Offensive Weapons Bill

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Report: 1st sitting: House of Lords
Tuesday 26th February 2019 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon (CB)]

My Lords, as I moved the original amendment in Committee, I will intervene first. I am grateful to the Government and the Minister for coming up with these amendments, which give me and the people I am interested in more than I asked for. That is a very good start. The wording is much clearer and more elegant than that of the amendment I tabled at the previous stage, which I described as “rather obscure”. The key phrase, which will be totally intelligible to anyone reading the Act is:

“References to a corrosive product … do not include a substance or product which is contained in a battery”.


I am grateful to the Government for coming up with that simple phrase.

I am also grateful to noble Lords who supported me in Committee and for all the lobbying which must have been going on outside Parliament. I support this amendment.

[The Duke of Montrose (Con)]

My Lords, I will probe whether the amendment fully does what the Government intend on one or two points, and look at the issues surrounding wet batteries. I declare an interest as a farmer with numerous occasions to use batteries, both in vehicles and outside them. When I first read the amendment I was surprised. Noble Lords will be aware that Schedule 1 says that sulphuric acid is permitted if it is under 15% concentration. Batteries are 32%, so they contain a very corrosive substance. I recognise the problem raised by the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, in Committee and with the Government, for those who sell batteries. The Bill mainly tries to deal with the remote ordering and delivery of weapons and corrosive substances. By their very nature, batteries are unlikely to be sold remotely—they are normally sold in a face-to-face meeting—but it is still worth looking at what the law requires to police that.

From what the Minister said a minute ago, the new phrasing means that Clause 1(1) will not be implemented for the sale of batteries. Does this mean that anybody under 18 will be able to buy a battery, or do the Government wish to prohibit those under 18 buying wet batteries? I can also see that, in everyday use, issues might arise with Clause 6(2). How would you get around someone using a car for social or, particularly, recreational purposes having to prove that they have a good reason or lawful authority for having a battery with them? With any luck, the Government’s wording will cover that.

There is a danger in the phrasing of the clause excepting sulphuric acid in a battery. Somebody might contend that they were allowed to extract the acid from the battery and carry it as a weapon. Would the Minister wish to address this at a later stage? Rather than saying,

“product which is contained in a battery”,

should the amendment say, “product while contained in a battery”? You could, admittedly, say that extracting the acid was a stupid thing to do, but you never know what interpretation people will put on these things.

Clause 6(1) refers to having a corrosive substance in a public place. The Bill does define what constitutes a public place: in Scotland, particularly, it is anything other than a private residence. My concern is, perhaps, slightly wide of the immediate issue but will this clause entail that ordinary garages or agricultural engineers, which usually have a site for monitoring and recharging batteries, will be required to install that in a secure room, so that no member of the public can access the liquid while visiting the premises and find themselves in possession of a corrosive substance in a public place?

Offensive Weapons Bill

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Committee: 1st sitting (Hansard): House of Lords
Monday 28th January 2019 Grand Committee

Moved by

[Viscount Craigavon]

8: Clause 1, page 2, line 23, leave out “to” and insert “and”
Member’s explanatory statement
This is a paving amendment for the amendment tabled at page 4, line 23. Together both amendments seek to exclude objects such as car and motorcycle batteries from the definition of a corrosive product in section 3 to allow for their continued delivery to residential premises.

[Viscount Craigavon (CB)]

My Lords, of the two amendments in this group, both in my name, the first is a paving amendment to Amendment 18, in Clause 3, which has the heading, “Delivery of corrosive products to residential premises etc”. Clause 3 would carry on the same definition of corrosive products, but my Amendment 18 would allow for an excepted class of product, of which an example is motorcycle and car batteries. The amendment is solely to deal with their delivery to residential premises.

While fully and obviously agreeing with this Bill providing sweeping protection from the misuse of corrosive products, I hope the Government will recognise that unintended consequences—on quite a scale—could occur in the particular case that I am setting out. I hope that the Minister will not want this Bill to disadvantage or even punish an important section of the population, when, by accepting this amendment, a perfectly safe resolution can be achieved.

The wording of my main amendment might appear to be rather obscure, but it is, with reason, copied from what is successfully used in the Poisons Act, as amended. The clue is in the wording: I have narrowed its scope and restricted it to just one of the nine substances listed in Schedule 1, sulfuric acid. It applies to objects containing sulfuric acid, which will usually, but not exclusively, be batteries.

