Disability-inclusive Development

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. It is also a great honour to follow the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—the two years I spent on the Select Committee under his chairmanship were among of the most enjoyable of my time in Parliament. He has been a great Chair of the Committee and it is the House’s loss that he is standing down. However, I am sure that he will make a huge contribution to the area in question in his future career, wherever that will be.

I declare an interest as a board member of the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine. I want to talk about neglected tropical diseases, an area in which the school does great work, which is why I am declaring that interest. I am also chair of the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases.

I want to pay tribute to the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern). I seem to remember that in the 2010 to 2015 Parliament, when we produced the first report on DFID and disability, she was one of the main instigators of work in that area, along with my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) and myself.

There are three areas that I want to address: neglected tropical diseases, jobs in the private sector, and nutrition. All of those have a strong relationship with disability and DFID’s work on it. Neglected tropical diseases are those that, as the name suggests, have been neglected, but I am glad to say that they are much less neglected than they used to be, because of the strong work done by many around the world—not least DFID and the United States, and increasingly now other countries, such as Germany.

It was a great honour when I recently chaired a meeting of the all-party group where we helped to publicise DFID’s new programme on accelerating the sustainable control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases. ASCEND covers five of the worst diseases: trachoma, lymphatic filariasis, onchocerciasis, schistosomiasis and visceral leishmaniasis. There are two programmes within ASCEND—one covering east and central Africa and one covering west Africa. The programme aims to accelerate sustainable control and elimination of neglected tropical diseases and is spending £200 million over the period between this September and March 2022.

The work that I have seen on tackling neglected tropical diseases, particularly in Africa but also elsewhere, is not only essential but incredibly cost-effective. DFID did an evaluation of work on NTDs and said that it paid back something like £30 or more for every £1 spent. Why is that relevant to disability? It is simple: those diseases, even if people are treated for them, lead to disability, or in some cases they cause disability that can then almost be cured by the treatments.

A few weeks ago I had the honour of visiting, with the hon. Member for Stockton South (Dr Williams), a clinic in Rombo in east Kilimanjaro, where we saw surgery being performed on people’s eyelids, through the Commonwealth Fund and with the help of Sightsavers and DFID. The people had a condition that almost removed their eyesight, but after a few days they could see much better. It was wonderful, because often those were people in their 60s, 70s or 80s—there was even one woman in her 90s—and they were suddenly given a new lease of life and could perform tasks that they could not perform before, because of that simple but hugely beneficial operation.

Another great thing about that experience was that I saw the ophthalmic surgeon not only performing the operation but teaching two highly skilled nurses how to do it; it was training as well as an operation. What gave me great joy was the fact that at the end I shook the surgeon’s hand and he asked my name. When I gave it he said, “Are you related to Dr Lefroy?” I said, “Yes, she’s my wife.” He said, “She trained me at the medical school in Kilimanjaro, the best part of 20 years ago.” It was lovely to see the link between the work that Janet did all those years ago, training a young man who is now an experienced eye surgeon and who also trains experienced eye nurses. That gave me great joy, but probably not as much as seeing those men and women undergoing a quite difficult operation with great fortitude and stoicism, having their eyes bandaged, and then moving out, knowing that in two or three days’ time their lives would be made a lot better by being able to see. They would be able to perform jobs and tasks, and engage in activities that they would not otherwise have been able to do.

I remember a second visit, a few years ago, just south of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, where we saw a programme, also with DFID funding, working together with the Tanzanian Government. The point I would make is that those programmes are working together with the Government in health facilities supported by the Government, whether they are faith-based or Government-owned. They are integrated into the Government system. They are supported by other organisations such as Sightsavers, which is excellent, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby has said, but they are integrated into the work that is already going on.

The programme I saw was tackling lymphatic filariasis, otherwise known as elephantiasis. It is a very disabling disease and, as the name suggests, it causes the swelling of limbs. People were being taught how to look after and treat their condition so that they would be able to work again. The other element of the programme was to take away some of the stigma. As the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby has said, stigma is a big issue in connection with disability, and there is great stigma attached to lymphatic filariasis.

I want to praise the work that DFID, its partners and others in the sector are doing, and to encourage the United Kingdom to continue the work. The programme is worth about £60 million to £70 million a year, and it has a huge impact. If one considers that the number of people affected by NTDs around the world is in the order of 1.4 billion—these programmes are helping hundreds of millions to cope with disabilities, and are treating and preventing disabilities—one can see how important that work is.

The second area that I would like to tackle is jobs and livelihoods. The report is very good on that, and section 113 and those following it talk about the private sector. Again, I have personal experience of this, as my father was disabled. His disability came in his mid-30s, and he found it very difficult to get work. I pay great tribute to the Church of England, because he was a vicar and it supported him. Understandably, in the 1960s he found it very difficult to find places that would accept somebody who was disabled. Nevertheless, he was supported right the way through by the congregations he served in London, which in those days was quite unusual.

From that experience, I have always wanted the United Kingdom to take a lead in disability support within the workplace, particularly within the private sector. I was very encouraged by the example given in the report of the hotel chain ITC Welcom Group, which has produced a disability handbook for industry. It argues that employees with disabilities

“tend to have better attendance records, stay with employers longer and have fewer accidents at work”.

It highlights other important benefits, such as improving the company image and boosting staff morale. That applies in the United Kingdom and across the world. I welcome DFID’s work, together with that of its private equity arm, CDC, in putting that at the forefront of their work.

Nutrition does not feature highly in the report, but I fully understand that not everything can be covered. Just last week I was talking to the head of the World Food Programme for Burundi, where 56% of the population are malnourished. It is one of the poorest countries in the world, but sadly, because of the serious problems with governance there, it has been neglected by the international community. I know that the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby shares that view. I encourage DFID to strengthen its support in Burundi.

The point is that if we do not support babies and children in the first 1,000 days—this is shown by work that DFID has done on nutrition, the work that Melinda Gates has done on the issue, and the work of my hon. Friend the Member for Worthing West (Sir Peter Bottomley) and others in this country—the problems last for the rest of their lives. If babies, children and young people do not have access to adequate nutrition, they will be much more susceptible to acquiring disabilities, either at a young age or later. Will the Minister address the issue of Burundi, where I believe there is a hidden nutrition crisis—indeed, more than a crisis? I know he is aware of that, but what can we do about it? How is DFID’s work on nutrition, which is of the highest order, feeding into its work on disability?

I am most grateful for this opportunity to speak. I am very grateful for the work that DFID is doing in these areas. I encourage the Minister and the whole Department to make further progress on their work with disability, but I thank them for what they have done over the past five years, moving from the framework to the strategy, and for taking a leading role in this most important of areas.