Oral Answers to Questions

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd September 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend about the importance of the referendum. The leaders of the parties in this House have all put aside their differences and said that, in spite of the political differences we have, we all agree about one thing: not only is Scotland better off inside the United Kingdom, but the United Kingdom is better off with Scotland inside it. As well as being leader of the Conservative party and Prime Minister, I am the Member of Parliament for an English seat and I say on behalf of everyone in England and, I believe, in Wales and Northern Ireland, “We want Scotland to stay.”

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Q11. We are all aware of the Prime Minister’s interest in the middle east and particularly Iraq, and of what has happened since the last Prime Minister’s questions, particularly in the past 24 hours. In Mosul and the plains of Nineveh in Iraq, Christians have been displaced, threatened with beheading, and told “Convert or die.” Is it time to consider further supportive action for Christians, and additional sanctions against ISIL?

[The Prime Minister]

We should do everything we can to protect persecuted minorities—including not only Christians but also the Yazidi communities—and that is where we have been using our resources. Up to now, we have mostly been giving humanitarian aid, which we have been delivering through our military assets and RAF planes, and working with others to ensure people are protected. We should also, as part of that strategy, work with the Kurds and others so that ISIL can be beaten back and Christians and others are not persecuted.

Disabled People (Developing Countries)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[James Duddridge]

Although we have made much progress on the millennium development goals, my understanding is that people with disabilities make up approximately a third of those who are still uneducated. In the post-2015 model that is the successor to the millennium development goals, it is essential that we pick up on those issues. I will touch on that later in my speech, but I agree with the sentiments expressed by the hon. Gentleman.

Disabled women and girls, in particular, lack support. They face great difficulty accessing education, which the hon. Gentleman mentioned, and training and employment compared with non-disabled females and even disabled men in a similar environment. According to the UN, a survey conducted in Orissa, India, in 2004 found that virtually all women and girls with disabilities were beaten at home. I could not believe that fact when I read it; it is quite unbelievable. The survey found that 25% of women with intellectual disabilities had been raped and 6% of women with disabilities had been forcibly sterilised. Those are horrific statistics. The National Council of Disabled Women in Bangladesh, which helps to promote the rights and dignity of women with disabilities, has noted that the isolation and stigma faced by such women can lead to violence in the home and discrimination in the workplace, but that violence and discrimination often go unreported and criminals escape punishment.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

We are debating an important issue, and it is a good opportunity to come to the Chamber and present the case. In 2006, the UN General Assembly adopted the international convention on the rights of persons with disabilities. Under that convention, countries should ensure that people with disabilities are granted equal rights and freedom from discrimination. Does the hon. Gentleman share my concern that eight years after that convention was adopted, some countries have yet to implement it, so the very things that he describes are happening and most countries are ignoring them?

[James Duddridge]

Terrible things are happening, and they are happening on our collective watch. I urge the Minister, on his many visits to places where the Department for International Development is spending significant amounts of money, to try to leverage that influence and ensure that countries abide by the relevant UN conventions. I urge him to encourage people to move in the right direction, while allowing them sometimes to move at a different pace. Not everyone can move as fast as we can, but there is a lot more to be done—

[Jim Shannon]

Eight years should be plenty of time.

[James Duddridge]

It needs to be done faster, and greater leadership would be fantastic, as the hon. Gentleman has said.

Closer to home, in my constituency, I recently attended a school assembly where the children spoke incredibly eloquently about the “Send all my friends to school” campaign. They informed me that 60 million children around the world are not in education, 19 million of whom have a disability. Investing in those people is absolutely essential.

Refugee Camps

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure to make a contribution, Mr Sanders, and I thank the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) for securing this debate and creating the opportunity. It is a pleasure to follow all the speakers, as it will be to listen to those who follow.

