Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Overseas

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 10th December 2015 Written Statements

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

My Friend the Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Baroness Verma) has today made the following statement:

I am pleased to take this opportunity to update the House on my plans following my appointment as Ministerial Champion for Tackling Violence Against Women and Girls Overseas.

It is an honour to be appointed to this position. I have been personally committed to tackling violence against women and girls for a long time and given my role as Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for the Department for International Development (DFID), I have identified some significant opportunities for pushing forwards this agenda.

I have chosen to issue this statement today because the 10 December marks the end of the formal 16 days of activism that the UN leads, to address the human rights abuse that is violence against women and girls. It also formally marks the beginning of an even more concerted effort from myself to lead work to tackle this issue.

Violence against women and girls is a systematic, widespread human rights violation, faced by one in three women worldwide in their lifetime. Tackling violence is essential: to women and girls, their families and communities. It is critical to sustained poverty reduction and the achievement of the new Global Goals. Furthermore, it is a top priority for the UK Government and DFID.

The 25 November marked the international day to eliminate violence against women and girls, followed by 16 days of activism that culminate today, on international human rights day. Ministers across the UK Government, myself included, have done a number of things to mark this period, including pushing for change through a number of events. On 25 November, I spoke at a Parliamentary panel discussion hosted by ActionAid UK, outlining the importance of empowering women’s organisations in order to tackle violence against women and girls. I was delighted to see such a large and engaged audience at this event, reflecting the huge strides we have taken in raising awareness of violence against women and girls. We heard first-hand accounts from women who have experienced and witnessed such violence. I was proud to share the important work that DFID and the UK have done to empower and protect women and girls in these situations.

I have been championing the White Ribbon Campaign within DFID during the 16 days of activism, an international campaign that mobilises men to stand up to violence against women and girls. I have spread the message in DFID and on social media, shown solidary for this by wearing a white ribbon, and encouraged pledging to never to commit, excuse or remain silent about violence against women and girls. I encourage parliamentarians to do the same. You can do so here: http://www.whiteribboncampaign.co.uk/.

This period of focused activities provides a strong foundation from which to begin my role as Ministerial Champion and I have every intention to build on the momentum that we have created here in the UK and across the world.

Looking forward, I would like to take this opportunity to announce my new objectives for the Ministerial Champion role, which build on the work done by my predecessors. My objectives are:

1. Securing and defending the rights of women and girls to live free from violence, through international frameworks;

2. Further linking and ensuring policy coherence across the entire UK efforts to end violence against women and girls overseas;

3. Forging strategic partnerships and influencing the international system to increase financial, political and technical commitment for tackling all forms of violence against women and girls in all contexts;

4. Leading step change in galvanising the use of evidence of what we know works to prevent violence against women and girls;

5. Eliminating FGM and child, early and forced marriage (CEFM) within a generation;

6. Driving forward a new and significant push on all forms of domestic and intimate partner violence as a policy and programme priority for the international community;

7. Stepping up global leadership on tackling violence and abuse against adolescent girls overseas.

I look forward to driving forward work on this agenda, and working with Ministers and parliamentarians to achieve our ambitious, but ultimately achievable goal of eradicating violence against women and girls for good.

[HCWS383]

Draft International Fund for Agricultural Development (Tenth Replenishment) Order 2015

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 19th November 2015 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft International Fund for Agricultural Development (Tenth Replenishment) Order 2015.

If the Committee obliges me by agreeing to consider the order, it will allow the Secretary of State to fund the International Fund for Agricultural Development, which is an international financial institution—in effect, a bank—and also a special agency of the United Nations, focusing exclusively on provision for the rural poor.

The 10th replenishment, which covers the period from 2016 to 2018, is intended to raise $1.44 billion in order to disburse loans and grants to the tune of $3 billion. The United Kingdom’s share is to be some £57 million, which equates to some £19 million per year. That is an increase of £2 million per year from the last disbursement —the last was £17 million per year—or of some 15%. I believe that that increase reflects the identity of the International Fund for Agricultural Development and its objectives as well as our own preoccupations, particularly in preparing for climate change and gender issues. We will remain the second largest donor and an active member of the governing body.

On 3 November, I launched our new agricultural framework at the all-party group on agriculture and food for development. At the centre of our new approach is support for smallholders. That is vital because they feed a third of the world’s population and indeed, in developing countries, feed 90% of the population. If the world is to support some 9 billion souls by 2050, despite the disadvantages of climate change and the increase in plant and animal disease consequent on climate change, we will need to maximise the productivity of those smallholders and their economic potential. In effect, we will have to enable them to become commercial farmers.

That is why we support the International Fund for Agricultural Development, an organisation dedicated to eradicating rural poverty and hunger in developing countries by improving smallholder incomes and food security. The fund approaches smallholders as businesses. It invests in rural projects designed collaboratively, in partnership between local communities, Governments and other partners. It is a participatory process. The focus of the fund increasingly is to empower women and girls, and that is consistent with the new global modus operandi of leaving absolutely no one behind.

Increasingly, the fund is focused on building resilience to climate change. It runs the largest global fund dedicated to supporting the adaptation of smallholders to climate change, to which we have contributed significantly—I am afraid that the Adaptation for Smallholder Agriculture Programme comes with the unpleasant acronym ASAP, but perhaps there is urgency in the agenda. The fund is consistent with and abides by the international aid transparency initiative.

Let me highlight some of the fund’s results for the last year. Its beneficiaries increased to 114 million, exceeding its target for this year of 90 million. As for rural micro- finance, its projects saw 19 million voluntary savers, 72% of whom were women, and 6 million active borrowers. As for the training that it provides to smallholders, 3.5 million people, 49% of whom were women, were trained in crop production, practice and technology. It trained 1.2 million people in business and entrepreneurial skills, and 2.9 million, 43% of whom were women, in livestock husbandry and technology. It repaired or constructed some 12,427 miles of rural roads; for those who prefer to think in foreign money, that is some 20,000 km. It also set up some 35,000 marketing groups.

I recommend that the Committee continues to support the International Fund for Agricultural Development in the vital work that it does to reach the world’s poorest and to increase food security and growth by empowering the Secretary of State to make this disbursement. I commend the order to the Committee.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Swayne]

I thank the hon. Lady for her support for the order. I take her concerns seriously and share a number of them. She began by applauding the 72% share of borrowers. I hope that I did not mislead her, but it is the savers of whom 72% are accounted for by women. I hope that the 7th Cavalry to my left will shortly supply the figure for the number of female borrowers, but I am not convinced that it will happen in time.

[Ms Abbott]

I should of course have realised that women, more than any other group in the community, recognise that it is better to save than to borrow.

[Mr Swayne]

The hon. Lady is quite right, because they are so often faced more fundamentally with the consequences of borrowing and not having saved sufficiently. They are much more on the frontline, particularly in agriculture. I found striking the number of female-led households and smallholdings in which they are actually the farmer.

On the fear of the diversion of aid, I remain absolutely comfortable with the focus we have placed on the national interest. I am conscious that a majority of my constituents, many perhaps readers of the Daily Mail, disapprove somewhat of international development aid. When they are confronted with a disaster, however, they put their hands deep into their pockets. They thoroughly appreciate the action that the Department for International Development and the Government take on their behalf, and they add their own money. They have less understanding and information about the continual need for international development expenditure to build resilience —if they had, they would support it—so that countries can actually survive disasters in the way that Nepal did. One way that I want to try to engage the public is by persuading and showing them that reducing poverty is in our national interest. Hence the focus that we have placed on international development in the national interest. It is a way of persuading the public.

[Ms Abbott]

I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. As he says, the British public are extraordinarily generous, among the most generous in Europe, when it comes to humanitarian disasters, but my point was that the public, whether his constituents or mine, are much more positive about aid and development when they can see concrete outcomes, such as a clinic, helping female agriculturists, or malaria nets. When they see international aid being spent on consultants, budgetary support or other such intangible things, they worry that the money might be being diverted.

[Mr Swayne]

I entirely agree with the hon. Lady. That is why we are so concerned to see tangible results from our expenditure. We believe that we are one of the most transparent aid organisations in the world. We have the development tracker and our website provides the results of all the projects that we have invested in. That has to be our main effort for exactly the reason that she has set out. She said that there was a concern that multilaterals might be less stringent at tracing funds and making clear where money is going. I share her concern.

