Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

It will feature technical assistance to help the Indian Government get the most out of their own £50 billion investment in health and education. It will involve returnable capital projects, which will help to drive economic growth in India. I will also work across Government to ensure that our trade relationship develops.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

T4. As the Secretary of State knows, I am hugely encouraged by the Government’s commitment to fighting female genital mutilation, a commitment that has been warmly welcomed by the Inter-African Committee and other grass-roots campaigners. I urge her to continue to be guided by their evidence on what works best in combating this deeply harmful practice.

Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No one can achieve this agenda on their own. We have been working on it, but we must increasingly work on it together, adopting a single strategy rather than disparate parts. I agree with CARE that we should stop working in, as it were, a parallel universe with businesses, and start working in the same world.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

Before entering Parliament, I worked for one of many good private sector companies, the John Lewis Partnership, which, through both John Lewis and Waitrose, does terrific work with suppliers overseas. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is rather depressing that the Labour party has so little faith in the ability of such private sector companies to do good in relation to this agenda?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is very well placed to ask that question, and she is entirely right. I think that we should be proud of the work of companies such as John Lewis and Waitrose, which not only makes business sense for them but makes a huge difference to the thousands of young people whom they are not only employing but “skilling up” in countries such as South Africa. We are delighted to be working with Waitrose. It is projects of that kind that have led me to announce today that I want to do more, and to do it in a more structured way.

Let me also thank my hon. Friend for the incredibly important work that she has been doing in raising awareness of female genital mutilation.

UK’s Development Work (Girls and Women)

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 7th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman started his remarks in a tone that did not particularly fit my statement, but in response to his question, it is the Government’s intention to enshrine the aid target of 0.7% in law. I emphasise, however, that we have already been getting on with that this year.

I am pleased that the hon. Gentleman had a chance to visit the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and he rightly spoke about the need to tackle some of the underlying root causes linked to attitudes and social norms. Such factors are one reason why it is particularly challenging to make progress in this area. We cannot have a one-size-fits-all approach and our work must be country-specific and tailored to the needs of that country. That is precisely what we do, and we are working in about 20 countries. A good example of such work is the Tawanmandi programme that the Government have supported in Afghanistan. It works with a number of community groups but sits alongside work nationally to strengthen women’s participation at a political level.

We must also work—as we do—to strengthen justice systems so that when crimes take place there is no sense of impunity for those crimes, and steps can be taken to bring the perpetrators to justice. We have all seen the shocking statistics about the lack of justice for women who suffer sexual violence during conflicts, which is why the Foreign Secretary is right to champion this issue.

My Department has supported the One Billion Rising campaign, and I am delighted to say that the online petition on our website has been signed by nearly 30,000 people. It is an important matter, which is why the CSW is right to focus this year on eradicating violence against women.

The hon. Gentleman asked about the role of UN Women. It is still a relatively new organisation, having been set up in 2011. It is an amalgamation of some existing UN agencies that have worked in the area of women’s rights. I have spoken with Michelle Bachelet on a couple of occasions about the work that UN Women does. She is clear that the organisation needs to reform in order to be able to work more effectively at the UN level and in terms of its programmes at country level.

As the hon. Gentleman will be aware, the Government have introduced the multilateral aid review, which systematically looks at the effectiveness of taxpayer money as used via multilateral organisations such as UN Women. That organisation was not in existence the last time we carried out that review, but I hope that it will get a good score in the next MAR. We are working with UN Women to ensure that it can achieve that.

The hon. Gentleman asked about our aspirations for the CSW. If he has read the draft conclusions being debated in New York this week and next, he will see that they are strong conclusions and we should resist any watering down, although we should also recognise the element of negotiation in the process. I can assure him that the work that we have done in public and private includes lobbying; cajoling countries that often stay silent to speak up; and encouraging like-minded countries that are in favour of the CSW’s conclusions to work together. That work has seen a significant increase this year compared with previous years. It would be a significant backward step for women’s rights if we were to fail to reach good, strong conclusions at this year’s CSW, and we are working towards reaching those conclusions.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked about abortion. We all recognise how sensitive that issue is, but the UK has often been one of a handful of donors who are prepared to fund work to ensure that women can have safe abortions, especially when they have become pregnant through violence and in conflict situations. We recognise that this is a sensitive area for other countries, but I can assure him that we raise our concerns. It is an important area, and the UK can be proud that in spite of it being a sensitive issue we have ensured that we provide support to women who need it in that situation.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I warmly welcome the Secretary of State’s statement. It is incredibly heartening and we are all very encouraged by it. I especially welcome what she said about female genital mutilation. In the last few years through the all-party group, I have had the privilege of meeting some fantastic grass-roots campaigners from Africa. Can my right hon. Friend confirm that we will support these amazing people—mostly women—working in country and with diaspora communities, to find out what really works on the ground and to back them up in their brave and important fight?

