where historically one of which, at least, has faced discrimination, disadvantage and violence over the years. The second is that the people who come off worst in these conflicts, again and again, are the women and girls. You do not have to be there very long, visit very often or even visit more than once to recall the haunted look on the faces of women who have been attacked by combatants despite the fact that they themselves and their girls, and their boy children as well, have never been involved in that conflict.

That is why this debate is so important. I congratulate the Minister not only on securing the debate today but on the way in which she has embraced her new brief since taking over from her predecessor—who was certainly a hard act to follow, I am sure—and more particularly for what she said in opening the debate and the way in which she described our interventions, as a country, at the Women Deliver conference in Vancouver. If we are indeed to put power at the heart of our policy in this area, in any of the three areas she described—the individual power of women, through better education; the structural power, tackling the issues of violence and discrimination; or the power of movements to defend and expand rights—that is exactly the right place for us to be locating our international policy in this area, and I welcome that very much.

I also very much welcome the speech of the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, and strongly endorse the two proposals she made for the conference in November. It is absolutely right to say that we have to tackle the growing international culture of impunity and we need a structural way in which to do that—not just hoping for cultural change in the Security Council or anywhere else. She is absolutely right to call for increased funding for the survivors of sexual violence in conflict and the rebuilding of their lives.

I have just returned from northern Iraq—in fact I read about the Women Deliver conference when I was there. I was there at exactly the same time and in Duhok, Mosul and Irbil in northern Iraq I visited several internally displaced persons camps and refugee camps and spoke to a number of agencies and local officials. I was struck by two things yet again. The first was the crucial importance of education. Mosul is a historic city destroyed by Islamic State and the conflict that led to the liberation, we hope, of the city 18 months ago. Today there are nearly 2,000 schools open again in Mosul; children are studying in school holiday periods to catch up on the years of education that they lost under Islamic State rule in that city, and there is hope again in their hearts and minds. Yet only two hours away, in Irbil, there are thousands of children, both refugees from Syria and displaced children and families from Mosul and elsewhere, living in IDP camps and sharing one small school between 12,000 people. There are thousands of children working in shifts to try and get some education at some point during the week. In fact, I met a group of teenage girls who had not been in school for three years: they were not allowed to attend the school in the IDP camp because they had missed out and dropped back a couple of grades. We hope that they will be able to rectify that.

The issue of education is crucial. Seeing the hope on one hand of these schools reopening in Mosul and the despair of the children stuck for years in these camps in Irbil reinforced for me the importance not just of education for refugees but education for girls and indeed boys who have been internally displaced, of whom there are almost twice as many worldwide as there are refugees. My most telling visits were to the Yazidi families in the camps in Duhok. There are still 300,000 Yazidis displaced in Duhok. They are terrified to go home to their historic lands in Sinjar and their numbers are being added to regularly now with the survivors of kidnapping and sex slavery coming back to the families in the hope that they can at some point perhaps rebuild their lives.

I believe very strongly that we in the United Kingdom have a duty in Iraq, given our role there over the last 20 years and perhaps in the past as well, to step up to the plate and support these sufferers of not just internal displacement but in particular of sexual and other sorts of violence as they try to return home. Will the Minister say what level of support we are providing for education, psychological support and improved governance in Sinjar, in the hope that the women who were sold into repeated rapes and sexual slavery will at some point have the confidence to rebuild their lives and the ability to return home with their families?

I will draw out two points from the Iraqi experience in relation to women and girls worldwide. Education and the crucial issue of tackling the culture of impunity in relation to sexual violence in conflict are central. As Members of your Lordships’ House know, I believe very strongly that the global goals of the UN 2030 agenda for sustainable development provide a framework in which we can make a real difference over these years in development both globally and here at home.

Two goals stand out for me in particular as most likely to deliver the goal of gender equality—the goal on education and goal 16 on peace and justice. In every country where women face colossal discrimination, not just casual or structural discrimination but deep violence and discrimination through child marriage, sexual abuse and lack of rights, education, opportunity and individual freedom, education has to be one of the keys to changing that situation. Our investment in girls’ education over recent years has been substantial and very welcome, but I hope that, when the UK goes to the United Nations in July with our voluntary national review report on the global goals, we will not just reinforce that commitment to global education but go further and commit to supporting education for these internally displaced children. There are nearly 20 million of them worldwide; they are the responsibility of their national Governments rather than of the international community, but I believe that we have a humanitarian responsibility to them. If we genuinely believe in gender equality, we need to ensure that education gets to these girls, and to their brothers as well.

I also believe that we need to expand further the very welcome Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative and the other initiatives that successive Governments in the UK have undertaken to try to improve conflict prevention and reduce the impact of conflict globally. Under goal 16, we should be leading the charge for a major international initiative that pulls these different strands of work together and recognises that conflict today is based on identity and deep in the psychology of those involved, but also that it increasingly affects civilians, particularly women and girls, more than it affects combatants. We need to find a way in the review of the global goals that will take place at the United Nations in September to reinforce the commitment to goal 16 and also to lead an initiative that would put goal 16 at the heart of the work of the United Nations on its 75th anniversary next year.

There has never been a time in the cause of conflict prevention and dealing with those affected by violent conflict—apart from the world wars, which were of course particular occasions—when so many people in so many countries have been affected by this. The United Kingdom could take a lead here. There are so many countries around the world that would want to be involved in such an initiative, and so many places that need it.

I hope that we can lead an international charge as we go through not just the voluntary national review of our commitment to the global goals at the United Nations in July but the review of the goals themselves in September, and into the 75th anniversary of the United Nations next year. Conflict prevention—that is, preventing violence and sexual violence in conflict as well as all the other violence going on around the world today—could be the great challenge for the UN in the decades to come.

Sexual Violence in Conflict

Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg]

The noble Baroness is quite right to address the issue of stigma and the long-term effect that this terrible violence can have on women. Through our programmes at DfID, we are working with our multilateral partners and in our country programmes to address this issue. Recently, we have developed our What Works to Prevent Violence programme, which has shown real improvements in addressing the root causes of violence, and we will continue to expand our work in that area.

[Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale (Lab)]

My Lords, I have just returned from Dohuk in northern Iraq, where more than 300,000 Yazidis are still living in IDP camps, and where thousands of women and young boys have returned from kidnapping and slavery—which involved sexual violence. What action are the Government taking, not only to provide psychological support and other services for the individuals and families living in these camps but, much more importantly, with the Iraqi Government to ensure that someday the Yazidis can return home to Sinjar?

[Baroness Sugg]

My Lords, the Government are supportive of efforts in Iraq to strengthen justice and hold perpetrators to account, and to allow returns. We have contributed to the UN Trust Fund to End Violence against Women, which supports projects in Iraq that seek to address and reduce violence. We are also at the forefront of ensuring accountability for the well-documented crimes, and we champion the resolution at the UN Security Council. Indeed, we have a UK QC leading the investigating team in Iraq.