Forced Displacement in Africa

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Twigg

Thursday 4th July 2019 Westminster Hall

[Stephen Twigg]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I think the answer is that it is still an ongoing process, but perhaps the Minister can give us a definitive response.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Harriett Baldwin)]

All our migration programmes in Sudan have been suspended in the light of the current political and security situation. We are working with partners including the EU to ensure that all programmes in which the UK has a stake are also suspended. The regional operational centre in Khartoum has been temporarily relocated to Nairobi.

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank the Minister.

I am conscious of time, so I will draw my remarks to a close. We were disappointed that the Government rejected the recommendation for a coherent cross-Government national UK strategy on displacement and migration. I welcome the fact that the Department has responded positively and has agreed in whole or in part with 31 of the 34 recommendations that directly apply to it, but unless the Government as a whole address the inconsistencies in the policies of different Departments, we are at risk of failing some of the most vulnerable people in the world. It is time for the Government as a whole to practise here in the UK what we preach on the global stage.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Harriett Baldwin)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, particularly as you are a member of the International Development Committee. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) on securing the debate and thank his Committee, through him, for having written a very good report on an issue that is too often overlooked. The report has shone a strong spotlight on it. The debate allowed us to raise some issues considered in the report and to cover the Government’s response. I was glad that we were able to fully accept 22 of the report’s 34 recommendations and partially accept a further nine. In fact, we disagreed with only three, two of which were for the Home Office, while one was a cross-Government matter. I will try to respond to the range of points made in this wide-ranging debate.

The Government fully recognise the scale of the issue, and I hope in my remarks to outline what we are doing not only in our country but, in terms of my responsibilities, across Africa. As I said when I gave evidence to the Committee, we take a needs-based approach to humanitarian issues, so the difference between refugees and internally displaced people is not one that we formally recognise. Legally, of course, there is a difference when we are evaluating the need, so we stand ready to help both internally displaced people and refugees, as I hope I made clear to the Committee.

The point about sexual exploitation was well made. I reassure hon. Members, as I did earlier this week, that in the light of the allegations made in The Times last week, we have checked and ensured that that was not a DFID-funded programme. However, as that example highlights, there can be no let-up in our work to ensure that the highest standards are maintained by the industry and that we get commitments from all our suppliers.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby keeps tempting me on Education Cannot Wait. I am particularly tempted because I do not know whether I will be able to go to the UN General Assembly later this year—I hope I will. He knows that I share the enthusiasm of the hon. Member for Aberdeen North (Kirsty Blackman) for the “Send my friend to school” campaign, which connects young people with the right of young people all around the world to go to school. No one could be more committed than I am to the cause of education in emergencies, education for girls and the power of education to make the world a better place in the 21st century. We have announced that we will continue to be one of the leading donors to Education Cannot Wait. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby will know, the amount is not yet finalised or announced.

The hon. Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) also raised the importance of education and girls’ education. Not everyone knows that Boko Haram basically translates to “Western education is evil”, which shows how it is feared and how powerful education is for the cultural reasons that she outlined, as well as for the economic impact it can have. Every year someone spends in school adds 10% to their lifetime earnings.

I assure the hon. Lady that we are doing everything we can to encourage the newly re-elected Nigerian Government to tackle the challenges in north-east Nigeria. It was tempting for them to say in the run-up to the election, “Look, we’ve solved the problem. Everything’s okay.” We all recognise that it is not okay. Our North East Nigeria to Transition to Development programme is our top programme in Nigeria and is worth £85.9 million. I assure her that the problems around the Lake Chad basin are at the forefront of our agenda.

The hon. Lady will know that near Rann, many refugees were chased over the border into northern Cameroon and that there was a process of refoulement to take them back to Nigeria. We were able to intervene with the Cameroonian Government to say, “That is not how you treat refugees.”

That brings me to how refugees are treated. Everyone cited the great example of Uganda, which is exemplary. I want to say for the record, though, that in the UK refugees can work from day one. It is important to make the distinction, however, between refugees and those who seek asylum, which is a route often used by people who come as economic migrants. I hope we can all agree that irregular migration, where people risk their lives and those of their families crossing the Mediterranean, doing incredibly dangerous things and putting themselves in the hands of people smugglers, is not something that we can encourage or incentivise. Global compacts are valuable in outlining our desire to regularise such paths, and asylum seeking is clearly an area where there can be and has been abuse. That is why we are careful that, only once 12 months of delay has occurred—through no fault of the person claiming asylum—can they then work in shortage occupations. The Home Secretary has committed to keep that area under review, but I want to make that distinction because I do not think the general public always understand it.

