Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We are supportive of universal health coverage, which is one of the key means that can improve health outcomes. The hon. Gentleman is quite right to raise the issue of maternal health. We look across the board at how we can do that, including in relation to family planning and what we are doing this summer to combat child and early marriage, which is one reason why maternal health is poor. We will continue to work really hard on that whole agenda.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Great gains have been made under the millennium development goals in the areas of malaria, neglected tropical diseases, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis. Can my right hon. Friend reassure me that the goals that we will push for post-2015 will ensure that those gains will be maintained and, indeed, enhanced?

[Justine Greening]

Yes, I can. In fact, we want HIV, TB and malaria to be incorporated under a health goal. My hon. Friend will be aware that the UK was one of the leading donors at the global fund replenishment at the end of last year, and will continue to support that important work.

Burma

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

We recognise that Burma needs capacity right across the whole system. Frankly, its spending on health and education has been minimal and its capacity to do that at the moment is pretty limited. We have to work with the partners we can find, sometimes directly. Of course we want to build up capacity within the Government, provided that the partners within the Government will respond in the right way, but we did see very good co-operation and real evidence that we are making specific changes. So our view is that we can expand the development support and help build those institutions, but we also need to strengthen the political capacity. One particular step is to enable Parliament to raise the funds that will ultimately enable these developments to be taken forwards as the economy develops. That is crucial and it is something DFID does very well in many other countries.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I am the chair of the all-party group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases. I and my colleagues on that committee are extremely concerned about the growth of resistance to artemisinin-based drugs, which are our main hope for tackling malaria in Burma and the surrounding area. Does my right hon. Friend think the international community is giving enough weight to this issue?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I commend my hon. Friend for his assiduous work on the all-party committee, which is extremely important. The answer to his question is that it has not been possible to do enough because of the problems of conflict and lack of access. Indeed, that is the very reason why it has become an endemic threat to the whole world. We hope that, with a ceasefire in place and hopefully the beginnings of a peace process, the opportunity to engage will increase. That is why we have made a specific recommendation that greater priority within the health budget should be given to tackling that problem, and I am certain that my hon. Friend will ensure we focus on that.

Violence Against Women and Girls

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I pay tribute to those who spoke before me, and I will comment particularly on the powerful message from my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) about the need to stand up against things happening in this country that must be exposed and not hidden away—female genital mutilation, and early and forced marriage.

I very much—perhaps “enjoyed” is the wrong word—appreciated being part of the inquiry by the International Development Committee. I confess that I had not given enough thought to this issue over the years, and the process opened my eyes to the extent of violence against women and girls, not only in the developing world but, as we have heard, in the developed world. I am pleased that the Government have made the issue a focus of their work, led by the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development, and by Ministers in the Department for International Development, including the former Minister, my right hon. Friend the Member for Eddisbury (Mr O’Brien), and the current Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone), who has rightly championed the issue and made it a focus of her work.

The issue was particularly brought home to me by three students who approached me from King Edward VI school in Stafford, in my constituency. Those three girls—Maya Lucey, Amy Mace and Chloe Taylor—wrote to me saying that they would like to speak with me about it. I had not spoken to them about it before, but what they had heard in the press and elsewhere had made them concerned about female genital mutilation in the UK. I had the pleasure of meeting and speaking to them last Friday, or rather of listening to what they had to say. I was profoundly impressed not only by the extent of their knowledge, but by their commitment to stopping FGM in this country. I pledged that I would do what I could to raise the matter in this debate and to supporting all the work that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire and others continue to do in Parliament. I pay tribute to the girls’ teacher, Mrs Jo Bentham, who ensured that they were supported in talking about an issue that is particularly difficult for some people of their age to raise.

Members have already discussed the statistics on FGM prevalence rates. They are as high as 98% in Somalia and 94% in Sierra Leone; I will mention Sierra Leone a bit later. An estimated 3.3 million girls a year globally are still at risk from the practice. A study conducted in 2007 by the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and the City university midwifery department, using modelled estimates, concluded that 66,000 women resident in England and Wales had undergone FGM, and that 23,000 girls under the age of 15 were at risk of it. This matter is of great importance not just in countries in the remit of the Department for International Development, but right here on our doorstep. I welcome the work being done by DFID. We understand that, in March 2013, it dedicated £35 million to ending FGM in one generation. Part of that money will fund social change, communications and research. The goal is ambitious and worthy, and I congratulate DFID on its commitment.

In the time remaining to me, I will concentrate on the vital matter of changing social norms. I well remember living in Tanzania and having a good friend from an area where FGM was the norm—everybody allowed their young daughters to be subjected to it. He was determined that that should not be the case for his daughters, and instead of taking a negative or critical approach, he stood up and said, “We’re not going to allow our daughters to go through this. We are setting an example.” That comes back to a point made by previous speakers: it is vital that we engage communities, not just lecture them. We must work with women’s groups, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire said, and with men and boys, to say that FGM is completely unacceptable.

I want briefly to address the question of early marriage, and one problem that it brings and to which FGM contributes: fistulas. When I was in Sierra Leone at the end of last year, I visited the Aberdeen Women’s Centre in Freetown, which has been equipped through generous donations from Scotland, in particular, and from Ann Gloag. We saw women there, some of them very young, whose lives were being transformed by the repair of their fistulas, which had developed largely as a result of their being married and giving birth at an early age. It made an enormous difference to them. Without it, they would have been almost outcast and ashamed to be in society.

We have heard about the critical matter of water and sanitation. While I was living in Tanzania and my wife was running a public health programme there, one key thing that she wanted was for shallow wells to be drilled in every village to enable women and girls to get water locally, rather than having to travel 5 km, 6 km or 7 km for it. Such travelling not only meant that they could not receive education, but put them and their mothers at risk of violence. The project made a big difference, especially as the community was involved in not only raising the money for the wells and pumps in the first place, but maintaining them. One could see that when a community was committed to the well-being of the girls and women in their midst, it was quick to raise the necessary money.