We are currently working through the multilateral aid review, in which we closely examine the fit with all our international partners to ensure that their view of the development agenda fits with ours; that they share our focus on women and girls, on climate change and on economic development; and, equally, that they meet the standards we require on transparency. I hope that we continue with a consensual approach to international development. I am confident that we share the same aims, even if we might differ on some essentials. Nevertheless, I thank her for supporting this order.

We published our agricultural strategy at the beginning of this month, and it identifies three different types of economic situation among small farmers. A group at the top already have access to capital markets and to markets in which they can sell their products, and they are doing reasonably well. At the bottom, a number of people will need to get out of agriculture in the medium term and move to the towns—such progress in urbanisation will continue—to find a better job that can sustain their income. Our job as donors is to help them through that process, to provide support to ensure that they secure a livelihood and to protect them during that process, which is why we are working with the International Labour Organisation in south Asia through the work in freedom programme to protect people, particularly women, from being trafficked as they move from agriculture and rural villages into the industrial townscape.

In the middle, a much greater number of smallholders could, with a small amount of technical support, a little bit of capital or infrastructural development such as the provision of a road to help them get to markets, become much more productive and effective. The International Fund for Agricultural Development is critical in addressing that bulge in the middle and making farmers much more productive.

On the hon. Lady’s concerns about the transparency of the order, the International Fund for Agricultural Development maintains a stringent, independent assessment organisation to hold it to account, rather in the way that we are held to account by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact. The International Fund for Agricultural Development shares our zero tolerance of corruption.

Question put and agreed to.

Speaker’s Statement

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd November 2015 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Just before we come to the urgent question, I must advise the House that I have received a report from the Tellers in the Aye Lobby for Division No. 104 on the Housing and Planning Bill yesterday at 9.59 pm. They have informed me that the number of those voting aye was erroneously reported—

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

Shocking!

[Mr Speaker]

The right hon. Gentleman is easily shocked.

As I was saying before I was interrupted in such a gentlemanly fashion, the tellers have informed me that the number of those voting Aye was erroneously reported as 228 instead of 218. The Ayes were 218 and the Noes were 305. The House is now better informed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 28th October 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

2. What steps her Department is taking to support preparation for winter in refugee camps in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

We are supporting 11 partners with £221 million to respond to the onset of winter. Vulnerable refugees will receive warm clothes, thermal blankets, fuel and cash.

[John Nicolson]

The Minister will be aware that in Lebanon around 190,000 refugee families do not live in formal camps, because those who cannot afford to rent accommodation are often forced to live in informal tented settlements in rural areas, such as the Bekaa valley, or in unfurnished buildings in urban areas. What steps is the Department taking to support those who live outside the refugee camps?

[Mr Swayne]

As the hon. Gentleman observes, there are no refugee camps in Lebanon—I have visited the settlements in the Bekaa valley—and it is precisely for that reason that we support UNICEF and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to make the provisions that we are paying for.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Are persecuted Christians and other religious minorities able to get into the camps, and will they be able to remain within them and take winter refuge?

[Mr Swayne]

I have visited camps that are specifically for Christians, but I would be reluctant to make any kind of aid provision specific to a religious confession, because that would be to pour combustible material on a conflagration that is already in progress.

[Mr Speaker]

Very pithy—we are grateful.

[Alex Cunningham (Stockton North) (Lab)]

13. Refugee children in Europe also face a tough winter. Last week the UNHCR expressed concern that unaccompanied children moving within Europe are at a heightened risk of violence and abuse, especially in overcrowded reception centres, while Save the Children operations in Italy and Greece have identified that these children are suffering a high level of psychological distress. Does the Minister agree that just because these children have arrived in Europe, it does not mean they are safe? Will he have a word in the Prime Minister’s ear to remind him that I wrote to him on 11 September and am still awaiting an answer?

[Mr Swayne]

I do not think the Prime Minister will be needing any reminder about the nature of the crisis. However, the hon. Gentleman is quite right. It is precisely for those reasons that we provide core funding to the UNHCR and UNICEF.

[Mark Pritchard (The Wrekin) (Con)]

The United Kingdom is rightly, in my view, taking 20,000 refugees. There are eight categories of profiles of resettlement under the UNHCR guidelines. Will the Government be using those guidelines or will we introduce our own guidelines given that those eight categories do not include widows and orphans?

[Mr Swayne]

We will be using the UNHCR guidelines.

[Patrick Grady (Glasgow North) (SNP)]

I welcome the new Labour Front-Bench team and look forward to working with them on these important matters.

Does not the onset of winter and the challenges it brings highlight the importance of the UK playing a diplomatic role in resolving the crisis in Syria? Does the Minister agree that as winter sets in and families start to freeze, this is a situation where the Government should be prioritising bairns, not bombs?

[Mr Swayne]

I agree entirely that we must bend every muscle to provide a settlement.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

In supporting preparations for winter in refugee camps, will my right hon. Friend confirm that the United Kingdom is taking the lead in Europe in providing more resources than any of our European allies?

[Mr Swayne]

My hon. Friend is quite right. This is the greatest humanitarian response that we have made to any emergency ever.

[Ms Diane Abbott (Hackney North and Stoke Newington) (Lab)]

There are terrible reports of the conditions in the Syrian refugee camps on Greek islands such as Lesbos, with no dry clothes, no shelter, no food, and children sleeping in bin bags, and conditions can only get worse as winter approaches. Are the Government really prepared to turn their back on people like these?

[Mr Swayne]

We have already done work, and are doing work, with the UNHCR and the Red Cross.

[Chris Davies (Brecon and Radnorshire) (Con)]

3. How much of her Department’s budget is directed at tackling the root causes of migration.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stuart C. McDonald (Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East) (SNP)]

4. What steps her Department is taking to support the legal registration of children born to refugees in Lebanon and Jordan.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

Registration is essential to enable refugees to obtain humanitarian services and protection under international law. To date we have provided the UNHCR with £44 million in Jordan and Lebanon, which includes support for registration and issuing birth certificates.

[Stuart C. McDonald]

I am grateful to the Minister for that helpful answer. As he said, registration can be vital to prevent statelessness, yet some estimates suggest that nearly 30,000 Syrian refugee children born in Lebanon could fall into that category, with long-term consequences for their education and a vulnerability to violence and exploitation; it could even affect their ability to return home should the conflict come to an end. Does the Minister recognise that that situation requires a response from the Governments of the host countries and grass-roots legal advice organisations on the ground, and will he commit to working at all levels to support access to registration—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. May I suggest politely to the hon. Gentleman that the deployment of a blue pencil is helpful on these occasions?

[Mr Swayne]

I cannot confirm the figures. If people are not registered they are difficult to count, but the hon. Gentleman is right, and it is essential that we continue to work with the UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee Council, which has particular expertise in securing rights for refugees, and that we continue to lobby the host Government.

[Mr Gregory Campbell (East Londonderry) (DUP)]

Given the complexity of the situation that the Minister has mentioned, how meticulous and precise are the processes to ensure that those children who are most at risk are prioritised when trying to deliver a more acceptable outcome?

[Mr Swayne]

I have visited registration centres in Lebanon, and I assure the hon. Gentleman about the extraordinary efforts that are being made by a remarkable staff. Undoubtedly, the situation has become challenging since May, although it has improved recently. We are on the case.

[Mike Kane (Wythenshawe and Sale East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for his answer about the £44 million, but what action will the Government take on the specific issue of the complexity and cost of registering stateless children? We do not want anyone to be left behind. Will he come back to the House with a more specific answer to the question?

[Mr Swayne]

I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Front Bench. It is important to put our money where our mouth is, and £44 million to the UNHCR is an important part of the answer. It is vital to work with the UNHCR and the Norwegian Refugee Council, and to lobby the host Government. Unfortunately I do not rule Lebanon.

[Tommy Sheppard (Edinburgh East) (SNP)]

5. What recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

Some 2.3 million people in Gaza and the west bank have insecure access to food, and 1.4 million are in need of water, sanitation and hygiene. This month 58 Palestinians and eight Israelis have been killed, and 7,042 Palestinians and 70 Israelis have been injured.

