International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill (Money)
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)
I beg to move,
That, for the purposes of any Act resulting from the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill, it is expedient to authorise any expenditure incurred under or by virtue of the Act by a Minister of the Crown or Government Department.
Philip Davies
I just wonder whether the Minister felt any embarrassment about bringing forward this money resolution the week after a report showed how much money his Department gives out that is either wasted or goes in some form of corruption.
Mr Swayne
One of the things we always discover with reports is that there is always an expectation, or a request, that the Department for International Development will do more, which is the case at present.
We have several very successful programmes for the reduction of corruption. What we have had from the International Commission for Aid Impact is essentially a request that we develop further programmes to deal with corruption at the local level and reduce its impact on the lives of ordinary people. As a DFID Minister, I am happy to consider everything we can do to achieve that, and I regard the report as a useful pointer.
I reject entirely the allegations that any of the current programmes have led to an increase in the level of petty corruption. I think the report has got the wrong end of the stick. It is not clear to me where that information has come from and it is certainly not clear in the report.
Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)
The problem is that when we have a departmental budget that, almost uniquely, is awash with money and is growing all the time, and where there is a limited number of countries under very difficult circumstances to which it is being directed, that must increase the possibility of corruption. That is what this report is saying, and that is what we are saying. That is why we are concerned about the amount of taxpayers’ money being wasted.
Mr Swayne
The issue before us this evening is the money to be spent in achieving a Committee stage for the Bill, rather than the total amount of money spent as a result of the principle of the Bill, which is what we dealt with in the second week of September. I agree with my hon. Friend, however, that it is absolutely vital that we develop programmes, schemes and methods of ensuring that every single penny is spent as it should be, and that it should not be wasted in corruption. I also draw my hon. Friend’s attention to the fact that the principle of the Bill was agreed overwhelmingly by the House—166 votes to seven. It is the will of the House that the Bill proceeds.
Mrs Anne Main (St Albans) (Con)
I am sorry if I sound unhelpful but I have gone through every report in the independent audit and there are things that will concern the public, such as the review of the trade development work in southern Africa where we have discovered a payment to the Government of Zimbabwe in contravention of UK Government policy. We do need to keep tight control over money that is spent, or the taxpayer will feel that they are being fleeced.
Mr Swayne
It is vital that these matters are investigated and answers are given and that proper schemes are in place and enforced to ensure that the money is spent correctly. The purpose of this money resolution, however, is to give effect to the will of the House, clearly expressed in September, that this Committee proceed.
Jacob Rees-Mogg (North East Somerset) (Con)
Why, therefore, are the Government not bringing forward a money resolution for the European Union (Referendum) Bill—or, for that matter, the Bill of my hon. Friend the Member for St Ives (Andrew George), because he will be on his feet in a moment if I do not include him?
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
As the Minister has said, this money resolution gives effect to the strong will of the House to see this Bill go forward. Does he agree with me that the very purpose of our development assistance is to help countries to grow—to develop and to establish stronger government systems—and to tackle the very corruption that inevitably occurs in some of the poorest countries in the world, and that actually we need to build a virtuous circle in respect of these issues, and not just pick things out one by one, as some Government Members are trying to do?
Andrew George (St Ives) (LD)
I entirely endorse this motion, but as the Minister said a moment ago, its purpose is to give effect to the clearly expressed will of the House. The House also clearly expressed its will on 5 September when we debated the Affordable Homes Bill. I do not understand why the Government are not bringing forward a money resolution for Bill No. 1.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Dawn Primarolo)
Order. Minister, before you are tempted down that route, I would just like to remind the House that we are only debating the money resolution with respect to this Bill, and no other agreed or not agreed or yet to come before the House money resolution, so no Member should tempt the Minister to speak on any money resolution except the one before us today. That is important because we have only 45 minutes.
Mr Swayne
I am guided by your advice, Madam Deputy Speaker, but the fact is that I am no more able to gratify the hon. Member for St Ives than I am my hon. Friend the Member for North East Somerset (Jacob Rees-Mogg). The fact is that this money resolution gives effect to the will of the House so this Bill can move into Committee.
Mr Bone
I think the Minister made a slight error with his numbers earlier. I think he was referring to the voting on the closure motion, when the debate was curtailed. The vote on the question on Second Reading was 164 to six. Will he enlighten us as to how the decision is made to bring money resolutions to the Floor of the House?
Mr Swayne
I stand corrected; my hon. Friend has clearly examined the record more scrupulously than I did. On his second question: that is a mystery to me. It is not for me to determine which Bills have money resolutions and which do not. That is a question that he might properly put to the Leader of the House on Thursday at business questions, because it is effectively his decision. The irony is that this Bill would not have required a money resolution in order to go into Committee had it not been for clause 5, which sets up a new body. The fact is that it is my intention to persuade my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) to amend the Bill in Committee by taking out that offending clause.
Michael Moore (Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) (LD)
I am happy to put on record the fact that the Minister and I have been having constructive discussions, and I hope that we will be in a position to bring amendments to the Committee together to deal with the matter that he has just raised.