In making my case here I will concentrate on car and motorcycle batteries, in particular the latter category, which would be most affected by an unamended Bill. We are talking mainly about the delivery to residential premises of such batteries. I declare my interest in this matter as a frequent motorcyclist and a member of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Motorcycling. The Motorcycle Industry Association has picked up the potential problem: the present extensive online sale of motorcycle batteries to individual customers at their residential address would simply be unable to continue were this Bill to pass unamended.

I use the example of motorcycle batteries but this would apply to car batteries and other such sulfuric acid battery users. However, motorcycle batteries are produced and designed in small sizes, to fit particular specialisations and models, unlike car batteries, which are fairly standard and interchangeable and some of which can be bought sealed with a lifetime guarantee. I know to my cost that motorcycle batteries, which are normally sealed, have to be frequently replaced in the normal course of things, and then by the exact shape and power of battery that each machine requires. They are much more prone to failure and the effects of the cold and normally have to be replaced every two or three years. I say all that to emphasise the need of motorcycle owners to obtain ordinary and specialist batteries on a regular and speedy basis, specified for their machines.

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Barran (Con)]

I am grateful to the noble Viscount, Lord Craigavon, for raising this important issue. Before joining your Lordships’ House, I was warned that I would be surrounded by world experts on almost every topic and this short debate has reinforced that view.

The noble Viscount’s amendment seeks to address the potential that the provisions in Clauses 1 to 4 will have unintended consequences for suppliers of car and motorcycle batteries and, as the noble Viscount pointed out, other batteries which contain acid, for example those used in mobility scooters. I agree that this is an important point. Noble Lords may be assured that, in the light of discussions we have had with the representatives of the industry, the Government are carefully considering the impact that the Bill may have on the sale and delivery of such batteries. We remain committed to preventing young people from getting hold of acid in a form that they can use in the sort of horrific attacks that we have seen. But I agree with my noble friend Lord Goschen that it is quite a different matter to prevent the sale or delivery of car batteries and the like to those who have a legitimate need for them.

I ask the noble Viscount to bear with us a little longer. The Government need a little more time to consider how best to meet the point without impacting on the purpose of the Bill. I fully expect that we will have completed this work ahead of Report when I hope we will be able to reach a satisfactory conclusion. Given this assurance, I ask the noble Viscount to withdraw his amendment to give the Government further time to consider this issue.

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, I am extremely grateful for the spirit of that reply and to all noble Lords who have spoken in support. There is a genuine problem, which I outlined. It is useful to know that the Government are discussing this and coming up with some sort of answer because it has to be dealt with. I think it can be dealt with. I deal with it also under Clause 3. The Minister mentioned Clauses 2 to 4. I hope this can be dealt with. I am grateful for her answer. I beg leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment 8 withdrawn.

Brexit: Least Developed Countries

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Thursday 16th November 2017 Grand Committee

[Viscount Craigavon (CB)]

My Lords, I am most grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandwich for raising this debate and focusing our minds on this aspect of international development. For what it is worth, and as a fellow strong Brexit supporter, I hope that I may congratulate Penny Mordaunt on becoming the new Secretary of State, and wish her well.

One positive result of Brexit will be that we, this country, will be forced to address more carefully the merits and advantages of how we spend taxpayers’ money, which in the past we left to the EU, rather than handing over large sums and leaving it to the EU largely to decide the best way in which to disburse it. In theory, in the longer term, that should lead to the need for more parliamentary debate and input on this subject. However, in contributing to this debate, I realise that the immediate bridging on departure from the EU will lead to some difficult consequences, particularly in trade, that need to be addressed. Obviously, we should continue to co-operate closely with EU countries on the ground but, at the end of the day, crucial decisions will be ours. As the noble Lord, Lord Jay, said, we can be more generous.

Usually, and rightly, underpinning debates such as this are the sustainable development goals—and I shall come back later to what I believe to be important about that, if I have time.

We should congratulate the department on already having announced, as other Lords have noted—that on leaving the EU it intends to continue the EBA—Everything But Arms—scheme that provides the least developed countries with duty-free market access. The announcement went further, without many details, to the effect that improved market access would be offered to the next tier of countries. We should also be grateful to the NGOs that have been prompting DfID in this direction. For many countries, their narrow range of products, such as sugar or coffee, would not be competitive in our market unless such preferences were given. We understand that there is also a commitment to trade in a way that protects human rights and the health and safety of workers. Existing agreements and preferences could be improved in negotiating the new arrangements. However, given the pressures we will now be under in other areas to safeguard our own general position and interests, we will need to rely on the relevant countries to come forward, with their allies in this country—the NGOs and businesses affected here.