[Tommy Sheppard]

I have a related question on Gaza, if I may. What assessment has been made of the destruction of UK-funded facilities in Gaza by the bombing of the Israeli air force? It seems that we provide facilities, either directly or through the UN, but then those facilities get bombed and we have to provide them again. What can be done to stop that tragic merry-go-round, and will the Minister work with colleagues to try to persuade the Israeli Government to have a more proportionate response in Gaza and to stop hindering the relief effort?

[Mr Speaker]

I am sorry but these questions are too long. We are very short of time—we need pithy inquiries.

[Mr Swayne]

Twelve UK-funded United Nations Relief and Works Agency schools were substantially damaged in the hostilities. The only way that can be prevented is by a peace process.

[Mr Speaker]

A tutorial can be provided by Mr Howell.

[Mr Swayne]

That is an object lesson on the measure of leadership now required to overcome the huge amount of distrust and hatred.

[Debbie Abrahams (Oldham East and Saddleworth) (Lab)]

12. What discussions has the Secretary of State had with the Israeli Government on the increase in illegal building on the west bank and the impact that that has had on current levels of violence?

[Mr Swayne]

I have had substantial discussions with the Israeli Government on this issue and could not have been more robust in my representations.

[Bob Blackman (Harrow East) (Con)]

What consideration has my right hon. Friend given to the provision of a desalination plant for Gaza, as proposed by the Israeli Government, which would supply all the water needs for Gaza and satisfy the humanitarian grounds we want to see?

[Mr Swayne]

My hon. Friend draws attention to a very important issue. UN studies predict that Gaza will become uninhabitable, as a consequence of the water problem, by 2020. A peace process is vital, so that the level of investment required to drive such developments becomes available.

[Mr Philip Hollobone (Kettering) (Con)]

6. In which countries her Department is working with the Ministry of Justice to build prisons to facilitate the return of foreign national offenders from the UK.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

T3. Speaking about the situation in Palestine at the World Zionist Congress last week, the Israeli Prime Minister declared that Israel would have “to control all of the territory for the foreseeable future.” If Israel has no intention of allowing the creation of two states and prevents Palestinians from having equal rights in one state, what is left but apartheid, and what implications does that have for UK development policy?

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

It is vital that we get the peace process back on track, and I hope that the agreement at the weekend over Temple Mount and al-Aqsa will at least be the start of that process. However, the only way to address the issue the hon. Gentleman raises is to pursue a two-state solution.

[Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)]

T6. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on what work her Department is doing to help failing and fragile states?

Draft African Development Bank (Further Payments to Capital Stock) Order 2015

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Monday 14th September 2015 General Committees

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

I beg to move,

That the Committee has considered the draft African Development Bank (Further Payments to Capital Stock) Order 2015.

Mr Chope, it is always a pleasure to benefit from the stewardship and guidance of the Chair, but particularly so when you are in it.

The African Development Bank provides economic development for the continent of Africa. Africa is in great want of jobs to provide livelihoods for its people. One of the principal impediments to economic growth and the development of those jobs is a chronic shortage of infrastructure, which creates a barrier to trade. Equally, poor governance often gets in the way of commercial activity and trade.

We believe that the focus of the Department for International Development matches very well the focus of the African Development Bank, with the importance that it places on private sector-led economic development, to breaking down barriers to trade and to governance. The bank’s recent success has often been ascribed to its president, Mr Kaberuka, who stood down in May. The Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), was privileged to attend the annual general meeting and see his successor, Dr Adesina, elected with our support from a strong field of eight candidates. We believe that he will make an excellent president of the bank. He is a former Agriculture Minister who has worked for the World Bank and has experience in the United States and west Africa. He speaks several languages and we believe that he has the focus, energy and enterprise to build on the achievements of his predecessor.

The African Development Bank promotes development in two different ways. The first is through the African Development Fund, providing grants to countries that have a poor credit rating. We hold a 14% burden share in that fund, having committed some £600 million in the period 2014 to 2016. The order is not concerned with that fund. The other way in which the bank makes development possible is by providing loan capital to countries and private enterprises with a good credit rating through its ordinary capital subscribed by members of the bank. In its book for 2014, it made UA 4.5 billion in new loans available, of which 55% were for infrastructure.

The bank maintains a ratio between regional and non-regional members of 60:40. The last general capital increase was in 2011, when the capital subscribed rose by 200% to take account of the international financial crisis. There now arises an opportunity for us to acquire more capital in the bank. First, several non-regional countries were unable to take up their subscriptions to the 2011 increase, so 1,453 shares are now available to us. Equally, the ratification of the membership of South Sudan has altered the 60:40 ratio. To maintain it at 60:40, more shares are available to the non-regional players. Our allocation is 3,157 shares, only 6% of which have to be paid in. The rest are callable capital, a contingent liability for holding for which we have received the permission of the Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

Of the 6% that have to be paid in, taking the shares that are now available to us, the amount that we would have to pay by the 2 October deadline, which we will meet if the order is passed, is some £2.76 million, but the order asks for just shy of £8 million. We are asking for more because we estimate that, as previously, several countries will not be able to make the very tight deadlines to acquire their shares. We want to have the flexibility within the even tighter deadlines that then follow to be able to purchase those additional shares.

Why do we want to do it? The simple fact is that we currently have the smallest shareholding of the G7 members, at 1.7% of the shares available. That does not buy us a lot of influence. Over the longer term, we want to significantly increase our shareholding in order to increase our influence over the bank’s operations. Secondly, we regard the bank as very good value for money. Our £2.8 million subscription for the shares that we have been definitely allocated will give rise to £43 million of additional lending, which means £43 million towards creating jobs, so it is good value for money. Of course, it will have the side effect of reinforcing our support for Dr Adesina and the new regime at the bank.

I hope I have persuaded the Committee that there are good reasons for proceeding with the order.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Swayne]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support and questions. He initially asked about the bank’s importance in furnishing studies. That is important, and we are grateful for its study on transport costs. We have asked them to conduct a similar study on driving down energy costs.

The hon. Gentleman specifically asked me about two things. First, he asked about taking on the additional contingent liabilities. I felt that he answered his own question effectively, in that we are considering a triple A-rated institution—there has never been any call on the capital. We estimate that it is worth taking on the liability, and we have received the Chief Secretary to the Treasury’s permission to do that.

I believe that buying the additional influence is some way off. Even if we got all the shares, increasing our influence is a long-term prospect. There is a key change: among the non-regional players, shareholdings determine how long they hold the directorship. That is an important means of influencing the process. In the longer term, we are therefore keen to increase our influence and to purchase the shares.

Secondly, the hon. Gentleman asked about the multilateral aid review. The last review said that we were getting good value for money, and that the bank’s performance was generally very good. There was some concern at the corporate level about the lack of emphasis on women and girls, and also about climate change, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned. The MAR is not a one-off process. We provided, because of our determination to improve the bank’s performance, £2 million of technical assistance to enable it to improve. A special envoy on gender has been appointed and we are confident that the bank is performing well on that metric. On climate change, the bank’s 10-year plan is to make Africa transform into a clean energy continent. Increasing the focus on climate change is welcome and now meets our requirements.

I think that that accounts for all the questions that I have been asked. I have been informed that I may have made a slight slip with my figures. I very much doubt it! I referred to £4.5 million lending from 2013. I should have said that it relates to 2014 to 2016 and that it takes the form of concessional loans as well as grants.

[Mr Shuker]

You would have got that one past me.

[Mr Swayne]

The hon. Gentleman surprises me. I am certain I get nothing past him.

I hope that that satisfies the Committee and that the order will be carried.

Question put and agreed to.

Sustainable Development Goals

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 10th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

It is always a pleasure and a privilege to follow the hon. Member for Luton South (Mr Shuker). I pay tribute to all the speakers. We have benefited from a very mature and high-quality debate, and we have very much benefited from the experience of several Members who have a long track record of involvement in international development overseas. It has been a real pleasure to sit through the debate, and I have to say that I have made some 10 pages of notes.

I pay tribute to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham (Stephen Phillips) for bringing his forensic intellectual rigour to this important subject. If I have a prejudice, it is that so much of the misery and poverty in the world arises out of an absence of the rule of law or, indeed, of law. My passion, in so far as I am still capable of passion, is for us to find more innovative and creative ways of bringing the legal experience, of which we have an abundance in this country, to countries clearly so much in want of it.