Richard Fuller (Bedford) (Con)
Will the Minister explain the process behind this particular money resolution? In an era in which the country knows that the Government have no money to throw around, what process did he go through to determine that there should be expenditure on progressing this Bill, which, if it is passed, would have serious implications for public expenditure?
Mr Swayne
The process is simple. We discussed it a great deal on Second Reading, but my hon. Friend is now effectively attempting to reopen that debate. The Bill was approved according to the clearly expressed will of the House, but it concerns a pledge that was in every party’s manifesto.
Mr Swayne
I hardly think that a private Member’s Bill could be referred to as being “pushed through” in that way. If it had been a Government Bill, my hon. Friend might well have complained about the operation of the Whips and about it being railroaded through; he has often complained about that in the past. Surely he does not think that that is happening with a private Member’s Bill; that is absolute nonsense.
Philip Davies
The Minister keeps repeating that approval of the Bill was expressed with the clear will of the House, but he also announced that 164 Members voted in favour of it. The last time I looked there were 650 MPs, so on what basis does he think that 164 Members represent the clear will of all 650?
Mr Swayne
The reason I keep repeating that the clear will of the House was expressed on that occasion is that it manifestly was. As my hon. Friend knows, the will of the House can be expressed through a majority of one. The fact that so many Members voted overwhelmingly in favour of the Bill’s Second Reading shows that that clearly was the will of the House. He is an aficionado of the House’s procedures on Fridays, and he will know that to get more than a quorum on a Friday is a substantial achievement. The fact that the House was filled with so many Members was a tremendous tribute to their strength of feeling and support for my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk’s Bill.
Mr Tom Clarke (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (Lab)
I can understand why the Minister is getting excited, or even angry, but I urge him not to do that. The hon. Members who are putting him under pressure are not representative of this Parliament, and it is this Parliament that has the right to decide whether there will be a money resolution, just as we have the right to decide whether the Bill makes any more progress.
Development Projects (Afghanistan)
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)
I last visited Afghanistan in 1976, when it was a very different place. I had the pleasure, and indeed the liberty, to hire a horse and ride round the lakes of Band-e Amir and to visit the standing Buddhas at Bamiyan, since destroyed by the Taliban, all entirely on my own and entirely safely. Of course, things have changed dramatically since those days. The British taxpayer has shed treasure and British soldiers, sailors and airmen have given their lives and shed much blood in attempting to return Afghanistan to some form of stability. Perhaps those days will come again.
Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries in the world and, after 30 years of warfare, we have the extraordinary situation where the average lifespan is only 49 years. One third of the population lives on less than 70p a day. Barely one in three is literate and able to read and write, and one child in 10 dies before their fifth birthday. It is unlikely that, or rather, it is certain that Afghanistan will not meet any of the millennium development goals before 2020. That is why we believe it is right that we should have a lasting commitment as a partner to Afghanistan for the long term. Our aim is to deliver 71,000 jobs for people in Afghanistan and to provide primary education for 5.4 million people, with 40% of the places for girls. We want to assist, and we provide important technical assistance on the public finances and to address corruption, strengthen basic services and fundamentally improve the lives of women, as well as providing resilience for the country in the face of natural disasters, given that it is situated in earthquake zones and subject to those dangers.
The focus of much of our development has been on the rural economy and providing for the distribution of goods and access to markets. Since 2002, we have been the largest donor to the World Bank’s Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund. I should point out to the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Steve McCabe) that about half our aid to Afghanistan is channelled through the World Bank to provide basic services to people. The achievements of the Afghanistan reconstruction trust fund include the delivery of some 9,321 miles of road, benefiting some 6 million people.
We also support the infrastructure trust fund, which provides finance for power. As a result—this is among the other achievements of that fund—some 30% of households are now on the electricity grid. We also contribute to the comprehensive agriculture and rural development facility, which tackles obstacles to rural development, increasing productivity, encouraging value-added production and improving rural incomes. It has delivered some 6,663 jobs, of which 1,977 have been for women. It has increased incomes by some £2 million, delivered 800 small farms and 250 greenhouses, and provided for canals and reservoirs. The next phase of the project begins this year, with an even more ambitious target of 13,000 jobs and an increment to incomes of some £88 million.
We are presented with an enormous opportunity by the political developments in Afghanistan with the new Ghani regime, and we will be hosting a conference in London in December to catalyse on that. The conference was originally conceived as a technical catch-up on the conference that took place in Tokyo to try to keep Afghanistan up to the mark in delivering its side of the development bargain, by reducing corruption and living up to our expectations on probity. The situation has fundamentally changed with the Ghani regime and his welcome appointment of his main presidential rival as Chief Executive Officer, or, to all extents and purposes, as Prime Minister—although the Afghanistan constitution does not have a role of Prime Minister, that is the nearest comparison by which to paraphrase that role. He has put his rival in that role and announced by presidential decree a reopening of the investigation into the plundering of the Kabul Bank in 2012.
Steve McCabe
The Minister is making a fascinating, upbeat speech, but we are a bit like ships passing in the night. Given that it does not sound as though he will be able to address the points I have raised, I ask him to look at what I said and give me a thorough written response.