I hope the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby saw the announcement we made on World Refugee day about our approach post 2020, when we will merge all schemes into a single scheme, which will enable us in the first year to offer 5,000 places to refugees. He will be aware that that number is an increase and that the numbers of people coming in under the schemes are ahead of the commitments we have made. I will give Members an update.

In terms of the vulnerable persons resettlement scheme, the most recent data shows that, against our commitment of 20,000 by 2020, we will be at nearly 16,000 by the end of the first quarter. The gateway protection scheme is for 750 people a year. As of March, 9,427 people have come under that scheme, including 762 this year. The mandate scheme has no specific annual commitment, but as of March 2019, 423 people had been resettled. Some 1,410 have been resettled under the vulnerable children’s settlement scheme, against a commitment of up to 3,000 by 2020, including 687 in the year to March 2019. In total that is 23,000, plus about 750 per financial year. It is important to note that we very much welcome community sponsorship schemes, and the numbers for those can be counted in addition.

I mentioned the latest on Sudan in my earlier intervention, and it was important to get that on the record. Libya was also raised.

[Stephen Twigg]

I welcome what has been said about resettlement. Can I ask her, as the Minister for Africa, to liaise between the Foreign Office and the Home Office to look at the options for refugees from sub-Saharan Africa, particularly those with vulnerabilities? One of the strengths of the Syrian scheme was that it recognised that there are certain minorities, for example disabled people, who particularly benefit from the chance to come here. Could we look at something similar for sub-Saharan Africa?

[Harriett Baldwin]

I know that the hon. Gentleman’s recommendation was for a specific quota. From 2020 onwards, rather than focusing on a particular country, that is widened to one global scheme, without specific target numbers for particular areas. That widens things geographically and addresses some of what he is looking for.

On Libya, at the United Nations Security Council yesterday, we tried to get condemnation for the attack on the detention centre, as Members will have seen. I want to say for the record that neither the UK Government nor the European Union fund Libyan detention centres—there is sometimes the allegation that we do. We fund humanitarian programmes, and with humanitarian programmes, the principle of doing no harm is observed. I want to reassure Members that we properly apply risk assessment mitigation and monitoring to all the programming in Libya.

On the debt versus grant point, the vast majority of what we do is through grants, so we do a lot of grant funding. The World Bank programme is additional. It is debt-financing and it is extremely concessional, but it is a welcome additional layer of support, coming on top of the grant funding that we already do.

I pay tribute to the wonderful Scotland-Malawi partnership. It was great to hear about the specific work to help girls to stay in school. When I was in Malawi, I met some of the young women who walk miles every day to go to school, and miles again at the end of the day, who were thoroughly enjoying being able to stay in school for so much longer. I will take back the point that the hon. Member for Aberdeen North raised about the wording on women returning “wealthy from prostitution” on Government websites. I will look into that and see if we can get it erased.

The hon. Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) spoke of how climate change is exacerbating the situation. It is doing so in the Lake Chad basin, which has been dramatically reduced. It is clearly exacerbating the movement between herders and pastoralists in central Nigeria, which has been an area of terrible conflict, and other things across the whole of the Sahel—Darfur was also mentioned. That is why we are stepping up what we are doing not only on climate, but also in the Sahel. There is more that we can do on the use of things we have invented, such as more drought-resistant millet, and there are different interventions with trees that can make a difference. There is always scope for us to scale up what we are doing to tackle these issues.

The Grand Bargain was mentioned. We have committed to do more through medium-term funding and funding that is not earmarked for specific projects, and that is meeting our side of the Grand Bargain.

I cannot say who is going to go in December, but there will be good UK representation. I have also noted down voluntary returns—the UK position will always be that all returns for refugees should be voluntary.

I think I have touched on all the recommendations and on the cases where we did not agree with the recommendations. I hope I have clarified the position on refugees having immediate access to the labour market in the UK, I hope I have highlighted the offer that we have made for the post-2020 refugee resettlement offer, which is an increase, and I hope that we can all agree, as politicians, that this is about balance. Were we to do what the German Chancellor did a few years ago, I think that might very well undermine the welcome that refugees across the UK get as part of this resettlement scheme. There is certainly a really strong welcome across my constituency, and I hope that is the same in other hon. Members’ constituencies. It is about balance and also not creating incentives for people to risk their lives through irregular migration routes.