I conclude by again commending the Government’s work in this area. We must ensure that it continues and is not a theme for only a year. It has to be a theme for this Government and many Governments—and for many generations. That is so obvious, yet it sometimes seems to escape our notice.

Global Food Security

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. It is also an honour to follow the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) and the Chair of the Select Committee, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce). I would like first to declare an interest: in Twin, of which I am a director, an organisation that has pioneered the promotion of fair trade in the UK, and in Equity for Africa, which makes social impact investments in businesses, largely in Tanzania, some of which are agricultural producers.

As the Chair of the Select Committee said, global food security concerns us all. It is not just about developing countries. It concerns us all because, as the Prime Minister has said, in a world of plenty,

“a billion people around the world do not get enough food, and undernutrition holds back the growth and development of millions of children.”

The issue also affects us right here. The right hon. Member for Gordon has already referred to what happened in 2000, when we were on the edge of a food supply crisis as a result of the fuel strike. Shortages on the other side of the world raise prices here too, and when families are living at the edge of their budgets, as many do, an increase in the price of food cannot be accommodated.

I welcome the renewed emphasis that the Government have placed on supporting agriculture throughout the developing world, including enlarging the remit of the Commonwealth Development Corporation—now called the CDC—to look again at direct investments in agriculture. The CDC was a pioneer in investing in agriculture after the second world war, and many of those investments are still very productive, employing a lot of people in developing counties. The CDC rather lost its way on the issue of agriculture 15 or 20 years ago, so I welcome the return to its roots, along with investment in infrastructure and many other areas in which it has recently become successful.

Food security must be taken more seriously by all Governments, not just those whose people live daily with the consequences of shortages. We recently saw an example, to which both previous speakers referred, of a lack of seriousness when the European Union failed to introduce a food-based biofuel cap of 5%, which I believe the Government support and that was recommended by the Select Committee. Using precious land to grow food that is then inefficiently converted into fuel costs a lot of money in subsidies and pushes up food prices globally. As the Government support the cap, I urge them to call on EU member states to do the same, and as rapidly as possible.

In 2008, the sharp rise in the price of food arising from shortages led to hunger, hardship and civil disturbances in many countries. At that time, the world managed to rouse itself from its complacency and slumber, and took some important steps. The G20 formed the agricultural market information system, which includes the G20 plus Spain and seven other major agricultural exporters and importers, and of which the UK Government are a very active supporter. It analyses data on production, consumption, prices, stocks and trade and uses that analysis to prepare short-term market forecasts, which have made a great deal of difference. It also has a rapid response force, which meets as often as is necessary—I read “annually”, but I hope it meets more often than that, as it is supposed to be a rapid response force —to discuss policy co-ordination, which is vital. Given that one reason for the food price spike in 2008 was misinformation about the level of stocks in China, the system is a significant step forward and has helped to lessen the impact of more recent crises. However, we need more than information and policy about food supplies; we need action to react to crises.

The 2011 decision by the G20 to remove export bans or special taxes for food purchased for the World Food Programme was welcome. As the report makes clear, however, the hasty imposition of export bans still happens and makes difficult situations worse. This goes slightly beyond what the report says, but I would recommend that, led by the G20 and the United Nations, the World Food Programme should put in place plans with every state in regions likely to be affected by shortages, so that if a neighbouring country faces a crisis, countries could allow food to go where it is needed—instead of closing their borders for exports—in the full and confident knowledge that the World Food Programme would immediately support them with additional stocks if necessary to avoid a crisis for their own people. Export bans are based on the fear that a country’s own people will face shortages. That fear would be unfounded if the World Food Programme had definite plans in place, together with Governments, immediately to replace those stocks.

That brings me to the contentious issue of stocks, an issue about which the international community retains its worrying complacency. Our report recognised that

“maintaining large-scale food stocks can sometimes be problematic and costly”,

but we said that we believe that

“there may be a case for judicious use of stocks to relieve the tightness of markets.”

We recommended that the Government conduct further research, in particular to consider

“under what circumstances it would be appropriate for a national government to pursue strategic stockholding for national food security purposes.”

That was a modest but important recommendation that was rejected by the Government, who perhaps misunderstood what the Committee was really suggesting. I sometimes think that Governments—I am not referring to the UK Government—should take some time to read the book of Genesis to see what Joseph did during the food crisis that affected Egypt for many years. He suggested that emergency stocks be built up, which saw the country through a long period of famine.

Our proposal was not to manage prices on a day-to-day basis, in a way that would lead to the failed grain mountains and wine lakes that the Government response implies we were suggesting; it was specifically aimed at emergencies and food security when prices rocket. Indeed, the Government’s response states:

“Evidence suggests that emergency food stocks, which do not attempt to manage prices but provide food to the most vulnerable at times of crisis, are a more effective way of improving food security outcomes in developing countries.”

That is precisely the point. I do not believe that there is such a marked dividing line between stocks for emergency purposes and stocks to relieve pressure on prices. In countries where the cost of food forms a major part of household expenditure, a sharp price rise is a food emergency, because it means that an ordinary person without much money cannot afford to buy food, which makes the situation almost like a famine, even though food is around. This is such an important matter that I ask the Government to look again at their response. Later in their response, they made a sensible reply to our recommendation about emergency food stocks. I ask the Government to combine the two responses and examine how we can improve the world’s view, and particularly the UK’s view, about the handling of food stocks.

There have been major improvements in how crises are handled locally. The World Food Programme’s purchase for progress scheme, which aims to procure much more food regionally and locally, rather than shipping it in, is eminently sensible. It supports local food producers and does not distort the market. It enables countries to continue their normal way of life while helping to tackle a local or regional problem. Cash-transfer and voucher-based schemes, such as those already referred to in Ethiopia and elsewhere, are also effective, and the Department for International Development is rightly regarded as a world leader in such schemes. I commend those who are developing and implementing those programmes.