I am pleased that the issue has been raised today, although I feel that we do not remind ourselves of it often enough. It is good to have such debates, because they give us the opportunity to remind ourselves of the appalling conditions that refugees endure on a daily basis. Unfortunately, because they are not in our backyard, we tend to have the ability to forgo images of cramped tents, dirty water and malnourished children. It is important that we remind ourselves of those in the world who need help and about how our Government can help those who need help most.

For thousands of people, that is their everyday life—the hardships and challenges that they face every morning when they wake up. In the United Kingdom, we complain about traffic jams, the tube or queues for coffee in the morning. Thinking about the challenges that others have in the world puts things into perspective, and this debate gives us that opportunity.

The number of refugees and asylum seekers worldwide has exceeded 50 million for the first time since the first world war. In 2014, that is a sad statistic to read. The largest refugee camp is the Dadaab camp in Kenya, with a total of 355,709 refugees recorded as living there, 95% of whom were Somalis. Registration facilities were closed in October 2011, so in excess of 500,000 refugees are now reckoned to call Dadaab “home”. As the hon. Lady indicated, we do not want the refugees to think of the camps as home—the camps are not home, but a staying point until they can go back to where they come from.

Médecins sans Frontières conducted interviews with refugees living at the camps in 2013 and its findings were truly shocking, with 41% complaining about the condition of shelters that did not even protect them from the rain, while a further 11% had no access to toilet facilities. The situation is no different in Ethiopia’s Dollo Ado camp, which is home to almost 200,000 people, of whom 170,000 are Somalis. In February 2013, it was estimated that between 150 and 200 Somalis were arriving at the camp each day. Unsurprisingly, therefore, the International Medical Corps found that refugees in Dollo Ado were at risk of malnutrition and poor hygiene facilities due to overcrowding. Such conditions are being compounded every day.

In Jordan, the Zaatari camp houses 122,673 refugees, but provides slightly better conditions than those I have mentioned, boasting three schools, two hospitals and a maternity clinic. That is not the norm but, none the less, lots of problems still exist there. As in every refugee camp, women are at high risk of violence, which perturbs me greatly. That is one of the things that has come to my knowledge as an MP that I would not otherwise have known—the level of violence against women in the camps, as well as elsewhere. In 2013, according to a UNICEF report, Syrian women and girl refugees felt unsafe using toilets and communal kitchens; in some instances, they simply did not leave the tents that they were housed in, staying there for safety.

Refugee camps are particularly dangerous for women and children. For example, on 6 June, members of the Danish Refugee Council went to the Ifo camp in Dadaab to train men in the prevention of and response to sexual and gender-based violence. In the Ifo 2 camp, the Kenya Red Cross held sessions for adolescent girls on issues of HIV/AIDS, early marriage, forced marriage and female genital mutilation. Although that work is commendable, the fact that such training and sessions are necessary shows just how commonplace sexual and gender-based violence is. Reports suggest that that is the same in refugee camps worldwide, which worries me greatly. The Minister, I know, is well aware of those issues and I look forward to her response. Such violence is truly devastating, and we must do more to stop it.

The situation at the camp in the Gaza strip, which is home to 110,000 refugees, is fairly bleak, with some 90% of the water unfit for human consumption. Concern about poor drinking water and, in turn, the spread of disease is widespread across the camps. In South Sudan, the Yida camp, which contains about 71,000 refugees, has witnessed a sudden cholera outbreak—the disease is spread by poor hygiene conditions and a lack of drinkable water. We have had many debates in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber about the need for better drinking water. Wateraid helps, but the need is a basic one in refugee camps, because of the poor hygiene conditions.

UN aid agencies have claimed that hundreds of thousands of refugees live in unacceptable conditions in the camps, blaming food and safe drinking water shortages. Those two problems combined can lead to, and certainly seem to aid in, the spread of life-threatening diseases, such as cholera, malaria, jaundice and malnutrition. In South Sudan, in one camp, officials have reported cases of hepatitis E, which is yet another disease spread through contaminated water.