My hon. and learned Friend was right to say that from the very outset—the Prime Minister’s chairmanship of the high-level panel some three years ago—the United Kingdom has led the process of coming up with the global goals, as we must now all learn to call them. This document, “Transforming our World: The 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, is the output. It proudly points out:

“Never before have world leaders pledged common action and endeavour across such a broad and universal policy agenda.”

It was agreed by all 193 member states in August. As it has already been agreed, there will be none of the late-night sessions towards the end of the conference we had to endure at Sendai or that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State had to endure at Addis Ababa. All the Heads of Government will have to do is to appear in New York, bringing their quota of glamour and sprinkling their magic to promulgate the new development goals.

Before I launch into elliptical orbit with hyperbole, I have to level with the House. This is the third, fourth or perhaps even fifth debate on this subject—however it has been presented, this subject has been the essence of the debate—to which I have responded in this Chamber, in Westminster Hall or in Standing Committee upstairs. The record will show that this document was not my ambition. We set out with a rather different objective. We wanted something much more concise, something more easily communicable, something that would inspire enthusiasm, and something that would enable people, because they could remember the goals, to hold Governments to account.

I said, even earlier this year, that we were prepared to expend diplomatic and political capital to reopen the issue and get back to that original ambition, which we believed we shared with the Secretary-General. The reality, I have to tell the House, is that there was no enthusiasm for such an enterprise. We cherish our leadership role and the influence that we have. It seemed to me much more sensible to accept the consensus, rather than war against it. There was, after all, a perfectly legitimate fear on the part of our allies: namely, that by reopening the process, we might sacrifice some of the important gains that we had made, particularly on the “golden thread”, as the Prime Minister referred to it, of the importance of economic development, governance, the rule of law, driving out corruption and human rights.

On reflection, having read the document, which I commend to hon. Members, I take my hat off to our negotiating team. I think that we have the best outcome that was to be had. Just look at the document. There is the robust language of the preamble. Those of us who are concerned about communicability should look at the clever way in which the agenda is grouped under “People”, “Planet”, “Prosperity”, “Peace” and “Partnership”—it is almost poetry. I am sure that there is something for the spin doctors to work with there when communicating the agenda. There is the rallying cry that absolutely nobody will be left behind. That is the standard by which all the targets are to be judged: no target will be met while any segment of society is left behind.

There is the really strong language of goal 16 on governance, which, as I have intimated, is one of the most important achievements as far as I am concerned. That whole question was largely ignored by the millennium development goals. There is the importance that is attached to gender, to which we gave such enormous effort, with the targets on female genital mutilation and on early and forced marriage.

[Mr Shuker]

I want to put on the record the thanks of the Opposition to our excellent negotiating team in New York, who I had the privilege of meeting. While the Minister is walking us through the goals, I wonder if he might say a few words about the two goals that I mentioned, specifically the placeholder language in the climate change goal and the need for a commitment to universal healthcare within the language of goal 3. He mentioned that he had some regrets about the process. I wonder if he shares those two in particular.

[Mr Swayne]

I have every intention of addressing those issues, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me.

There is the full integration of climate change into the heart of the process. At the last minute—I hope this will be of some comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy)—we even secured the language that we wanted on anti-microbial resistance. There is the inclusion of modern-day slavery, on which there is cross-party consensus.

I just draw the attention of Members to one single quote from the document, if I may treat them to it:

“We envisage a world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination; of respect for race, ethnicity and cultural diversity; and of equal opportunity permitting the full realization of human potential and contributing to shared prosperity. A world which invests in its children and in which every child grows up free from violence and exploitation. A world in which every woman and girl enjoys full gender equality and all legal, social and economic barriers to their empowerment have been removed. A just, equitable, tolerant, open and socially inclusive world in which the needs of the most vulnerable are met.”

Those are our values and we have managed to get them into the declaration in an unequivocal way. That is an enormous achievement, against all those countries who, frankly, believe that development is just about economics and, if you please, leave human rights at the door. If I may say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) I share his ideological outlook. We are from the same stable. It all just goes to prove how two like-minded people can read the same document and come to radically different conclusions, but I am happy to have that discussion with him.

We have the global goals and they must now be the starting point for everything the Department does. The foundation is the 0.7%, but there now must be a clear line of sight between the goals as set out in the document and the departmental plan we develop. The goals are, of course, universal. They apply to us. Members have referred to the fact that there must now be a cross-Whitehall approach led by the Cabinet Office to ensure we meet the global goals. As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, there must be no cherry-picking—we are committed to the entire package.

As far as DFID’s work is concerned, however, we have to consider where our comparative advantage lies: what we do best, where we can make the greatest impact, where we can secure the greatest value for money and what are our strategic priorities already. They remain our strategic priorities: the reform of the international system, to make sure that all the agencies and multinationals with whom we work also bend themselves to these new global goals; and our right and proper attachment to the gender question and the rights of women and girls. That must remain one of the forefront activities by the Department. We have to, quite properly, retain the emphasis we have placed on sustainable and inclusive economic development as the only permanent way of exiting poverty. Of course, we still—hon. Members have been right to draw attention to it—have to provide the very basics of water, nutrition and health to so many of the world’s poor people.

On specific choices, however, and on the question of where our main effort lies, they will be determined by those priorities and the process, which has already begun in the Department, of the bilateral aid review. We will examine every single country in which we operate and ask the following questions: why are we operating in this country? Are there other countries that we ought to be operating in instead? What are we doing in those countries? Are there things we need to be doing more of, or things we need to be doing less of? Are there things we are not doing that we ought to be doing? That whole process is under way.

In line with that is the multilateral aid review. We have to examine all the partners through which we operate. Are they delivering value for money? Are their objectives aligned with ours? Are they efficient? Are they still a useful operating model? All that has to take place. At the same time, there will be some conditioning as a consequence of the security and defence review, which will guide policy in those areas of the world where our concern is greatest. Our spending portfolio will have to evolve. We will have to do development differently and integrate climate change into everything we do. We have to be climate smart in all our projects and all our doings. These are things we will develop over the next few years.

My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham quite properly drew attention to data, and was joined in that by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) and the hon. Members for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) and for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron). We are alive to that concern, as is the document, which speaks of the need for a data revolution. That process has already begun. Our former colleague, Lynne Featherstone, when Parliamentary Under-Secretary, hosted a conference on data. We recognise the huge deficit and the need to make an enormous effort to address the matter. The question of the indicators is still open. We do not expect them to be finalised and published until next March. It might be of some comfort if I say that the national statistician, John Pullinger, is chairing the committee, and I am confident that the indicators will be focused and will enable us to make the appropriate measurements.

I had a very different take on the outcome of Addis Ababa from my hon. and learned Friend. I thought it was a triumph, particularly because it went beyond aid. I share his disappointment at the inability of other G20 and G8 nations to step up to the plate and deliver on the 0.7% target, but my understanding is that at Addis Ababa the EU made a time-bound pledge in respect of the least-developed countries. Its strength, however, lay in its going beyond aid—to questions of harnessing the private sector, of harnessing countries’ resources and of tax reform and widening the tax base. These important issues all came out of it.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, as well as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) in an intervention on him, asked about the transfer of the aid budget to dealing with the refugees. I can reassure the House that there is no change in the definition of ODA, and no cut is being made to make money available for refugees, but clearly there are always opportunity costs: money spent in one way is not available to be spent in another. That is a perfectly proper evaluation for the Government to have made.

I have already addressed the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) asked about the national interest. I do not see a disparity between our national interest and how we deploy our official development aid. I regard the way that we spend it as an investment in pursuit of our national interest. We want to live in a safer, more stable and more prosperous world. That is in our national interest, and I believe we should pursue it.

I will certainly pass on what I took to be the application by the hon. Member for Glasgow North to be included in the delegation to UNGA. I do not know how the delegation is being made up; all I can say is that I know that I am not going.

[Patrick Grady]

It is not a personal request; it is about the relationship that exists, the respect agenda across the devolved Administrations and whether there is a space for a Minister or official from Scotland.

