Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that important point. We all have to recognise that the purpose of that attack—and, indeed, the attack in Christchurch—was to stir up hatred between people of different faiths. That is why it is important for all leaders, both political and religious, to promote a message of tolerance. I thank the hon. Gentleman for doing that, but he is absolutely right to say that the Sri Lankan authorities need to do it as well.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

2. What recent diplomatic steps he has taken to help to pursue a resolution to the division of Cyprus.

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

I had a productive meeting with the United Nations Cyprus consultant Jane Holl Lute on 8 January this year, and my officials are in regular contact with her. I welcome the meeting of the two Cypriot leaders on 26 February, and we are supporting those efforts. In March, the Prime Minister met the Cypriot President, and the Foreign Secretary met Cypriot Foreign Minister Christodoulides to discuss how the UK can further support any future settlement.

[Bambos Charalambous]

Will the Minister join me in condemning the decision of the Turkish Government to begin drilling for oil and gas in the territorial waters of Cyprus, which not only jeopardises the chances of a successful resumption of the peace talks but risks a return to open conflict? Will he call on Turkey to immediately withdraw its drill ships from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Yesterday, I met the Turkish ambassador and had very constructive discussions with him. The position of the UK is that, in line with the UN convention on the law of the sea, exploratory drilling should not proceed in any area where sovereignty is under dispute.

Turkey: Treatment of Kurds

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Westminster Hall

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the treatment of Kurds in Turkey.

Thank you, Mr Howarth, for allowing me to speak on this matter. As a vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Kurds in Turkey, I wanted to secure this debate to highlight what I believe is a worsening situation for Kurds in Turkey.

On 31 March, my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous), for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) and for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and I were meant to travel to Turkey to meet Leyla Güven and observe the local elections taking place in Turkey. Unfortunately, the Government announced extra sitting days due to Brexit—something that I suspect even the Government could not help at that time—and we had to cancel the trip. However, my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate and I did travel down to Newport to meet Imam Sis. Imam is a brave Kurdish activist from Newport who, 114 days ago, embarked on an indefinite hunger strike. Two weeks ago, when we met him, the hunger strike was taking its toll, but although his body was giving way, his determination in the cause of Kurdish freedom was not.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

As my hon. Friend said, I visited Imam Sis in Newport with him, and what struck me most was Imam’s plea for the world not to look on in silence at the human rights abuses against the Kurds in Turkey. Deciding to go on an indefinite hunger strike for one’s political cause is one of the hardest decisions and most drastic peaceful political actions that one can take, so does my hon. Friend agree that this Parliament and this Government must not stay silent about human rights abuses against Kurds while British citizens are risking their lives for the Kurdish political cause?

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

I totally agree that we must speak up, and I hope that we will get good responses from the Front Bench later.

Forced Live Organ Extraction

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

The hon. Gentleman and I are often in debates together—sometimes I intervene on him, or he intervenes on me, and it is pleasing to hear his comments. He reinforced the point made by the hon. Member for Burton (Andrew Griffiths).

The investigation by David Kilgour is far from our only source of evidence. There are testimonies from prisoners, confessions from Chinese medical professionals, and impossibly short waiting list times for transplants—I could go on and on. Some of that evidence was supplied by the China tribunal, which is chaired by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC. The focus is on the allegations, and on what evidence has been submitted, investigated and documented. For example, there are discrepancies in explaining the source of the organs for the claimed number of transplants, which suggests an undisclosed source. Wider concerns link religious persecution and mass imprisonment with the threat of live organ extraction in China. That includes the Falun Gong, Christians, and the Uyghur Muslims. Case studies from the China tribunal give examples of Chinese prisoners facing torture, or undergoing forced DNA, blood and organ scanning tests. There is also the Chinese law relating to forced organ removal from executed prisoners, which led to an international response from Governments and subsequent legislation. All those things are mentioned in the inquiry by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, and they clearly underline the issues.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Falun Gong have been particularly targeted by this awful practice, and that it should stop immediately as it is an abuse of human rights?

[Jim Shannon]

I agree, and I thank the hon. Gentleman for attending this morning. I know he is attending a Select Committee later, but he contributed early to this debate, which I appreciate.

