UK Ambassador to USA: Leaked Emails

Debate between Alan Duncan and William Cash

Monday 8th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

My right hon. Friend the Foreign Secretary was making a distinction between what is analytical reporting and what is said to be the view of the Government. In that sense, he was absolutely right to try to draw that distinction and he, I and everybody else have full confidence in Sir Kim Darroch.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

These toxic and unjustified attacks on the President of the United States and his Administration are completely—[Interruption.]

[Sir William Cash]

They are regarded by many people as completely unjustified. As Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee, I was more than well aware of Sir Kim’s own prejudices in relation to the EU. Surely it is not his so-called frankness that should be the issue, but his lack of judgment that disqualifies him from his post.

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I regret to have to say that I consider my hon. Friend’s intervention deeply unworthy. Sir Kim Darroch is a diplomat of calibre and of integrity. Nothing in his reporting from the embassy could ever be construed as an attack on the President of the United States. All of it was reporting of the highest quality, which we expect of our diplomats and diplomatic network.

International Development (Gender Equality) Bill

Debate between Alan Duncan and William Cash

Friday 17th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

I will come to that point, but I say to my hon. Friend that there is value in embedding in everything we do an understanding of the issue, so that there is never any excuse for relegating it to a lower priority than it should enjoy. To that end, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stone for putting in all the effort for this simple, nearly one-page Bill, to ensure that that is the case.

The UK is already helping to give millions of girls and women voice, choice and control, for instance by supporting girls to complete primary and secondary education, to have jobs, incomes and access to markets, to live lives free from violence, and to have universal sexual and reproductive health rights. By 2015 we are on target to have saved the lives of at least 50,000 women during pregnancy and childbirth, to have enabled 10 million more women to use modern methods of family planning, to have improved access to financial services for more than 18 million women, and to have helped 10 million women get access to justice through the courts, police, and legal assistance.

We are supporting efforts to end the disgusting practice of female genital mutilation worldwide through a new £35 million programme that aims to reduce the practice by 30% in at least 10 countries over the next five years. We are also determined to do more to end violence against women and girls. Last November, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State launched an international call to action on violence against women and girls in humanitarian emergencies—something that has already been mentioned. The result was Governments and aid agencies around the world signing up to a ground-breaking commitment to make the safety of girls and women a life-saving priority in our response to emergencies. That is exactly the kind of process now embedded in the Bill.

[Mr Cash]

The advisability and advantages of an Act of Parliament include the fact that it imposes a duty that is voluntarily accepted by the Government and the Secretary of State, and endorsed across the House. It also acts as an encouragement and opportunity for other legislatures to regard it as a benchmark, and a lot of the advantages of the Bill will be derived from that.

[Mr Duncan]

I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. So much of the power that the United Kingdom is able to exercise, through the Department for International Development, is the power of example. Where we lead, many others follow. For instance, where we have led in assessing multilateral organisations, or in a review of how to respond to a humanitarian emergency, others have followed. I share my hon. Friend’s confidence and wish to see other countries follow that process of priority setting and giving attention to women and girls, and that is exactly what the Bill is attempting to embed.

I am proud of all the world-leading work that DFID is doing on girls and women, but we cannot afford to take our eye off the ball. Although we have come a long way on gender equality, there is so much further to go. There are still too many girls and women whose potential is wasted, and it will not be easy to reach them. We are talking about some of the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world—in many cases, the unseen and the unheard. We must keep up the pressure, the resources and the visibility of our actions to achieve better outcomes for women. That is why we all think that the Bill is so important. It will give our commitment to addressing gender inequality in countries where we provide development assistance a statutory footing, and enshrine it in law. If passed, the Bill will mean that a Secretary of State for International Development must have regard to reducing gender inequality before making decisions to provide development assistance under the International Development Act 2002.

Such a duty will bite not simply in the act of providing development assistance, but in the work that takes place beforehand—for example, in the preparation of a business case by officials that informs the eventual approval decision of a Minister. In other words, right from the outset the Bill sets in train a proper approach to the priorities that need to be addressed. That is crucial because gender equality is not something that can be just tacked on to our development programmes and humanitarian assistance, and it cannot be an afterthought if we want to get to the root of the problem. In that respect, perhaps I can address the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), and reassure him confidently that as far as I can see no perverse consequences will ensue from the Bill. Indeed, to use modern jargon, it reinforces “best practice”—that is perhaps not a turn of phrase he uses, but he knows what we mean.

The Bill shapes ministerial leadership and does not in any way impede it. As we have heard, we already feel that there should be a keen focus on women and girls when taking humanitarian action, because as we know, women and girls are susceptible to rape used as a weapon of war, and that is the sort of humanitarian peril we try to address in our assistance.

The Bill will not introduce any significant costs. It is about ensuring that Ministers and officials fully take into account the interests of girls and women—as well as those of others—in administering the United Kingdom’s bilateral aid programmes. If the Bill is enacted, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will ensure that training and other measures are put in place in the Department to provide the necessary support for officials for the sort of actions and thinking that they need to adopt to implement the legislation.

Finally, this Bill comes at a timely moment. Many in this House will be aware that the deadline for the millennium development goals for tackling global poverty is fast approaching. The old ones expire in 2015, and a new set will be designed and implemented. In May 2013, the UN Secretary-General’s high-level panel reported back on recommendations for that post-2015 development agenda. The panel, co-chaired by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, alongside the Presidents of Indonesia and Liberia, put forward a bold and ambitious vision for ending extreme poverty by 2030. At the heart of their report was a clear and powerful message that to defeat poverty we must leave no one behind, regardless of gender, ethnicity, geography, race or disability.

It is important that this ambition is not watered down in the final set of goals, which will replace the MDGs in two years. As negotiations get under way, the UK will push for a standalone goal on gender, with ambitious targets to tackle critical issues, such as ending child marriage and securing equal rights for girls and women to open bank accounts and own property, as well as integrating gender throughout the goals. I believe that the Bill, if passed, will set an example and put the UK in a stronger place to exercise influence in other forums, including those of multilateral organisations where the UK has a voting presence and to which we contribute significant funds.

Where half the population is locked out, prevented from being productive and from pursuing opportunities, there is no sustainable path to development. We urgently need irreversible gains in protecting the rights of girls and women and an end to violence against them. Improving the lives of girls and women is already a top priority in every area of our international development work. The UK is helping millions more girls and women to have voice, choice and control, and we are working to drive social transformation and shift discriminatory practices such as early and forced marriage and female genital cutting. The Bill—perhaps known for ever hereafter as Bill’s Bill—is another important step forward, enshrining our commitment to gender equality in law, and Her Majesty’s Government are proud to support it.