[Mr Swayne]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is in her place and will have heard this exchange. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to that important relationship and I very much look forward to meeting Humza Yousaf, which is scheduled in my diary for Monday.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) referred to the importance of biodiversity and tourism. That is an important point. We must not forget that tourism is an important earner for many poor countries.

The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) asked a very important question, on which I have reflected a great deal: “If you wanted a shorter list, what would you have left out?” That is one of the reasons why, on reflection, I have come to the belief that we have the best document that we could have come out with. He said that he regretted the absence of solidarity. I commend the document to him: the word leaps out of the page several times. I assure him that solidarity is there.

My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) reminded me of the very enjoyable time I spent among his students and his congregation, even if it was small. [Laughter.] There were many more students than there were in the congregation. He reminded us of something that is increasingly true and that many hon. Members will have experienced on their travels to see our operations in the rest of the world. In many of our posts the DFID element is significantly bigger than the Foreign Office element. That is a measure of the way that we have placed primacy on the international development role, but in all those operations we represent one Government—Her Majesty’s Government.

My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), who has long experience in Rwanda—I have joined her there on a number of occasions—spoke of the need for long-term sustainability, particularly in respect of goal 8.

The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) brought to bear his important experience from Sierra Leone and his other operations. He rightly drew attention to the importance of our pitch at the Paris climate change summit in December. I have spent some time over the summer visiting countries and getting them to up their game in their offer for Paris. In particular, I have encouraged Bangladesh to make sure—[Interruption.] I see that I am trespassing on the time. I am sorry if I have been unable to answer all the questions; I will write to hon. Members, but I must give the remaining time to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham.

Sustainable Development Goals (Education)

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Thursday 2nd July 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander). I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) for calling this timely debate. We are well served in this Parliament by such an active all-party group, and I look forward to working with it to advance the agenda at such an important time. I will say a little more about that shortly.

Every Member who has spoken has mentioned the fantastic Send My Friend to School initiative. I recall that when I was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, at this time of year I was continually ferrying those cardboard cut-outs to No. 10 Downing Street, and I was always impressed not only by the amount of physical work that had gone into them, but by the effort pupils had made to understand the problem and to advocate a solution. As the hon. Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) said, that is a guarantee of enthusiasm for our future.

I receive a great deal of correspondence from my constituents complaining about the level of international development aid and how much we are spending, so it is excellent that children in our schools are alive to the very reasons why we need such spending. I look forward to the time when they have more influence on their parents in getting that message across, and as they grow up and change the attitude of society generally. I have said in several forums that one of my ambitions for this Parliament is that, by the end of it, instead of being curmudgeonly about the amount that we spend on international development aid, my constituents will be proud of what we are doing and achieving.

I said that the debate was timely. I acknowledge entirely the concern of the hon. Member for Ceredigion that we have 16 goals and 169 targets. Where does sustainable development goal 4 and the seven targets that underpin it fit into that? I acknowledge the problem. Our ambition was for a smaller number of goals and of targets. The United Kingdom Government, with all their sophistication, measure our economic and social progress across about 60 targets, so I wonder how a Minister in Burkina Faso will be held to account on performance against 169 targets.

Our ambition was for something smaller, and we were prepared to expend a considerable amount of political and diplomatic capital on reopening the question and driving the numbers down to something more manageable. Frankly, our allies did not have the will to come with us, perhaps for understandable reasons. There was a genuine feeling that we had got a good set of goals and we were pleased with them, and any attempt to reopen the question and to narrow the numbers down, perhaps by combining some items—a whole process of reopening negotiations—might lead to a loss of some of the gains made. So we are where we are.

The important debate on much of what the hon. Gentleman discussed begins now. There is a continuing conversation to be had with him and the all-party group about how we should proceed. I extend to him an invitation to meet and continue the discussion with my fellow Minister of State at the Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), who will be dealing with the matter. What underpins the targets are the indicators—the indicators that will be measured to see whether the targets have been achieved—and that discussion will get under way more substantially and be agreed in March next year, so this is a good time for the all-party group and for the Government to consider what the indicators should be and what we believe needs to be counted.

The hon. Member for Lewisham East is right to draw attention to the huge question about the statistics and how we are to disaggregate them in order to be able to measure the very things that we need to measure. For example, we need to know how many disabled children there are and the nature of their disabilities. We have to be able to disaggregate and break down all the statistics to measure properly. We are ahead of the game—indeed, the British Government have been driving the agenda forward—but we all know the political reality: if we cannot count it, it will not count. It is vital that we get the metrics right in order to hold Governments to account for whether they have met the targets.

We have seen what was millennium development goal 1 morph into sustainable development goal 4. The hon. Member for Ceredigion was quite right to express a measure of disappointment about our achievements in relation to the original aim of getting all children into primary education by this year. That will not be achieved. We can say that 90% of children have at least got some sort of education, and he was right to draw attention to the fact that whereas there were 100 million children out of school, that figure is now 58 million—notwithstanding an increase in population, which could mean that the measure is better than it would appear on the surface—but the hon. Gentleman was right indeed to draw attention to the fact that, under those headline figures, there are some real worries, particularly with regard to sub-Saharan Africa and girls’ education. On the latter, if we take the headline figure for those at school, the balance is about 50-50, but there are places where the education of girls is greatly lacking. That has to be dealt with. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) is absolutely right that if we are looking for an investment to reduce poverty, the best thing to do to have the greatest impact is secure education for girls.

The hon. Member for Ceredigion was right to suggest that we focused too much on enrolment rather than on the quality of education. As the hon. Member for Lewisham East pointed out, it is all very well to have 250 million children in school for four years, but if they come out unable to read, write or count, the whole enterprise will have been a waste of time. It is a question not just of access but of outcomes. It is worth repeating the sustainable development goal:

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

I point out to the hon. Gentleman that half of the expenditure on our relevant multilateral programmes is on teacher training. Concentrating on quality is key. I know one of his particular concerns is the need to get away from chalk and talk and to have much more engaging education for children. I entirely support that agenda.

[Mr Mark Williams]

The Minister is right—that is a great interest of mine. Is he satisfied that DFID-promoted teacher training programmes are moving away from chalk and talk and more into diagnostic methods of teaching? That is particularly important for inclusivity with regard to disability. When one travels to schools—something he has done far more than I—one can see the great omission in that respect.

[Mr Swayne]

I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. Those are the key issues. I share his concerns about the way we teach. I was a teacher myself once; I used a great deal of chalk and talk, and I regret it.

On disability, we have imposed a framework on our Department, after a great deal of thought and a huge amount of consultation, especially with disability groups and their advocates, on the grounds that there should be no decision made about them without them. An enormous effort went into the framework, and it is a living document, to be continually updated and reviewed and republished annually. We have doubled the number of staff working on disability and appointed a champion to take forward the agenda, which will inform absolutely every project that we undertake. Every DFID project must now consider disability on the principle of “nobody left behind”. The hon. Gentleman asked whether our teacher training work takes disability into account. Clearly, the answer ought to be yes, absolutely, because that requirement is now a condition on which the whole Department has to operate.

We are stepping up to the plate. We are spending about £800 million a year on our education effort—a figure that has risen since last year by £180 million. Generally speaking, ICAI’s follow-up report gave us pretty good marks for how we are dealing with education. Our target is that by the end of this year we will have trained 190,000 teachers and educated 11 million children through primary and early secondary school, and I am confident we will meet that target. The manifesto commitment of the new Government is to do that for another 11 million children by 2020.

The principle on which DFID works in delivering our education effort is to combine learning with equity. By learning, we mean that all boys and girls are to gain a foundation in skills to further their education and employment and realise their potential. That means a quality education that delivers what it is supposed to. As I say, that is done on the basis of equity. The hon. Members for Ceredigion, for Glasgow North and for Lewisham East all rightly drew attention to that agenda. It is the key principle.

On disability, the principle of “nobody left behind” must underpin the delivery of our efforts. It is how we will measure whether the goal and the targets have been achieved, and we are making enormous strides on that agenda. For example, any school we fund has to be accessible by disabled people. However, we do not want simply to make things accessible—it is no good children getting into a school if they are not actually learning anything when they are in there. Disabled children must have the same access to education, which is why we have invested heavily in specific projects dealing with the needs of disabled people—for example, providing Braille resources for 10,000 blind children in Ethiopia and for the Ghana Blind Union. We must be much more alive to this issue in the design of our future projects if we are to meet the targets.

