Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The competences of the Scottish Government and the reserved position of the UK Government are absolutely clear. I would say to the hon. Gentleman and the House that Scotland has an excellent advocate overseas—it is me.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

T7.   The humanitarian situation in Sudan is extremely serious and is spreading to affect neighbouring countries, as many thousands of people are fleeing Sudan. Many of those neighbouring countries themselves are very fragile. What are the UK Government and other international partners doing to support humanitarian efforts, not only in Sudan, but in neighbouring countries?

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right; the situation is simply appalling. The head of the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights is expecting to be in the region within the next day or so. The essential fact that is required is a ceasefire. Without a ceasefire, the consequences— particularly the humanitarian consequences—are unconscionable.

Sudan

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

These questions rest predominantly with the Home Office rather than the Foreign Office. I think that the shadow Foreign Secretary got an outstanding answer from the Foreign Secretary earlier. I should make it clear that the Prime Minister took the decision that the NHS doctors would indeed be brought to Britain. Five eligible Sudanese NHS personnel were evacuated from Port Sudan to Larnaca, and 14 came out with the Royal Air Force from Wadi Saeedna and one by United States vessel from Port Sudan—that is 20. The other two left under their own steam. On the specific issue that was raised with the Foreign Secretary, I think I am able to satisfy the right hon. Gentleman that he has had a very good answer.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I agree with my right hon. Friend that getting a ceasefire is vital. On behalf of the all-party parliamentary group on Sudan and South Sudan, I thank him for coming to the meeting last week—if any colleagues want to join the APPG, we would be grateful for their support. Thousands of people are already heading for the border. I met Save the Children, South Sudan last week. It is expecting hundreds of thousands of people to come into camps in eastern Chad and on the South Sudan-Sudan border. Can the UK work with the UN to encourage more humanitarian aid for those areas, which desperately need extra support?

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend is entirely correct and highly informed in what she says. In the last few moments, the meeting of the African Union has finished in Addis Ababa. The meeting called for a comprehensive ceasefire, underlined the extraordinary humanitarian jeopardy that Sudan is now in, called for a properly co-ordinated political process to be immediately resumed, and underlined the profound humanitarian consequences that exist in Sudan today.

Sudan

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments. The number of people who have replied to the Foreign Office’s request for information and registered themselves is of the order of 2,000. There is public speculation that there are about 4,000 British nationals and dual nationals—a person with a British passport is effectively in the same category.

I know the hon. Gentleman will expect me to say that lessons have, indeed, been learned from what happened in Afghanistan. The second “Dear colleague” letter, which I hope is in his inbox—if it is not, it will be shortly—sets out exactly how to get hold of the Foreign Office. We hope the word “shambles” will not be applied to our seamless work across Government to make sure we achieve the aims that are common on both sides of the House.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank everyone in the FCDO, the MOD and our armed forces. I have visited Khartoum and absolutely understand how difficult and dangerous any evacuation is and could be. The violent fighting was started by General Hemedti’s RSF, which is really worrying, especially considering its historical links with Wagner. I have met General Hemedti, and I will never forget the overwhelming sense of evil. The longer the violence continues, the more that people will face acute shortages of food and water, which could precipitate even more violence. Can my right hon. Friend tell us whether any food is getting into Khartoum?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my right hon. Friend for her comments. She knows Sudan extremely well, and the whole House will have heard what she says about General Hemedti. She is right to fasten on the fact that humanitarian relief is enormously needed but, because humanitarian workers have been attacked and five have been murdered, the whole issue of supply is extremely difficult and, as of now, very little food is getting into Khartoum. We are acutely aware of this, and it is yet another reason why we are pressing with our international and regional friends and partners, through the United Nations and its agencies, for an urgent ceasefire that holds—none of the ceasefires has yet held—so that the humanitarian issues, and all the other issues, can be addressed.