The overarching strategic framework, which hon. Members asked about, is obviously the sustainable development goals. It is about peace and making sure that we work to resolve conflict. It is about people and making sure that their human capital is developed. It is about making sure that we save our planet. It is about making sure that we work in partnership with all the organisations mentioned, including Education Cannot Wait—I give a shout-out to the global fund for education in emergencies, which is hosted by UNICEF, as we often fund through that as well. It is about prosperity and making sure that the progress that the world has made on reducing extreme poverty continues into the future.

I assure hon. Members that these are important issues that are at the heart of the Department for International Development’s work. Through the global compact for migration and the global compact on refugees, we have a global framework to work together on; it is cohesive and forms a good, forward-leaning framework. The UK can be very proud of what we are doing. We do more than just practise what we preach; we also help others and we can all be very proud of that.

I conclude by thanking the Select Committee for its report; we will get on with implementing the recommendations we accept.

Department for International Development

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Twigg

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

I am delighted to take that intervention from my friend the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), whom we miss on the Committee. He is an extremely eloquent and powerful voice for international development in this House and beyond, not least through his role in the World Bank parliamentary network. I am very sympathetic to his point about having our own development bank. I have just come from an event with the Commonwealth Development Corporation, which performs some of those functions, but I know that he argues for a distinctive UK development bank, and I hope that he will have an opportunity to elaborate on that later in the debate.

I will comment briefly on five areas, all of which were covered by the hon. Member for Tewkesbury: humanitarian versus development; multilateral versus bilateral; localisation and small organisations; scrutiny; and addressing some of the issues with non-DFID official development assistance.

We know that the world is facing some huge crises. Some of them are global, such as climate change, and some are a consequence of natural disasters, but many of them are man-made—person-made—and often a consequence of conflict. We look at Syria, Yemen, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, South Sudan and the crisis affecting the Rohingya people of Burma, most of whom now live in neighbouring Bangladesh. In that context, the distinction between what is a response to a humanitarian situation and what is development is increasingly irrelevant. People are escaping conflict and living as refugees or internally displaced people for large parts of their lives. Children are spending their entire childhoods displaced. They need humanitarian assistance, but they and their communities also need development support.

That is why the International Development Committee has focused so much on the importance of investing in global education. As the Minister well knows, we have consistently called on the Government to devote a larger part of the UK’s development assistance to education. I welcome the commitment that she made recently—at the last but one DFID Question Time—to the UK increasing our commitment to Education Cannot Wait, the multilateral fund aimed at supporting children and young people in emergency situations. I encourage her to put today, or quite soon, a figure on that commitment—and for it to be a high figure—because the earlier we make a pledge on Education Cannot Wait, the more likely other donors are to follow so that we can ensure that that excellent fund can play its part to support education in emergencies.

That brings me on to the broader issues around multilaterals and bilaterals that the hon. Member for Tewkesbury set out fully. First, let me strongly echo my hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty): we hugely welcome the commitment that was made on the Global Fund over the weekend. It is really excellent news that the Government have made that commitment to replenishment, and have made it early, which has lessons for replenishments in other areas and again demonstrates strong leadership in this field. The last-but-one Secretary of State—I think we are on the fourth Secretary of State since I took over the Chair of the Committee four years ago—oversaw the multilateral development review. That was a very thorough piece of work by the Department looking at the relative strengths of different multilateral institutions and showing that some of those working in the health field, notably the Global Fund, came out very strongly.

Interestingly, other institutions that came out very strongly—the right hon. Member for Witham (Priti Patel) oversaw the review—were the European ones, including the European Commission. I have been encouraged by the responses that we have had from Ministers about the issues that we will face in the event of Brexit and about ensuring that the excellent programmes that are provided through European institutions, like the European development fund, do not suffer as a result of Brexit. What we should have uppermost in our minds is the needs of those who are benefiting from those programmes. I urge the Minister, and the Government more generally, in deciding whether to continue to work closely with and fund European development programmes after Brexit, to follow the best evidence as to what is good for the beneficiaries. I hope that whoever the Prime Minister is, the Government will not be guided by an ideology that says, “We can’t work with European institutions.”

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Harriett Baldwin)]

The hon. Gentleman is making an important point. Would he also urge those on the EU side of the debate to leave their ideology aside and, where there are fantastic non-governmental organisations from the UK that could deliver some of these programmes, to ensure that they can continue to do so?

