Oral Answers to Questions

Amber Rudd Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

If the case for an independent Scotland is “Make us more like Iceland”, I am not sure that will totally commend itself to the voters. Britain and Iceland have very good relations, and I will make sure that remains the case.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

I, too, welcome the fall in youth unemployment, particularly in Hastings and Rye, where youth unemployment has fallen steadily for the past nine months and is at its lowest since May 2010. May I urge the Prime Minister to continue this Government’s investment in apprenticeships and the Youth Contract so that that can continue?

[The Prime Minister]

I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s point. We will continue not only with the apprenticeships, which have reached over 1 million under this Government, but with the Youth Contract, and particularly work experience, because what we are seeing is that a large number of people who do work experience find a job and come off benefits and find that it is a very good start to a working career. That is what we want to see.

Oral Answers to Questions

Amber Rudd Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

We make it an absolute priority to ensure that British taxpayers’ money goes as far as it possibly can, and that we secure 100p of delivery on the ground for every pound that we spend. We continue to ensure that we deliver clean water and sanitation at the lowest possible price.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

3. What recent assessment he has made of the humanitarian situation in the Sahel.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Stephen O'Brien)]

The situation is extremely grave. Eighteen million people across the Sahel are at risk of food shortages, and 8 million of them are now in need of immediate assistance. The British people, through the UK Government, have responded swiftly to the crisis, providing aid for over 400,000 people who have been caught up in this disaster.

[Amber Rudd]

The United Kingdom has been admirable in its support for the region, but with 18 million people vulnerable to the impact of the crisis, which is due to peak in about six weeks’ time, and with further delays to the donor conference, what can the UK Government do now to invest in the region and help those people?

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard what the Foreign Secretary has been doing at the United Nations. On humanitarian support, I can tell the hon. Gentleman that we are supporting the United Nations, its Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs and a number of international non-governmental organisations on dealing with the consequences both outside Syria—on the borders and in the surrounding countries—and internally, within that country.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

T8. In the context of the NATO summit and the planned withdrawal from Afghanistan, what assessment has the Secretary of State made of the provision for women’s rights after our departure?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is entirely right to focus on the role of women in Afghanistan. On my recent visit to Afghanistan, I launched a new civil society fund that will directly address her point. Additionally, the fact that the international community has helped to secure places for 6 million children in school in Afghanistan in recent years will have a transformational effect on the role of women in Afghanistan.

Food Security and Famine Prevention (Africa)

Amber Rudd Excerpts

Thursday 15th September 2011 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House welcomes the contribution of the British public, via the Disasters Emergency Committee, and the British Government to the famine relief effort in the Horn of Africa; recognises that emergency food relief must always be the last resort and that improving the productivity and resilience of domestic agricultural systems in Africa must be a priority for the UK and the international donor community; and calls upon the Government to increase its focus on improving awareness around nutrition and agriculture in the developing world to support farmers and secure greater international food resilience and to champion the welfare of those in the developing world in the discussions on food price volatility at the upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes.

The motion was tabled by me and the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander) and is supported by 30 other Members—it is truly a cross-party motion supported by Members from throughout the United Kingdom. I believe that that reflects the seriousness of the subject matter and the settled desire of the House to have the opportunity to debate it.

One might think that things had improved in the horn of Africa if one only followed the media, but unfortunately they have not. The food crisis has, I am afraid, got much worse. Last week, the UN announced that a sixth region of Somalia has entered the famine. There are now 750,000 people at risk and an estimated $2.5 billion is required to prevent that starvation escalating, but there is currently a $950 million shortfall without even estimating the needs beyond December 2011.

Despite such uncertainties, the UK has led the international response. Despite the many economic difficulties we all have at home, the UK Government have led and I believe that they should be commended for that. They have done what they set out to do and have not tried to balance the books on the backs of the poorest, and they have contributed £188 million. The UK public’s generosity through individual gifts reflects their support for the Government in this generosity. By the end of last week, they had given £57 million, which is greater than the amounts given by the Governments of France, Germany, Italy, Russia and Switzerland put together. The UK Government have a responsibility, however, both to the general public, who have given so much, and to the citizens of the horn of Africa, who have so little, to ensure that that money really delivers.