UNICEF estimates that 400,000 children aged under five will need treatment for malnutrition. To put that into perspective, I should say that the population of Belfast is more than 280,000 and that of Newtownards, the home of my constituency office, more than 77,000—a total of some 358,000. The entire population of the city of Belfast and the town Newtownards still do not account for that number of 400,000 children—that is the vastness of the issue.

We must remember that the global theme for this year’s world refugee day is “1 family torn apart by war is too many”. Refugees have suffered inconceivable losses, from family members and friends to their homes and neighbourhoods, because of conflicts going on in their countries and beyond their control. Sometimes they are involved neither physically nor personally. The camps should be a safe haven for them, but instead many are faced with squalid conditions, widespread disease, a lack of food and water and, for women in particular, fears of being subject to violence and even rape, in a place where they should feel safe.

I understand that tablets have been provided in some camps in an attempt to purify the water, and that although people have tried to teach refugees how to stay healthy and safe, that is not always possible or indeed enough. I appreciate the difficulties of funding for camps, but an attitude that there is only so much that we can do is not good enough when we are talking about an average of 10 children under five dying in those camps every day. That is the magnitude of the issue.

Furthermore, some Syrian refugees are not even receiving aid because they are too scared of endangering themselves or their families back home by registering with UN agencies and, in turn, camps. Even though they have escaped, they cannot register because that would have an impact on their families back home.

For me, without doubt the greatest tragedy is that there are children who have lost out on so much: their childhoods, their education, to which my hon. Friend the Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell) referred, and their homes; in some cases they have lost family members and friends. According to UNICEF, nearly 2 million Syrian children have dropped out of school since 2012. Climbing trees, playing football in a park or visiting a neighbouring village are normal activities for children as far as we are concerned, but for children in refugee camps such activities are distant memories. Half of the total Syrian refugee population in Iraqi Kurdistan are children. Camps provide very few child-friendly spaces or schools and there are a limited number of areas where children can play.

The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire has a passion for this subject. I have spoken to her before about it and listened to her comments and questions on it in the House. It is clear that she understands the issue. We hope to hear a significant response from the Minister on how best the Government can help those refugees in far-off camps.

A total of 328,000 people have left South Sudan to head for neighbouring countries. At Kakuma refugee camp in north-west Kenya, 1,750 children arrived alone and over 5,000 accompanied by an adult. So far, over 2,000 children have arrived there in need of psychosocial support and assistance of all kinds. The figures are simply horrendous.

We in this Parliament have a responsibility to those in a less fortunate position than ourselves, no matter where in the world they are. For many, the camps are only just better than the war-torn states that they have fled from. There is an old saying, “Out of the frying pan, into the fire”; for many refugees, that is exactly how it is. They still face the prospect of death, although it comes in a different form—from disease or starvation rather than from bullets or rockets. Many live in fear of physical and sexual violence each time they leave the security of their tents. For many children, education is simply out of the question and they face very uncertain futures. That is why this debate is so important.

--- Later in debate ---

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend is right, but that is beginning to happen. Camps are at a variety of stages in their evolution. The newest and most modern camps most definitely have separate, safe toilets and all those things, but other camps that have been in existence longer do not necessarily have them. The issue has been raised and everyone is now aware of it. The Secretary of State’s call to action has highlighted the issue and put it on the front page, so that the agencies understand that it is as much a part of humanitarian aid as the more traditional first-order issues. I think we all recognise the danger that women are in. They are vulnerable if they go outside the camps to look for wood; they are at risk of violence and sexual assault, and we have called on others—UN agencies, donors and non-governmental organisations—to do the same as we have and put women, girls and children at the heart of their humanitarian response.

I want to try and answer more directly some of the questions that have been asked. I thank my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) and the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Hexham for their contributions. Education and food were raised in particular. Enrolment rates in education are higher in camps than outside—in Iraq, they are 57%, in Jordan, they are 67%, and in Turkey, they are 80%. There are three schools in Zaatari and 20,000 children, but there are still problems maintaining regular attendance and reducing the overcrowding in classes.

