Oral Answers to Questions

Eric Ollerenshaw Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

The Secretary of State was asked—

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

1. What recent assessment he has made of the development needs of Bangladesh.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

The bilateral aid review identified as the main needs of Bangladesh: expanding access to health, education and safe water for the poorest; protecting against risks related to climate change; and supporting private sector development to help the poor lift themselves out of poverty. The UK’s development programme directly targets those needs and will lift 5 million people out of poverty by 2015.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

How far does the Minister think that the wider work of his Department is helping to meet the desperate need for increased political stability in Bangladesh?

[Mr Duncan]

All three Department for International Development Ministers have visited Bangladesh in the past few months, and we are encouraging all political parties to work towards free, fair and credible elections to be held by early 2014. That requires the politics of vision, not the politics of venom, and the UK stands ready to continue our work with the Bangladesh Election Commission to make the elections a success and to help the democratic process.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend poses the key question of whether these reforms are real. The fact that the regime in Burma has now released nearly all its political prisoners—particularly Min Ko Naing whom many Members campaigned to see released—is an enormously encouraging sign. The real test will come with the 48 by-elections due to take place before April. We will see how those elections are conducted and whether they are free and fair. If they are, that will be the most eloquent possible answer to my hon. Friend’s question.

[Eric Ollerenshaw (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Con)]

T1. If he will make a statement on his departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

My Department is preparing energetically for the Prime Minister’s conference on Somalia in London on 23 February. We are working hard to deliver the results we set out to the House in the key reviews conducted last year, and we are procuring humanitarian support for many of the most wretched people in the world.

[Eric Ollerenshaw]

Stepping Stones Nigeria is the charity based in Lancaster involved in educational development in the Niger delta. Would my right hon. Friend be good enough to facilitate a meeting between his officials and the charity to see how far that work can be expanded?

[Mr Mitchell]

The charity is doing excellent work, and we will be pleased to ensure that it can meet officials perhaps to find out how it can access the Government’s new global poverty action fund, which specifically seeks to help non-governmental organisations and charities that are doing brilliant work in difficult parts of the world.