Famines are political. We all know that the immediate response to a famine must be food, aid and shelter, but we should also look hard at what else can be done earlier on. It is not the lack of food but the fact that some people cannot get access to the food that causes the famine. The main cause of food security in Africa is war and conflict. Famine is about so much more than food: it is about a famine of education, democracy, health, transport and so many other items. The food famine becomes a symptom of that vast failure. The last famine in Europe was the Irish potato famine, which was a failure of politics as much as a failure of the agriculture that season.

I believe that we in this House should encourage and support the efforts towards conflict prevention through the Foreign Office, the Department for International Development and any Government Department, and we can work with the organisations that are already settled in such societies to try to do that. I am aware that external interventions in fragile states are fraught with risk. We know that they can make things worse, but we must nevertheless be bold and try always to support good governance so that we can try to promote the emergence of civil society.

As the Nobel prize winner Professor Amartya Sen famously noted, there are no famines in democracies that have a free press. We can and should help support organisations that help with building a free society—that is the true version of early prevention of a famine. We also must not lose sight of the help we can give towards building agricultural resilience to famine. Agriculture is the lifeblood of the national economies of the horn of Africa. In 2009, 50% of the gross domestic product of Ethiopia came from agriculture, and the equivalent figure was 22% in Kenya and 60% in Somalia. The majority of the labour force in those countries work in rural areas and 80% are smallholders working less than 2 hectares. When we consider that the Palace of Westminster covers 3 hectares, we can begin to get a feeling of what a small area they have to work in and how precarious their living is. We should try to focus our support on the organisations working with those small farmers and micro-scale producers who can produce a much greater yield than the large monoculture farms. Seven out of 10 of the world’s hungry are members of those small rural households.

The UK public, generous as they have been, expect results from UK aid. I welcome once more the huge international effort, of which the UK has been so supportive, to provide immediate famine relief, which is saving lives day by day, but we must also focus on long-term agricultural resilience, helping communities to improve their yield. If we do that—if we can help them build up their own incomes—we also help them towards building up their own civil societies. A community who have a surplus can invest in their own education and in their own health service, so we have the twin benefit of helping with the production of agriculture and helping communities create their own incomes, thereby building, from the bottom up, the civil society that can then provide the stability of a democracy that is less likely to go into famine.

We all know that this is complex. When we talk about famine, people start listing, as I have, its many different elements. We must not let the complexity of the subject put us off. We must continue putting our efforts into prevention. We must try to work with the famine as it is at the moment, but above all we must try to make sure that it does not happen again by supporting people so that their own civil society can emerge.

--- Later in debate ---

[Amber Rudd]

With the leave of the House, Madam Deputy Speaker, I will wind up the debate. It is a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart). It is always interesting to hear from him about his passionate support for the people of Africa and about what his wife has been doing to support them.

I thank the Secretary of State and the Under-Secretary for attending and thank their opposite numbers for kindly coming here as well. The common theme of the debate has been that we need to do all we can to help the people of the horn of Africa. All Members have taken the time to congratulate the UK public on their contribution and express wholehearted support for the Government’s efforts, only stopping to try to redirect those efforts and introduce their own examples or themes regarding things they think can really make a difference.

I should like to repeat a couple of the points that have been made and ask the Under-Secretary to respond to them in due course. Sadly, he will not speak on this occasion, but I am sure that he will come back to us individually. First, I will comment on food price volatility and commodity trading. The hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern) said she was not sure whether that is a matter of concern although it has been suggested that it is. It would be helpful to those of us who are concerned about food security to achieve a settled view, if that is possible, on whether it is something that we should be concentrating on. If it is, we absolutely need to address it, but if not, we do not want it to distract us from all our other efforts. Time and money are limited and we need to know where to focus them. It has also been interesting to hear so many Members speak strongly about the importance of focusing aid towards women, who support their homes and families, and I emphasise that point to the Under-Secretary.

The complexity of the causes of the famine has not put the House off; instead, each Member has dealt with them with in their own way, drawing on their own experience to do so. The House should be proud of the fact that Members have put in such effort, resulting in a very good debate. The most important message to emerge is the urgency of improving agricultural resilience in these countries. If we can help people to grow their own food and feed themselves, we will help them to mitigate the difficulties that cause the famine we are now witnessing.