All that evidence has been reviewed by many different organisations across the world including parliamentary bodies, or Parliaments themselves, in Italy, Spain, Canada, Israel, Taiwan, Ireland, the Czech Republic and the United States, as well as non-parliamentary bodies such as the UK Conservative Party Human Rights Commission— the hon. Member for Congleton is involved with that—and the China tribunal. I am here because of my interest in human rights, and because I wish, as we all do, to stand up for people across the world who are being persecuted because of their faith, or because they have no faith.

It would be much easier politically—and it would make it easier to sleep at night—to remain sceptical in the face of the evidence and be reluctant to accept it, and to push for absolute certainty before reaching any definitive conclusions, yet despite that natural inclination, all those bodies, on examining the evidence, could not help but arrive at the view that forced organ extraction is taking place in China. Indeed, the ongoing China tribunal, which is being led by Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, went as far as saying, in an interim judgment, that

“the tribunal members, are all certain, unanimously, beyond reasonable doubt, that in China forced organ harvesting from prisoners of conscience has been practised for a substantial period of time, involving a very substantial number of victims...by state organised or approved organisations or individuals”.

The evidence must be remarkably convincing to have drawn such a strong statement from an esteemed body of impartial investigators. Indeed, it is so convincing that several countries have passed or introduced legislation to make travelling to China for organ transplants illegal.

I carry an organ donation card. We have a different system in Northern Ireland. I am glad that legislation is coming through for change here at Westminster. I totally support that and I would be pleased to know that my organs might save a life if I were to pass. That would be good. However, where else in the world other than China is it possible to get an organ almost on demand?

The UK still claims that, because the World Health Organisation has declared China’s transplant system ethical, all the evidence can be ignored. How has the WHO arrived at such a different conclusion? Has it assessed all the same evidence? If not, why? If it has, why has it not produced an explanation of why the evidence is unsatisfactory? What investigations has it carried out? Has it been to military and prison hospitals in China? Has it asked to go to them? Has it been free to examine those hospitals independently, or were its representatives taken on show tours by Chinese authorities? My principal request of the Minister today is that he formally write to the WHO and ask it to assess all the evidence and, if it deems that it is not accurate and does not reflect the situation, to produce a report to demonstrate clearly why that is so. Surely that would not be too burdensome for the WHO if it has already collected the evidence to show that there is nothing suspicious about China’s transplant system.

It is worth noting that there will be further public hearings of the China tribunal on 6 and 7 April. The tribunal has issued a public call for evidence and is open to receiving further evidence on China’s past and present transplant practices from Chinese officials, as well as from organisations such as the Transplantation Society, the Declaration of Istanbul Custodian Group and the WHO. I thank the Minister for sending FCO officials to attend the previous hearings. It shows commitment. I ask him to encourage the WHO to participate in the process. The truth is that we all sincerely, desperately hope that the allegations against the Chinese Government are false. If they are, is it not in everyone’s interest for China and the WHO quickly to demonstrate that they are false so that we can all focus on other pressing issues?

That brings to me one of my key points. The allegations have been around for years. If there is no truth to them, have not the Chinese Government had ample time to prove that they are false? They have not done so. Would it not be a simple thing for them just to open their doors and allow the world in to investigate? They have not done that. The WHO itself has said it has concerns about the transparency of China’s transplant system. What reason could there be for secrecy about the programme if it is clearly and demonstrably operating in line with international standards? Surely if the WHO has evaluated the system, it is a simple matter to point to the evidence that shows that there are no problems. Perhaps there is a perfectly genuine, straightforward reason why it is possible to get a kidney in two weeks in Beijing, as opposed to two years in the United Kingdom. Surely that in itself tells a story. Does it not raise a question in people’s minds? Perhaps not, but we should honestly ask how it is possible. It seems that China has an organ transplant system that is the envy of the entire world. What possible reason could there be for hiding it?

Moreover, should not the Chinese Government want to stop the allegations? If the UK were for years to be incorrectly accused of killing religious minority groups to provide the rest of the population with organs, and if countries the world over were passing legislation against us, we would be doing everything in our power to present the evidence showing that the allegations were false, yet for some reason China has been utterly unable or unwilling to do so.