Two decades ago, development agencies substantially withdrew from programmes supporting agriculture, particularly small-scale agriculture, and it was left to non-governmental organisations and national Governments. It was thought that agriculture was perhaps a business of the past, that the problems had been solved and that they could concentrate on other areas. That was a big mistake, so it is good to see DFID once again strongly supporting investment in agricultural research and productivity.

As the hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith mentioned, the fair trade movement has made a significant contribution. Although it has concentrated on the cash crops, starting with coffee, cocoa, sugar and others, it has supported smallholder agriculture throughout the world. Let us not forget that most of the production of those smallholders is usually for their own local consumption of food crops, in addition to the cash crops that they have grown. We can rightly be, if not proud, then satisfied that the UK is now the world leader in fair trade in terms of volume of sales. It has adopted a pragmatic approach to fair trade, which is not viewed as an ideological subject, but one that promotes good quality and the interests of producers. That is why supermarkets have taken it on board. In other countries, the fair trade movement has perhaps rather shunned supermarkets and has hence deprived the smallholders of extremely large outlets for their produce. I reiterate my call for the Government to put their full weight behind Fairtrade fortnight in a few weeks’ time, because it is important that we do not lose the initiative that has driven the movement for the past 20 years to the position it now holds in this country.

We also need to recognise, as was said earlier, that smallholders do not fit into one category. They can be farmers with an acre or two, or they could have 10 or 20 hectares—in fact, we have many examples in this country that might be regarded as smallholders in developing countries around the world. They are not uniform. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon, the Chairman of the Select Committee, said, this is not just about farmers subsisting in the bush. Many of them are substantial businesswomen and businessmen in their own right; they just happen not to have large expanses of land. At the heart of the matter is the ability or confidence of farmers to know that they own their land and have the rights to it in law.

I welcome the Department’s work on land tenure and rights, which are often fragile or non-existent. In 2011, the Select Committee saw the programme in Rwanda, which has now documented almost the entire country as far as leases or freeholds are concerned. As a result, everyone owning land and the millions of small farmers—men, women and families—know that they own the land, can develop it and are not at risk of having it arbitrarily seized. In addition, if they need to develop the land and have a good business case, they can go to a local bank and secure borrowing on it to increase, we hope, their incomes. DFID has also supported such work in India, Nepal and Mozambique. I hope the Department will extend that support to other countries, because it is rapidly building up world-leading expertise in land registration for smallholders. Indeed, I would go so far as to say that this is one of the best possible uses of UK taxpayers’ money that I have seen in DFID.

There is also the question of water resources. Water is a huge problem, and helping to discover and make best use of water resources is one of the greatest gifts we can offer. I therefore welcome the work being done to help countries to identify their vast underground water resources and exploit them for the benefit of the poor. I welcome the Unlocking the Potential for Groundwater for the Poor research programme, which is supported by DFID.

Rural infrastructure—irrigation, storage and rural roads—improves both pre and post-harvest production. The International Development Committee saw that in the Congo, where a 400-km earth road financed at a relatively reasonable cost by DFID meant that a journey that used to take about five days now takes two hours. Agricultural production can therefore be brought to market in a city such as Bukavu. Previously, that would not have been possible, and produce would have rotted on the way. Infrastructure should of course largely be the responsibility of national Governments, so I am glad that the UK is now supporting the comprehensive Africa agriculture development programme. The work can be done locally, perhaps with technical support from the UK, so will the Minister update us on any progress made on that programme?

Ultimately, agriculture is a business and a livelihood—something that brings in an income for hundreds of millions of people around the world. It is perhaps the business or livelihood in which more people are employed around the world than any other. That is why—given that over the next decade, according to some figures, we will have to create 1 billion new jobs globally, both to tackle current unemployment and for the new entrants into the labour market—agriculture is vital, because agriculture creates jobs effectively. In terms of investment, it is one of the most productive means of job creation.

I welcome the new FoodTrade initiative announced last year, which boosts UK investment in African regional staple food markets. Again, that could play a significant role. Will the Minister update us on how that is going? It is important that such initiatives, once launched—sometimes with great publicity—are followed through and are not left on one side, as can be the case on occasion.

Time and time again, speakers in previous debates have brought up the question of world trade in food products, which must open up. It is a great disadvantage to developing countries that their products do not have proper access—certainly not duty-free access—to many of the world’s richest markets. That is simply not acceptable in the modern world. By opening up the markets, we would see developing countries, which have a huge competitive advantage in agriculture, able to exploit that competitive advantage much better than they can at present, creating jobs, wealth and incomes for their people.

Climate change was touched on in our report. We did not have the time, space or, indeed, remit to go further than to say not only that it impacts upon food security, but that agriculture can make a massive contribution. On the one hand, I have seen for myself the effect of climate change on crop production—changes in the types of crop that can be grown, sometimes to the detriment of crop volume and productivity. On the other hand, agro-forestry can make a huge contribution to the world, although we do not place quite enough emphasis on it at the moment. Many countries are beginning to look into it as a means of job creation, resisting and countering climate change, and encouraging carbon sequestration.

Compared with a decade ago, and certainly two decades ago, the seriousness with which DFID and others treat agriculture has increased remarkably. That is welcome, but it comes not a moment too soon. A couple of hundred years ago, Malthus was wrong in his predictions, because the world woke up to the importance of improving productivity, investing in research and cutting protectionism. We can still prove the Malthusians wrong again, but only by doing the same: by investing in research to improve productivity and by cutting protectionism. DFID is doing a lot, if not most of that. It is not doing all of it—I have pointed out areas where there must be improvement—but it is doing most of it. I urge the Minister to keep going in the right direction.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lynne Featherstone]

I am coming to that. I have a whole list of points to get through. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) asked why it was that only 14 countries are in the programmes when there are 29 DFID countries. I hope to get to that.