Mr Swayne
If the hon. Gentleman will allow me, I will come to his points, but the title of the debate entitles me to put on record the policy of the Department and the achievements we have made and seek to make. With respect to the opportunity that is now opening up, it is time to re-engage with Afghanistan in the London conference in December, which will provide an opportunity for the new Afghan regime to lay its cards on the table and show its commitment to reform. The conference will provide us with the opportunity to restate our long-term commitment to Afghanistan, notwithstanding our withdrawal from the combat role.
The hon. Gentleman has raised the issue of the Bost development before. On account of that and the 40 parliamentary questions that he has tabled on the matter, I took some trouble before this debate to look into what he clearly sees as a conspiracy of silence to conceal information from him. Given the number of questions and the new information he has presented today, he is right: I will not be able to address them all in this debate, although I will attempt to address as many as I can.
My immediate reaction on having read his earlier Westminster Hall debate was to think, “Is there a conspiracy?” As a fellow Member of the House—and one who served under his chairmanship in that famous private Bill Committee—I say to the hon. Gentleman that while it may smell rotten to him, I am of the belief that there is nothing rotten here. However, given what he has said today, I will of course go away and look at it again. I make a genuine offer to him. I know how frustrating it must be to try to elicit information through parliamentary questions, only to get a glacial increase or increment or a step back with each one, but I am more than happy to pursue this matter through correspondence. I will be as open as I can.
I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has made good use of the Department’s website. We believe in transparency and making things public, with respect to freedom of information requests. Will the report ever be finished? I am afraid the answer is: “No, it won’t.” As I understand it, the reason the report he referred to has not been released is because it was a draft report.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Mitchell
I will in a moment, but I want to make some progress first.
On page 116 of the manifesto there is a very fetching picture of my hon. Friend the Member for Harlow (Robert Halfon) teaching in Rwanda on Project Umubano. I was teaching in the classroom next door and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), my right hon. Friend the Member for Horsham (Mr Maude) and my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) were also teaching. The Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest West (Mr Swayne), was not far away in Butare at the time.
The former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), made a powerful speech today. He talked about David in the genocide memorial in Kigali, which has been visited by hundreds of Conservatives on Project Umubano who were as moved as the right hon. Gentleman was to see it. That is part of the way in which the commitment to international development has grown across the House, which is very welcome indeed.
I do not like declaratory legislation and fully understand why many Members believe that it is insulting and that it diminishes the House of Commons, because it implies that we cannot be trusted to do what we say we will do and that we therefore have to satisfy the public by enshrining it in law. Of course, former Prime Minister Tony Blair passed declaratory legislation to abolish child poverty, but child poverty then immediately went up. I therefore understand why declaratory legislation is frowned upon in this House, but this is different: we have reached 0.7%. As the former Prime Minister, the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath, said, we have ascended the mountain and reached the top. We should all be incredibly proud, particularly on the Conservative Benches, that it was a Conservative-led Government who introduced and honoured this commitment to the poorest in the world at an extremely difficult time in our own economic affairs.
The great and important point about the 0.7% is that it gives certainty to budgetary methods and budgets in the Department for International Development. That matters a lot: it means we can plan for the long term, for reasons I will come on to. It also reflects the state of the economy, because it is predicated on the gross national income, and it gives certainty to planning.
A report on international development by the House of Lords Economic Affairs Committee—a most senior Committee in Parliament—praised almost everything this Government are doing, but complained about the 0.7% because it is an input. It is right that we should be obsessed with outputs—the results and what this money is achieving. Nevertheless, this particular input is the exception, because it enables us to plan future international development spend with certainty.
Mr Swayne
I feel it is important at this moment to put on the record the work of my right hon. Friend. The growth in consensus across the House, particularly on the Conservative Benches, is undoubtedly a result of the work he did in opposition with respect to Project Umubano and the work he did as Secretary of State.
Mr Mitchell
My right hon. Friend is extremely generous.
In return for this extraordinarily favourable arrangement for British development policy, we have to honour the electorate by ensuring that we demonstrate that we really do secure the results that we promise—that for every pound of their hard-earned money, we really do secure 100p of development on the ground. That is why this Government have conducted multilateral and bilateral aid reviews, to ensure that we can demonstrate to the public that this money is really well spent.
Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)
I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for raising the point of order and for bringing this very sad news to the House. The death of Lord Bannside—known in this House for many years as the hon. Member for North Antrim, the Rev. Ian Paisley—will be a great loss to Parliament and to the political body as a whole. He was a man of great principle: a big parliamentary personality in every way. He was always kind, and always ready with a witty and amusing word to lighten a dark hour. He will be greatly missed in this House, in the other place and generally. I am sure that the House will wish to give its sympathy and thoughts to his son, the current hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley), and the rest of the Paisley family.
Mr Swayne
Further to that point of order. May I briefly put on the record Her Majesty’s Government’s tribute to the reverend doctor? He was absolutely critical to the peace process in Northern Ireland, and the House and the nation will be grateful to him for the role that he played in it. Our thoughts will undoubtedly be with the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) on the loss that his family have suffered. The doctor was a big personality, with a formidable public persona, but as you have said, Madam Deputy Speaker, those who knew him in the House, will have known a very different man, who was kind and gentle. I am confident that there will be many in the House who will kneel down this evening and will say, “Lord Jesus Christ, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom, remember Thy servant Ian. Amen.”