Why should that be? One might argue that China would not want to dignify the rumours with a response because they are so ludicrous. That might be the logic. However, the Chinese Government have already admitted to taking organs from executed prisoners without their consent in the past. There is an evidential basis, and it is hardly as if the allegations are so beyond the realm of possibility that they are not worth responding to, yet the Chinese Government continue to claim that their transplant system is ethical, while maintaining its shroud of secrecy, and the UK Government continue to accept the claim at face value despite all evidence to the contrary. I refer the Minister again to the evidence available through the forum of the inquiry led by Sir Geoffrey Nice.

What we are talking about in this debate is organ harvesting—crimes against humanity, and a regime that is responsible for the greatest mass incarceration of a religious group since the Nazis in the second world war, as the hon. Member for Burton said in his intervention. I am afraid that simply to accept the Chinese Government’s flimsy narrative because it is convenient is a total and utter abdication of our responsibility to all those who have suffered at the hands of tyrannical regimes. How will history judge us? The hon. Gentleman is right: now is the time to draw the line and stop live organ transplantation, and transplantation without permission of the people whose organs are removed. We say “Never again”, but we do not, with our next breath, do something to make that brave declaration reality and ask the tough questions—although we are trying to do so in the Chamber today. We would rather bury our heads in the sand than deal with the harsh light of the truth that radiates all around us. The evidence has been gathered, presented, analysed and judged countless times by countless different institutions. It has repeatedly been found to be wholly credible and convincing. Meanwhile, the Chinese Government have offered nothing substantial by way of rebuttal, despite the fact that it would be easy to do so if they were telling the truth. The absence of comment from them reinforces what I am saying.

I ask the Minister, therefore, to act on the findings of the China tribunal and to take appropriate action, including potentially following in the footsteps of many other countries and banning organ tourism to China from the UK. Over the years I have put down a number of questions. It is wrong that people should travel from here to China for what is almost a live organ on demand to suit themselves. It is hard to take in what that means —it leaves one incredulous. It means someone can sit in London or in Newtownards and order an organ to be provided on demand. Within a month they can have the operation. We need to control that, structurally, as other countries have, not simply because it is the right thing to do, but also because it is necessary to protect UK citizens from unwittingly playing a role in the horrifying suffering of religious or belief groups in China.

If, however, the Government are not willing to do that, I ask the Minister at the very least to be a friend to the Chinese Government and ask them and the WHO to engage with the China tribunal process in their own interests. Will he ask them to present clear evidence that shows that the Chinese transplant system is ethical, and that makes all the sceptical investigators, human rights organisations and legislatures feel very silly indeed? Perhaps there is some issue I am not seeing, but I simply cannot fathom why that would be a controversial or difficult request. It seems to be logical and sensible and absolutely what we should be doing morally. If China is operating an ethical transplant system, it should be jumping for joy to have opportunities to present the proof, or at least to relay it to the Minister to present to the House. If the Chinese Government are doing nothing wrong, there is absolutely no reason why the issue should be a sensitive one, or even require private diplomacy.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Bambos Charalambous. [Interruption.] I thought that the hon. Gentleman wanted to ask a question. I would not want him to be afflicted by shyness and reticence.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I will wait for a later question.

[Mr Speaker]

Very well.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I recently met the head of Naftogaz, the main energy company in Ukraine, and we are fully aware of the issue my hon. Friend raises. We will look at the issue of Nord Stream 2 and the pipeline in the light of what has happened in Salisbury.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Turkey’s actions in Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone do not create the right climate for reunification negotiations to recommence. Will the Minister join me in condemning Turkey’s actions and call on it to withdraw its warships from Cyprus’s exclusive economic zone, where they have been since 9 February?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

We fully recognise the rights within the economic zone, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and fully support the right to drill for oil.

Sanctions and Anti-Money Laundering Bill [Lords]

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

2nd reading: House of Commons
Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

As most hon. Members have stated in this debate, money laundering and corruption are huge issues worldwide. Although I welcome some of the measures in the Bill, I do not believe that it goes far enough.

The Minister for Europe and the Americas has already been made aware—it was mentioned in an intervention—that, as part of the recently agreed fifth EU anti-money laundering directive, all EU member states will be required to have public beneficial ownership registers by 2019. I am sure he will confirm that, whether or not the United Kingdom is part of the EU at the time of the directive’s implementation, the United Kingdom would not want any measures that are weaker than those in the directive.