The Government believe that functioning markets are a better way to manage food stocks than Government interventions. The hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) made a number of points that went above and beyond the recommendations made in the report. One idea he mentioned was the World Food Programme holding universal stocks to improve availability. He also mentioned involving neighbouring countries and so on. As he said, those ideas go beyond the report’s recommendations. The evidence we have is that universal stocks are not the most effective use of money.

I will not return to the cap as an example, because it is clear that Members did not favour that view, but Malawi, for example, has recently had food shortages. They hold stocks, but when push came to shove and they looked at their grain stock reserve, it was not as high as they thought. Much of it had disappeared. There are a number of issues outside of simply whether stocks are held for emergencies. We do not have the evidence to say that that proposal is an effective use of money, but my experience is that a whole range of unintended consequences come from stockholding.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I fully understand what the Minister is saying and agree that this is not an easy area. We received evidence from the deputy director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organisation. He said:

“The experience of the price spike and the impact of that in various countries related in large measure, in India and China in particular, to the ability to cushion the impact on their population by providing access to food at a lower price because of their grain reserve policies. Certainly in the 2008–09 experience, the impact on poor consumers in India and China was much less than it was in countries in Africa, for example, without the same capacity to do that.”

That is the basis of what we were saying.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I understand that there are differing views, but DFID does not have sufficient evidence and the evidence that we do have shows that attempts by Governments to manage price levels through public stockholding have not been effective in achieving food security objectives. For the moment, we will have to differ on this issue.

The issue of targets for food waste was mentioned. Our experience shows that the voluntary approach is effective and has allowed businesses to reduce waste and become more efficient. The hon. Member for Wirral South asked at what level we would change that. The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has worked successfully with industry on a voluntary basis through the Courtauld commitment to reduce supply chain food and packaging waste by 7.4% over the past three years. Household waste is down by even more: 15% since 2007. Our approach is having an effect and there is not an ultimate target where we will suddenly change horses. We agree that waste is a big issue and we are working through these voluntary mechanisms, which appear to be working.

HIV and AIDS

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin. I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) on her excellent speech and her leadership in the all-party group on HIV and AIDS. I apologise that I will have to leave before the end of the debate, to attend a Select Committee hearing, but I will follow the Minister’s reply and that of the shadow Minister extremely carefully in Hansard.

I pay tribute to David Cairns, who did a huge amount of work in the House on the subject, and huge tribute to Nelson Mandela for his leadership in this area, as in so many others. It is vital that we continue the battle. I lived in Tanzania for 11 years and remember, as the hon. Lady mentioned, the stigma that attached to the disease in the late 1980s and throughout the ’90s, and the courage shown by many people who came forth and said, “Look, we have to tackle this.” For that reason, a couple of years ago when my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) and I visited Nile Breweries, which was conducting a programme of HIV testing and treatment for the employees, she and I decided that we would publicly take an HIV test to encourage the workers at the factory to do the same, because some remained reluctant to do so, given the stigma of even taking the test.

I want to mention four areas in which we need to reinforce what we are doing and perhaps do more. The first is funding. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts has mentioned the important work of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, which we cannot stress enough, and I am delighted that the Minister has decided to increase its funding substantially. The hon. Lady quoted the statistics on the 29% fall in AIDS-related deaths since 2005; it is no coincidence that that is roughly the time during which the Global Fund has been operating. We see the same in malaria; I do not know the statistics for TB, but I am sure the same is true. Certainly, the number of deaths from malaria has fallen by a similar percentage during the time when the Global Fund has been operating.

The Global Fund is a hugely important multilateral fund, which has received very good ratings, for example in the multilateral aid review of the UK Government in 2010 and 2011. It is vital that we continue to support it. Certain issues have been brought up in recent weeks, and last year, but the current chief executive, Mark Dybul, is excellent and is tackling them. He is visiting the House next week and I hope to have the honour of entertaining him. I encourage other Members and colleagues to meet him. We must continue with the emphasis on maintaining and increasing funding. The Global Fund has not yet reached its target of $15 billion for replenishment. We need to encourage our colleagues internationally, in particular in Europe—Germany, France and other countries—to step up to the plate and ensure that the UK and the US can fulfil their commitments, because part of our commitment was conditional on others making commitments.

Secondly, we need to concentrate on the strengthening of health systems—the shadow Minister and I have discussed this on a number of occasions. Only through proper health systems in developing countries will we achieve the universal access to diagnosis, treatment and indeed prevention that is so vital. I am delighted that one of DFID’s new priorities is to reduce new infections in women and girls, which is only possible if we have strong health systems throughout the world. I want to hear from the Minister what DFID intends in this particular area—the Select Committee on International Development certainly hopes to launch an inquiry in the coming year.

Thirdly, as the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts rightly mentioned, we have to work with local groups. I am proud to say that I am an honorary member of the Kilimanjaro women’s campaign to fight against AIDS, which was launched in the early ’90s and has achieved a huge amount locally in the Kilimanjaro region of northern Tanzania and beyond, often on limited resources. The group is led by women and it works in education in support of families and the education of AIDS orphans. It did work that many other, much more substantially funded organisations were not able to do, because its work was mainly run by very committed volunteers.

DFID has an important role to play in support of such groups, not necessarily with massive amounts of funding, because sometimes the effectiveness of such groups is in inverse proportion to the amount of funding that they get. I remember one particular official group, which was substantially funded, that collapsed six months after the funding stopped, simply because it had become so reliant on it and was not prepared to continue the work once the funding stopped. It is vital that we support those groups, but sensitively, so that they are led perhaps not by expatriates going in, but by local people, supported by DFID.

Finally, there is the link made by the hon. Lady between HIV/AIDS and domestic violence and the broader issue of human rights—such as the fact that homosexuality is criminalised in, I believe, 42 out of 52 Commonwealth countries. We have to tackle such matters. Whatever might be said about us in the UK, we must take a lead. I am glad to see that the Government are doing so.

