Oral Answers to Questions

Alison McGovern Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My right hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. We have committed £42.5 million now to support refugees in the region; there are estimates that their number might rise to more than 700,000 by the end of the year, and 1.5 million are at risk of food insecurity. It is crucial that we make sure we have the humanitarian assistance in place to support these people.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

The first problem with DFID’s inaction on corruption highlighted by last week’s report from the Independent Commission for Aid Impact is that the watchdog tells us that DFID’s objectives are

“not focused on the poor”.

The commission’s recommendations demand that DFID establish a new unit specifically to drive out this curse. Will the Secretary of State do so—yes or no?

[Justine Greening]

DFID does a huge amount of work tackling corruption. The One campaign said:

“The UK has a strong reputation for getting its own house in order on anti-corruption”,

so we do not need to take lectures from the Labour party. I can assure the hon. Lady that our strategy is also about tackling corruption upstream. Work that we have done in Nigeria, for example, with anti-corruption agencies has helped recover £1.5 billion and supported more than 2,500 corruption cases being brought.