Official Development Assistance

Baroness Sugg Excerpts

Thursday 24th June 2021 Grand Committee

[Baroness Sugg (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord, Lord Campbell, for asking this Question.

My Lords, despite the difficulty caused by the lack of transparency around the details of the cuts, analysis by Save the Children indicates that gender equality-focused programming is being severely affected, and women and girls will suffer disproportionately. An estimated 20 million women and girls will not be reached by programming as a result of the reduction in funding. Some 700,000 fewer girls will be supported by education, 2 million fewer supported by humanitarian assistance, 8 million fewer supported by nutrition interventions and 9 million fewer women and girls supported to access clean water and sanitation. These cuts will, sadly, undo progress towards gender equality at a time when the pandemic has rolled back women’s and girls’ rights by a generation.

The Foreign Secretary has confirmed that the FCDO

“carried out an equalities impact assessment”,

the only one I believe, which

“showed no evidence that programmes targeting those with protected characteristics were more likely to be reduced.”

Given the analysis I referred to and the huge cuts of up to 85% to family planning and contraceptive programmes, alongside no similar cuts to male-focused programmes, I fail to understand how these cuts are not worse for women and girls. My first questions are: do the Government still consider that women and girls have not been disproportionately impacted by the cuts, and when will they publish the equalities impact assessment?

Turning to girls’ education, I welcome the UK contribution announced at the G7 to the Global Partnership for Education, an increase of 15%. However, given the increased need I point out that the percentage burden share of the UK contribution to GPE has actually fallen, and the G7 failed to raise the $3.5 billion needed to hit the $5 billion target of the GPE replenishment summit that we are hosting in July. I fear this is a regrettable ripple effect of cutting our aid spending by such a large amount; it makes it a lot harder for the UK to encourage other countries to do more when we are doing less.

It is difficult to get to the bottom of the detail, given the lack of transparency, but, as far as I can uncover, this GPE increase is being paid for by cuts to wider education programming such as Chevening and the prosperity fund. Given these equivalent cuts, that means that total spending on girls’ education has still decreased by 25%. My final question is: do the Government recognise this 25% reduction? If not, will they publish the detailed figures so that we can understand the reality of the situation?