On food, in camps in Jordan refugees receive a daily allocation of bread and food vouchers valid for two weeks. Those can be redeemed at shops inside the camp, which also benefits the local communities. It is a kind of win-win situation. In one camp, the Emirates Red Crescent provides full catering. Malnutrition rates in those camps remain low, but there is a real spectrum in what is available and where. DFID certainly encourages the use of our cash transfer system, and we are very proud of it. That is one of the great innovations of recent years, because it ensures that money is spent locally, so it benefits the community. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East said, the ingenuity of refugees in camps beggars belief. Stalls arrive and there is a marketplace, and I understand that there is also not the best-tasting alcohol—not in the Muslim countries, but in Africa for sure.

[Jim Shannon]

Will the Minister give way?

Humanitarian Situation (Iraq)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 9th July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to be here under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I am grateful for the debate, because it is timely, and I am glad that the Minister is present.

I care very much about Iraq. I have been involved with it since the late 1970s, when I met some Iraqi students who had left Basra and Baghdad for Cardiff. They opened my eyes to the brutality of the regime of Saddam Hussein and I campaigned against its abuses—first through an organisation called CADRI, the Campaign against Repression and for Democratic Rights in Iraq. Many Members of this House were members, as well as exiled Iraqis such as Hoshyar Zebari, who is now the Foreign Minister of Iraq, and Latif Rashid, a former water Minister.

In the late 1990s, I was involved in setting up an organisation called INDICT, which campaigned for Saddam and other leading members of the regime to be prosecuted for war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide through an international tribunal set up by the United Nations. Later, we campaigned for prosecutions to take place in individual countries that had an international jurisdiction with respect to war crimes and crimes against humanity, but that did not happen, despite our best efforts. I went to many countries and we interviewed many Iraqis in exile, but only one country almost went through with the process, and that was Belgium. At the last minute, however, the Belgian Parliament changed the rules of the game.

The evidence collected by INDICT of the crimes that had taken place and of the direct involvement of certain members of the regime was subsequently used in the war crimes trials in Baghdad, some of the sessions of which I attended. Over a number of years, as the special envoy on human rights in Iraq for both Tony Blair and my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown), I went to Iraq about 26 times in all, and at times when it was quite difficult, but I have many friends there. The idea was to help the Iraqis after 30 years of a brutal regime; we tried to explain the niceties of human rights and what they meant in practice.

I still have friends in Iraq. I was last there 18 months ago, when there was a stand-off between the peshmerga of the Kurdish regional Government in Kirkuk and Mr Maliki’s Iraqi forces. They did not actually clash, but it was certainly a stand-off.

I also meet people from the Iraqi Parliament regularly at the Inter-Parliamentary Union; I always look out for them and we spend some time together. The women in particular need to be commended for their bravery. I will not name anyone, but one woman doctor is a Member of Parliament and she has stayed in Baghdad the whole time. She still practises as a doctor, but she is also active as a politician. Since the start of the recent conflict, she has been sending me messages regularly about their concerns in Iraq. I pay tribute to the bravery of such politicians, because it cannot be easy always to be surrounded by about 30 bodyguards—each MP has about that number, which illustrates how dangerous and difficult the situation is.

Since January this year, the surge in violence between armed groups and Government forces has resulted in an estimated 1.2 million internally displaced people in central and northern Iraq and an estimated 1.5 million people in need of humanitarian assistance, according to the UN.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Lady on bringing the issue to us for consideration. The Christians in Iraq are under particularly serious pressure. They are centred around Mosul and the plains of Nineveh, but the takeover by ISIS has had a detrimental impact on them and they are threatened, because of their religious views, with crucifixion, beheadings, bomb attacks, beatings and loss of property. Does she agree that we must always ensure that religious persecution stops and that religious freedom wins?

[Ann Clwyd]

Certainly. In fact, the last time I was in the Kurdish area, about 18 months ago, I went to a conference of all minority religions—there are not only Christians, as I am sure the hon. Gentleman knows, but many other religious groups as well. The conference was supposed to bring them all together. I also met various groups individually, some of which wanted to set up territories of their own, although I think that they have been persuaded that that is not a good idea. We need to ensure safety for all the minorities of Iraq.