[Justine Greening]

We are supporting the UN joint programme in work in this area. My hon. Friend is right: some of the strongest advocates in ending FGC are those people who have themselves suffered. It is a terrible practice. Interestingly, it is not a religious practice, and we can enlist the support of religious leaders in making the case in their communities about why this practice should end. It is worth saying that the EU report published yesterday confirms that work remains to be done right here in the UK, and we must not shy away from that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I take issue with the hon. Lady’s assertion that we have not focused on women and children. Doing so is absolutely crucial, and it has been at the heart of everything we have done, not least through the Prime Minister’s family planning summit, which he held with my predecessor earlier this year. As the hon. Lady will be aware, the millennium development goals focus on areas such as education, women and children, and we are determined to see that continue in the post-2015 goals.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

T2. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary on being appointed not only to her new post, but as international champion against violence against women. Will she demand more action from Governments in areas where there is a high prevalence of female genital mutilation, and give support to the brave local campaigners doing amazing work on the ground to combat such human rights abuse?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Lynne Featherstone)]

I thank my hon. Friend, and pay tribute to her for taking such a passionate interest in this issue. Tackling female genital cutting is a priority for me, and there is now a rising desire in Africa to tackle it. Senegal, Burkina Faso, Uganda and the African Union have all indicated that they want to take this forward. We are currently designing an ambitious programme to help end FGC, and supporting civil society organisations working on the ground is likely to be a key component of our work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Wednesday 11th July 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

As the hon. Lady will know, at the last election I made very clear promises about bus passes, about television licences and about winter fuel payments. We are keeping all those promises.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

As Melinda Gates has recently said, women in developing countries want to raise healthy and educated children who can contribute to building prosperous communities. Does my right hon. Friend agree that one of the ways in which we can support that aspiration is to help those who wish to plan their family to do so?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right, and later today I will be speaking at a seminar event with Melinda Gates and a whole range of leaders from across Africa and other parts of the developing world about exactly this issue. We should be doing more to allow mothers access to birth control so that they can plan their family size. All the evidence shows that as countries develop, family size does reduce and populations become more sustainable, but we should help people to plan that process. It is not about telling people what to do; it is about allowing people the choice that in this country we take for granted.

UN Women

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

I very much welcome the fact that we are having this debate. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Epping Forest (Mrs Laing) and others on their tenacity in pressing the case for it with the Backbench Business Committee.

I should like to focus my remarks on one specific aspect of the violence and injustice done to women in our world—I am afraid that it is not a comfortable one for the House—which is the terrible practice of female genital mutilation. This is a practice that the United Nations has stated it wishes to end within a generation. I am sure that UN Women will be taking the lead on this work, but it is a mighty task that Ms Bachelet and her team will take on. The World Health Organisation estimates that between 100 million and 140 million girls and women worldwide have been subjected to such mutilation. The practice is most prevalent in western, eastern and north-eastern regions of Africa, some countries in Asia and the middle east. The cutting is often practised on girls as young as 12 or 13, often precipitating their dropping out of school and not carrying on with their education. Education, as we have all agreed throughout this debate, is one of the essential keys to greater equality, dignity and progress for women.

I am grateful to VSO for its briefing on this issue and for drawing my attention to the Orchid Project, which is run by a former VSO volunteer, Julia Lalla-Maharajh. That organisation has a simple vision—a world free from female genital cutting. Interestingly, one of its key findings has been that, difficult though it is, trying to avoid judgment and blame when working alongside communities in the developing world has been more helpful for them in trying to effect change from the grass roots up. Whatever laws are passed against FGM in some countries, in reality they are unenforceable if it is culturally embedded locally and supported by civic and religious leaders. There is a vital need to work from the bottom up. I understand that the Department for International Development has found that this is consistently true locally.

[Mrs Grant]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the lack of prosecutions under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 is a major and very worrying problem?

[Jane Ellison]

I certainly do agree, because this is happening not only in the developing world but here in our country—in this city and in my constituency.