I will conclude by putting on record how important I believe it is to continue the fight. There is the tendency, as we saw with malaria in the 1950s and ’60s, once a battle seems to be largely won, to stop and relax, but it can come back with a vengeance to bite us, as with malaria in the’70s, ’80s and ’90s. We cannot give up on this. We must maintain our support, and I congratulate the Government and the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts on doing so.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Lynne Featherstone]

Yes, we are very keen to help the countries that have such a high burden. We are encouraging the global fund to change its remit to give more than 10% of the support to Nigeria. Interestingly, Nigeria pledged $1 billion to the global fund yesterday at the pledging conference. That is a tremendous move forward for that country.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

Since the last oral question session in October, I have visited the Philippines, where I witnessed at first hand the impact of Typhoon Haiyan, and to Afghanistan, where I met President Karzai. Earlier this month, I took an 18-company delegation to Tanzania to showcase the opportunities for development-focused investment. On 13 November, I chaired the call to action on protecting women and girls in emergencies. Today, I have issued a written ministerial statement that announces tough new controls on the Department’s programme management. Finally, I returned from Washington this morning, where I saw the successful replenishment of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I thank the Secretary of State for that.

In the light of the Secretary of State’s decision today to shut the TradeMark Southern Africa programme due to very poor performance, what action is she taking to ensure that all programmes either deliver or, if they do not, are swiftly remedied or closed?

[Justine Greening]

I have set out today in my written ministerial statement ways in which we have significantly strengthened DFID’s programme and financial management procedures. I am taking further significant steps to strengthen our approach to value for money, including on procurement and ministerial oversight of new business cases. As I inform the House in my statement, weak governance in TMSA resulted in payments amounting to £80,000 via ring-fenced accounts held by the Ministry of Agriculture in Zimbabwe from 2011. That money was used appropriately, but the payments were in contravention of Government policy, so my statement today sets out that I am expanding our internal audit capability and ensuring that when programmes fail to deliver we can spot them, take decisions on them and, if they fail to get better, stop them. [Interruption.]

Typhoon Haiyan

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Disappointingly, the right hon. Gentleman has shown that the tone of the relationship can be set by his side as well as by ours.

The right hon. Gentleman asked what we have delivered. The UK has delivered support to around 800,000 victims of Typhoon Haiyan, which has included 12 flights. Two RAF C-17s have landed in Cebu so far, with a third rotation planned. We have also delivered more than 17,000 shelter kits, 38,000 tarpaulins, 16,000 hygiene kits and 1,500 tents, as well as water and sanitary equipment, buckets, jerry cans, 4x4 vehicles and JCBs. We have provided heavy-lifting equipment at the request of the World Food Programme to help to load and unload aid at Cebu airport, and also debris and road-clearing equipment to unblock roads so that we can get aid through. As everyone is aware, we also sent over HMS Daring, which has now been relieved by HMS Illustrious, which enabled medics and supplies to get to isolated and devastated communities. We have also had an RAF C-130 plane in the region shuttling supplies between Cebu airport and the people who need them in Tacloban, for example.

The Government have carried out significant work on disaster preparedness. Through the UN, we are involved in the work of Political Champions for Disaster Resilience, which works with the Government in Haiti. I have invited the Philippines Government to become involved so that they can be better prepared for disasters and better able to respond to them.

The right hon. Gentleman asked what we were specifically doing in the Philippines. As I said in my statement, we have earmarked £5 million for four main cities in the Philippines that can benefit from better disaster preparedness. In 2010, the Philippines Government passed a law setting out a framework for them better to respond to disasters. As I am sure the House is aware, that part of the world is particularly prone to natural disasters. The challenge they faced was simply the scale of the typhoon, which was possibly the largest ever to make landfall. We will work to help them to improve their ability to withstand such disasters. Part of that will involve looking at how buildings are constructed and helping local government to improve its capacity to work with communities and evacuate people.

The right hon. Gentleman asked me about my assessment of the Philippines Government’s capacity to deliver the reconstruction effort that is needed. They are today and tomorrow looking at the initial needs assessment on infrastructure. I have spoken to the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, which are likely to mobilise some of the financing that is needed for the reconstruction effort. There is a general willingness on the part of the Philippines Government to drive forward the work and on the part of the international community to support that effort over the coming months and years. Indeed, it is already projected that UN work will take place over the next 12 months as a minimum.

The Government have always made it clear that we want an international agreement on climate change—it is vital that that is tackled. The right hon. Gentleman should remember that it was the Conservative party in opposition that proposed a climate change Act and his Government ultimately took the idea on board. I assure him that we remain resolute in prioritising tackling climate change, as he will see over the coming months.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

We are increasingly seeing disasters occurring around the coast and in island states. We have also seen the enormous role that HMS Illustrious has played. Will my right hon. Friend consider whether, when Illustrious retires, we might convert it into Her Majesty’s relief ship, which could be based somewhere such as Gibraltar?

[Justine Greening]

That is an interesting suggestion. It might prove to be an expensive way of ensuring that we can reach people quickly, but we are always open to ideas. I should say that the medical team on Illustrious has already treated two children with infected wounds who unfortunately needed to have limbs amputated. That saved their lives, so we can see how our Royal Navy provides support to people who are in desperate need, and we should be proud of the work that it is doing.

Afghanistan

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I am very grateful for that question. As I have said, we want to allow HALO to continue the important work it does and clear Herat province of mines by 2018. I can assure my hon. Friend her that this work on health, and particularly improving the access of pregnant women to health facilities, will continue to be one of our key priorities.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Following my right hon. Friend’s reply to my hon. Friend the Member for Brecon and Radnorshire (Roger Williams), how effective does she think the comprehensive agriculture and rural development facility really is?