The attention of the world is focused on the terrorist group called the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, known as ISIS or ISIL. Inside Iraq, however, the group is only one part of a larger revolt that has been years in the making. Although there is some co-ordination between ISIL and other Sunni groups fighting in northern Iraq, ISIL is only part of the revolt. Anger against Nouri al-Maliki and the behaviour of the Iraqi Government has been building for almost eight years.

The Maliki Government reneged on their promises to build an inclusive Government with the Sunnis and went after moderate Sunni leaders as soon as American troops left. It is regrettable that the Iraqi Parliament has had to adjourn again until the middle of August. It did convene, but has adjourned because it could not agree on the election of a new Speaker.

Iraqi army and police crackdowns over the past year in cities—including Falluja and Madain—have been part of the escalating Sunni-Shi’a tit-for-tat violence that has plagued Iraq for over a year. In one incident in April 2013, dozens of Sunnis were killed by Iraqi security forces in the town of Hawijah during what had been a peaceful protest. As a former US official in Iraq, Ali Khedery, wrote in the Washington Post on 3 July, the US policy during the crucial years following the 2008 Sunni awakening was to place its faith in Maliki to build an inclusive system rather than supporting other political actors.

The international community should support a process in which all political stakeholders could be brought together to review the political process and devise a whole new formula for the sharing of power and resources in Iraq. More specifically, it should step in and play a role in helping solve the real problems in Iraq by encouraging a unity Government. In the end, the involvement of other countries, particularly those supporting only one side or the other in the conflict, can only destabilise the region further.

Gender Equality in Overseas Parliaments

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support and very much agree with the sentiments he has expressed. He clearly sees the urgent need to take action on the problem rather than simply talking about it.

Indeed, we are not alone: the former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, once said:

“Data not only measures progress, it inspires it…what gets measured gets done…nobody wants to end up at the bottom of a list of rankings.”

I know that the Prime Minister is co-chairing the high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda, and developing countries are being asked to identify their priorities for 2015 and beyond. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thinking on whether gender equality will form one of the post-2015 goals.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I congratulate the hon. Lady on securing this debate. Through the all-party group on Egypt a short while ago, we met new President Sisi, for whom 33 million people voted. He told us that there had been so much change because of the women of Egypt. In recognition, he has set aside some seats in Parliament for women to be represented. Is that an indication of what the hon. Lady wants to see—not just in Egypt, but throughout the whole middle east?

[Catherine McKinnell]

Indeed. No one in this Chamber thinks that we should not be making greater strides on gender equality and political representation here in the UK and around the world, and I will give some examples. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Egypt, but I will focus on Rwanda where a remarkable transformation has taken place on gender representation.

What does the issue have to do with corruption? The Minister may be aware that earlier this year, to mark international women’s day, the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption published a position paper on gender equality in Parliaments and political corruption. The all-party group on corruption, which I co-chair, is a member of GOPAC, which based its research on a 10-year analysis of trends in the proportion of women elected to national Parliaments, correlated to trends in levels of national corruption.

The research found that an increase in the number of women in Parliament will tend to reduce corruption but, crucially, the GOPAC paper also made it clear that women politicians cannot be expected to tackle this issue on their own. It concluded that increasing the number of female parliamentarians must take place in tandem with steps to increase institutional political transparency, to strengthen parliamentary oversight, and to enforce strong penalties for corruption. In other words, an increase in the number of women in Parliaments will tend to reduce corruption if the country in question has a reasonably robust system to uphold democracy and to enforce anti-corruption laws.

On publication of the paper, the vice-chair of GOPAC’s women in Parliament network, Dr Donya Aziz, commented:

“'The status of women has come a long way since the first International Women’s Day in the early 1900’s, but our participation in the political sphere is still far too low in most countries across the world. Our paper demonstrates that the strongest fight against corruption is one that includes and embraces the female perspective as a critical part of strengthening parliamentary oversight and parliamentary democracy.”