This raises the question of what should happen in the overseas territories. The UK has made a start on a public beneficial ownership register, but more needs to be done in the overseas territories. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Dame Margaret Hodge) pointed out, the problem is that many overseas territories are tax havens and as such they are home to many offshore companies willing to offer complete anonymity to their clientele, with very few questions asked.

We should note that, despite overseas territories having small populations, half of all global trade passes through them because they are tax havens, and the vast majority of the transactions are carried out by offshore companies. Let us, for example, take the British Virgin Islands. Despite having a population of only 28,000, it is home to an estimated 500,000 offshore companies, which is 40% of the total number of offshore companies in the world. Many of these offshore companies have complete anonymity and are shell companies working with nominees and powers of attorney to move around vast amounts of money. Most people faced with that information would conclude that there is something dodgy going on.

My right hon. Friend gave examples of corrupt and illegal practices that have occurred in overseas territories tax havens, all of which are because of the opaqueness of the systems that they operate. A fully functioning central, public beneficial ownership register in the overseas territories would be no cause of concern to companies carrying out legitimate business activity. As more and more countries agree to adopt a public beneficial ownership register, it is inevitable that the overseas territories should follow.

We need to make sure that money offshore in these tax havens is not being used for illegal purposes. If there is an issue, it is that overseas territories have built their wealth on secrecy. If that is the case, the Government should support the overseas territories to make sure activity is based on a legitimate and transparent model of business. The Government should give support to the overseas territories as they transition from financial secrecy to openness.

There is no reason why corporate ownership transparency should cause any problems in the provision of legitimate financial services, especially considering that many other countries will be adopting the principles of transparency registers. The people who are losing out the most are those in developing countries. They are in the greatest need and the billions being diverted away from them could literally be costing lives.

I will conclude by saying that a fully operational public beneficial ownership register in the overseas territories will greatly help to curtail money laundering, corruption and criminal activity, but much more needs to be done than is set out in this Bill.

Oral Answers to Questions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Matt Rodda (Reading East) (Lab)]

14. What assessment he has made of the strength of the UK’s future diplomatic co-operation with its current EU partners after leaving the EU.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

22. What assessment he has made of the strength of the UK’s future diplomatic co-operation with its current EU partners after leaving the EU.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

If I may, I will respectfully resist the alternatives that the hon. Gentleman lays before me. Last week, I was trying to make the point that we now have a massive opportunity to come together—people who voted remain and people who voted leave—to get a positive arrangement and a positive Brexit that will be of massive benefit to people both in this country and in the whole of the European continent. If we are ambitious and positive, I have absolutely no doubt that we can pull it off.

[Bambos Charalambous]

The Foreign Secretary claimed last week that it would be “intolerable” for the UK not to set its own regulations after Brexit. The next day, a Harvard survey of UK importers and exporters found that the last thing that they want is the dual regulatory burden of having to comply with both UK and EU rules. Will the Foreign Secretary tell us who is right?

[Boris Johnson]

I think that the Harvard survey is right: nobody wants two sets of regulations to be imposed on the UK economy. That is why the Prime Minister was completely right—wasn’t she?—at Lancaster House and, indeed, in Florence and in sundry other places when she said that Brexit means taking back control of our money, our borders and, above all, our laws. That is what we are going to do.

Budget Resolutions

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I wish to focus on three areas of deficiency in the Budget: education, social care and the public sector.

Many schools across the country are struggling financially. The Chancellor, while promising an extra £40 million to train future maths teachers, seems sadly to have missed the point. The Government’s ideologically driven onslaught on education has led to an exodus of teachers, and many schools are now struggling to recruit. More teachers are now leaving the profession than joining it. The Government do not fully understand the low morale of teachers and staff in schools following the underfunding of education by successive Tory-led Governments. Why would any high-calibre maths graduate now choose teaching instead of a job as an analyst in the City making large amounts of money with half the paperwork and stress?

There was nothing in the Budget for primary school funding either. In order to entice students to study maths A-level, the Chancellor has offered a maths premium of £600, but if primary schools are not properly funded, the children could be struggling at secondary school. The £1.3 billion previously announced by the Secretary of State for Education will do nothing to reverse the £2.7 billion of cuts to school budgets since 2015. The Chancellor could have addressed the fact that schools now have to pay more in national insurance and pension contributions than they once did. These are the real issues squeezing schools.