Sudan

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

As the chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Sudan and South Sudan, I join the Minister and others in my utter condemnation of the violence, which will make the situation of the 16 million people in the country in need of humanitarian assistance even more precarious. There is bound to be more migration and more innocent deaths. May I encourage him to continue to work with all regional and international partners to try to stop the violence and get humanitarian aid flowing? The APPG recently took evidence from Luis Ocampo, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, who indicted Bashir 14 years ago for genocide. The man has never gone to court and the prosecutor pointed out that, for so long as he stays out of court, other people will think they can get away with war crimes—other people locally and Putin himself. So, please, never give up and never let the international community give up on taking this man to court.

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend has wrestled with these issues recently in government, and I am grateful for what she said. We will continue to work together as she suggests. We will never give up. The point I made to the Chair of the Select Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), is true: we will never accept a culture of impunity. The ICC successfully indicted General Bashir. No one would have believed that he would go anywhere near the court, but today he is under house arrest. All those Bosnian leaders believed that they could flee and secure impunity, but in the end they were all subject to international justice. I give my right hon. Friend the Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford) an absolute undertaking that we will do everything we can, particularly in our role in the international community, to ensure that there is no impunity for the events taking place in Khartoum and across Sudan.

Russian Assets: Seizure

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I entirely agree. I was going to raise that point at the end of my speech, but never mind: this is a shared debate.

I fully back that proposal, which is one of the recommendations that we have to make so that the Government can jump ahead of this. Too often we have been slow and, in the six months that have elapsed, in some of those cases, people have shifted their money around into all sorts of areas. One particular individual—I was going to name him, but I will not do so now—has managed to buy flats through a Cyprus company. His name is not registered, but they own it and the money is lodged there. This sort of stuff is going on and we need to shut it down.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for raising such an important issue. Of course, the largest amount of Russian frozen assets are those of the Central Bank of the Russian Federation. Yesterday, the Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, my hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns), said that, if we do not have the right law in place to use those frozen Central Bank assets to pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction, we should change the law and test it in the courts. I agree with her; does my right hon. Friend?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

My right hon. Friend is jumping ahead of me, so I will allow that point to stand for a minute.

I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Rhondda (Sir Chris Bryant), whose ten-minute rule Bill was on exactly this subject. There was a lot of logic and sense in that Bill, and we should use it as a baseline for quite a lot of the stuff that needs to happen. As he pointed out when he made his speech on the Bill, in the last year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recorded 18,358 civilian casualties. He went on to say that 7,031 people had been killed, that 11,327 had been injured, including 177 girls and 221 young boys, that some 12 million people had left Ukraine and 7 million had been displaced internally. When I was there, I saw many people who had had to move to Lviv internally because their homes were no longer habitable, and they were living in terrible conditions.

[Vicky Ford]

Will my right hon. Friend give way?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I want to make a bit of progress, just in case my right hon. Friend is about to tell me what I have got here in my speech. Forgive me if I just get ahead of it, because everyone else will probably do the same.

Let us have look at the costs of the war, which are really what this is all about. Ukraine’s death toll is 60,000 and it is rising every day. The cost of reconstruction is now estimated to be between $750 billion and $1 trillion and rising, and these might be conservative estimates because the damage is still not fully accounted for. Since the beginning of the invasion, the UK has provided £2.3 billion in military assistance and another £220 million in humanitarian aid. The UK has frozen billions of pounds in Russian assets under sanctions following the invasion of Ukraine. The Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation has reported that £18 billion of assets owned by individuals and entities associated with the regime have been frozen since the beginning of the war, but some estimates suggest that more than £40 billion could yet be frozen and this is the point we want to get to.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

I agree with the right hon. Lady. If countries do this individually, it will allow terrible regimes to dodge their money around from one financial centre to another, as some will not have done it. This has to be done in one go by all the developed world’s major centres, otherwise it will end up with disputes and problems. I applaud Canada for starting, but we need the City of London, New York, Zurich and all the other major centres to be serious about making sure this cannot happen and these assets will always be seized.

I can tell the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwick-upon-Tweed (Anne-Marie Trevelyan), that we understand the underlying problem, but my point is that the issues are not insuperable.