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
Further to that point of order, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Opposition are saddened by the loss of Lord Bannside, the former Member of Parliament for North Antrim. My colleagues and I support most deeply the words of the hon. Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) and the Minister. Our thoughts are with Lord Bannside’s family. We send them our deepest sympathies, most particularly his son, the current hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley).
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)
It is a privilege to follow the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown). He speaks with passion—passion that he showed on this subject throughout his years as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Prime Minister. He speaks with authority, too, as a representative of the international community. I fear I will not be able to match the authority and passion with which he has spoken, but I have seen the photograph of which he spoke in Rwanda, as I have worked there during the summers for a number of years, and yesterday I had the experience of visiting, and speaking to, Syrian refugees as they were registered at the UNHCR registration centre in Beirut. It was a harrowing experience, during which I struggled to maintain my composure, and my thoughts go out to those young people who do back-to-back interviews all day as they register those refugees with the most appalling stories.
So I acknowledge the work the right hon. Gentleman has done, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State will be going to the United Nations General Assembly on the 24th of this month to make sure we drive forward the agenda that there should be no lost generation in education, and she will be focusing particularly on raising funds for those Syrians to be educated, particularly in Jordan and Lebanon. And Her Majesty’s ambassador, the right hon. Gentleman’s former assistant private secretary, Tom Fletcher, made absolutely clear to me yesterday the importance of the role that the right hon. Gentleman has in this matter.
Some weeks ago earlier this summer, during questions to the Department for International Development an hon. Gentleman, in chiding us for spending so much on international development, told the House that charity should begin at home. Well, it should; it would not be charity if it did not, but I rather suspect that those who coined the phrase had precisely the opposite meaning in mind to the one he attributed to it. For them, charity was indivisible—if you are charitable, you are charitable wherever you are—and it was to be a standing challenge to those who, like the Pharisee, rejoiced over their good works in public while treating their family and their servants with meanness.
That was the true meaning of the term, but that hon. Gentleman’s mistake was even more fundamental, because international development aid is not charity. Charity is what we dip our hand into our own pocket and distribute. Taxpayers’ money is taken from our pocket without our leave, with all the coercive power of the law behind it, so it is essential that it is spent in the national interest.
Sir Edward Leigh
The Minister and I have stood shoulder to shoulder for the last 25 years in this place arguing as Conservatives that we should be judged not by how much we spend on something, but by the value for money of what we achieve. Is that not a fair Conservative viewpoint? I and those who share my views on this Bill may be in a minority in this Chamber today, but many millions of Conservatives in the country support what we are saying.
Mr Lee Scott (Ilford North) (Con)
Does my right hon. Friend agree that the nub of this debate is this: if we have the opportunity to save a child or someone’s life, we are duty bound to do so?
Mr Swayne
My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and he makes a powerful point.
I have no doubt that this is money well spent and in the taxpayer’s interests. We live in a dangerous and disordered world. We are beset: one need only look at the port of Calais to see how many people come from all sorts of desperate circumstances in desperate countries all over the world, where poverty and injustice and misgovernance have reigned for generations. If we wish to see those movements of population reduced, it is in our interests to invest in good governance and in economic growth in some of those countries.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister is making an extremely passionate speech and I agree with much of what he is saying. Does he agree with me that how we behave in the world in this regard is simply not a zero-sum game for this country? This is about getting it right in our diplomacy, in our defence and in our development assistance, and those three things together can make a huge difference in those countries of conflict and instability that he spoke about and act in our own national interest at the same time.
Mr Swayne
I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that point, and I believe he is absolutely on the money.
In respect of the growth of international terrorism, we have rightly become concerned in recent weeks over that strange phenomenon of the foreign fighter—the person with prospects, from a good home and with qualifications, who suddenly decides to go abroad and fight for the most extraordinary cause in the most bloodcurdling and violent and disordered way. They follow a long tradition of middle-class terrorists, be it the Baader-Meinhof or the Manson gang or the Red Brigades or the Sendero Luminoso. No doubt they will be the source of many academic treatises and doctoral theses, but undoubtedly the main recruiting ground—the overwhelming recruiting ground for terrorism—is the desperation of poverty, injustice and misgovernance, where young people have no prospect whatsoever but to take up arms and embrace the most desperate ideologies.
Philip Davies
The Minister says that if we spend all of this money we will be safer, but as we have spent more on overseas aid our security threat level has actually gone up, not down, so that clearly is not working. We are being painted a picture suggesting that if we spend all of this money,people will stop coming in from Calais and poverty will be alleviated around the world, but we are spending the money, so this clearly is not working. Why is it that we are opposed to welfare dependency at home but we are entrenching it abroad?
Mr Swayne
We have only just reached the target. This is a sustained process, and we are just at the beginning of it. That is why we have the Bill. It is our hope that, as the right hon. Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath said, by taking a lead on this, we will encourage others to follow. This is not a crusade. This is a matter of public policy in which we hope the rest of the world will follow us.