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allowing us to have this debate and congratulate everybody on their speeches. I have very much enjoyed hearing so many Members speak so strongly and passionately about other people and countries that they care about. It is good for the House that we have done that. I commend the motion to the House.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House welcomes the contribution of the British public, via the Disasters Emergency Committee, and the British Government to the famine relief effort in the Horn of Africa; recognises that emergency food relief must always be the last resort and that improving the productivity and resilience of domestic agricultural systems in Africa must be a priority for the UK and the international donor community; and calls upon the Government to increase its focus on improving awareness around nutrition and agriculture in the developing world to support farmers and secure greater international food resilience and to champion the welfare of those in the developing world in the discussions on food price volatility at the upcoming G20 Summit in Cannes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Amber Rudd Excerpts

Wednesday 13th July 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady is right that the floods had a devastating effect in Pakistan as I have seen for myself on my frequent visits there. Britain was at the forefront of the countries coming to support Pakistan when the floods struck and we have been very strongly engaged, not least in helping people to continue their livelihoods and in getting children back into school in the aftermath of, and recovery from, those floods.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

T8. In Afghanistan the depreciation of the afghani has sent the price of basic staples soaring by 7% in just one week. Has my right hon. Friend had conversations with the Afghanistan Government about how to improve food security, with the winter approaching?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right that across the world, not just in Afghanistan, the price of food, particularly staples, has rocketed in recent months and years. Britain is specifically engaged in Afghanistan in trying to help secure the wheat harvest and ensuring that farmers have wheat seeds to plant. We focus on this area keenly for precisely the reasons that she has set out.

UN Women

Amber Rudd Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Margaret Curran), with her powerful advocacy for the women of the middle east and her description of the very difficult lives that they are living out there.

I welcome UN Women’s ambitious and wide-ranging plans for women. Talking about the differences and similarities between men and women can be tricky, but does it counter the strong, rational argument for equality to raise the clear differences that exist? For instance, if we say that women are more likely to fight for peace, do we make it less likely that they will be taken seriously in a military scenario? Can we discuss differences without falling into the trap of stereotyping men and women into caricatures of themselves—the pink team and the blue team? It might be tricky, but it is dishonest to ignore the clear differences between men and women—the positive differences that create better outcomes.

There have been several references this week to the report from Lord Davies on women in the boardroom. I should like to draw the House’s attention to a report that came out this week from the City law firm Eversheds, which carried out a study of 234 listed companies. It showed that corporate governance issues had absolutely no effect on the share price, except in one area. The fact that there were more women on the board of a company had a positive influence on the share price. Let us hope that fund managers will pick up this important news and perhaps make it obligatory for the businesses they invest in to take on this particular aspect of corporate governance.

I am not here to raise the issue of equality on my own behalf or for women like me, as I recognise that I have had many privileges, but the issue is vital for less developed countries. As my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) pointed out, it is perhaps our duty, particularly on international women’s day, to raise this issue for other women. It is because of the differences and the vital but different contributions women can make that we need to fight for their opportunities and influence those outcomes when we can.

[Andrea Leadsom (South Northamptonshire) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the fact that so many women in needy countries are taking out micro-finance loans to provide for their children shows how the role of women is absolutely essential to feeding so many children in less developed parts of the world?

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for her contribution; in fact, I am about to talk about a similar situation. As she implies, the difference women can make to managing their families in the developed world can create an opportunity for non-governmental organisations and perhaps UN Women to focus on women as providers in their own communities.

The human rights case for equality is, I believe, glaringly simple. Girls and women should not be disadvantaged because of their gender, and where that is the case, we need to remove the barriers in their lives. We know what a lot of those barriers are: they are to do with education, health, and taking action against violence, and the UN Women initiative will focus on those. I feel sure that few would disagree with that.

[Naomi Long]

As a former civil engineer, one of my passions is the delivery of clean water and sanitation, which is also a gendered issue. Does the hon. Lady agree that if we are to liberate women from the long haul of bringing water to their families, which inhibits their ability to access education and other health services, it is important to deliver clean water to their communities, giving them some free time to spend on other issues?

[Amber Rudd]

I wholly endorse what the hon. Lady says: clean water is indeed essential for communities and we should work with women to bring it about.

I believe that the differences I mentioned can be seen at two ends of the society—first, in small communities through women’s commitment to their families; and secondly, in government through women gaining significant representation. I do not underestimate the commitment of men to their families; it is just that they often show it in a different way. Let me illustrate that with the example of the Barefoot college at Rajasthan in India.

As some colleagues may know, the Barefoot college is a non-governmental organisation founded in 1972. It is a solar-powered school that teaches illiterate women from impoverished villages to become, among other professions, solar engineers. The college takes women from the poorest villages and teaches them the necessary professional skills without requiring them to read or write. For the past five years, it has focused on women who have come over from Africa in order to take the skills back to their native countries.

