Oral Answers to Questions

Glyn Davies Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The summit is about ensuring that women have the ability to choose whether and when they have children, and the spacing in between their children. We need to keep the focus of the summit on that issue. She will have heard the Government’s strong condemnation of the Taliban’s execution in Afghanistan. We set up the Tawanmandi fund last year specifically to empower women in the areas that the hon. Lady describes, and its work is ongoing. Three quarters of the grants from the fund have gone to organisations involved in protecting women.

[Glyn Davies (Montgomeryshire) (Con)]

T2. Conditions in Afghanistan after the external forces leave are becoming a matter of increasing importance to us. Will my right hon. Friend update the House on the outcomes of the Tokyo summit on Afghanistan that he attended at the weekend?

[Mr Mitchell]

The Tokyo summit was essentially a grand bargain between members of the international community to ensure that funding and support will continue through 2015 to 2017, and indeed throughout the decade of transformation to 2025. In return for that, the Government of Afghanistan need to continue to place a strong emphasis on governance reforms and economic reforms.