Oral Answers to Questions

Drew Hendry Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd February 2016 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

1. What preparations her Department is making for the UN world humanitarian summit.

[John Nicolson (East Dunbartonshire) (SNP)]

2. What preparations her Department is making for the UN world humanitarian summit.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

Our country has bold ambitions for the world humanitarian summit, which comes at a critical time given that there are currently more displaced people globally than at any time since the second world war. We are working with a range of partners, including UN agencies, Governments, non-governmental organisations and the private sector, to ensure that the summit delivers transformative change to crisis response.

[Drew Hendry]

Child protection has been desperately underfunded in global humanitarian efforts. One in 10 children now lives in conflict-affected areas, and UNICEF warns that at least 3 million children are caught up in emergencies and need psychosocial help. Will the Prime Minister be part of the UK delegation, and will he commit to making child protection one of the UK’s key priorities at the summit?

[Justine Greening]

We have not finalised the UK delegation yet, but I can assure the hon. Gentleman that the issue of child protection has been very much at the core of all our humanitarian responses, not least, most recently, in Syria. The UK worked with UNICEF to put in place so-called safe zones in many of the refugee camps to enable children to be reunited with their families if they had got lost.