Sir Gerald Howarth
I salute my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister for standing by his word, but there is no evidence that other countries are following the lead that he has taken. Germany is a wealthier country than ours, and it spends 0.38%. The United States is even wealthier, yet it spends only 0.19%. I salute the passion of my right hon. Friend the Minister, but the logic of his argument seems to be that we should be spending even more than we already are. He is seeking to ring-fence one area of public spending while another vital area—defence—is allowed to go hang.
Naomi Long
Does the Minister agree that the argument that the investment of international development money somehow creates a dependency culture is seriously flawed, given that it is being invested to make communities more sustainable and to make people better able to trade their way out of their difficulties, rather than being dependent on aid for the rest of their lives?
Mr Swayne
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. That is the nub of the argument. As the Select Committee in the other place pointed out, international development aid can be misspent, and it can have a perverse effect when that happens. However, this has been one of the most transparent Governments, and we have set up the independent commission to ensure that what we spend is well spent.
I shall digress briefly. There is a minor issue on which I take a different view from that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), the promoter of the Bill. I am confident that the procedures and institutions that we have put in place to hold the Government to account on their commitment—the Select Committee, the independent commission, questions in this House—are adequate. That, however, is a matter that we can return to in Committee, and I was glad that he acknowledged that fact.
Mrs Caroline Spelman (Meriden) (Con)
On the subject of welfare dependency, is not India a measure of the success of transitioning poor countries into sustainability? It has the largest number of people living in poverty, but DFID now focuses its aid resources on only the two states that are most in need of help. The other states have now succeeded in moving to sustainability; indeed, they are now our trade partners.
Sir Oliver Heald (North East Hertfordshire) (Con)
Does the Minister agree that saving a child’s life by vaccinating that child is not really about welfare dependency but about saving a life? I personally would not want this country to do any less than it is doing. I think that we are vaccinating a child every two seconds at the moment.
Mr Swayne
I agree with my hon. and learned Friend. I do not believe that any of our expenditure in that line creates dependency; it is designed to reduce dependency.
There are all sorts of arguments to be had about whether the figure should be 0.7%, and a long debate might be had on that basis. Indeed, we might be having one today. All I can say is that, as an elected politician, I feel that I am bound by the commitments I have made. I made a commitment to 0.7% at the last general election, and I intend to stick with it. That is the Government’s policy.
Mr Gray
The debate so far has been rather unfortunate. People seem to be saying that if someone supports the Bill, they are compassionate and care about the world, but if they oppose it, they are a heartless rotter. I do not believe that that is the case. I strongly support the figure of 0.7%, and I agree with everything that has been said about supporting poor people around the world. That is not the question. The question is why this needs to be written into the United Kingdom’s statute book. It is not about whether or not we support aid. Why should there be a law?
Mr Swayne
Because this has been an international aspiration for so long, and because it is an issue on which we wish to take the lead. We are leading in this matter, and that gives our country enormous authority when we speak on these matters. And I am glad to say that the young people of this country are passionate about this, as I see in school after school in my constituency. I hope that their parents will be as proud as they are of our achievements. I hope that those young people will go home and tell them how many children we have vaccinated this year, and how much we have done for those who are less fortunate than they are. In that respect, I urge my hon. Friends and all hon. Members to support the Bill.
Oral Answers to Questions
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(9 years, 8 months ago)
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Graham Evans (Weaver Vale) (Con)
6. What recent work has been undertaken through programmes of her Department in Gaza.
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)
The United Kingdom is one of the largest donors. We have spent some £17 million in emergency aid. We are providing food and essential supplies to families in desperate need. We are repairing the water infrastructure and providing counselling to those who have been traumatised.
Helen Goodman
I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his promotion and thank him for his answer. As the House knows, children have borne the brunt of the recent conflict: 500 have died, 1,000 are permanently disabled and half a million cannot go to school. Yet the UN’s appeal is only half funded. What is the Department doing to get other members of the international community to play their part?
Mr Swayne
The hon. Lady is quite right. From our rapid reaction facility, we have specifically earmarked funds for the assistance of children. With respect to encouraging others to step up to the plate as we have done, there will undoubtedly be a donors’ conference soon, but that will be immeasurably assisted by a meaningful peace process.
Ian Lavery
The conflict in Gaza has displaced almost 1.8 million people—one quarter of the inhabitants of Gaza—and they are of all ages. Will the Minister say what his Department is doing to provide relief for the mainly disabled and elderly people in Gaza who have been displaced?
Mr Swayne
The hon. Gentleman is quite right. Some 58,000 people are currently sheltering in UN relief agency schools, and 100,000 people have no home to return to. Clearly, there must be a rebuilding effort, but that will require substantial movement on access into and out of Gaza, and that will require a peace process that can proceed.
Alex Cunningham
The answer to that question was helpful, because the people of Gaza have been denied the right to the essentials of daily life for many, many years because of the illegal blockade, and they now depend on the Israeli Government or the tunnels in order to get aid. Does the Minister agree that it is a necessity to end the blockade, and what will his Department and others do to achieve that?
Mr Swayne
The hon. Gentleman is right. The UN report suggested that even before this latest round of hostilities, Gaza would become uninhabitable by 2020—before it had started to be smashed to smithereens. Clearly, there must be movement on access if Gaza is to have a viable economic future. What are we doing about that? We are contributing to a peace process, and our primary aim in this Department is to bring relief to those who are in want.