Sustainable Development Goals

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Twigg

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Africa (Harriett Baldwin)]

This has been a short but perfectly formed debate. We have touched the surface of a range of issues relating to the overarching framework that the whole world has signed up to for our journey towards 2030 as a global population. Today’s debate has been a milestone on that journey, enabling us to talk about not only the UK’s voluntary national review, but the journey on which the rest of the world is embarked. I am proud to stand at the Dispatch Box having been in the Government at the time when we enshrined our contribution of 0.7% of gross national income in statute. We are the first and only country in the world to have done that. Members on both sides of the House have expressed support today for the continuation of that approach; they can count on me to continue to support it, as, indeed, the Secretary of State made clear earlier.

This is the first time that we have carried out a voluntary national review. There are, of course, 17 goals. I do not know about the rest of the House, but I personally find that 17 is not exactly a catchy number to work with. I noticed that some Members worked that down to five Ps and others to fewer themes, but I find that 17 is a bit unmanageable. Within those 17 goals there are 169 targets and within that 244 separate indicators. Having worked in the private sector for many years before entering politics, I am a strong believer that it is important to measure these things, because what gets measured gets managed. Interestingly, as a result of this first voluntary national review we found that our independent ONS does not measure absolutely every one of those indicators; in fact only about 72% of those global indicators are already on our national reporting platform. That is the first thing we have learned, along with the importance of data around that. We have therefore decided to add to the data we commission.

We have had an excellent and wide-ranging debate with a range of contributions from the Opposition Benches, including by the hon. Members for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) and for Birmingham, Edgbaston (Preet Kaur Gill), and the hon. Members for Dundee West (Chris Law) and for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady)—the voices from Scotland, where of course the process has been done by the devolved Administration of the independent Scottish Government—as well as the hon. Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy). We heard a number of times about food insecurity. As a result of the voluntary national review and the discovery that we had statistics for only 72% of the measures, we have commissioned a new data series for the UK, with a measure that will take place in the household surveys around food insecurity. I hope that the whole House will welcome the fact that what gets measured gets managed, as I said earlier, and that we will have a measure for that for the first time.

A number of points were made in the debate about the consultation process. This has been an ongoing process since the UK played such a pivotal part in developing the goals in the first place. In the run-up to the voluntary national review we have engaged with 350 organisations, we have had 200 different case studies shared with us, we have had 35 different engagement events—this is of course within England—and we have had the opportunity to talk to some of the Select Committees about this process. I welcome engagement from all the groups, and am particularly keen to hear from a wider range of groups as we go into the process of publication this week.

[Stephen Twigg]

The Minister says there will be publication this week: is she able to confirm that we will publish as we submit to the UN so that it will be publicly available including to parliamentarians simultaneously with its submission?

[Harriett Baldwin]

We have published this week the main messages from the UK voluntary national review. Obviously we will save for the high-level forum some of the details of the report itself, but my understanding is that publication is imminent. I am not able to specify precisely on which day it is coming out, because I am not sure whether that has been decided; as the hon. Gentleman knows, beings way above my pay grade decide such things.

Cyclone Idai

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Twigg

Wednesday 20th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

May I pay tribute to the generosity of my hon. Friend’s constituents? As I mentioned earlier, there will be a Disasters Emergency Committee campaign launch to raise money for the disaster. As we have noted, there is a need for immediate relief—the UK has been at the forefront of pre-positioning some of that relief—but there will also be an ongoing need to rebuild the communities and help with food access issues. I urge constituents who want to make a contribution to await the imminent launch of the appeal.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I welcome what the Minister has said today. As she described to the House, the Select Committee is currently looking at climate change. Rightly, today’s focus is on humanitarian relief and the immediate challenges, but of course the long-term development needs of these countries must not be forgotten. What will DFID be doing—working with other donors and the countries concerned—to ensure that Malawi, Mozambique and Zimbabwe can rebuild after this disaster, particularly with regard to necessary health and education investment?

[Harriett Baldwin]

The hon. Gentleman is so right to point to the long-term nature of this work. Although we need to put in place a short-term response, there also needs to be a long-term strategic response. Some of the very poorest countries in the world are also some of the most vulnerable to climate change—I think Malawi is estimated to be the third poorest country in the world, and Mozambique the seventh—so those of us paying in through international climate finance have a special responsibility to do whatever we can to encourage countries such as those affected in this instance to bid successfully for those funds. That is why we had the African Energy Ministers event. As part of our new approach to Africa, we are also hiring a further 20 climate specialists across our African network to help deploy some of that finance into these particularly vulnerable countries.