I come to the subject of support—the word in the title of this debate—that is given by DfID other than through trade, in financial assistance. For example, in the Government’s paper, Foreign Policy, Defence and Development—a Future Partnership Paper, mention was made of the positive leadership of the UK in calling a family planning summit in London earlier this year, along with seven other EU member states, in the build-up to 2020. In her introductory speech at the summit the then Secretary of State said that the UK would boost its support for family planning around the world by 25%, and that that commitment would last until 2022. We have been trying to lead other EU countries in this field for some time and I hope that we may continue to do that.

After the worrying withdrawal of the American contribution in this field, we are now the lead donor to the United Nations Population Fund, and it is vital that this continues, along with the contributions of other EU countries. In the opinion of many, and as stated in the SDGs, successful reproductive health programmes are one of the keys to sustainable development. It is accepted that such investment in that field yields a benefit to that society many times over. The Sahel, which has been mentioned by two noble Lords, is a region that needs much encouragement in the area of reproductive health.

I hope that, even in the uncertain times to come, DfID will find it desirable to prioritise such investment in reproductive health. In this field, and in much of what we have heard today, many fine words and good intentions have been expressed. I hope that we and the department can live up to them and deliver what we all hope for.

International Development Policies

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon (CB)]

My Lords, I am grateful to the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich, for this debate, which has caused me to become particularly aware of the invaluable work of ICAI, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. I have also benefited in this specialised area, as others may have, from the considerable work done by the Commons International Development Committee, formerly most ably chaired by our newly introduced Peer today, the noble Lord, Lord Bruce of Bennachie. It would be too easy just to highlight and borrow from its few criticisms of the department but I should say first that I strongly support the work of DfID, and generally of international development, while being slightly concerned about the strains imposed on its systems in having to meet the 0.7% target.

The recent increases required to meet that target seem to have added enormously to the complexity and unmanageability of the department. I will come in a moment to the excellent work that it has done in the field of my particular interest, which is reproductive health and population. In general, I understand the downside of the overreliance on supporting multilateral organisations, especially when that leads to less support being given to smaller, more specialist suppliers, which are able to be more flexible, focused and adaptable. I support ICAI in a comment from its recent report that the department should be trying to achieve,

“positive, long-term, transformative change for poor people, who are the intended beneficiaries of UK aid”.

That leads to emphasising the longer-term aspect of aid, which will also produce sustainable results.

My particular interest in reproductive health and population is an example of just such longer-term and sustainable aims. The department has given strong support to the inclusion of sexual and reproductive health and rights—SRHR—throughout the 2015 negotiations on sustainable development goals. The two targets mentioning SRHR and services have been a major achievement for the persistence of the department. Given the UK’s global leadership and technical expertise in promoting and supporting SRHR, I hope DfID will continue to prioritise these critical and often marginalised subjects.

Improvement of health services generally in developing countries also needs support to those services. The International Development Committee’s assessment of the department’s performance in 2013-14 concludes:

“We are concerned by the reduction in spending in some areas vital to achieving key MDGs such as reproductive health and recommend that DFID significantly increase spending in this area”.

In a legacy report, it also recommends that work and spending in this important area be significantly increased, and urges its successor committee to press DfID on the issue.

The summary of the committee’s initial report states that,

“spending by DFID’s priority country teams has declined relatively, as has spending on programmes in sub-Saharan Africa and on key MDG targets such as reproductive health … We recommend that DFID increase the share of expenditure going to bilateral programmes, to sub-Saharan Africa and significantly increase spending on reproductive health”.

Mention of sub-Saharan Africa brings to mind the reports last year endorsed by the United Nations Population Fund, which stated that that part of the world is most likely to be the last to stabilise its population. Its growth is largely because birth rates in sub-Saharan Africa have not been decreasing as fast as expected. It is just that area where aid money is being reduced, and the concern is that aid allocation is increasingly being driven elsewhere by UK economic concerns at the expense of meeting the unmet need for reproductive services, as well as of delivering long-term poverty reduction and development. I hope that the department will continue to take the lead in highlighting this priority area.