[Justine Greening]

I think it has been effective, and the main challenges in getting it to work effectively have been to do security, which has fluctuated from month to month. We face a constant challenge in being able to work in the communities in Afghanistan. It is a challenge that we meet, and I am proud of DFID’s work, particularly with respect to livelihoods. As I have said, we will continue that work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman obviously was not listening to my opening statement in topical questions, so I refer him back to that.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

T3. What indications has my right hon. Friend received from fellow G8 development Ministers that they will also meet their commitments on providing 0.7% of gross national income, given that the money is also needed to maintain the impressive gains made in tackling the scourges of maternal and child mortality?

[Justine Greening]

I pay tribute to some Scandinavian countries that have also reached the 0.7%—indeed, they have exceeded it. I regularly raise this issue with other EU development Ministers and with other donor countries.

Post-2015 Development Goals

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Thursday 4th July 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I apologise for arriving in the Chamber a bit late. On the subject of roads, does my hon. Friend agree that one of the most important things that the Department for International Development is doing in places such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo is supporting rural road infrastructure? As we saw in, I think, 2011, a road was built to a place that had been cut off for 20 years. Rather than it taking five days for people to get to market, only 60 km of new road meant that they could do so in two hours, which enabled them to bring their produce in, sell it and enjoy their livelihoods.

[Fiona Bruce]

That is an excellent example of the importance of roads. Another relates to Ethiopia, which the Committee also visited. Roads have been built into areas that were originally little more than bush, and, as a result, a health centre and a school can then be built. There is a degree of “villagisation”, whereby families who had perhaps been eking out a living separately in the bush can come together, form a community and support one another. My hon. Friend is absolutely right: roads are essential.

Jobs, too, are essential. Africa is a young continent, but one where, unless we focus on job creation, we will face an increasing employment challenge for youngsters aged up to 25, as the generations, which are now often in school, develop from childhood. One challenge is that we have focused so much—quite rightly—on primary education: there are now probably millions of children with some form of primary education, but with very limited opportunities for secondary and, certainly, tertiary education.

As we develop the new goals, we must consider how we can provide high-quality, targeted tertiary education, vocational skills and professional training, so that we can ensure that there are the business leaders, the technical skills and the young people to run with the vision of developing industries in their communities. If we do not get those skills and do not focus on developing them, we will miss a massive opportunity to help the people in those communities—young people with massive aspirations—to help themselves.

We should consider how to transport some of our skills and strategic understanding of how to develop business and build technical skills. We have to harness those things and consider also how we can harness the energies of people who have perhaps not thought of being involved in development work before. I cite my personal experience of doing business training in Rwanda; I hope to do the same this summer in Burundi.

I do not have a medical or teaching background, but I have a business background, so I went to do some business training. That showed me that every individual who is interested in supporting the developing world has something to offer—people might be interested in going out there to help to support countries that are, as our Chairman said, far less well off than ours. In further education and business development, we need to consider how people who might have taken early retirement but want to give something back can have the opportunity to do so.

I digress slightly, but may I mention the global poverty action fund? We need to re-examine whether it is focused correctly. A minimum of £250,000 is a huge amount of money—for example, an aspiring group of people in this country seeking to help to build a medical or teaching centre may not need to raise such a sum—so will the Minister look at that again? Furthermore, the fund is open for applications for an extremely limited time, often only several weeks—I believe that the current window closes on 9 July, after only a few weeks—but we want to encourage people who might have run businesses in this country to consider applying to the fund to see how they can share skills.

Returning to jobs as a means to end aid dependency, one thing that we need to do is ensure that local authorities in developing countries can maximise any opportunities for inward investment from countries throughout the world. The BRIC countries—Brazil, Russia, India, China—are looking to invest in Africa, and we must ensure that, when new factories and developments are built, the indigenous population and their local authorities have an opportunity to benefit. Local councils should be able to negotiate with contractors, developers and industrialists to ensure that the local community benefits properly. Those are sophisticated skills, but the UK can support them and we need to ensure that the new MDGs are focused on them.

We also need to consider a more holistic approach to job creation, ensuring that there is a suitable environment for business development in those countries. Thus, water is necessary not only for the development of individual, family and village life, but for businesses. Water and sanitation are critical, and unless people have access to sanitation they cannot run a decent business. Land title is essential, as is access to finance and the ability to run a business strategically. There is a huge opportunity for us to examine how local authorities in those countries can work with local business people, so that we in turn can support them and maximise the opportunities for local job creation.

We must look at the issue holistically. We start young people here considering jobs and job opportunities between the ages of 12 and 14, before they start to study for their GCSEs, and we need to do the same for children in Africa and other countries, and consider secondary and early-years education to see what education, skills and training can be invested in those young people to link directly into job opportunities in their countries and local communities. We need an holistic approach to job creation and the reduction of aid dependency through new jobs in the developing world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. You will be glad to hear that I will not speak about HS2—not this week anyway. It is also a pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), and to be in the same room as him and the Minister of State, Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr Duncan). They will not remember this, but I certainly do: they were the two Members of Parliament who interviewed me for the candidates’ list about 12 years ago. They may regret their decision, but I do not.

This is an incredibly important debate, and it is a pleasure that the Minister with responsibility for the millennium development goals and post-2015 MDGs will respond. The goals represent one of the best things to come out of the United Nations and the world community in the past 30 or 40 years. They are probably the most significant thing since the declaration, back in 1970 or 1971 after the Pearson report, that developed countries should aim to give 0.5% of GNI as development assistance. I am glad to say that this country will achieve that for the first time this year.

The MDGs have been important because they have been accessible and achievable. Not all have been achieved, and certainly not in all countries, but many of them have been achieved in some of the countries to which they apply. Without going through them all, I want to mention the drastic falls that we have seen, for instance, in malaria, in deaths from malaria, and in maternal and child mortality.