Yemen

Debate between Harriett Baldwin and Stephen Twigg

Tuesday 24th April 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Minister of State for International Development to update the House on the humanitarian situation in Yemen.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Harriett Baldwin)]

The UK is deeply concerned about the humanitarian crisis in Yemen, which is the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. More than 22 million people—over three quarters of the population—are in need of humanitarian assistance. The UN estimates that 17.8 million people in Yemen do not have reliable access to food and that 8.4 million face extreme food shortages. Last year, the country suffered the worst cholera outbreak ever recorded in any country in a single year.

At the Yemen pledging conference in Geneva earlier this month, the Minister of State for the Middle East announced £170 million of support to Yemen this year from the UK. That funding will meet the food needs of 2.5 million Yemenis. Last year, the UK was the second largest donor to the UN’s humanitarian appeal for Yemen. Our funding provided more than 5.8 million people with at least a month’s supply of food, nutrition support for 1.7 million and clean water and sanitation for approximately 1.2 million people, but money alone will not be enough. We must see sustained progress on the response to this year’s cholera outbreak; we must see payment of public salaries to millions of civil servants and their dependants; and we must see unhindered humanitarian access into Yemen. The UK has led the way here, too, lobbying and advising all parties to take the life-saving steps to prevent further deterioration of the crisis.

We are aware of reports over the weekend of significant civilian casualties resulting from coalition airstrikes. We take those reports extremely seriously. The Saudi-led coalition has confirmed that it will carry out an investigation. It is essential that that happens without delay, that the results are published and that the lessons learned are acted upon. Our hearts go out to the families of those killed. We call on all parties to comply with international humanitarian law. A political settlement is the only way to bring long-term stability to Yemen and to address the worsening humanitarian crisis. The Yemeni parties must engage constructively and in good faith to overcome obstacles and to find a political solution to end the conflict.

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank the Minister for her response.

Last week, the UN special envoy to Yemen, Martin Griffiths, briefed the Security Council on reports of a sizeable military offensive. He said:

“the prospect of intensive military operations in Al-Hodeidah, long heralded, may soon be forthcoming.”

He went on:

“Our concern is that any of these”—

military—

“developments may, in a stroke, take peace off the table.

There have been a number of missile attacks on Riyadh by the Houthis, many of which have been intercepted, but one last weekend resulted in a Saudi casualty. Saudi Arabia has the right to protect its territory and its people from these attacks. However, Hodeidah is one of the two major entry points for aid into Yemen. Any military offensive would cause an already catastrophic situation to deteriorate further. Will the Minister assure the House today that the UK is doing everything it can to prevent such an offensive by the Saudi-led coalition from taking place? Surely, if an attack on Hodeidah goes ahead, the UK would have to suspend arms sales to the Saudi-led coalition.

The UK has been supporting the coalition by providing targeting training for its air force. By the Ministry of Defence’s own figures, 42 potential violations of international humanitarian law by the Saudi-led coalition were recorded in just three months at the beginning of this year, compared with 66 incidents over the whole of the past year. Will the Minister set out what the value of our training is when the rate of civilian casualties is increasing, not decreasing?

Finally, as the Minister rightly says, what Yemen needs is peace and a political settlement. This conflict will not be solved by further violence. May I implore the Government to bring a resolution to the UN Security Council as a matter of urgency? Eight million people in Yemen are on the brink of starvation. Surely the United Kingdom has a responsibility to lead the international community to put peace on the table.

[Harriett Baldwin]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on securing today’s urgent question and finding time to discuss these important issues on the Floor of the House. He is absolutely right to pay tribute to the work of Martin Griffiths. As the hon. Gentleman will know, the UK holds the pen on this matter at the United Nations, and it is really important that Martin Griffiths has been appointed as a United Nations special envoy. As colleagues will know, he brought the debate to the floor at the United Nations last month. The UK strongly backs his work, and his outline of the process that will lead to a political solution and peace in Yemen. In fact, I am glad to have the opportunity to reiterate a point that he made: we urge all parties to the conflict to exercise restraint and continue to facilitate access for essential imports of food, fuel and medical supplies into the country, including through Hodeidah and Saleef ports. I agree that further military action is not the way forward. The way forward towards peace is around the negotiating table.

The hon. Gentleman made some points about the important role that the UK can play in the peace process, in addition to the role as penholder at the United Nations. Clearly our role is also to be a candid friend to those involved in the Saudi-led coalition; to encourage the process of the investigative joint incident assessment team and the publication of its reports, 55 of which have been published so far; to recognise that the UK is not involved in any way in the targeting chain; and to reiterate the importance of the UK having the most rigorous export controls, which involves the observation of international humanitarian law.