Global Development Goals

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Thursday 11th December 2014 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon (CB)]

My Lords, in thanking the noble Lord, Lord McConnell of Glenscorrodale, for this opportunity to bring us up to date on the language and methodology of development goals, I wish to concentrate on what I believe to be one of the most important areas. That is the population factor, which in many parts of the world is the key element—but not the only contributor—affecting development. It is also a key to sustainability in the long term. I shall focus on two aspects of this. The first is the recent responsible prediction, endorsed by the United Nations Population Fund—UNFPA—that world population is not expected to level off this century, as previously expected, but will reach a much higher total before beginning to come down in the next century.

The other aspect I will highlight is the recent report by the Guttmacher Institute—again, together with the UNFPA—called Adding It Up, which deals with the costs and benefits of investing in sexual and reproductive health. I am hoping that in both of these areas, the final version of the development goals will be framed to emphasise the importance of these aspects.

On the first, I have always tried to avoid trading numbers in population matters. The concept of world population has limited use, as there are so many regional and local variables. A new prediction in a recent paper in Science, with UNFPA support, is that the present world population of 7.2 billion will increase to 9.6 billion in mid-century and to almost 11 billion by the end of the century. This is against the more conventional scenario until now that the figure would level off at around 9 billion in the mid-century and thereafter decrease. The use of talking in these terms is then to look at how and why the figures have changed. Not everyone would support the new hypothesis leading to that change. All these predictions are expressed in terms of the probability of their being right.

What has changed is that the remarkable rate of fertility decline in both Asia and Latin America has not been copied in Africa, and in particular in sub-Saharan Africa. In some African countries, decline has stopped. The ideal family size there seems to remain on average about 4.6 children, and the level of meeting the unmet need for contraception seems to have remained unimproved for the last 20 years. These are generalisations, but they include populous countries such as Nigeria. The figures are merely signposts to highlight where things are and are not changing, whatever the cause.

The same paper also deals with the related but opposite matter largely in developed countries, and that is the potential support ratio—roughly the number of workers per retiree. Where there have been fast declines in population numbers, support for the older members of a population is put under pressure. The most extreme projected case is Japan, where the proportion will be 1.5 workers for each retiree. Both fast declines and fast increases in population produce their own pressures, but in both rational human intervention is possible, if not simple.

As I have said, these new and possibly alarming figures have been disputed, partly on the grounds that background assumptions might not remain unchanged over the lengthy projected period. For example, education and even climate change might alter the outcomes. But it is accepted that, over time, the UNFPA population projections, which are updated every two years, have been broadly accurate. I mention all this, and the new increased projection, partly to remind us that the common supposition that the size of the population is somehow magically sorting itself out into a kind of natural equilibrium is almost certainly not the case. In sub-Saharan Africa in particular there is still a large, unmet need for modern contraceptive services.

That brings me to the recent Guttmacher Institute report, also supported by UNFPA, on the costs and benefits of reproductive services. The commonly accepted figure for unmet need is around 200 million women wanting to avoid pregnancy but not being able to access contraception. Here the figure is confirmed in some detail as around 225 million. That is apparently one-quarter of all such women of reproductive age and is the same for the whole range of reproductive services and related health benefits. The report quantifies the investment needed to provide proper health services and the savings that would be made by so doing. The situation varies widely region by region. Providing all women with the healthcare they need would be cost-effective. The general conclusion is that for every £1 invested in contraceptive services, £1.50 is saved in consequential outcomes.

Finally, I urge that the ultimate version of the new development goals should emphasise the need for greater investment in sexual and reproductive health services. These investments are cost-effective, save lives and are the cornerstone of sustainable development.

UN: Sustainable Development and Family Planning

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Monday 19th March 2012 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

My noble friend is right. Rural women and girls currently have limited access to all sorts of resources. Often it is difficult for them to participate in conferences like this, yet it is very important that they do. Ultimately, of course, it is for the Governments themselves to determine the make-up of their delegations. We can but encourage and make the points that my noble friend has made about the importance of this issue.

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, while accepting that education is extremely important in this area, does the Minister agree that there is already an expressed and unmet need of over 200 million couples for contraception and family planning? She mentioned in her Answer what we wanted to talk about at the summit, but is this subject actually on the agenda, or have we still got to get it on the agenda?