Graham Evans
Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the work that his Department is doing with the Foreign Office to help address the underlying causes of the conflict in Gaza, and to work towards a two-state solution?
Mr Swayne
We believe that a two-state solution is the only realistic game in town, and to that end we are spending considerable sums of money in support of the Palestinian Authority, in order to get it into the habit of good governance, so that democratic institutions can flourish. We are also investing considerably in private sector development so that there will be economic growth, in order that a future state should be both stable and prosperous.
Albert Owen (Ynys Môn) (Lab)
The Minister mentioned the UN relief agency schools. Is he as appalled as I am that those so-called safe havens were bombed and people within them killed, and what is his Department doing with others in the international community to ensure that those are safe havens?
Mr David Ward (Bradford East) (LD)
12. I very much welcome the Minister’s comments about the provision of aid, but has any consideration been given to the fact that much of the damage may have been caused by weaponry, or parts of weapons, that were sold to Israel with UK Government approval?
Mr Swayne
As the Prime Minister made clear in his statement on Monday, there has been a thorough review of export licences and proper procedures have been put in place. In fact, 12 licences were identified where a component part could possibly have been used in an offensive capacity. Those licences will be suspended if there is a return to significant hostilities.
Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)
May I press the Minister a little more on the question of the blockade? If I understood him correctly, he said that a peace process needs to be got going in order to lift the blockade, but my understanding of the ceasefire is that an easing of the blockade, at least, comes first. That is a way of getting to the peace process. The aid needs to be going in now. What is the Government’s position? Is it pressing for the blockade to be lifted now?
Mr Swayne
My understanding of the ceasefire arrangements is that they, in effect, restore the status quo ante with respect to the Rafah crossing. But if we are to see a significant easing of the restrictions and economic development, there must be much greater access, and that means that Israel’s legitimate security concerns must be taken into account and allayed.
Sir Peter Luff (Mid Worcestershire) (Con)
10. My right hon. Friend has rightly highlighted that even before the latest Israeli action the people of Gaza faced a pressing humanitarian crisis, caused, for example, by the salination of the aquifer, with all drinking water becoming undrinkable quite soon afterwards. Is there anything that his Department can do now of a practical nature, not dependent on the peace process, to improve the longer-term situation in Gaza?
Mr Swayne
We are taking action now: we have deployed funds from our rapid reaction facility precisely to deal with the water issue. But in the long term, the salination and desalination has to be taken into account, and that will require a very substantial investment in the infrastructure.
Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)
I welcome the right hon. Gentleman to his new role and pay tribute to his predecessor. The 3,000 injured children in Gaza and the 100,000 Palestinians made homeless whom the Minister mentioned need uninterrupted help from humanitarian agencies such as the Red Cross. The situation is still urgent. What specific steps has he taken with the Foreign Office and others to encourage both Israeli and Palestinian actors to ensure safe, continuous access for those working to aid the recovery in Gaza?
Mr Swayne
We continually make representations to the Israelis with respect to making access easier. The hon. Lady is quite right: many of those children have life-changing injuries. The NGOs who have to negotiate access to Gaza currently incur costs of some £6 million a year to do so, and that is not acceptable.
Stephen Hammond (Wimbledon) (Con)
13. Although I recognise that both the Israelis and the Egyptians have offered humanitarian aid during the crisis, I am keen to press the Minister on what his Department could do immediately to ensure supplies of medicine and medical aid to the people of Gaza.
Sir Tony Baldry (Banbury) (Con)
4. What recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in South Sudan.
Greg Mulholland (Leeds North West) (LD)
T7. Many people are still stuck in camps on the Burma-Thai border, unable to return home and in a precarious situation, without enough food or supplies. Will the Minister meet Kidz in Kampz in my constituency, which does a wonderful job helping people to understand the problems on the ground?
The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)
I will undoubtedly do so.
Disabled People (Developing Countries)
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(9 years, 10 months ago)
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The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Desmond Swayne)
I begin by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge) on his success in securing this debate and on the passion and commitment that he has shown in the speech he has just delivered. I also pay tribute to his record of championing this issue over a long period. In his opening remarks, he set out the number of years he served on the International Development Committee, and he has continued to campaign and draw attention to this issue. He has done us a service, and I owe him my thanks for having selected for this debate a topic so central to the priorities of the Department to which I have just been appointed.
My hon. Friend is right about the opportunity to which he drew attention; that opportunity was also referred to by the hon. Member for Aberdeen South (Dame Anne Begg), who chairs the Work and Pensions Committee. This is a period of opportunity and I feel deeply privileged to have been appointed to the Department at this particular time, when such an opportunity presents itself.
It is, of course, true, as my hon. Friend said, that the statistics show that one in seven people in the developing world is disabled, but I suspect that the proportion of disabled people among those who are chronically poor is much higher than that. He is also right to draw attention to the fact that, as we all know from our own experience as constituency MPs, where there is the opportunity, the support and the access that they need, disabled people are not only able to maintain themselves but can contribute effectively to the community, just like anyone else. Our objective in policy terms must be to enable disabled people to be contributors to their communities and not burdens on them, and I believe it to be absolutely achievable.
