Education: Disability Financing

Earl of Listowel Excerpts

Monday 10th July 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

One thing that was identified in the report to which we have just referred was the lack of data about what the need was and what the responses were. We have a disability framework in the department, which guides everything that we do across our aid strategy. We are looking at finding better practices for what is working; for example, we are working in Kenya and Uganda with Leonard Cheshire to try to find better examples of what is working on the ground to address this problem.

[The Earl of Listowel (CB)]

Is the Minister looking at how many of these children are in institutional care and whether it is always appropriate for them to be so? Many of them could be better placed in foster or kinship care. Is that a matter that the Minister might look at?

[Lord Bates]

A number of excellent charities are working in this very area. It is certainly something that we are sympathetic to; disability has been one of the core criteria for UK Aid Direct, a new round of which has come in. We also have the Girls’ Education Challenge, which has educated some 46,000 girls with disabilities in schools. The next round of that project will increase the allocation still further to 15% of the total fund.