[Vicky Ford]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent point, but I draw his attention to another source of funds. There are increasing stories that the Wagner Group may be using gold stolen from Sudan’s gold mines to fund part of its atrocious activities in Ukraine. The Wagner Group is obviously guilty of atrocities not only in Sudan but elsewhere in the Sahel and Africa. There are stories today that the Italian Defence Minister is directly linking the Wagner Group to the increase of small boat migrants in Europe. Does my right hon. Friend agree that, as well as taking action on Russian assets, we should urgently proscribe the Wagner Group as a terrorist organisation?

[Sir Iain Duncan Smith]

Yes, of course. It is a disgusting organisation led by a disgusting individual carrying out disgusting atrocities in Russia. It is also using slave labour in some of these mines. Of course the Wagner Group must be proscribed, as should the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other such organisations. We should be at the forefront of this, not lagging behind.

The Government’s general belief is that seizing these central bank reserves would violate Russia’s sovereign immunity and would therefore be a breach of international law. If we think about it, Putin has redefined international crime and is now hiding behind international law. It is time for us to come together to make the modifications. That is the key.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 14th March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I congratulate the school in the hon. Gentleman’s constituency on that public-spirited statement about the rights of women and the appalling violations that are taking place in Afghanistan. The Taliban are not a monolith in Afghanistan; there are parts of the country in which education is taking place at both a primary and a secondary level for girls. It is the job of the international community to try to persuade and argue with the Taliban Administration that what is happening in those areas should be extended across the whole country.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

With 129 million girls out of school across the world, may I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the FCDO on putting girls’ education at the heart of the women and girls strategy that was announced last week? The International Parliamentary Network for Education brings together parliamentarians from over 60 countries to promote the importance of education. Will my right hon. Friend encourage Members of this House to sign up to the network so that we can continue to work with others to ensure that no children are left behind? Mr Speaker, will you join?

[Mr Mitchell]

I am certain that if you sign up, Mr Speaker, most colleagues will follow your lead. My right hon. Friend has done a great job in this area herself. Between 2015 and 2020, the UK supported more than 8 million girls with getting into school, of whom 65% were living in fragile countries.

Turkey and Syria Earthquake

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 7th February 2023 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I would like to take this opportunity to commend the hon. Lady for her long-standing commitment to that part of the world and the refugees there. We have been a long-standing supporter of the White Helmets, as she will know, and we have given a financial uplift in direct response to this situation. We will look at the longer-term implications of the earthquakes as we assess what our international support will be in future. I cannot give her a hard commitment at this point, but we will look very seriously at the implications of this terrible situation.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

The situation is truly horrific, and it is good to know that the UK is contributing not just manpower but expertise. We know that, without further help, thousands more people will die. I see that an appeal was launched this morning by Oxfam, the British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Islamic Relief and ActionAid. Will my right hon. Friend join me in encouraging the British people to dig deep into their pockets, because every pound will make a difference?

[James Cleverly]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right about the long-standing tradition of generosity, and I have no doubt that the British people will provide a huge amount of philanthropic support to those affected. The UK Government have already made a commitment to fund direct support to people in the relief effort. Our teams of experts will be a force multiplier, working with state-of-the-art equipment and techniques and some of the best urban search and rescue teams in the world. We will have an ongoing assessment of what further needs Turkey and Syria have.

Oral Answers to Questions

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 31st January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Samantha Dixon (City of Chester) (Lab)]

14. What recent steps he has taken to provide humanitarian support for Ukraine.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

16. What assessment he has made of the impact of his Department’s humanitarian support for Ukraine.

[Aaron Bell (Newcastle-under-Lyme) (Con)]

21. What diplomatic steps his Department is taking to strengthen the international response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

--- Later in debate ---

[Vicky Ford]

It is vital that we continue to support the people of Ukraine. I would have liked to reiterate my call to proscribe the evil Wagner group, but I know the Foreign Secretary cannot answer that question. I therefore ask him for an update on what is being done to ensure that Russia pays for the damage it is causing, and specifically for his thoughts on the Canadian model that is targeting frozen assets of oligarchs. I encourage him to consider whether income generated by frozen Russian state assets could be deployed urgently.