The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) drew attention to the fact that we have signed up to the UN convention on the rights of persons with disabilities and pointed out that significant progress has not been made in pursuit of the convention’s goals. We ratified the convention in 2008 and are encouraging other countries to do so. At the moment, 153 countries have signed the convention and 71 countries, including the UK—about 46% of those who have signed—have ratified it. However, we have to do better and pursue that agenda more vigorously.
Having said that, I should also say that we are paying considerable sums to support countries in the developing world as part of our pursuit of that agenda. I will give three examples of particularly good practice. In Mozambique, we are funding resource centres to support some 24,000 children with special needs in schools; in Ethiopia, we are supporting the production of materials in Braille, which are used to help some 10,000 children between the ages of five and 18; and in Zimbabwe, we are supporting some 27,000 disabled children through the child protection fund.
My hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East drew attention to the lack of reliable data in this area, and of course that is a significant problem. It is very difficult to assess the needs of disabled people if we do not know how many disabled people there are. I suggest that there is a greater danger: “if we can’t count ’em, they don’t count”, an attitude that we must be very careful about.
It is vital that we should be able to come to a clear analysis of the size of the problem and of the needs of disabled people. Until recently, there was not even an agreed definition of what amounted to disability. That is an issue on which the Department has been driving forward the agenda on; we want to get an agreement on the definition of disability, so that we can get reliable statistics.
It is also important that we concentrate on the prevention of disability. For example, for every female who dies in childbirth, some 20 to 30 females will suffer complications in childbirth that will give rise to disability. Therefore, an important part of the agenda must be to support women in childbirth, and an equally important part must be tackling those preventable diseases that give rise to disability, such as polio and trachoma.
I have no doubt that we need to do more. My hon. Friend was right to say that we must attend to the post-2015 agenda. My right hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State for International Development has been championing the agenda of the disabled during the past 18 months and last year announcements were made with respect to infrastructure in schools, to make access much easier for disabled pupils in the areas where we are providing financial support.
My hon. Friend referred to the International Development Committee’s first report of the last Session, published in June this year. He was right to draw attention to its challenging conclusions, and we agree with virtually all of them. We share the report’s objectives and the most important point is the one he made—namely, that in our response to the report we will publish a framework for disability in November.
My hon. Friend was right to say that the framework must involve the input of disabled groups and other interested parties. Currently the Department works with some 400 disabled groups; it is right that we do so and we should seek to expand our dialogue with disabled groups. As we go forward and develop that framework, which will determine how we work in the future, it is important that we also take into account the opinions and input of hon. Members. I hope that that dialogue will proceed.
The framework will set out our commitment and our approach to policy, and how that policy will actually work on the ground. We will also increase the size of our team who work on disability; we will appoint a disability champion who will be able to give guidance to all our employees; and we will increase the role of disabled groups and disabled people in policy making, to strengthen our response to events—particularly our response to some of the emergencies, such as natural disasters, that arise, so that we take greater cognisance of disabled people in those situations.
The international development community may have been late on to this field, and late in appreciating the size of the problem of disability. I hope that we can ginger that process up. It is very important, as my hon. Friend said, to ensure that the post-2015 development goals address the issue of disability. The Prime Minister, when he chaired the UN high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda, came up with a principle that I thought was exactly on the money, the key message being that we can eradicate poverty in this generation if we “leave no one behind”, which includes leaving no one behind because of their race, gender, geographical location or disability. That is the principle that we must abide by, and that is the commitment that we give.
My hon. Friend asked a number of specific questions. I think that I have addressed the one about how many groups the Department works with. As for the issue of the disaggregation of data and targets for disabled people, the principle I would support is that we have a target for a development project in a nation that we are helping; let us say, for example, that there should be zero poverty by such and such a date. I would not like to see a separate target for disabled people. Within the overall target, I would want to include every gender, every racial minority and every disability. Of course, it is absolutely right that we should be able to disaggregate the total, so that we can identify disabled people and know that none of them are being left behind—that is an important principle—but I would not want to see separate targets being set.
International Development (Gender Equality) Bill
Desmond Swayne Excerpts(10 years, 4 months ago)
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Guy Opperman
It is often said, is it not, that we all start out as communists, develop into socialists, and ultimately turn into Conservatives?
The Vice-Chamberlain of Her Majesty’s Household (Mr Desmond Swayne)
Speak for yourself!
Guy Opperman
Obviously my hon. Friends on the Front Bench started out more right wing than Genghis Khan, but some of us have had an evolution as we have progressed. It is true to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone has evolved, if not in his journalistic practices then certainly in his political practices. It is testament to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) that they are addressing and supporting this issue in the House.
Gender equality is a basic right, and it does not need any economic justification. We can provide an economic justification for it, but we should not even need to go there. It is a harsh fact that women across the world continue to face daily abuse and seclusion for the sole reason that they are women. Any argument that promotes inequality has no place in the 21st century.