The point about focusing on women is that, as this NGO’s experience shows, they go home again and take their skills to their families and communities. The Barefoot college chooses to train for this particular solar energy course only women aged 35 to 60 who will want to keep the skills and the benefits in their community. I am afraid that the college describes the men as “untrainable”! The women, it says, are less likely to use the training as a means to move into a city or build up skills to take away from home. A certificate is not required at the end of it. The founders deliberately focus on women to make sure that the skills go home with the trainee.

The college trains women to build, install, maintain and repair solar electrification systems for off-grid electrification. Training takes six months. Once the course is completed, the equipment, along with the women who built it, is sent back to the villages where it is used to electrify the houses and schools. After five years of solar training since 2006, 97 villages in Africa have been electrified by their own trained women—a fantastic result. This initiative provides women with employment, confidence and purpose and it deliberately focuses on women as the natural supporters of their families.

[Tony Baldry]

I do not know about untrainable men, but my hon. Friend is making a really important point—that countries that fail to invest in the education of girls and women are denying themselves 50%, or half, of their own natural resource. It seems to me crazy that countries such as Afghanistan are not willing to invest more in women’s education. It is just self-defeating for the country as a nation.

[Amber Rudd]

I thank my hon. Friend for that contribution and I thoroughly agree with him. A similar point was made by our colleague, the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson), who argued that this is not a trivial issue to be put at the bottom of the list, but one that should be at the top for the benefit of the whole of society, for the economy and, above all perhaps, for peace.

Trained, empowered women—illiterate or not—are more likely to have the confidence to raise their voices, and getting more women to participate in government is essential. Women such as those I have described at the Barefoot college will have the confidence to make an important contribution and perhaps get into local politics and eventually, we hope, national politics. There are many routes to getting more women involved in the business of government—education, mentoring, and, yes, even quotas—but it is essential to remove the barriers that stop their involvement.

Women may have some different priorities, views and interests from men. As we know, women are more than half the population and they need to be represented in Governments internationally. I welcome the UN Women initiative to promote that. It is essential to achieve it not just for equality as a human rights issue, but to get the best outcomes for everyone and particularly for women. In some countries, if women are not included in the conversation, they can be ignored or worse. As one east African woman politician succinctly put it to me: “We worked out early on that if you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.”

--- Later in debate ---

[Lorely Burt (Solihull) (LD)]

It is an honour to participate in this debate today. I cannot think of a time in this Chamber when I have heard a higher number of excellent contributions from both sides of the House. My short speech will concentrate on the UK, and it will be somewhat lighter than some of the serious and sometimes harrowing contributions that we have heard.

I shall start with an anecdote. When I was very young—this was shortly after the Equal Pay Act 1970 had been introduced; it is that long ago—I was elected as a student governor at Dudley technical college, where I was doing my A-levels. I remember to this day the first time I piped up on an issue, only to be told by an elderly matriarch, “That’s it, my dear! Throw your brassiere over the windmill!” In my political life, I have been told to do some very strange things, some of which would have been physically impossible, but that one sticks in my mind. At least I got the point that speaking up is a very good thing for a girl to do.

In the 40 years that I have been conscious of equality issues, however, I have been deeply disappointed at how short a distance we have come. I strongly support the main motion today, as well as the excellent amendment tabled by the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) and other colleagues. She made a fantastic case for the creation of an equalities audit committee. Unless we audit these issues and measure how well we are doing, we will always be fobbed off with a long line of patronising excuses for why we cannot do certain things. After 100 years, we are still so far away from achieving equality, and we really need that extra strength. I hope that the Government will seriously consider the possibility of introducing such a committee.

Colleagues have talked about many topics today but, in the short time available, I should like to concentrate on women in the workplace in Britain. Work is key to dignity, self-worth and independence, in whatever country we are talking about—or at least, it should be. Too often, women are undervalued, patronised and, occasionally, worse. We sometimes reach positions of influence, however. A Conservative colleague told me a joke the other day that just about sums up our situation. Let us picture a cartoon of a boardroom. The board members sitting round the table are all men, with the exception of one woman. The chairman says, “Yes, that is an excellent suggestion, Miss Carruthers. Now, would one of the men like to propose it?”

