Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether her Department plans to mark the centenary of women getting the right to vote in 1918.
Answered by Harriett Baldwin - Shadow Minister (Business and Trade)
The Department for International Development plans to mark the centenary of women’s suffrage. This includes flying the suffrage flag at DFID offices. Officials are collaborating with counterparts at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and the Government Equalities Office on the preparations for an International Women’s Conference of MPs to be hosted at the House of Commons in November 2018.
More widely, my department is working globally to enable more women around the world to exercise their right to vote and to stand as elected representatives.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how much her Department has spent on humanitarian aid to the Gaza strip in each of the last five years.
Answered by Alistair Burt
Data for all DFID’s spend is available in the Statistics for International Development publication at
https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/statistics-on-international-development. The figures for 2016 have just been released and those for 2017 will be released next year. Allocations for future years will be confirmed in due course. SID does not differentiate between DFID’s spend in the West Bank and Gaza.
The UK provided more than £17 million in immediate humanitarian assistance for those affected by the Gaza conflict in the summer of 2014. In October 2014, the UK pledged, and subsequently fully disbursed a further £20 million in early recovery assistance at the Gaza Reconstruction Conference in Cairo, including support for cash assistance to Palestinian refugees, mine removal and medical treatment. More recently the UK provided £1.9 million of humanitarian assistance to the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) in Gaza to address critical water, sanitation and hygiene needs, benefitting approximately 1 million people. In addition the UK is a long-term supporter of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) which provides basic services to 1.3 million people in Gaza including basic health care, and we are supporting humanitarian access, enabling reconstruction efforts and investing in job creation in Gaza.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to support the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs humanitarian funding appeal to support people in Gaza.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The UK is supporting approximately 1 million Gazans by addressing critical water, sanitation and hygiene needs, as identified in the UN Gaza Urgent Funding Appeal, through a £1.9m grant to the United Nations Children’s Fund. In addition the UK is a long-term supporter of United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) which provides basic services to 1.3 million people in Gaza including basic health care, and we are supporting humanitarian access, enabling reconstruction efforts and investing in job creation in Gaza.
Asked by: Baroness Harman (Labour - Life peer)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, if her Department will undertake a review of its HIV programmes to assess the progress made on the Government's global strategy on HIV and AIDS.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
I refer the hon. Member to the answer I provided on 7 November to Question numbers 51481 and 51482.