[Baroness Northover]

It is one of the issues that we are flagging up. The noble Viscount will know that DfID is hosting a large conference in July on this. It is part of the emphasis that we wish to make in development generally and, of course, it is extremely relevant to Rio.

International Development Policy

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Thursday 1st December 2011 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend Lord Sandwich for obtaining this Cross Bench day debate on this subject and allowing our noble friend Lord Singh to participate. Some of us are more familiar with him on the morning “Today” programme, when we are not entirely awake, hearing his few words of wisdom. Now I am fully awake, I realise that his words are even more wise. I believe we should be grateful to the present Government for the direction of progress by this department since the election. That obviously includes the funding commitments, even with the latest adjustments.

The structure of the millennium development goals allows us to make international comparisons, and I am aware that the Commonwealth representatives are currently discussing MDGs in a conference at Westminster. One of their concerns is the fast-approaching deadline of 2015, and what happens after that. In this large area, I would like to focus particularly on the importance of MDG5, and mainly on 5B, which is about achieving universal access to reproductive health by 2015. We should be grateful that the Minister, Andrew Mitchell, even in his shadow role before the election, appreciated the importance of this field of reproductive health; and we are very fortunate now to have as a spokesperson in this House, the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, whom we know—as the noble Lord, Lord Judd, said—is an expert in the whole field of international development as well reproductive health. I also welcome the noble Baroness, Lady Kinnock, to these debates from her Front Bench.

As I am sure the noble Baroness, Lady Northover, will confirm, we had good news on Tuesday from her Under-Secretary of State, Stephen O’Brien, at a family planning conference in Senegal, where DfID has committed £35 million of new money for contraception in an area of the world that is particularly able to benefit from it. It is helping to save thousands of women’s lives. He is quoted as saying:

“Family planning is a smart, simple and extremely cost effective investment of aid. It is at the centre of all our development work and we are going to ensure more women are given the choices they want and deserve”.

That statement is very encouraging, and I hope that it leads to further such initiatives, as well as informing the practice of the other parts of the department. That is a very good instance of one of the main concerns, which is meeting the unmet global need of an estimated 215 million women who want to avoid or delay pregnancy, but who have no access to any effective methods.

To return to the department as a whole, we have recently had the opportunity to read the financial management reports of the Auditor General, the Commons Public Accounts Committee following that, and the reports and recommendations of the Independent Commission for Aid Impact, which was initiated by the department. Parts of these examined such things as effectiveness, value for money, leakage through fraud or corruption, running costs, delivery chains and suchlike. This is not the place to follow up those considerations in detail, but it is useful to have an independent opinion on such things.

Even on a cursory reading, one realises the full complexity and problems of successful and effective delivery, especially into other less developed countries, of the services required. One of the issues raised, partly in the context of bilateral versus multilateral spending, was the rather unusual,

“pressure to spend increased resources”,

which was mentioned by the noble Earl, Lord Sandwich. When money might be available, but the skills, facilities and manpower to deliver bilateral aid programmes effectively are not there, it might be easier to support multilateral programmes instead, when effectiveness and value for money would be more difficult to assess.

The large proportion of money that is required to be donated through EU channels can also suffer from a lack of accountability. I understand that a new agreement is up for negotiation, and I hope that we can take the lead among our European partners in helping to frame new uses for that money, over which we can have more oversight. Maybe the noble Lord, Lord Hannay, who will follow me, will be able to add to that,

I mentioned MDG5 at the beginning. That is, by common consent, the most off-target of the MDGs and, given that the target year is 2015, the hope now is that these aims will continue to be pursued beyond that year. Some progress in that MDG has recently been reported. The recent figure of 500,000 maternal pregnancy-related deaths, has now been reduced to 360,000. According to the Guttmacher Institute, 30 per cent of such deaths can be reduced by the provision of good family planning.

Normally in addressing this subject I try to avoid what one might call the numbers game. However, recently we have had the rather stark reminder of the world population reaching 7 billion, with attendant future upward projections. That has resulted in journalistic and more learned diagnoses of how serious or otherwise that milestone is. As we invoke population numbers as a contributing factor to climate change, we must always be aware that our western environmental footprint is many times that of most of the developing world. For example, one figure is that our footprint is 20 times more damaging to the environment than an Indian’s. The Indian Health Minister said that the birth of the 7 billionth child was a great worry and told the Times of India that all celebrations should be put on hold until the population stabilises. As we know, that is some way off for India.