Lord Davies recently published his excellent report, “Women on boards”, but he stopped short of recommending quotas for boards. He said:

“Many other people told us that quotas would not be their preferred option”.

Well, of course they would not! Those people are locked into a syndrome of appointing “people like us”—not only white middle class men, but white middle class men who went to the same school and probably belong to the same club.

[Amber Rudd]

Does the hon. Lady agree that it is also important to make the point to companies that it is in their own interest, as well as that of the women, to appoint women to their boards? It has recently been proved that the share price of a company is much more likely to go up when there are women on the board.

[Lorely Burt]

The hon. Lady makes an excellent point. In fact, I was about to say that, if only those people would take a look, they would see a wealth of talent that is not like them, but that has different, fresh perspectives and can bring wealth to the business because it can see different angles and opportunities. The gauntlet has nevertheless been thrown down for those companies, and Britain’s 100 biggest companies have five years to double the proportion of women on their boards from the current average level of one in eight to one in four—or else they will face mandatory quotas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mary Macleod]

I agree. Much more needs to be done.

I welcome the launch of UN Women and the comments of Ban Ki-Moon, the leader of the United Nations, who said:

“UN Women is a recognition of a simple truth: equality for women and girls is… a basic human right… a social and economic imperative.”

As we have already heard today, schemes to empower women have led to very positive results in developing countries. MicroLoan Foundation, a charity in Chiswick in my constituency, has demonstrated that working on a micro scale often delivers significant benefits. The foundation provides small loans for women in rural parts of Africa to enable them to set up their own self-sustaining businesses. Those who receive the loans—about 20,000 women so far—are treated as business people rather than recipients of charity. They are expected to pay the money back when their businesses are up and running, and an amazing 99% do pay it back. The money is then lent to a new group of women, and a virtuous circle of investment is thus created.

Education is another key part of empowerment, and we still have much to do internationally in that regard. In sub-Saharan Africa, north Africa and south and west Asia, women do not have easy access to education beyond primary level, as was mentioned by my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry). It is therefore incredibly important for us to continue our education work.

Closer to home, much remains to be done to achieve the goal of empowering women, first by putting women on company boards. With the celebration of international women’s day this week and the publication of the Lord Davies report last month, much has been said recently about the need for more women at senior levels in UK companies. The evidence is now clear: companies that have more women at senior levels perform better, with stronger stock market growth, higher returns on sales, capital invested and equity, improved decision making and better corporate governance. Yet only 7.8% of the directors of FTSE 250 companies are women, and more than half of those companies have no women at all on the board. I welcome the publication of the Lord Davies report, and his call for our largest companies to aim for a 25% minimum proportion of women board members. However, I also want to challenge the chief executives of the FTSE 250 companies to include diversity in the performance objectives of senior executives, so that they are measured on that and remunerated accordingly.

[Amber Rudd]

Is my hon. Friend aware that an organisation called the 30% Club has been set up in the City by a number of chief executives, in order for them to work together to achieve higher representation of women on their boards?

[Mary Macleod]

Yes, that is an excellent initiative. There is another scheme under which the chairmen and chief executives of various boards mentor the next level of senior women in the City, which is working extremely well.

The second area I want to address is women’s entrepreneurship. Again, there is a lot we need to do. The Federation of Small Businesses published a report suggesting that women in the UK could make a much more significant contribution to the economy. Currently, women constitute only 29% of the self-employed population in the UK, despite making up 46% of the active working economy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Amber Rudd Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Given that my right hon. Friend is implementing the policy, that is not his view. We all take the view that the RDAs wasted a vast amount of money. Many of them were not popular with the businesses in their area, and the local enterprise partnerships will do a much better job. I suggest to the hon. Lady that instead of complaining about it, she works with her local authorities to get a good local enterprise partnership in her area to start backing business, jobs and economic revival.

[Amber Rudd (Hastings and Rye) (Con)]

On a day when employment is at the top of people’s minds, could I ask the Prime Minister to join me in congratulating the Saga Group on its wise decision to move into Hastings, which has very high public sector employment, with up to 800 new jobs for the town?

[The Prime Minister]

I am very happy to join my hon. Friend in congratulating Saga and the very good work that it does. I am sure that in choosing Hastings it has made an excellent decision. There is good news in today’s unemployment figures, and we should celebrate that. There is a lot more to do to get this economic recovery under way, but it would help if we did not have so many people determined to talk down the performance of the British economy.