In the developing world, trying to ensure that girls are able to take educational and economic opportunities is absolutely vital, and challenging social norms by having locally led solutions is proving more effective. One of the findings has been that more educated and less poor girls will grow up to be women who are less likely to subject their own daughters to this procedure.

My hon. Friend the Member for Maidstone and The Weald (Mrs Grant) drew our attention to the fact that this terrible practice is a problem not just in the developing world, but that it is also a problem for many countries in the developed world. Here in London, the number of reported cases of FGM has risen in recent years. These awful procedures are happening in this city, and in other UK cities as well. A clinic at a major London teaching hospital sees about 350 such women and girls a year, often with horrible complications. The Metropolitan police have intervened in more than 120 cases since 2008, but despite this practice having been illegal for many years, as we have heard, there has been not one prosecution. The police often put this down to the problems of trying to get people to give evidence in very difficult situations and not being sure that they can secure such a prosecution if they bring it to court.

While refraining from judgment may be more likely to effect change in the developing world, we cannot refrain from judgment when such mutilation is happening in our own country. We have to be clear and robust in saying that it is a crime in our country, and that no excuses can be offered. The Met have been very clear about this.

[Mr MacShane]

May I put it to the hon. Lady, first, that the police are sincere in these investigations, but are hampered by other priorities and other areas where they feel they have to work? Secondly, if the police, the authorities and the doctors know that this crime is happening, perhaps we need to look at the court and evidence system, which prevents any sanction or any message going out into the community, at least in Britain, to say: “You should not be doing this.” I am thinking of a version for sexual crimes, including rape, of the Diplock courts that we set up in Northern Ireland. That may sound illiberal, but we really need to tackle this with convictions that can then be publicised in the newspapers, sending a signal to these communities that it has got to stop.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jane Ellison]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for that intervention, and I think that we should consider all those things. That the number of cases is rising, not falling away to nothing, tells us that there is a growing problem, not a diminishing one. We should therefore be considering all possible solutions.

I have a good degree of confidence that the police, certainly in London, are taking this matter seriously. Senior local police officers contacted me ahead of this debate to say that if there was an opportunity to raise this issue, they would be grateful. I am convinced that it is on the agenda, although I am sad in a way that it has to be on the agenda of police working in my area and across London. It is part of their strategy to prevent violence against women and girls. The message from the police is clear to all those in positions of trust, whether they be teachers, lecturers, social workers or religious leaders: it is their duty to report these things when they find out that they are going on, and they should know that the police will take them seriously. The consequences of not reporting such abuse are terrible. If abuse against the oldest girl in a family is reported, it might prevent all the younger siblings from suffering the same thing. It is therefore important to tackle it.

There is a big challenge for police and health practitioners in exploring what information they can legitimately share within the bounds of medical confidentiality. That perhaps goes back to the point made by the right hon. Member for Rotherham (Mr MacShane) about looking at fresh approaches. Obviously, midwifery services and certain screening services pick up on this abuse more than other parts of the health service do.

I hope that Members across the House can send a signal from this debate that culture is no excuse for violence and the mutilation of girls and women in Britain. It must stop now. I hope that UN Women will take up the cause of ending female genital mutilation within a generation. I hope with all my heart that it is successful, and I hope that it gets generous support from the UK Government.

Global Poverty

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Thursday 1st July 2010 Commons Chamber

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

I start by being nice about the hon. Member for Harrow West (Mr Thomas), even though he does not seem to have been inclined to be nice about me this afternoon. I do, after all, sit at his former desk. I have lifted the chair a little so that I can see things, but it would be churlish not to acknowledge that, as my predecessor, he remained in post for almost seven years—a record in the Department, I think—and did a lot of good when he was there. Indeed, having heard the debate this afternoon, such is my affection for him that, should he so wish, I am very happy to endorse his application to become Governor of the Pitcairn Islands.

It has been a genuine pleasure to listen to this debate. It is evident from the quality of the contributions and the passion with which they have been delivered that global poverty is a topic about which Members on both sides of the House care very deeply. I should like to thank them for their observations, and I will turn to their contributions in a moment.

In opening the debate, the Secretary of State made it clear that we cannot allow current economic pressures to deflect us from our goal of helping the world’s poorest people. We will not turn away and abandon those whose need is so great. True leadership is forged in the heat of adversity, and this Government will not be found wanting. However, neither will we be prepared to squander the hard-earned money of British taxpayers.

