Afghanistan

James Duddridge Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady is right to raise that issue. A lot of the UK Government’s work has been on prevention: improving the underlying conditions for women in Afghanistan. Of course other countries—for example, the United States and Canada—have also focused on helping women who have already suffered physical violence. I assure her that we will continue to work at the national level with the new Government and the new President who will be in place after the elections are finally concluded. We will also work at the provincial level and we will continue, through programmes such as Tawanmandi, to work at the grass-roots level with these organisations, whose people I have met both here and in Afghanistan, to do what we can at an individual community-based level to make sure that those women are supported and can get on with their work. As she points out, some of these people pay the ultimate price. I met someone who was over in London recently who said that she would be happy to lose her life if that is what it took for women’s prospects in Afghanistan to improve in the long term. That was an amazing statement for her to make, and the UK Government will certainly play their role in trying to ensure that people can go about that work safely.

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

The Secretary of State identified the importance of economic development and of revenue collection. I know that DFID and Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs support a number of countries around the world on the revenue development side. Has that been considered for Afghanistan? Is it already happening?

[Justine Greening]

It is already happening; we are doing work with the tax revenue authority of Afghanistan. The good news is that since 2004-05 tax revenues increased from just $250 million to more than $2 billion by 2011-12. So things are moving in the right direction and we will continue that work.

Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

James Duddridge Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I never thought I would say this, but I agree with the hon. Gentleman!

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

Does the Secretary of State agree that it is somewhat surprising to see the Opposition Front-Bench team being so negative, because this project builds on the good work done not just by this Secretary of State and the previous Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), but by the last Labour Government? In fact, the best example I can find of this succeeding was started by the last Labour Government, so perhaps they should be praising us. I refer to the Vodafone and M-Pesa deal—the type of deal we should do a lot more of, yet exactly the type of deal they are criticising today.

[Justine Greening]

I agree: it is pretty bizarre. I think that we should ramp up this work, because it can have real benefits for people in developing countries. I thank my hon. Friend for his interest and his efforts, which have been incredibly important.

UK’s Development Work (Girls and Women)

James Duddridge Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I thank my hon. Friend for those words. Nigeria is a huge country, and we have a very large education programme—two programmes, in fact—that can be a real challenge to deliver, particularly when we are often working in remote rural areas. As he says, part of our work is to make sure that we have a programme that sees girls able to talk about issues and to get educated at the same time. The issue of women teachers is a particularly important one. We often see—not necessarily in Nigeria, but across the world—women teachers being intimidated not to get involved in teaching. The earlier little girls can see role models of women doing jobs, having successful careers and earning income, the better. That is why the issue is so important.

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

My wife grew up in Kenya and now sponsors a family there through Plan UK. Has the Secretary of State had a chance to speak to Plan UK about its assessment of how we can help women and girls in Kenya?

[Justine Greening]

I have not met Plan UK explicitly, although I know it is coming into my Department in the next few weeks. Its work in Kenya has, I think, been transformational. Real progress is being made in Kenya generally. Where I would like to see my Department doing more is in helping the country’s economy to develop. Ultimately, alongside developing public services and improving basic services, Kenya needs economic growth and jobs. Interestingly, UK companies did £1 billion-worth of trade with Kenya last year. I have no doubt that companies will have a role to play in joining the development push where Kenya is concerned.

Oral Answers to Questions

James Duddridge Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for his work on the all-party group on global education for all. He goes to the heart of the matter, which is not just the number of children coming into school but the quality of the teaching. The statistics show that in Kwara, for example, only 75 of 19,000 teachers passed a test for nine-year-olds—that gives some idea of the scale of the challenge that we are facing. My hon. Friend will therefore be pleased to know that we have a new teacher development programme supporting over 60,000 teachers.

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

In addition to the excellent work that DFID does in education in Nigeria, what more can the Minister do to suggest to the large number of British companies in Nigeria that they should also be getting involved in taking on responsibility in this respect?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend raises an important point. All UK companies have the opportunity to get involved and engaged. If he knows the names of the companies concerned, I would be only too happy to contact them myself.