There was also no increase in the budget for special educational needs and disability funding, which has been frozen for several years. Earlier this year, the Local Government Association warned that due to the lack of funding and rising demand, SEND children were at risk of being turned away from mainstream schools. If schools and local authorities cannot meet the needs of SEND children, what are they supposed to do? The sad thing is that the most vulnerable children will suffer, which is totally unacceptable. More investment is urgently needed in this area.

While I am on the subject of the vulnerable, the Chancellor has decided to give insufficient funds to the NHS, rather than the £4 billion that the head of NHS England called for in order to meet the urgent demands faced by the NHS this winter. The Chancellor seems to think that those pressing demands end at the hospital door. He has decided to give nothing for social care, which will no doubt lead to more bed blocking and seriously affect the help that people need coming out of hospital. This is a massive snub to the elderly and those needing social care services. Social care has seen cuts of £6.8 billion over the past seven years, and there is an estimated annual £2.5 billion funding gap.

Once again, there is nothing in the Budget for local authorities, many of which are at breaking point following year-on-year cuts to their budgets since 2010. Social services is the largest area of expenditure for many local authorities, and failure to properly fund it is leading to untold damage and distress to our most vulnerable and often elderly citizens. The Chancellor and the Government seem to be willing to borrow more but not to invest it in educating children, supporting the most vulnerable or supporting local services. A sign of a civilised society is how it treats its most vulnerable citizens. Stripping the state to the bone hits the vulnerable first and hardest. The Government are failing our society.

Global Education: G20 Summit

Bambos Charalambous Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered promotion of education for all at the G20 summit.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. Before moving on to the subject of today’s debate, may I take this opportunity to welcome the letter that the Secretary of State for International Development sent to all MPs about the small charities challenge fund? This is a very positive development, which the International Development Committee called for in the previous two Parliaments. It gives smaller UK-based charities the opportunity to access Department for International Development funding to support projects to tackle extreme poverty in some of the poorest countries in the world.

As G20 leaders, including the Prime Minister, meet in Hamburg, this debate is an opportunity for the House to reaffirm the crucial importance of investment in education to tackle poverty and inequality across the world. Millennium development goal No. 2 related to the aspiration for universal primary education. There has been remarkable progress across the world: globally, the number of children not in primary school has been cut by 42% since the year 2000. We should pay tribute to all those who made that important progress possible, not least the civil society and campaigning organisations that worked so hard to secure those goals.

However, there remain about 263 million children and young people around the world who are not in school. Most disturbingly, in Africa today the number of out-of-school children is on the increase, and one in five girls there does not receive a basic education. Globally, millions of children are in school but are not getting even the basics of literacy and numeracy. It is estimated that there are 330 million such children around the world.

I pay tribute to Mark Williams, the former Member of Parliament for Ceredigion. Mark represented that constituency for 12 years, from 2005 until this general election. Between 2010 and 2017, he chaired the all-party parliamentary group on global education. During that period, he led two overseas delegations with the all-party group to Nigeria and Kenya. He hosted countless events and meetings, and engaged with several Ministers on this issue throughout his time as chair. I am sure Members on both sides of the House will wish to join me in wishing Mark Williams well for the future.

May I also take the opportunity to encourage Members on both sides of the House to join the all-party parliamentary group on global education, which does fantastic work? I thank RESULTS UK for its work in this area and for helping me prepare for this debate.

Education is at the heart of the battle against global poverty and inequality. The sustainable development goals include SDG 4, which I will return to in a moment, but education is linked inextricably to all 17 of the global goals. Investing in education can improve outcomes in health, empower women and girls, and reduce inequality. Educated populations are much better equipped to build sustainable societies that can move towards the self-financing of development programmes so they cease to be reliant on aid from wealthier countries. We know from our own experience that education is an investment in our economy. An extra year of schooling can increase someone’s earnings by up to 10%, so investing in education is critical if we are to close the global skills gap and secure the jobs of the future.

The Government’s aid strategy has at its core the goal of strengthening global peace, security and governance. Historical analysis demonstrates that inequality itself fuels social unrest, and evidence suggests that when educational inequality doubles, the probability of conflict more than doubles. Most importantly, education is a human right enshrined in the universal declaration of human rights, the United Nations convention on the rights of the child, and the international covenant on economic, social and cultural rights. Every child should have the right to a quality education.

