Women, Peace and Security Bill [HL]

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 28th October 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, it is a privilege to speak in this debate, with so much evident expertise and experience on display. The noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, was right: it would have been wonderful if more colleagues had taken part, but sometimes I prefer a smaller group of experts to a wider group.

The noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and I took our seats at exactly the same time on the same day, and nine years on it is a pleasure to see that, as she said, she is still being outspoken. I commend her work in this area, as others have done, and on bringing forward the Bill and the way in which she introduced it. As my noble friend Lady Smith indicated, this is probably the easiest Bill that the Government could ever accept. I hope that the speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, might not necessarily be long: simply saying yes would suffice today.

When I came to the Chamber, it dawned on me that this week we have been debating Northern Ireland at length, we have had a debate on Iran, we have had Questions on political violence in Africa, and yesterday we discussed the atrocities of Idi Amin in Uganda 50 years ago. Every day this week I have taken part in proceedings where women have been at the leading edge of seeking and securing peace but have also been the victims. Our Iran debate, for women in a leadership role, and for young women in particular, has been both inspiring and, as a man and a political person, humbling. The Bill is so important to entrench and enshrine some of the structures in place to ensure that we prevent any further falling back—which, as the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, has indicated, regrettably we have started to see—in the involvement of women in peacemaking.

At this stage I will declare my interests. I chair the UK board of the world’s largest peacebuilding charity, Search for Common Ground. I had the privilege of chairing a panel, in which I was the only male, at a freedom of religion and belief conference, in the parallel process that the Minister was responsible for in July, bringing together women from Israel and Palestine, from east Africa and from Asia, all discussing this vital topic. I have carried out and continued to do work on supporting and mentoring in partnership training for women MPs and community groups in Sudan, Iraq and Lebanon, all areas where there are additional barriers of confessional political systems that have then often entrenched some of the discriminations and barriers that have prevented women from participating.

Today we are primarily discussing what the Government can do with the structures that are in place. I am on record as asking the Government what their approach is to talks whenever the UK is involved or sponsors or funds them, and whether they should have a policy of empty-chairing any discussions when there are no women involved. Regrettably, there have been too many of these occasions and Governments need to call that out. Similarly, the noble Baroness was right to highlight the gap between the preparation of the NAP and its publication. I read the report, and I commend the officials who put some of the work together, particularly some of the analysis on the indicator tables. I felt that those tables in the NAP report were most powerful in some of the key areas.

If the Minister can also respond specifically to the work of the steering board and how the Government will be taking forward the specific proposals within it, I would be grateful, especially in the context now of a degree of uncertainty, as my noble friend Lady Smith highlighted, about the precise role of a Minister for Development. Are they a policy-making minister or an administrative one? Who, within all these agendas and the implementation of all the international obligations listed in the Bill, are the Ministers who will be responsible for driving them through? At a time of cuts, as my noble friend Lady Northover indicated, having this driven by Ministers from the centre is important.

It is not to disagree with the Bill but our Benches support—we would like this be the basis upon which we can build in future—as our colleagues have put forward in the Canadian Liberal Government, a fully feminist development policy which includes security, peacebuilding and diplomacy so that the gender element is at the core of each of the three strands. It can be done, and it can be done extremely creatively. In Pakistan —a country that the Minister knows well on a ministerial level, having been there fairly recently—the work of Women, Peace and Security and Humanitarian Action in the national security policy is to be commended. The Government of Pakistan recognise gender security as the core element of their national security programme. This is an innovation but it is very helpful, because it includes law enforcement, the justice sector and peacebuilding. We could do more for the UK in its development-making policy.

Strategy is one thing and good intention is most certainly another, but the UK needs the tools to deliver on these. The unlawful reduction from 0.7% to 0.5% has dealt a blow not only to the ability to honour commitments that the UK Government have made but to how we underpin our international obligations.

We have called for an equality impact assessment to be published—the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg, called repeatedly for it to be published. The Government failed to do so but we were grateful to the International Development Committee, which used parliamentary privilege to publish the equality impact assessment of the Government’s development cuts. Using parliamentary privilege to do this surely cannot be right, when around the world we are highlighting areas where transparency and accountability is good practice.