[James Cleverly]

It is the most obvious tenet of natural justice that those individuals and entities who funded the brutality that is being directed at Ukraine and the Ukrainian people are ultimately those who should go on to carry the heaviest burden for the payment, and the cost of the reconstruction and rebuilding of that country. We work closely with our Canadian allies. I discussed this matter with the Canadian Prime Minister on my recent visit to Canada, and we will look closely and learn lessons from their activities on this issue.

--- Later in debate ---

[James Cleverly]

When will the right hon. Gentleman condemn Iran for providing weapons to the Houthis that have been used against both Saudi and the United Arab Emirates? We have been instrumental in facilitating talks, which have brought temporary periods of peace, and we will continue to work with the Yemeni Government and with the other countries in the region to bring about a sustainable peace in Yemen. That should be our aim, and that is what we will continue to do.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

In the horn of Africa, millions of people are facing starvation due to the worst drought in 40 years. We know that local non-governmental organisations can play a vital role in reaching the local groups of people affected, so what proportion of our £156 million of promised aid is going to people through local NGOs?

[Mr Mitchell]

We take an absolutely pragmatic approach to this and we use the best possible vehicle for getting the humanitarian aid through. I can tell my right hon. Friend that we will meet the target of £156 million that we budgeted for by the end of the financial year.

International Day of Education

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Thursday 26th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the International Day of Education.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Sharma. It is a huge honour to open this debate to recognise the importance of the International Day of Education, a day that is dedicated to raising the importance of education for all. As the UN Secretary-General said this week,

“education is a fundamental human right and the bedrock of societies”.

In my Chelmsford constituency, the vast majority of children and young people can access excellent education. In fact, in the Chelmsford district, 94% of our schools are graded good or outstanding by Ofsted. That is well above the England average, which is also high at 89%. Essex children outperform the national average in key areas such as early reading. Enriching out-of-school activities can also enhance educational attainment. During the school holidays, I am delighted that Chelmsford children from more disadvantaged backgrounds can also access enriching activities through the holiday activities and food programme, which I am deeply proud to have set up during my time as Children’s Minister.

However, during the pandemic, we saw so starkly in our country that when children cannot access school, their education suffers, as does their mental wellbeing. It is therefore good news that, on the whole, education for the children of Chelmsford and elsewhere across the country has now returned to what we consider normal, but that is not the case for so many children in other parts of the world. Currently, an estimated 222 million children are in need of urgent educational support across regions affected by emergencies and protracted crises. Some 78 million children are not in school or receiving any form of education. That figure of 222 million is an increase from 75 million in 2016.

The educational gulf is greatest in the world’s poorest countries. World Bank research from back in 2019 showed that pre-pandemic, 90% of children in low-income countries could not read proficiently. Education Cannot Wait’s report from last June reminds us that pre-covid, only 9% of crisis-affected early grade children achieved minimum proficiency in maths, and only 15% in reading, yet maths and reading are the vital building blocks on which all education is founded.

The covid pandemic further widened educational disparities, and girls are disproportionately affected. Nearly two thirds of the figure for global illiteracy is made up of women. The Malala Fund estimates that 130 million girls are out of school today. However, when girls are educated, it strengthens economies and creates jobs. World Bank research shows that, on average, women with secondary school education earn almost twice as much as those with no education at all.

Educated girls tend to be healthier citizens who raise healthier families. A girl who has been educated is much more likely to ensure that her children are vaccinated, she is less likely to marry young or contract HIV, and she is more likely to have healthy, educated children. Each additional year of school that a girl completes cuts infant mortality and child marriage rates. Furthermore, when girls are educated, communities are more stable and can recover faster from conflict.

Investing in girls’ education is good for our planet. The Brookings Institution calls secondary schooling for girls the most cost-effective and best investment against climate change. Research also suggests that girls’ education reduces a country’s vulnerability to natural disasters. Save the Children estimates that universal secondary education for girls could avert 50 million child marriages by 2030.