It is important that the post-2015 MDGs build on the success of the MDGs. They should not pretend to be hugely different, and they should learn from areas in which there was not quite so much success.

I shall concentrate on four issues. The first is young people and, particularly, job creation, although my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) spoke eloquently about that, so I shall not spend too long on the subject. It is estimated that 150 million people are unemployed in the world outside the developed countries, and 60 million of those are young. Women are particularly affected, and some 1.49 billion people are in vulnerable employment. I suggest that those are underestimates, frankly, but they are the figures that we have. It is vital that the new post-2015 MDGs take that situation fully into account.

Although there was an MDG concentrating on that issue, it was probably the least successful one. Over the past 10 or 15 years, vast numbers of people have been pulled out of poverty in countries such as China, but that has not been seen as much in other countries that suffer from acute poverty. The main reason was the lack of job creation, which is why we have to concentrate on that. It is all very well to say that some of those countries will now have great opportunities, because mineral wealth or oil and gas are being discovered, but those industries do not create huge numbers of jobs. The key is that revenue from that natural wealth is put into real investment that creates jobs. Agriculture in particular, and especially small-scale agriculture, has a huge role in creating jobs.

Before I talk about the World Bank, I must declare an interest, as I have just been elected chairman of the parliamentary network on the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. The hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) was once the chairman of that network, and he played a great role in setting it up a few years ago. The World Bank has two goals: first, to eliminate absolute poverty by 2030—by which it means people on $1.25 a day or less—and, secondly, to concentrate on the bottom 40% of the income range. That is vital, because this is all about reducing income inequality while increasing the incomes of those who need the most. That is where employment and job creation comes in and, in that area, we must take account of the role and potential of young people. As Nik Hartley, the chief executive of Restless Development, said:

“We should take the lead in ensuring young people are not bit players but central to the leadership of and governance of the new development framework. They will be the job creators or the unemployed, the new democratic leaders or drivers of revolution and rebellion”.

The task of the present generation is to meet development challenges without compromising the interests of future generations.

My hon. Friend the Member for Congleton mentioned many drivers of job creation, such as land title and access to finance. It is good that DFID is heavily involved in both those areas. I have mentioned this issue before in the House, but I will do so again today, because through an excellent programme in Rwanda, which I believe is coming to an end, DFID financed the creation of title deeds into pretty much every single part of the country. There are 10 million individual plots at a cost of about £40 million. It is one of the best development projects I have seen funded by DFID—in fact, it is one of the best of all, so I congratulate the Department. I encourage it to look at other countries in which that particular programme could be rolled out. I am glad to say that the software used was created in the UK and that the implementation was done by a company from the United Kingdom. I know that DFID takes access to finance very seriously and is involved in work on that in many countries throughout the world.

My second point is about maintaining the gains. I am chair of the all-party group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases, and we are delighted at the progress that has been made on tackling malaria. Over a decade, the number of deaths has come down from about 1 million a year to probably no more than 600,000 a year through the mass introduction and distribution of long-lasting, insecticide-treated bed nets, through rapid diagnostic tests, and, of course, through the latest drugs that are based on combination therapies with artemisinin.

However, malaria can rapidly come back if we do not continue to control it, as we are doing, for instance, with indoor residual spray. We saw in Zanzibar in the 1960s that malaria had almost been eliminated, but the foot was taken off the pedal, so within 10 or 20 years, it was a scourge again right across the islands of Unguja and Pemba. We have seen that in other countries as well, including, even more recently, in Zambia, where malaria staged a bit of a comeback two or three years ago. It is therefore vital that we continue programmes tackling malaria, HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and neglected tropical diseases. In the case of neglected tropical diseases, the mass drug distribution programmes that have been so successful have been financed by a public-private partnership between the pharmaceutical companies, which have provided the drugs free of charge, and aid agencies, such as DFID together with the Gates Foundation.

That brings me on to my third subject—health systems. We often, and rightly, want to tackle individual diseases, be that polio, pneumonia, malaria, HIV/AIDS or TB, but this is actually often about tackling many of those things together through health systems. On a recent visit to Tanzania, I was delighted to see that rather than there being a silo mentality on individual diseases, that country, with support from DFID through the London school of hygiene and tropical medicine and the Liverpool school of tropical medicine, was taking the approach of working on things together—as a system—to tackle these diseases at once.

Finally, I would like to talk about the environment and environmental sustainability. I understand that there was a great deal of discussion about whether to have separate environmental goals and developmental goals. We in the Committee believed that it was not possible to separate the two. We cannot go for tackling the problems of development but ignore the environment or put it in another box, as the two go together.

[Fiona Bruce]

I am very much enjoying my hon. Friend’s speech, which I know comes from a great deal of first-hand knowledge. I can offer an example of first-hand understanding of where development has affected a local environment very seriously: the introduction of large-scale fishing in Lake Victoria in Tanzania. The introduction of the Nile perch, and factory farming of the fish in Lake Victoria, has resulted in the eradication of smaller fish that all the families living around the shores of the lake ate—and survived on. That has created a difficult sustainability challenge for the whole area.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I am most grateful for that intervention, because that point is absolutely true. While we are on the subject of fish, there has also been a problem in recent years of very large trawlers of European Union origin—I will not mention the particular country—coming down the east coast of Africa and, under arrangements agreed by the European Union at the highest level, hoovering up large quantities of fish, but without much benefit going to the individual countries off whose shores they are fishing.

In tackling these vital environmental challenges, we must not overburden developing countries with global environmental issues that they had no real part in causing in the first place. To a large extent, it is up to us to take the lead on that, so I am glad to say that the UK Government are doing so.

It is vital that the four areas that I have set out—there are many others, which I am sure the Minister and the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) will address—are covered by the post-2015 MDGs. They are: job creation, particularly for young people; ensuring that we preserve the gains that have been so painstakingly achieved in the past decade and a half; ensuring the environmental sustainability of those gains, so that we do not achieve short-term gains that cannot be maintained in the long term because they are simply not environmentally sustainable; and the development of health systems. This week, we are proud of the 65th anniversary of our national health service, which has led to great improvements in public and general health in this country. That is the kind of system that we should want to provide such gains in health in developing countries.