My right hon. Friend spoke of the radically new approach that this Government will take to international development—an approach that has accountability and transparency at its core. These are not empty words. It is these principles that will allow us to demonstrate to the British public that their money is being put to good use: that it is saving lives, creating futures and, ultimately, securing a more prosperous and peaceful world for us all. Combating poverty is not only morally right: it is, as the Secretary of State has said, very much in our national interest. Abroad and at home, development is the right thing to do.

Last weekend, the Prime Minister took to the global stage to reaffirm Britain’s commitment to meeting the internationally agreed goal of 0.7% of GNI to be spent on aid from 2013. We all know that some G8 members have not kept to the promises they made five years ago at Gleneagles, and that is utterly shameful. However, those who say that we should cut our aid budget are asking us to break our word; we are not prepared to do that, and nor would we ever wish to. Two wrongs do not make a right. Since when has someone else’s weakness been a good reason for us to surrender our belief in a fairer, safer and more secure world? We will do our bit, and we will continue to hold others to account at each and every opportunity.

Britain is in the lead on international development. Indeed, developed countries are looking to us for inspiration as much as developing ones are looking to us for help. We are the first country to say that we will enshrine the 0.7% contribution in legislation; and unlike America, for example, our aid is not tied to commercial interests. We have a dedicated Whitehall Department whose Secretary of State has a seat in Cabinet, and now, too, a seat in the National Security Council. This Department has a voice, and this Department is being heard. Put simply, Britain can be proud that it is the standard-setter and principal leader in a world in which charity confined to home would be an abrogation of our wider responsibilities. As many hon. Members have said, charity may start here, but it must not end here.

Despite all this, we must be frank and honest: there are some who, through the pages of the press or elsewhere, still question the validity of spending taxpayers’ money on international development. They speak of money given in good faith but diverted into the hands of tyrants or used to prop up corrupt regimes. The natural corollary seems to be that we should therefore give up and go away, at whatever human cost that might entail. I, and we, and I think Members on both sides of this House, profoundly disagree.

As the Secretary of State has said, the answer lies in greater rigour, more transparency, and full accountability. It lies in the new UK aid transparency guarantee that will help us to track money far more accurately. It lies in our conviction that internal evaluation is not enough and that we must set up an independent body to scrutinise where and how we are spending taxpayers’ money. The answer, in short, lies not in passive defeatism but in active resolve.

I wish to acknowledge all the speakers who have contributed to the debate. The first after the Front Benchers was my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Malcolm Bruce), who said that it was good that we were trying to measure results but pointed out how difficult it is to measure everything easily and consistently. No doubt the Select Committee that he chairs will look into exactly that type of issue in the months ahead.

The hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) made a strong plea for us to engage fully in negotiations on the structure of IDA16. We will do that, and indeed we are doing that. My hon. Friend the Member for Wirral West (Esther McVey) made a charming, thoughtful and generous-spirited maiden speech, and I think it is fair to say that it was listened to admiringly by all of us in the Chamber and also, I noted, by the noble Lord Hunt, her Conservative predecessor.

The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Ann McKechin) rightly wants aid to be so successful that it does not need to be permanent. We wholly agree. That, in a nutshell, is exactly what the “development” bit of international development is all about. We look forward to the continued wisdom and consistent expertise of my hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Tony Baldry), and the House, and particularly we on this side, appreciated the consensual tone of the contribution of the hon. Member for Banff and Buchan (Dr Whiteford).

My hon. Friend the Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) made his maiden speech. It took me a little time to tune into his Stevenage accent, and I hope he will let me know when Robbie Williams is next playing locally. His thoughtful comments on international development were much noted, and I hope that his interest in the issue will continue. Likewise, the hon. Member for Rochdale (Simon Danczuk), in his maiden speech, made a passionate defence of the interests of beleaguered Palestinians, an issue that will figure in both our foreign and defence policy. I am sure that he will make many such comments on the topic in future. I enjoyed his warm account of his own meeting with Gillian Duffy as well—someone I would quite like to have met, I have to say.