This year, on the International Day of Education, we have been thinking particularly of the 3 million girls in Afghanistan who were previously in education but are now out of school, because the Taliban will not allow girls to attend secondary school or university. The recent ban on female aid workers will mean that even more Afghan girls are denied their right to education, as the Taliban insist that girls can be taught only by female teachers. That will mean that yet more Afghan girls face forced marriages and poverty. I am therefore concerned to hear from Save the Children that the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is considering ending its “Supporting Afghanistan’s Basic Services” programme, which provides health, education, WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—and nutrition to around 300,000 people. We must not pull the rug out from under the women and girls of Afghanistan.

We know that in many developing countries, girls face extra barriers in accessing education. During my year as an FCDO Minister, I travelled to 15 African countries. So many girls told me at first hand about the challenges that they face: the fear of violence, including sexual violence, on long walks to school; the lack of water and sanitation, which can make it impossible for girls to attend school when they have their period; and the constraints on family finances, which so often mean that any money that can be scraped together for school fees is reserved for sons.

However, I also heard from these girls their determination to learn. I met girls who dreamt of becoming doctors, teachers and even pilots. I also saw the many projects that the UK has invested in to help girls to overcome these barriers. Girls told me about the mentoring project in Malawi, where young women who have completed their secondary education give advice to other girls and help them through their own school experience. I saw the joy on girls’ faces when I opened a clean water well and lavatories in Lesotho. I remember the seriousness of the young woman in Sierra Leone who explained how our project to reduce violence had completely changed the culture of her school, ensuring that girls could learn without fear. And the whole community—thousands of people—came together to celebrate the launch of the Shule Bora programme in Tanzania. That programme has a special emphasis on girls, children living with disabilities and those living in the most deprived areas. They came to celebrate because they knew what we know: when one focuses on helping the most marginalised girl to access education, every child is helped.

We should all be very proud of the UK’s track record in supporting education in developing countries, and especially, in supporting girls’ education. We have championed the campaign for 12 years of education for every girl. Each year, we host the Education World Forum, with delegates coming to London from across the world to discuss how to learn from one another and how to improve education standards in their countries.

During the pandemic, the UK co-hosted the Global Partnership for Education summit, raising $4 billion for education in some of the world’s poorest countries; our pledge was £430 million. During our leadership of the G7, the world’s richest countries committed to getting 40 million more girls into school and 20 million more girls reading by the age of 10, with all that to be done by 2026.

Girls who are not in school do not have a voice of their own, so it is vital that the UK continues to lead from the front on girls’ education and to use our voice for them. I urge the Minister to make sure that all FCDO Ministers—including the Minister with responsibility for development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell)—continue to champion that cause. We need to champion it at the World Bank development meetings this spring, at the meetings of the UN’s Commission on the Status of Women in New York in March and at other international fora. I also urge the Minister to work with other FCDO Ministers to publish, with urgency, the long-awaited FCDO women and girls strategy.

The UK is also a co-founding member of Education Cannot Wait. Its recent analysis indicates that 84% of out-of-school crisis-impacted children live in areas with protracted crises. The vast majority of those are in countries specifically targeted through ECW’s investments, including Afghanistan, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Mali, Nigeria, Pakistan, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Yemen. The war in Ukraine is pushing even more children out of school, with recent estimates—according to UNICEF’s report of 17 January—indicating that the conflict has impacted more than 5 million school-age children.

The FCDO tells me that ECW is already delivering quality education to over 7 million children across more than 30 crisis-affected countries. We will not reach the target that we have committed to of getting 40 million more girls into school without the work of ECW. All across the world, funding needs are growing due to conflict, climate change and the pandemic. Across UN-led humanitarian appeals, the education sector was funded at just 22% of what it needed in 2021—that is half what was achieved in 2018.

Next month, ECW will hold its high-level financing conference. If we are to help the 222 million children and young people to receive the education that they deserve—to unlock the potential of the world’s children —we must unlock the financial resources to make it happen. Governments, the private sector, philanthropic foundations and individual donors need to work together to find the resources. I know that our official development assistance budgets are tight—very tight—but UK leadership is key. If we step away from the promises that we have made to the children of the world, to the girls of the world, other donors may also step back and reduce or delay their investments.