I am always astonished when people casually mention, quite commonly, the inevitability of wars being caused by the shortage of water. There are many other essential commodities in danger of becoming scarce, particularly with the increasing demand from countries such as China, which understandably want to raise their standard of living. Last weekend, the Times had an article with the headline:

“Standing between the world and starvation”.

It was about the increasing price of and demand for phosphorous fertiliser being produced in China and its inevitable exhaustion, which is, admittedly, some years away. However, that is the basis of what might be unsustainable agriculture in many parts of the world, which often includes GM crops.

I am afraid that it might be human nature to hope for some magic solution to all these problems—that is, until they are palpably upon us. It is similar, but even more so, with the population numbers. If there is any magic solution there, it is simply the offer of choice, mainly to women, rather than any talk of coercion, as there might have been in the past. This is part of the sustainability debate, and I hope that the department can take it as its task to lead us in anticipating such crisis situations in the future.

When earlier I said that I normally avoided talking about numbers in this field, it was partly because of my belief that, even more importantly, we should focus on the quality of life, rather than quantity. In marking the 7-billion milestone in debates in the UN in New York, the rather unfortunate phrase “the bottom billion” seemed to emerge. It refers to the poorest, who have little or no access to basic needs. While not wishing to give currency to that phrase, maybe we should be as concerned about them as we are about the increasing numbers. It is encouraging that the department now seems to be targeting a reduced number of poorer states, as well as identifying fragile states for special attention.

I referred earlier to people expecting magic solutions to save us from ourselves. Sometimes that takes the form of comforting myths as to why we need not address population growth seriously. As a member of the All-Party Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health, I hope I may recommend a recent publication, which was co-authored by one of its vice-chairs, Richard Ottaway MP, who is also chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee in the House of Commons. It is a highly readable and attractive publication, called Sex, Ideology, Religion: 10 Myths about World Population Growth. This was published about a month ago and will shortly be available online on the group’s website, which is on the All-Party Group’s list. It deals more concisely and eloquently than I can now with why we should continue to take population growth seriously. I am sure that the department will continue to do that, along with its many other responsibilities, which we have heard about today.

International Development

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Monday 11th July 2011 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[Viscount Craigavon]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what priority they are giving in international development to population issues and to reproductive health and rights.

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the UN estimates that the world’s population will pass 7 billion this October. Most of the growth will be in high-fertility developing countries. Meeting the need for family planning and maternal and new-born health services would help avert 390,000 maternal deaths and over 50 million unintended pregnancies. The Government are playing a leading role and will enable at least 10 million more women to use modern methods of family planning by 2015.

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, I am grateful for that positive Answer from the noble Baroness. Does she accept that it is very important to address the unmet need of more than 200 million couples who would like to be able to use contraceptive methods but do not have them available? Does she agree that funds invested in this field provide a return many times over, not only financially but also, more importantly, in terms of human well-being?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the noble Viscount is right. If we fail to respond to the unmet need for family planning, the consequences of rapid population growth will impact on us all. Reducing unplanned births and family size would save on public sector spending on health, water and social services and reduce pressure on scarce natural resources. Reducing unintended pregnancies particularly among adolescents in developing countries would improve their educational and employment opportunities. This would contribute to improving the status of women, increasing family savings, reducing poverty and inspiring economic growth.

Population Growth

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Monday 13th December 2010 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, I should like to be positive, but not complacent, on the potential of this subject of world population. I am led to do so by the remarkable conversion of this Government, and in particular the person of the Minister, Mr Andrew Mitchell, to the fundamental importance of the matter that we are today discussing. I realise that this occurred well before the current coalition took office, but the addition of the Liberal Democrats should add impetus on this subject.

As the noble Baroness, Lady Verma, will no doubt tell us, DfID will shortly be coming up with the results of a major review of departmental priorities. It is hoped that that could be the occasion to consolidate the importance of reproductive health in DfID programmes. It could also be the occasion to enlarge and properly define the scope of bilateral family planning projects.

I also hope that, following the lead of DfID, it might also be the occasion for many British and international NGOs and charities at last to recognise that family planning and the size of population is a relevant and cost-effective consideration. As a departmental Minister, Mr Stephen O’Brien, said to us on World Population Day in July,

“We must start to close the unmet need for modern contraceptives—and DfID is ready to do more in this area—the coalition Government has made a positive start”.