The hon. Members for Glasgow North and for Lewisham East both talked about children in conflict areas, Syria in particular. We have put enormous effort into ensuring not just that no child is left behind but that there should be no lost generation. We have invested a huge amount of resource into ensuring that in both Jordan and Lebanon refugee children can be enrolled, through having two shifts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon; there are also enrolment targets.

We are also funding the education Ministries. A new funding model is required for these emergencies. It is no good stumping up money and saying, “Here’s our commitment of £50 million” or £100 million, or whatever it is. Ministers who are delivering education in Lebanon and Jordan need to be assured that the finance will be there next year and the year after if they are to have plans. Therefore, part of our effort has been driving forward the agenda of delivering education over the longer term. That will be part of our agenda in Oslo and Addis: to make sure that finance is available not just as a one-off donation, but on the basis of a commitment on which Governments and Ministers can plan to provide for the educational needs as required.

As for the systems that underpin the principles of learning and equity, I have drawn attention to the fact that we need to address a whole series of statistics and metrics—things that we need to be able to measure—in order to ensure that data are used properly to deliver the outcome that we require.

The new SDG is a considerable expansion beyond the primary objective of the MDG. That raises all sorts of questions about finance, and the hon. Member for Ceredigion was right to consider whether we can provide the finance to deliver the goal. I think that we have to take a step back and consider policy and what we can do to address the needs of lifelong learning in a way that goes well beyond the emphasis on primary education. We are already active in that area. We have been supplying early years education for 150,000 children in Burma, and through the organisation BRAC in Bangladesh we have supplied 2.7 million children with pre-primary education, but we also have to address the needs of tertiary education. We are certainly active in technical and vocational education, but we need to consider particularly the concerns of further education beyond that. Most of our fellow donors deal with that through scholarships, but there is a weakness with scholarships in that all the expenditure is carried out in the donor country. It does not actually get out beyond that to the nations that are developing and that require it. How we deliver such things will have to be considered in more detail than perhaps it has been hitherto. There is a great policy decision to be made.

My view remains that primary education is of key importance in building foundations for development. It is one of the things that delivers huge improvements in delivery of other goals. Education is not only a goal in itself, but the door to other SDGs in terms of health outcomes and economic development. If education has not been delivered on, it will not be possible to deliver economic growth and the healthcare benefits that accrue as a consequence of having educated girls, which leads to later marriage and fewer problems with maternal health. All sort of things are transformed because of education. An additional year of education can increase a worker’s income by 10%, with all the effects that that has.

I would go further and say that the huge benefit of an educated population is that it delivers a stable, well governed country that provides for development—for the golden thread of economic development. Countries are poor because their elites choose to keep their people poor, because it suits them to do so and there is not an educated, active, civil society able to hold them to account. Education will deliver so much more than just the delivery of educational results in themselves.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd June 2015 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

4. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of UK aid to the Palestinian Authority.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

Our support has enabled the Palestinian Authority to carry out state-building reforms in public financial administration and security. The international community has recognised that the PA is now ready for statehood.

[John Howell]

I refer the House to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests.

Is the Minister aware of reports that the Palestinian Authority continues to pay convicted terrorists, and will he investigate whether UK payments are being used for that purpose?

[Mr Swayne]

I assure my hon. Friend that no UK payments are made for that purpose. Our support to the Palestinian Authority is paid through a World Bank-controlled trust fund to named civil servants and then independently audited.

[Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

More Palestinian civilians were killed last year than in any year since 1967, and the crisis gets worse and worse in the occupied territories, especially in Gaza. I see today that the Foreign Office has called for the Rafah crossing into Egypt to be opened, but what are Ministers doing to ensure that the goods and passenger crossings into Israel are opened? What pressure is DFID putting on the Israeli Government to do that?

[Mr Swayne]

We make representations at every level all the time to enable goods and services to be exported into and out of Gaza. There can be no future for Gaza until there is a complete transformation in that process, and for that to proceed, a peace process is required.

[Kate Green (Stretford and Urmston) (Lab)]

5. What recent progress has been made in negotiations to agree the sustainable development goals.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kerry McCarthy (Bristol East) (Lab)]

6. What support her Department is giving to the Rohingya people in Burma.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

The Department for International Development is one of the biggest international donors in Rakhine state. We have just increased our support by a further £6.2 million, bringing our support since 2012 to £18 million.

[Kerry McCarthy]

Does the Minister agree that the time is long overdue for Burma to address the persecution and poverty that force the Rohingya to flee? Does he think that the time is now right for the UN Secretary-General to lead the negotiations, so that humanitarian non-governmental organisations can gain access to Rakhine state?

[Mr Swayne]

Yes, and a director general of DFID is in Rakhine state as we speak, and we take every opportunity to push forward these matters.

[Mr David Burrowes (Enfield, Southgate) (Con)]

Surely, the plight of thousands of Rohingya people adrift in the bay of Bengal must call for greater leadership from not only the United Nations but the United Kingdom. Should we ensure not only that we make representations in meetings with ambassadors but that our taxpayers’ aid and access to our diplomatic doors are made contingent on ensuring proper recognition of the Rohingya and full respect of human rights?

[Mr Swayne]

Absolutely. I have taken every opportunity to raise this matter with Burmese Ministers. My caution with respect to my hon. Friend’s suggested course of action is that I am not prepared to withdraw British aid from poor people simply because of the regime under which they suffer.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

15. What is the UK doing to encourage a co-ordinated response to the south-east Asian boat migrant situation?

[Mr Swayne]

Our ambassador attended the recent conference with Malaysia and Bangladesh. We participated with a démarche of Burmese Ministers, along with the United States and the French, and we are doing everything that we can precisely to make this a regional response.

[Christina Rees (Neath) (Lab)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

7. What assessment she has made of the effectiveness of the efforts made by the (a) UN and (b) UK to improve the humanitarian situation in Gaza.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

Movement restrictions damage the Gazan economy, with the result that 80% of Gazans are dependent on aid, 57% are dependent on food aid and 43% are unemployed. Most of the UK contribution to the relief effort is delivered through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and I judge that to be effective within the limitations of the funding and the movement restrictions.

[Lisa Nandy]

As winter approaches, the Minister will know that the humanitarian situation in Gaza remains dire. It is welcome that the UK has pledged £20 million to help, but what is his Government’s long-term plan, given the re-election this morning of the Prime Minister who believes that the continuation of the blockade of Gaza is a good thing; believes in the building of illegal settlements; has abandoned a two-state solution; and believes that the deaths of more than 2,000 people in Gaza last summer were “proportionate”? Surely now is the time for the Minister to put pressure on his ministerial colleagues, recognise the state of Palestine and end this appalling situation.

[Mr Swayne]

The hon. Lady is right in that the state of affairs in Gaza is desperate. However, on the recent events and the election, I am tempted to call in aid the wisdom of the Ents and say that we should not be hasty. It will be some time before the true policies of the new Government emerge, after long negotiations over a coalition. In the meantime, we remain committed to the two-state solution and we make our representations known on all the issues that she has raised, at the highest level.

[Guy Opperman]

What specific assessment has been made of the Gaza reconstruction mechanism? How many people have been accessing the building materials?

[Mr Swayne]

As of this morning, more than 60,000 individuals have had access to building materials, out of the in excess of 100,000 who need such materials. I am confident that the mechanism is working effectively, but clearly there will have to be a step change in movement and access which can result only from a lasting solution.

[Mr Andy Slaughter (Hammersmith) (Lab)]

Israel will have a Government opposed to a two-state solution and a Prime Minister who turned out his vote by an emergency broadcast that said:

“Arab voters are heading to the polling stations in droves.”

What is the international community going to do to get aid to Gaza, which is in occupation and under siege? How is the international community going to provide that aid when the occupation and siege are permanent?

[Mr Swayne]

A great deal of aid for Gaza was pledged at the Cairo conference. We have delivered a quarter of our pledge, and within the first few weeks of the financial year we will have delivered all of the £20 million we pledged. We have been entering into a considerable diplomatic effort to get other countries that have made pledges to step up to deliver, and I am glad to say that Qatar and Kuwait have now done so.