Children across the world get just one chance at their education; they cannot wait. I therefore urge the Minister and the FCDO to dig deep into our pockets at the pledging conference next month and to make sure that Education Cannot Wait has the resources that it needs to deliver for our children.

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[Vicky Ford]

I would like to take a couple of minutes to thank all the Members who have taken part in today’s debate.

It is clear from the work that my hon. Friend the Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) did as a Minister, and the work that she has done as a Back Bencher to keep this issue on our agenda, how passionate she is. I thank her for reminding us that one of the reasons we do not talk about it enough is that we all agree about it. However, we must continue to highlight it.

In responding to my wonderful hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant)—who arrived overnight, not having had a night’s sleep, because she has been championing girls’ education on behalf of our Prime Minister—I want to get on the record all our congratulations for the announcement that we saw in the new year’s honours list. Often, people say that an OBE is about not only one’s own work, but the work of others—it is about a cause. But in this case she has been such a champion, for so many involved in the cause of making sure that all girls get 12 years’ quality education. I thank her for all she does; it was wonderful to see her name recognised.

The hon. Member for Harrow West (Gareth Thomas) made a really important point about languages. We often talk about the drop in European language learning, but he made an interesting point about the drop in other languages. If we want to make the world a smaller place and a better place, those languages are so important.

I thank the hon. Member for North Ayrshire and Arran (Patricia Gibson) not only for giving us a teacher’s perspective, but for using so much of her speaking time to focus on the situation for women and girls in Afghanistan. We absolutely need to make sure that women’s voices especially are heard on this issue. They do not have their own voice; we need to make sure that women’s voices are heard.

There is of course a special place in heaven for men who champion women’s issues, so I thank the co-chair, the hon. Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), for his passion for this work and for co-chairing the APPG, and indeed for mentioning the work of young people in this country through the Send My Friend to School campaign. Those intergenerational links, us to them—but also across the younger generation—are vital.

I thank the Minister for also reminding us of her passion, which she has had for many years. I like the phrase she used—the UK “is driving” international action, not “has driven”. We all want to make sure that we continue in the driving seat to press this forward, leverage those partnerships and work internationally. We all look forward with great hope to what the Minister of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), will promise and pledge at the summit next month.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the International Day of Education.

Afghanistan: Ban on Women Aid Workers

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Thursday 19th January 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman raises a number of important points. With regard to polio, Britain has been one of the leading nations, if not the leading nation, in trying to push for its eradication. I will shortly be seeing in Britain people involved in the voluntary sector on polio to drive forward what has been a pretty successful campaign in this respect. Equally, it is going backwards in Afghanistan, for reasons he will very much understand. In terms of the work we are doing to improve the position in Afghanistan, I should explain to him that something like 47% of aid agencies either partially or wholly have curtailed their activities. That underlines the dangers that he points out, which are made even worse by the point he makes about the cruel weather at this time of year.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I know that Members across the House will share my deep sadness at the awful story of the murder of the woman MP, Mursal Nabizada, just this week. I thank the UN deputy Secretary-General, Amina Mohammed, for her visit to Afghanistan. It is vital that women’s voices are heard on women’s issues, and I hope my right hon. Friend will have seen the letter signed by many senior women on the Government Benches to him last week. The majority of women in Afghanistan are only allowed to see women health visitors. Girls are only allowed to be taught by women teachers. If NGOs cannot employ women, women will not be able to see a doctor or midwife, girls will not be able to seek even a minimal education and they will end up in forced marriages and poverty. I urge my right hon. Friend not to reduce our own financial commitments, especially for this year, while all actors continue to negotiate for the operational space they need to support women.

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for her comments; she knows a great deal about this subject. I will pass on what she has said to Amina Mohammed when I hopefully see her on Monday. I have received the letter that my right hon. Friend and others signed, and we will be responding. In terms of our commitments, we have met the commitments this year that we have made, and we are seized of the importance of continuing to give the maximum amount of support we can, together with other countries and colleagues, for the reasons that she has given.