Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit

Amanda Milling Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Asia (Amanda Milling)]

It is a real pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Bone. I start by congratulating my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) on securing the debate. I know that he tirelessly champions the cause of nutrition—that most basic human need—as chair of the APPG. From the discussion that we have had this afternoon, I know that Members of different parties welcome his commitment to this really important agenda. I thank all right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions to the debate.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), is responsible for global health policy. She would have been delighted to be present but, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale suggested, the ministerial team are in quite a few different places this week. My ministerial colleague is currently in the main Chamber for another debate, so it is my pleasure to respond on behalf of the Government. As I say, I am grateful to all Members for their contributions.

Six years ago the international community pledged to end malnutrition by 2030. However, despite progress in some areas, we face an ever greater challenge. Malnutrition is increasing, with huge consequences for people, the economy and society, and the pandemic and climate emergency have only made things worse. I hope that the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth summit next week will mark a renewed global effort to prevent malnutrition in all its forms, and the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is working closely with the Government of Japan to build the foundations for a successful summit.

The UK Government have made a commitment to end preventable deaths of mothers, newborns and children by 2030, and addressing malnutrition is fundamental to this endeavour. Malnutrition lies behind nearly half of all child deaths and one in five maternal deaths. Poor nutrition leaves millions of women and girls suffering from anaemia. Meanwhile, with 2.2 billion overweight people, it is fuelling obesity-related diseases and making people more vulnerable to covid-19.

The Government are determined to ensure that people around the world benefit from improved nutrition. Since 2015, we have supported more than 55 million women, children and girls in this regard. Through our special envoy on famine prevention and humanitarian affairs, we are tackling malnutrition in countries where conflict and covid-19 make our job harder. We will deliver on our financial commitments in the G7 famine compact by the end of the year, and we have announced new funding to address increasing needs.

In Ethiopia, the UK has provided £76 million in humanitarian assistance since the start of the conflict, including for work to support nutrition. In Afghanistan, we are doubling our humanitarian and development assistance, with £50 million committed for life-saving support since the Taliban takeover—again, that includes food assistance. However, this is not just about money. We will also scale up our action to anticipate and avert crises before they happen. That is why our humanitarian funding will do more to integrate food assistance with other support, including for nutrition, health, clean water, hygiene and sanitation. We will focus, as ever, on the most vulnerable, particularly women and girls.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale and other Members have called on the Government to make fresh commitments to Nutrition for Growth, including on spending. As Members are well aware, and as has been discussed, the seismic impact of the pandemic forced us to take the tough but necessary decision to reduce our official development assistance temporarily. However, the ODA budget is growing, and the Chancellor confirmed in the recent Budget that we are scheduled to return to spending 0.7% of GNI on official development assistance in 2024-25. We will continue to improve the nutrition of those who need it most, as we will set out in our approach paper on ending preventable deaths, which will be published on 14 December.

Meanwhile, we are working to ensure that our ongoing investments have the greatest possible impact. Our spending on women and girls’ health is designed to achieve World Health Organisation targets, including on reducing anaemia. We are also strengthening food systems so that nutritious diets become more affordable, accessible and sustainable in the face of climate change. We continue to invest in research and development, including in projects to increase the availability and affordability of nutritious vegetables in areas affected by changing weather patterns. We are also encouraging the private sector to produce more nutritious foods.

I want to pick up on the comments made by the hon. Member for Sunderland Central (Julie Elliott). I listened carefully to her update on the work of the all-party parliamentary group on human microbiome, for which I thank her. The nutrition-specific interventions we provide are developed based on rigorous evidence, and we will consider evidence on the microbiome, too.

A number of colleagues mentioned the policy marker. My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale and others have asked us to adopt the OECD Development Assistance Committee policy marker on nutrition across the FCDO portfolio at the programme design phase. I am delighted to be able to confirm that we are committed to doing that across the Department and are encouraging all our international partners to do likewise. We are in the final stages of agreeing our spending plans on nutrition, and I will share further details as soon as possible. I, or my ministerial colleagues, would be more than happy to write to my right hon. Friend with more information in due course.

I once again assure right hon. and hon. Members of our commitment to nutrition as we work to end the preventable deaths of mothers and children. We will continue to deliver on this commitment through to the Tokyo summit and beyond. In the light of the challenges we face, we must see a renewed global effort and we must all play our part.