The impact assessment is a shocking read:

“The proposed scale of reductions to specific gender interventions, including Violence Against Women and Girls … and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights … will impact girls’ education and wider efforts to advance gender equality. This includes likely reductions of 75% for VAWG … 70% for SRHR”


and 80% for advancing gender equality and education. It goes on to say:

“FCDO has been the biggest bilateral supporter of social protection programmes in over 30 countries. Of 23 draft country plans reviewed, 16 proposed reductions and 3 proposed closures.”

In over half the countries, of which we are the leading country, we have cut, and in three we have closed entirely. What message does that send for global leadership in this agenda? It sends a horrific message. The Minister will be aware, as has been asked for before, that we are awaiting the full implementation of the FCDO strategic vision for gender equality. Can he say what the status of that is and what the tools are for implementation?

This is a short debate. Like all noble Lords, I have much more to say, but I will limit myself to this final point. We have had a good record in the past, and many countries have followed us. Regrettably, we are on a different trajectory. However, if the Government put into legislation this excellent Bill from the noble Baroness, Lady Hodgson, and use it as the basis of further work and provide the funding to implement it, we will regain our global leadership position; the noble Baroness will have been the guarantor of that. I commend her and the Bill.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

On the issue of funding, could the Minister address the point raised by the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg? Does the former Foreign Secretary’s commitment to reverse all cuts to women and children’s programmes, returning them to the pre-cut level, still stand?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, certainly from my perspective, that is very much a government commitment that was given. Of course, we have a new Prime Minister, but the same Foreign Secretary. It is a strange question to be answering while we are still in the last throes of a ministerial reshuffle, but our commitment to women and girls remains focused, particular and prioritised. Indeed, I was delighted that our former Prime Minister and former Foreign Secretary committed to these issues. The commitment, for example, to the immediate issue on the horizon—the PSVI conference and our support for that—indicates the direction of travel. I will of course update your Lordships’ House on anything more specific. On the PSVI issue, I also put on record the Government’s thanks to Her Royal Highness the Countess of Wessex for her engagement and involvement in continuing to throw a spotlight on these important issues.

I listened very carefully to the valuable and insightful comments to this debate. The Government are committed to the WPS agenda. As my noble friend acknowledged in introducing the Bill, there are some reservations about specific proposals before us. The Government have strong existing and forthcoming WPS policies: the integrated review, which was referred to; the international development strategy; the women and girls strategy; Human Security in Defence; and the WPS national action plan. All these underline not just our commitment but the progress we have made. I know how strongly your Lordships support these policies, as was clear from the debate. It is critical that, within the frameworks in which we work, we retain the freedom of agile policy-making—that is where some of the limitations of the Bill have been highlighted to me.

On a positive note, I have been listening and there are aspects of the Bill we can commit to. Let me give a couple of examples of what we are doing, drawn directly from the Bill. The measures proposed in the Bill seek to increase women’s participation in peace processes. The UK’s ambition is to support meaningful participation and secure positive peace process outcomes for women and girls, with more women being pivotal in decision-making. We have seen the power of this approach. The noble Baroness, Lady Coussins, talked about Latin America. We have seen real progress in Colombia, where civil society, including women’s groups, ensured that there were real and specific gender considerations in how the peace agreement was reached. But that is only half the job, and we need to ensure a continuing focus. I welcome insight on specifics from all noble Lords on how they feel we can further strengthen our work in this area.

The Bill aspires for the UK to take gender into account when formulating foreign policy. In this regard, the gender equality duty in the International Development Act 2002 requires the Government to have regard to gender inequality before providing development assistance. On what will happen next, the new women and girls strategy will pick up on some of the specific provisions that my noble friend highlighted on this very point in her presentation of the Bill.

Before I hand back to my noble friend, I again thank all noble Lords. I share the points that have been made. Importantly, the Government have done specific work on this agenda, and I feel very strongly that the House and all parties are at one in their perspectives on how to pursue the agenda. Of course, there are different speeds at which we may travel at times.

The issue of annual reporting came up. What I can commit to—PSVI is within my portfolio—is that we should have an annual report. We have looked at WMSs, but I can certainly work through the usual channels to see how we can facilitate a specific debate annually. I do not think there is disagreement on this: it will further enhance the progress we can make. I am sure the usual channels can work together on how it can be presented.

Although I lead on the PSVI agenda, I think it is totally sensible to present a report that demonstrates the work that has been done over the last 12 months. Certainly, when it comes to our duties, although not a legislative requirement, how we report to your Lordships’ House and to Parliament as a whole on the WPS agenda and progress on NAPs could be much more contextualised and structured. I will take those aspects back to see how best we can work them through.