I spent last weekend with various colleagues from the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists on the Syrian-Turkish border. There are 600,000 refugees in Turkey at the moment. The British Government are providing international aid—particularly food aid, but also other types of aid that I will mention later—to the refugees, who are based in a variety of camps all across southern Turkey. I have not visited the camps in Lebanon or Jordan, where the position is genuinely different, but I can speak with some authority on the international aid being provided in this region. I was accompanied by a number of Members of Parliament, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark), who is a co-signatory to the Bill and served on its Committee and is an expert on the provision of international aid to the Syrian-Turkish border, together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown).
Over the course of four days, we saw the impact of international development on the camp that we visited, Nizip 2, which is approximately 40 miles north of Aleppo and 20 miles north of the Syrian border. It caters for people in northern Syria who are particularly dependent on aid and who have fled towns such as Homs and Aleppo. They are of all colours, races and descriptions; it is not only the opponents of Assad and the Alawites who have fled Syria. The camp is testament to the impact of the work of international aid, and it is important to bring that to the House’s attention. There were 17,000 people there, 9,000 of whom were living in tents. In some cases, there were as many as 15 people to a tent, albeit that they were very serviceable tents. That may sound like a huge number, but the people we met and talked to felt that their situation was much better than it would have been in Syria. The camp was also a container camp where people have, in effect, turned containers into homes, exceptionally successfully.
Of the 17,000 people in the camp, well over 10,000 are children and a vast proportion are women. I was extremely pleased to see wholesale and proper education of the young women and children there. I met a young man called Suleiman who was formerly an engineer in Homs. He had been a fighter in Homs and had lost several members of his family. He had fled north of the border to Nizip. As an engineer, he knew about maths. He was teaching year 7, 6 and 5 students in a makeshift classroom—it was another container; everything there is a container—so he had three class years similar to those in this country’s primary and secondary schools. The crucial point is that all the young girls were getting an education. It was not a restrictive education that entitled them to do only certain types of projects. It was fantastic to see integration in the classroom and no difference between young girls and young boys. There was positive encouragement for young girls to become whatever they wished to be.
I did a survey of the children in the class in the Nizip camp and asked them what they wanted to be. Most of the girls wanted to be one of two things. Many wanted to be doctors and discussed how they were going to learn about medicine, including in a practical sense: there was a surgery and hospital nearby. Many of the others wanted to be engineers. When I asked these young girls, who were 11 and 12 years of age—the equivalent of years 6 and 7—why they wanted to be engineers, it was fantastic to hear them say, “Because I want to go back to rebuild my country.”
Immigration and the state of Syrian refuges, 600,000 of whom are in Turkey, is a matter of discussion. The crucial point about international aid is that, by providing a site just north of the Syria-Turkey border, the international community is able not only to preserve the lives of refugees, but, more importantly, to provide an environment in which they are able to live relatively normal, healthy lives. I met dozens of Syrian refugees and they all told me that they were desperately keen to go home to their own country when the conflict in Syria abates. If it does, those men, women and children will have a chance to go home. Such international aid is outstanding and we should be very proud of the role it plays. The important point is that the women in the camp were given particular assistance.
I believe that this Bill will help. It is important that education improves. The young girls I met were 10, 11 and 12 years of age. The question the Minister needs to answer is: what happens to those girls, who are receiving a basic education in a container in a refugee camp, when they wish to have a university education? Given that there are 600,000 refugees in Turkey and that we are providing huge amounts of international aid to the children, I hope that, by utilising this wonderful Bill, that aid will provide assistance to those children so that they can maximise their education potential and address the gender inequality that has unquestionably existed for many a generation. This Bill will address the problems those children face. Primary and secondary education can be provided, but the problem starts when someone wants to be a doctor or an engineer and to rebuild their country. The Bill will make a massive difference with regard to the quality of their education aged 14, 15, 16 and 18.
On any interpretation, for too long women have battled for equality. They have fought generations of deep-seated injustice. We could name dozens of countries where that has been the case, but it is particularly true in places such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Nepal and central America, particularly Guatemala. One in three women worldwide will experience physical or other violence or deprivation during their lifetime.
The Bill’s background is the huge amount of gender-based violence, but that is merely one part of the oppression. Marginalisation is also an issue. Anyone who reads the international aid periodicals and journalistic articles will have read about marginalisation, which sounds like such a philosophical and normal term, but it is totally abnormal and abhorrent. It represents a denial of access to land, credit and banking facilities and other simple matters. There is plentiful evidence that some female farmers are denied access to seed and fertiliser in a way that male farmers are not. That is all about marginalisation: the weird way in which women are denied a fair chance.
Guy Opperman
I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s point. I would have expected nothing less from him than gender equality in the preparation of the Bill. I am absolutely certain that he would not have missed such an important aspect of his own Bill.
In preparing my speech, I spoke at length to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) about the Bill and her work in Committee. She is detained on constituency business, but was very keen to be here to help navigate the Bill through. I also spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) about the Bill’s prospects and nature. I confess that I have not spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), but I certainly discussed the Bill with the other two. As is always the case on Fridays, constituency business often prevents us from being in the Chamber, even though we would very much like to be here. This is only the fourth sitting Friday on which I have chosen to participate—
Guy Opperman
It is rare to be abused so roundly and robustly by the most impressively coiffured Government Whip. We may miss his Movember amplification, but we cannot in any way miss his contribution to debates, even though when I last checked Whips were meant to be silent.