My hon. Friend the Member for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) said that we need to tackle Beveridge’s five evils globally. The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Anas Sarwar) made a very good speech, and I look forward to his contribution to the International Development Committee. Many other Members spoke, and I fear that I will not quite have the time to go through their contributions, but I think I have covered all the maiden speeches. I hope the House will forgive me if I do not mention everyone who has spoken. I certainly urge everyone who has contributed to continue to participate in our debates and oral questions, and to form a cadre of informed opinion in the House that will continue to raise international development to the position that it deserves in our deliberations.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

Many of the speeches this afternoon rightly referred to the human rights of women and girls around the world. Will my right hon. Friend make a brief comment on the extent to which the human rights of gay people are under threat in some parts of the developing world with which we have significant ongoing relationships? I am wary of any sense of using aid as a political weapon, but I hope that the influence of the Department can be brought to bear as appropriate.

[Mr Duncan]

As my hon. Friend will appreciate, I have a particular interest in that issue, and I follow it and feel for it closely. I see the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) in his place, and he is also a champion of the issue at home and abroad. We do not want to use aid as a weapon, but we will always be very forthright in defending people’s rights. The whole issue of gay equality is moving from a domestic argument to a global one, and that is where our passions should now more sensibly rest.

I have mentioned the good speeches that we have heard today, but sadly I have to say, and I think the House feels, that the tone set by the shadow Secretary of State lived down to our expectations rather than up to them. It added to our deliberations a nasty and divisive flavour that simply does not need to exist on this topic. The right hon. Gentleman has experience, which we value. Might he not have had the inclination to share that experience and appreciate that his reputation and the House would both benefit from learning from it? We would much rather do that than watch him hop around looking for a scrap in the playground. Also, for him to use his former position to say that he knows the name of the particular official who worked on the speech for his successor as Secretary of State is nothing short of contemptible.

The right hon. Gentleman seemed to blame half the world’s poverty on a strange historic conspiracy between General Kitchener and the Conservative party. If he wants to know the real feeling of the modern Conservative party on this issue, he need only look at the number of people on the Benches behind me today to realise what they feel. He accused us of being ideological, but I can assure him that we are wholly non-ideological. To us, what matters is what works. On user fees, for instance—which he mentioned—we want to get children into school, and in many cases we are paying for those user fees out of our budget. He laboured the point about 0.7% this afternoon—talk about giving a dog a bone—as if there were a great issue about a departure from the clear policy on which we stood at the election. We are committed to enshrining 0.7% in law from 2013. As he well knows, we are considering how to proceed, not whether to proceed, as he implied. He will just have to wait for an announcement at the appropriate time.

Additional climate finance, as the previous Government made clear, will come from the existing aid budget. On the question of how the G20 working group on development will be held to account—something that he knows all about as a former Secretary of State—it will report to leaders through their sherpas. On the forthcoming millennium development goals summit, the UK ambition is to agree on an ambitious action agenda for attaining the MDGs. The shadow Secretary of State absurdly asked for our post-2013 spending plans. But so badly did his party mess up the public finances that he could not even, when he was Secretary of State, give us his own figures for next year.[Official Report, 6 July 2010, Vol. 513, c. 1MC.]

I have acknowledged the insightful contributions that we have heard from Members today, but I now wish to acknowledge the influence and record of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State. His passion for international development is known to all in this Chamber and none can doubt his genuine commitment and considerable expertise. Indeed, rarely has a Member of Cabinet shadowed their portfolio for the length of time—nearly five years—that he has done. Only yesterday, Jon Snow said:

“Andrew Mitchell is unquestionably the best prepared Secretary of State—nobody has waited longer in the wings and everyone in the sector knows of his commitment to the sector”.

It is telling that within a few short weeks my right hon. Friend has already set in train a number of initiatives that will allow us to bring about a fundamental re-think of the way we give aid. He has, for example, launched two critical reviews—a bilateral review that will look at how we spend money directly with specific countries, and a multilateral review that will follow the money that we are channelling through other bodies such as the EU, the World Bank or the UN. Meanwhile, the full scale value-for-money review that he has commissioned is already yielding savings that can be directed back to the front line.

In today’s economic climate, we need—more than ever—to be able to show the British taxpayers that their money is going where it can do most good, and that when it gets there, every single penny of it is put to the best possible use. Our focus will be at the sharp end, where it matters—on results not process. It will no longer be the number on the aid cheque that matters, but the number of people it helps. As my right hon. Friend said, our thinking and action will not stop there. We will look ahead to the millennium development goals summit and we will push everything that we can to focus on poverty.

Britain can be proud of its position on international development. We can hold our heads high and I hope that Members on both sides of the House will join us in the fight and the cause ahead.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the matter of global poverty.