As we know, the United Kingdom is the only G7 country that allocates the UN-recommended 0.7% of GNI to overseas development assistance. As I said during the Queen’s Speech debate last week, I very much welcome the fact that the Queen’s Speech reaffirmed the Government’s commitment to 0.7%. The UK is recognised as a global leader in providing aid for education, and we rank second only after the United States in the amount of aid we invest in basic education.

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that one of the problems in education is that teachers are often poorly paid, if they are paid at all, and have to do other jobs to supplement their pay as teachers? That results in poorer experiences in classrooms where teachers are provided.

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that point. He is my long-standing friend, and represents the constituency that I represented in the House between 1997 and 2005. I welcome him to the House. His point is extremely powerful. In a moment, I will refer briefly to the work that the International Development Committee was doing in the previous Parliament.

I am delighted that the hon. Members for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) and for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron) are here. They are both in different roles. The hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills is now the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Secretary of State—I congratulate her on her appointment—and my good friend the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow, represents DFID’s offices in Scotland, but is speaking for the Scottish National party from the Front Bench today. They know that the International Development Committee did a lot of work in the previous Parliament on education, and earlier this year we visited east Africa.

The point that my hon. Friend the Member for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) makes is absolutely pertinent, because we saw real issues with the ability of teachers to get themselves to work. Their levels of pay are such that they often have to work other jobs, and teacher absenteeism is often as big or a bigger challenge than pupil absenteeism in some of the poorer communities of Kenya, Uganda and Tanzania. My hon. Friend makes a very good and powerful point.

DFID has a world-class team of technical staff who deliver the bilateral education programmes and lend support to some of the key multilateral bodies, such as the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait. When the Select Committee visited east Africa and the middle east in the previous Parliament, we saw the fruits of UK aid for education. In particular, when we went to Jordan and Lebanon last year, we saw the amazing impact that aid has had on the refugee population, who came particularly from Syria but also from other conflicts in that region. I want to say once again that we owe a debt of gratitude to the Governments and the people of Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey, in particular, which have taken so many Syrian refugees. We can also be proud of our record and that of others on ensuring that many of the children from the conflict in Syria have access to education.

In east Africa, we saw some great examples of UK aid being invested. In Kenya, we visited a truly brilliant project, run by Leonard Cheshire in Kisumu, about identifying children with disabilities or special educational needs—I will return to disability later in my speech. That was a fine example of a very positive programme. In Uganda, we visited a frankly inspiring Saturday school in Kampala, which is funded by DFID and educates child refugees from conflicts elsewhere in Africa who have escaped to Uganda for their own safety, in particular from the Democratic Republic of the Congo.

The UK, via DFID, does many things in education of which we can be proud. As a result, DFID has significant political capital and influence among donors and non-governmental actors, which gives the United Kingdom a responsibility to act as a leader and global advocate on education—including, most immediately, at this weekend’s G20. I urge the Government to use their voice to encourage other donors to allocate more funding to education, and to ensure that existing funding is allocated to areas that most need it.

I also believe—the previous International Development Committee felt this strongly—that DFID can use its influence more with Governments in recipient countries to encourage them to allocate a greater proportion of their domestic budgets to education. Aid alone cannot solve the challenges. Aid has an important role to play, but Governments in some of the poorer countries have a responsibility to spend more of their domestic budgets on education.

Internationally, education is underfunded. To achieve SDG 4—

“Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”—

an enormous increase in funding is needed. The Education Commission, led by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, estimates that annual spending on education will need to more than double, from a global level of US $1.3 trillion to about $3 trillion by 2030, if we are to have any hope of achieving global goal 4.

In recent years, however, the sad reality is that we have seen a decline in levels of international aid spending on education. In our own overseas development assistance spending, the amount spent on education is lower than the amounts we spend on health, government and civil society, and infrastructure. The UK remains one of the biggest donors internationally, but the figures show that DFID dedicates only 7.56% of its budget to education.

Over the past 15 years, we have seen spectacular improvements in global health. Those advances are clear evidence that the international community, working together, can bring about genuine transformation if the will is there. Innovative partnerships such as the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, have helped to reset global health financing standards, saving tens of millions of lives. We have the opportunity to learn from that experience and to do the same for education.