To add to the above, it is also the case that the European Commission has produced a Green Paper consulting on its overseas development aid and asking for responses next year. It is subtitled “The future of EU budget response to third countries”. Again, for those of us who have been critical of how some of that aid is used, that could be a useful starting point for serious reform. It is also to be hoped that DfID could use its influence with our EU colleagues to raise the profile and effectiveness of reproductive health in helping to meet MDGs.

I shall come down to some of the detail that I have just outlined. I believe that our country has recently had a good record on reproductive health and related MDGs in terms of our contributions. However, because of the way that we define what we do, particularly bilaterally, we do not necessarily come out well in comparative statistics. I hope that as part of our re-emphasis on this field, we can be more transparent in accounting for and defining what we give.

For some time now, the considerable resources understandably devoted to HIV/AIDS prevention have tended to be at the expense of family planning. Sometimes that is the reason that the two endeavours overlap in their aims, but the importance of autonomous support for family planning must not be forgotten.

There is a tendency in the European Commission Green Paper on development aid, which is now out to consultation, to avoid using particular words, as was mentioned earlier. Reading that document, one begins to realise that there must be horsetrading among so many nations to get any agreement on priorities on such diverse subjects. In this case, focusing on MDGs provides some sort of common, binding aim, but there is reluctance seriously to consider or talk about one aspect of recorded MDGs. That is the contribution that reproductive health can make to many other related MDGs. I hope that we can all grasp the opportunities that will present themselves in the coming year.

Millennium Development Goals

Viscount Craigavon Excerpts

Thursday 7th October 2010 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Craigavon]

My Lords, in my limited time, I shall focus mainly on MDG 5 and, in particular on 5.B, which aims to,

“achieve universal access to reproductive health”,

by 2015. This may be the most off-track of all the MDGs, as well as having the biggest beneficial multiplying effect on other MDGs. These benefits are also won through being connected with maternal health. The noble Lord, Lord Chidgey, said that this is the area of least progress and used the phrase “missed by a mile”. The reason that the MDG I am referring to is called 5.B is that it was a very welcome additional afterthought, some years after the original 2000 framing of the MDGs. Hence there was a slow start in including reproductive health for the essential factor it is.

We should be grateful to the Government and, in particular, to the Minister, Andrew Mitchell, who have, in the recent past, realised the importance of this crucial aspect of development. In particular, they are prepared to use plain and straightforward language in encouraging these ends. That significant change of emphasis by the Conservatives was achieved well before the advent of the coalition, but I am sure it has the full and enlightened support of the Liberal Democrats. In this case, as we heard, the noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, is very much on message. We are looking forward to seeing how the Government will put their words and intentions into practice.

One particular and important aspect of this is the statistical increase in the proportion of young people in the overall population in less-developed countries who could benefit from help in this field. In many countries, it makes strong sense to target them at an early stage as an investment to avoid multiple later problems, and that is the direction and focus of many agencies now. It is only by investing in the reproductive and sexual needs of this massive cohort of young people that we can hope to begin to achieve MDG 5.

Some of us have been agitating about a considerable setback since the Cairo conference in meeting the scale of contraceptive availability promised there. That has fallen woefully short. In this context we rightly talk about unmet need for contraception. It is estimated that more than 200 million women in less developed countries have such an unmet need.

In a recent article in the Times, Matthew Parris had an excellent summary of this population dilemma, but at the end he partly implied that we were defeated by not wanting to confront and tell people what to do. That was a distant yesterday. For the past few years, particularly since the Cairo conference, if we can meet it and respond to it, there is very much a demand and an unmet need for reproductive health, particularly from women, without the need of resorting to any forceful methods.

In talking like this we should not and do not forget the disproportionate damage to the environment and to sustainability caused by the developed world, but that was not the main focus of MDGs. To use one of the current criteria, I believe that the department and the Minister fully realise the value for money of even small investments in this field and the disproportionate effect it has on other MDGs.

In addressing this subject and having read the Minister’s speech at his party conference on Tuesday, where he was talking about creating a private sector division in his department, the area to which I have been referring, reproductive health, would seem to be one of the ideal candidates for such treatment. Referring to that same speech, which very much touched on previous departmental profligacy, I hope that the Minister will view the uses or abuses of the huge percentage of overseas aid which we are currently obliged to channel via the EU.