[Rushanara Ali (Bethnal Green and Bow) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Havard. I thank the Chair of the International Development Committee, the right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), for opening the debate and for making, as ever, a powerful speech on the need for our continued commitment to tackling poverty and inequality in developing countries. I welcome his comments on the contribution of successive Governments, particularly the previous Labour Government, and thank him for his contribution and for working with us on this very important issue.

The millennium development goals, when they were established, provided huge momentum in addressing some of the most pressing challenges facing developing countries. Admirable progress has been made. Examples of that are the significant reductions in extreme poverty and infant mortality; access to primary education for children; improvements in the living conditions of slum dwellers; and major advances in the fight against disease, including HIV and others. Although we are often restless about the fact that more progress has not been made, it is important to take stock and recognise that the starting point was not a great one. We should be proud of those achievements that have been made, but we should remain restless about the setbacks. That is the context in which the Select Committee report has been written—it is vital.

The critical gap in what we are doing—the area where we fall behind—is inequalities between and within countries, which are growing, particularly following the financial crisis, as budgets come under pressure. The brunt of that has been borne, and the pressure has been faced, by some of the most vulnerable people, particularly women and those living in conflict-affected areas, as hon. Members mentioned.

We must ensure that the post-2015 goals respond to the challenges in developing countries that we can observe and predict—those that are already occurring, but which we believe will grow in the decades to come. As the report asserts, the new framework should be ambitious and be aimed at eliminating extreme poverty, but I hope that the high-level panel will also have, as has been referenced already, a strong focus on tackling inequality. As the right hon. Member for Gordon said, we cannot accept that tackling extreme poverty is good enough. In the 21st century, we cannot live in a world where it is acceptable for people to live on just over a few dollars a day or where a few thousand dollars per capita a year gives a country middle-income status.

I therefore hope that the Prime Minister, with the support of his Ministers and coalition partners, will be ambitious and bold in his role, showing international leadership, which is desperately needed at a time of growing challenges and conflicts in many parts of the world, including middle-income countries.

Lessons need to be learned from what we could have done differently in the past. In particular, we need to understand the drivers of conflict, such as injustice and inequality, but also the failure—referred to by the hon. Members for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson), for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and for Congleton (Fiona Bruce)—to respond to the aspirations of young people who want jobs. They also want skills and not only primary education, but tertiary education, to enable them to make their own contribution to their countries.

We should consider what has happened in the Arab spring. Furthermore, the United Nations Development Programme has pointed out that if there had been more understanding and closer measurement of inequality, we might have been better placed to predict that some of those other, earlier conflicts were likely to arise. I hope that we can learn some of the lessons from that.

[Jeremy Lefroy]

I fully agree with everything that the hon. Lady is saying. Does she agree that it is vital that the post-2015 goals refer to a major role for secondary and tertiary education? The original MDGs concentrated, rightly, on primary education, but we need to move beyond that.

[Rushanara Ali]

I agree. Of the MDGs, the education goal has the best prospect of being achieved, so it is important that we continue the push to lift people out of poverty and also into secondary and tertiary education, as well as primary. As the hon. Gentleman knows, our previous Prime Minister—I will not name him, because everyone knows who he is due to his great contribution to the MDG agenda—has been leading the way on the global campaign for education.

The hon. Gentleman’s point about tertiary and secondary education and skills is critical. We could learn a lot ourselves about investing in young people’s skills, as well as in developing countries. Innovations are coming from developing countries, and we could learn a thing or two from the successes, which could not have happened without investment and the support of our taxpayers over 15 to 20 years. It is critical to continue to help countries and focus on education. In the end, economic development will be driven by decent education and decent opportunities, not to mention other indicators such as health care and so on.

I want to highlight some of the achievements, of which we as a country can be proud, produced by the investment over a couple of decades: 3 million people have been lifted out of poverty. Britain has led the way on debt relief, and people, particularly those in Jubilee 2000, campaigned to ensure that Labour Government had the impetus and the backing to make it happen. Campaigners, international and domestic NGOs, UK community organisations and faith-based organisations are critical not only in applying pressure to our Government and other Governments to ensure that they do not lose sight of what is at stake in failing to continue to work towards achieving the MDGs, but in ensuring that the next round of discussions, as right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned, builds on what we have achieved, and that where there have been setbacks, lessons are learned.

Critically, developing countries should be partners in coming up with goals over the next period, so that they are at the heart of the decision-making process and do not feel that goals are being imposed on them. They and their populations have a far better understanding of how to tackle poverty and reduce inequality. We must be humble in recognising the many national NGOs in developing countries across the world, whether we are talking about the role of technology and innovation in tackling development and health challenges in South Africa, or the role of microfinance, led by Professor Yunus, Fazle Abed and many others, in India, Bangladesh and other countries.

There are innovators and great thinkers and doers in developing countries, who need to be in the driving seat of helping to set the future goals. International leadership is needed not only from western leaders, but from the leaders of developing countries and the emerging economies that increasingly call the shots on some major issues. They can and must play a vital role in tackling poverty and inequality, and in dealing with the major challenge of climate change, which could undermine the achievements of which we are proud, not to mention set back the progress we seek to make through future investments.

I shall briefly focus on some of the challenges we face. The key challenge has been well documented in this and previous reports. We need to think about the fact that there will be more poverty in middle-income countries than in developing countries. The high-level panel needs to put that at the heart of the debate about where we go in future. Any attempt to tackle the challenges of poverty must come up with an approach, a narrative and a response that find a way to get to the poorest in the growing economies of middle-income countries such as India, China and Indonesia, as well as Africa, which is also growing economically.