[Michael Fabricant (Lichfield) (Con)]

10. My right hon. Friend will know that some 600,000 tonnes of concrete have been used for the construction of illegal tunnels for smuggling and to enable the firing of weapons into Israel. How can he ensure that aid gets to the people who need it and not to Hamas?

[Mr Swayne]

One part of the Gaza reconstruction mechanism is the material monitoring unit, which my Department supports. It is designed specifically to do what my hon. Friend requests: to ensure that any materials supplied, stored and dispersed are for the proper purpose and that any infractions are reported.

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

The Minister says that we should wait and see what is going to happen in Israel, but now the mask has slipped and Netanyahu has said he will not allow a two-state solution and will not allow a Palestinian state. Is not the only solution that will relieve the suffering of the people in Gaza a concerted international action to lift the blockade?

[Mr Swayne]

We continue to make representations at all levels about movement restrictions, but I repeat what I have said: we will have to wait and see what the new Government’s policy is, after they emerge from the coalition negotiations.

[Dr Julian Huppert (Cambridge) (LD)]

I share the concerns about the election results in Israel and what they mean for people in Gaza and elsewhere in that region. On a number of occasions Israel has had restrictions on parliamentarians being able to cross at the Erez checkpoint to see what is happening in Gaza. Will the Minister seek to get that changed so that people can see what is happening to the aid that we provide and to the people there?

[Mr Swayne]

I am aware that, like me, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), was recently admitted to Gaza. Such visits do involve bureaucratic obfuscation, and we will continue to make representations in that regard.

[Lilian Greenwood (Nottingham South) (Lab)]

3. What steps her Department is taking to improve working conditions in developing countries

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

We are improving working conditions through our country programmes and through global standards. For example, in Bangladesh, we are providing £7 million to improve working conditions and safety in 1,800 factories, and we support labour practices globally through the ethical trading initiative.

[Lilian Greenwood]

I am sure that the Minister agrees that decent work is central to people’s well-being, as it provides income, paves the way for broader social and economic advancement, and strengthens individuals, their families and communities. Given the International Labour Organisation’s vital action on that agenda for almost 100 years, why have this Government withdrawn their funding?

[Mr Swayne]

We have not withdrawn funding. After the 2011 multilateral review, we withdrew core funding because we had reservations about value for money and we wanted to shift our focus to fragile states. We continue to work with the International Labour Organisation. We have a £7.4 million project with the ILO in Bangladesh, and, together, we are pursuing the Work in Freedom project. We will review that work with the International Labour Organisation at the next multilateral aid review, as the Secretary of State has already said.

[Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the Government’s inclusion of a specific clause on transparency and supply chains in the Modern Slavery Bill will help to improve dialogue between workers and management in Bangladeshi garment factories?

[Mr Swayne]

I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend’s analysis. Getting corporates to take control of their supply chains is crucial and the Act, as it will become, will be vital in that respect.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

9. World Vision tells me that there are 168 million child labourers worldwide. An investigation by The Guardian has revealed that child labour was used in a DFID-funded project in Nepal. Will the Minister tell us whether that is correct and indicate what will be done to ensure that it does not happen again?

[Mr Swayne]

The hon. Gentleman is right about the figure of 168 million. The only positive thing that one can say is that it has fallen by a third since 2000. The World Food Programme was involved in the project in Nepal, and the services of the supplier were discontinued. None the less, it reinforces the message—we must get this through using our international ethical trading initiative—that producers must take control of their supply chains.

[Martin Horwood (Cheltenham) (LD)]

The Government’s successful International Citizen Service led by Voluntary Service Overseas also promotes good public health and good business practice, including better working conditions, but an unintended consequence of the new universal credit rules may be inhibiting young claimants from volunteering for ICS. I know that the Secretary of State has been supportive of VSO, but will DFID Ministers raise this matter with the Department for Work and Pensions to prevent this unintended consequence on an excellent Government programme?

[Mr Swayne]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is alive to that problem, and we are working across Government to deal with it.

[Bridget Phillipson (Houghton and Sunderland South) (Lab)]

13. Nearly two years on from the Rana Plaza disaster in which thousands of garment workers were killed or injured when their factory collapsed, will the Minister update the House on the work he is doing with UK brands and retailers to ensure safe working conditions and fair pay?

[Mr Swayne]

Our £7.4 million programme with the International Labour Organisation is training some 575 factory inspectors and carrying out, with our funding, some 1,800 factory investigations for electrical, fire and structural problems. We are driving forward that agenda.

[Sir Roger Gale (North Thanet) (Con)]

I think we can probably agree that, as a result of recent events, working conditions in Vanuatu are rather challenging. Will my right hon. Friend take this oblique opportunity to indicate what we are doing to assist?

[Mr Swayne]

My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced up to £2 million of aid to Vanuatu, principally through UN agencies and our rapid response facility.

[Mary Creagh (Wakefield) (Lab)]

In 2012 Human Rights Watch documented the loss of jobs and violent forced evictions of the Anuak people from their ancestral lands in Ethiopia. The World Bank project linked to those abuses was funded by the Minister’s Department. What steps did he take in 2012 to investigate those allegations of human rights abuses?

[Mr Swayne]

My understanding is that the programme is designed to lift some 50 million people out of poverty by 2022. With regard to the seed provision, my understanding is that it is not compulsory to take it and that the legislation that has been put in place is standard.

[Mary Creagh]

The right hon. Gentleman’s Department decided to stop funding that World Bank project only in January this year, and it announced that decision only the day before the World Bank published the findings of its investigation into those issues. Why did he take three years to act, and what steps has he now taken to ensure that British aid truly supports better working conditions and jobs for the poorest, and is never again linked to human rights abuses?

[Mr Swayne]

By next year we will have spent £1.8 billion on promoting employment. We are shifting to economic generation and job creation. I fundamentally disagree with the hon. Lady’s approach.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

5. What steps her Department is taking to help children affected by the crisis in Syria.

HIV Treatment: Low and Middle- income Countries

Desmond Swayne Excerpts

Wednesday 11th March 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)]

It is always an enormous pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar), particularly when he makes such a helpful and thoughtful contribution. I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) not only on securing this debate and on introducing it so well but on the enormous impact that her all-party group has achieved with its two publications. It is extraordinary for an all-party group to be able to inform the public and the legislature in that way. I commend the other Members who have contributed: the hon. Members for Paisley and Renfrewshire North (Jim Sheridan) and for Dumfries and Galloway (Mr Brown) and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Simon Kirby). I owe my hon. Friend a particular debt because he drew my attention to this subject and engaged and interested me in it. He has worked very hard on HIV and AIDS in his constituency, where he rightly says that they have been a significant issue. I pay tribute to him.

I have been asked a large number of questions, so I will race through putting the Government’s position on the record, and then I will deal with the questions as expeditiously as I can. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts said that there are 35 million HIV-positive sufferers, but I think that one of the most worrying statistics is that 19 million of them do not know that they have the disease. We have to draw attention to that. Only 34% of those who are eligible for treatment under the World Health Organisation’s 2013 treatment guidelines have access to antiretroviral treatment.

We remain the second biggest donor in the world. We set out our approach in the document “Towards zero infections” in 2011, and we updated it in “Towards zero infections: two years on” at the end of 2013. In those documents, we clearly laid out a pathway for withdrawing from bilateral funding and transferring to a multilateral approach to this problem. Principally, we are going to work through the Global Fund, which represents about one fifth of the entire world’s contribution.

We have changed the way we operate, but we have not reduced it at all. I looked at the figures extensively this morning. From 2006-07 to 2009-10, we spent £849 million on HIV/AIDS, and from 2010-11 to 2013-14 we spent £1,070 million. The highest years for expenditure were last year and one a couple of years before that. Therefore, quite properly, we are maintaining the pressure on this important issue. We are not slacking or suffering from donor fatigue. The measure of that—the hon. Members for Glasgow Central and for Airdrie and Shotts referred to this—is our commitment of £1 billion to the Global Fund from 2014 to 2016, subject to a 10% burden share.

We see ourselves as the voice of the affected populations. I will return to that point, because a number of hon. Members have expressed concern about it. We are driving forward improvement and integrating HIV treatment with health systems in the countries where people are affected. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central drew attention to that important agenda. We are driving forward the centrality of women and girls. He was entirely right when he said that, every hour, 50 young women between the ages of 15 and 24 are affected. That is twice the infection rate of young men, and it represents 22% of new infections. In sub-Saharan Africa, 57% of sufferers are women.

