Aid Reviews

Emma Reynolds Excerpts

Tuesday 1st March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I am afraid that I cannot give that precise figure to my hon. Friend off the top of my head, but I shall write to her on the matter. What I can tell her is that last year Britain educated about 5 million children overseas, but that figure will rise substantially in the future.

[Emma Reynolds (Wolverhampton North East) (Lab)]

Further to the question asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart), does the Secretary of State recognise that the new agency UN Women needs some certainty about its budget in order to prepare its strategic plan, rather than the other way around? Will he therefore lead from the front, instead of delaying his decision as to how much to commit to this vital UN agency?

[Mr Mitchell]

I can reassure the hon. Lady that we are in very close touch with UN Women. When the plan is produced, I am sure we will be able to fund it. Meanwhile, we have given some hundreds of thousands of pounds in transitional funding to assist the agency to get to that point. This agency has only just been started; the hon. Member for Slough (Fiona Mactaggart) suggested we failed to fund it last year, but it has only just come into existence. With the transitional funding, it will be able to produce its strategic plan, and then I am sure we will be able to fund it.