Oral Answers to Questions

Fiona Bruce Excerpts

Wednesday 17th November 2010 Commons Chamber

[Mr O'Brien]

My hon. Friend makes the vital point that family planning is at the heart of ensuring that we prevent the transmission of these diseases. I assure him that we are putting women’s and children’s health at the core of our international development agenda, and will contribute to saving the lives of at least 50,000 women and 250,000 babies, and to providing 10 million more couples with access to family planning.

[Fiona Bruce (Congleton) (Con)]

5. What steps his Department is taking to reduce the number of people in developing countries without access to basic sanitation.

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

Reducing the number of people in developing countries without access to basic sanitation is a key priority of the coalition Government. The review of our aid programme will determine how we scale up our efforts and results in this area.

[Fiona Bruce]

I thank the Secretary of State for his reply. As Friday is world toilet day, what is his Department doing to raise the international agenda’s priority to improve sanitation, particularly as 1.5 million children under five die every year from poor water hygiene and sanitation, which is more than die from malaria, AIDS and measles combined?

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right to raise this issue in those terms. Diarrhoea is the biggest killer of children in Africa. This is a core subject for the coalition Government, and we are looking at it in our bilateral aid review. Although I do not wish to pre-empt that review, I can tell the House that I am confident that we will be able to ensure that, over the next four years, tens of millions of people will be able to gain access to clean water and sanitation who are currently unable to do so.