We want to use market shaping to ensure that drugs are available at affordable prices, so we have committed £35 million between 2012 and 2015 to the Clinton Health Access Initiative. That money has been used effectively to shape the market and to bring about £1 billion of savings to the purchasing countries, which translates to 2.5 million more people being treated and getting drugs, so it is an important part of the agenda.

The hon. Members for Dumfries and Galloway and for Airdrie and Shotts spoke about children. I recognise that there is a gap in the market for paediatric care. The United Kingdom and France are the major funders of UNITAID, to which we made a 20-year commitment. As part of that agreement, we have committed an average of €60 million per year. UNITAID provided 400,000 children with fixed-dose combinations last year, and was instrumental in reducing the price of those doses from $252 per child in 2006 to $130 in 2011. Those actions contributed to the 52% reduction in child infections since 2001. That reduction has been accelerating in recent years.

UNITAID also funds the medicines patent pool, which has been performing well. I know that the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts has an interest in it because she raised it with my noble Friend Baroness Northover. That model was designed specifically for AIDS, but it is reasonable to ask whether it can be expanded and used to deal with other diseases. It is an effective way of operating and it has been a success, so I hope it is going to be part of the agenda in future.

[Pamela Nash]

I am extremely grateful to the Minister for making that point, which will be good news not only for the all-party group but for the organisations that support us. I want to make one small point, which I have raised informally with the Department. The minutes of the UNITAID board meeting in December state that there was a reduced contribution from the UK Government. Can the Minister clarify that or seek advice from his colleagues?

[Mr Swayne]

The commitment of an average of €60 million per year for 20 years has been and will be met, but it is an average. There was a reduction, and my understanding is that it was made good with a €40 million contribution. The contributions are being met and we are fulfilling the requirements.

HIV treatment is linked to broader issues of health development, the strengthening of health systems, gender equality, and stigma and discrimination. All those things have to be addressed. We have to have a rights-based prevention and treatment regime. That remains a key policy objective in tracking how our contributions and investments deal with those issues. We need to be much better informed, and we must understand how to tackle stigma. Only when that happens will more people be able to access preventive programmes, get tested, and initiate and adhere to treatments.

The product development partnerships model has been very successful in bringing forward new drugs to the market. It has brought forward 43 new drugs in the past 10 years, and there are 350 under development. The Department for International Development is a strong supporter of PDPs; indeed, we were the first Government donor to them. I congratulate the Labour party on its initiative in 2008 and on driving forward that innovative agenda. It was an important contribution. We remain a globally significant player in that field, having committed £154.2 million between 2013 and 2018.

I was asked any number of questions. Let me start with those about vaccines and the International AIDS Vaccine Initiative. There has been no cut. We fulfilled the contract that we had with IAVI. All the money that we had committed was paid. We have a new contract now for £5 million, for which it competed, for a slightly different programme.

Let us be clear about what has happened. It is quite right that we have withdrawn from something that we were previously involved in, just as any organisation continually reviews its operations and does what it does best. I understand that some six vaccines went for field trials and we were funding that process. The results were disappointing, so it was back to the laboratory. We do not consider laboratory work as part of our comparative advantage. There are organisations in the world that are much better at dealing with that sort of scientific funding and do that work. Frankly, I believe that our funds are better expended elsewhere, where we have a comparative advantage.

Remember that we have not made a saving; we are spending more than we were spending before. We are spending it differently and I believe that we are spending it effectively, although we are not funding IAVI to the extent that we were in the past. That is a perfectly reasonable position to have taken, given the change in the situation.

[Anas Sarwar]

The Minister mentions the six vaccines that went to field trials and the “disappointing” results. He does realise that we only need success once, but we need to fund that programme to be able to get that one success.

[Mr Swayne]

Absolutely, but the difference is this. Funding field trials is one thing but going back to the laboratory and working there is a different field of endeavour, one where we have no comparative advantage. [Interruption.] I think we will just have to agree to disagree about this one, but there has absolutely been no cut in our funding of IAVI. We fulfilled our contracts and entered into a new one—a quite different one—with IAVI.

Now we come to the big question of the middle-income countries. I accept entirely that, when a country becomes a middle-income country, it hits a double whammy: one, the funding is withdrawn; and, two, all the prices go up. But hey—they are middle-income countries, and we are trying to encourage people to invest properly and to step up, as they are richer countries, and fund their health systems properly and have properly integrated health systems. That is an important part of the deal.

I accept entirely that that is a bit like falling off a cliff. Perhaps we should have some system akin to, say, universal credit, where there is a taper, as countries move from low-income status to middle-income status. I accept that there is an argument—a case to be made here. I am open to that discussion. It is something that we would have to agree with our international partners; I do not think we would have leave to change the system ourselves. Hon. Members have drawn attention to a very clear problem. The way we get around it at the moment is through the funding of the Robert Carr network, to which we have committed £4 million until the end of this month, and then we will have to replenish it. That is underfunded; there is a £13 million funding gap in respect of the Robert Carr network. We have to work with our donor partners to try to see how that gap can be filled.

I agree entirely with the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts that viral load testing is the top end. It is exactly what we should be pursuing. I am glad that the price has fallen significantly as a consequence of the market shaping; it is down to a cap of $9.40, which is down some 40% in low-income and middle-income countries. The problem is, as she rightly pointed out, that that requires a developed network of laboratory testing. Again, I entirely share her view that we have to continue investing in alternative point-of-care technology, and in research and development in that area. I know that there have been more than 924,000 CD4 tests at point of care, but she is right that load testing is a much better and much more valuable tool. The way the Global Fund works is that it asks countries that are capable of supporting the network with laboratories for viral load testing to apply for that funding, and it asks other countries that are not able to support that to apply, certainly for the moment, for funding to deal with CD4 and whatever else may be brought forward. The work of UNITAID and the Clinton health foundation has been instrumental in reducing the price of viral load testing, which was one of the principal problems with it.

I come on to the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership and the impact of any trade negotiations. I was asked whether we have formal input into the process. The reality is that, as a consequence of decisions taken in 1975—decisions that might be reviewed if the election result turns out the way I want it to—trade policy is a European Commission competency. Within the UK Government, the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills is the lead Department in relation to that, but DFID successfully ensures that issues such as access to medicines and intellectual property rights lead to joint discussions between our Departments. It is physically in BIS but it is actually staffed by DFID officials. Therefore, we do that.

On the issue itself, my own view is that it is down to the negotiations at the time, on a case-by-case basis. When we make a trading agreement, we have to ensure that we are absolutely certain that we are not compromising ourselves on intellectual property and that we are not going to restrict access to drugs as a consequence of the decisions we make. That is just down to being vigilant when we come to make these arrangements.

I was specifically asked about research and development. That agenda has been driven forward largely by civil society, rather than by nation states and Governments. Nevertheless, it is important. Frankly, it is unlikely that there will be a legally binding instrument for health research and co-ordination. The Government’s view is that any agreement needs to be built on existing mechanisms, such as that proposed by the expert working group.

The background to the issue is that for the past 10 years the World Health Organisation has convened a number of working groups to discuss and suggest solutions to the issues that the hon. Lady has raised, namely, funding flows, innovative funding mechanisms and co-ordination of health research. The latest of these groups—the consultative working group—suggested that we should establish a WHO global R and D observatory and a pooled fund for product R and D, together with a co-ordinating mechanism to support the fund.

The World Health Assembly is due to discuss that matter later this year. My concern is this: will countries wish to put more into this pool than they are putting in at the moment to contributions to R and D, particularly when the pool will be controlled by a mechanism other than the countries themselves? My estimate is that most countries would want to put research funding into a direct contribution that they control and to know where it is going. I will not go any further than that, because I was asked about 90-90-90 and I have one minute left to respond. It is a very interesting thing. It is far too soon to tell. My concern is that it adds a very substantial burden to the funding that already exists, and the emphasis must be on the poorest and the sickest first. I would want to see a little more about how the UNITAID proposals are brought forward before committing myself irrevocably to the 90-90-90 strategy.