The GOPAC paper illustrated its findings with the fascinating case study of Rwanda, a country that has made significant strides since the appalling genocide of 1994. As the Minister will know, Rwanda is the only country in the world where an outright majority of parliamentarians are female. Indeed, as of 2013, an unbelievable 63.8% of Rwanda’s Members of Parliament are women. The paper explains that that is partly the result of concerted efforts by Rwandans to increase female participation in politics, such as the introduction of a gender quota system, employing seats reserved for women and the establishment of legislated candidate quotas.

Such measures have seen the number of female parliamentarians in Rwanda increase from 17.1% in 1997 to 25.7% in 2002 and 48.8% in 2003 when the gender quota was established. The rate increased again to 56% in 2008 and then to the staggering 63.8% that Rwanda enjoys today. While this rapid change in gender representation has taken place, Rwanda has also strengthened its parliamentary oversight mechanisms. For example, in April 2011, the Rwandan Parliament established a new public accounts committee to examine financial misconduct in public institutions and to report misuse of public funds. Previously, despite evidence of continuous theft of public monies, no parliamentary body had that responsibility.

Subsequently, in 2012, the Rwandan public accounts committee released its examination of state finances, which reported that 9.7 billion Rwandan francs—$16.3 million —was lost in 2009-10 as a result of failings in Government operations. The Rwandan PAC went on to present recommendations for Government reforms and established the requirement for Parliament to act to remedy gaps in the management of public funds.

During the same period, Rwanda consistently improved its score on the corruption perceptions index, which has been published every year since 1995 by Transparency International. Over the past nine years, Rwanda has improved its CPI rating by 23 points, well above the eight-point global average improvement between 2003 and 2013. It scored 53 on the CPI in 2013 and was ranked 49th least corrupt country of the 177 countries surveyed. To put that in context, the UK scored 76 and was ranked 14th least corrupt country.

GOPAC’s paper concluded:

“Although Rwanda’s CPI score leaves room for improvement, it has experienced a significant reduction in corruption, clearly correlated with an increase in female political participation, in the context of improving systems of parliamentary oversight.”

GOPAC draws the link between a fall in levels of public corruption and an increased number of female parliamentarians, combined with improved parliamentary oversight mechanisms, while making it clear that that first step of having more women in Parliament is insufficient to reduce the problem.

Afghanistan

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

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

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Encouragingly, the Afghan security forces have grown in stature and in strength. It is important that Apache helicopter support is equally strong, so that the actions on the ground and in the air can be equal. What support for helicopter training will be given to Afghan security forces, and will the international security assistance force leave its Apache helicopters behind for the forces to use?

[Justine Greening]

Clearly this issue of going beyond training troops to making sure there is the capability alongside them to support them in the air as well as on the ground continues to be discussed. We are discussing how that can be sustained post-2014. Obviously, that sits alongside the work we are doing to set up the Afghan national army officer academy, which took in its first battalion of officers back in October. This legacy will see a continued improvement and numbers of well-trained army officers coming through, but the hon. Gentleman is right to point out that an equipment and logistics strategy needs to sit alongside it.

Garment Industry (Working Conditions)

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 30th April 2014 Westminster Hall

[Shabana Mahmood]

That is an important point. When we visited that factory in Dhaka, I had the benefit of having my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow with me. She was able to engage with the workers in Bengali and Sylheti. She had a conversation with them that probed whether what we were seeing was for the benefit of visitors, rather than what happens on a day-to-day basis. I left confident that what we had seen was a true picture. DFID put in place arrangements to work with grass-roots organisations to ensure that those standards are not just what someone sees when they visit on any given day, but what happens every day for those workers.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Shabana Mahmood]

I am afraid that I will not, because I have so little time left.

Post-Rana Plaza, there has been a lot of action to try to get better safety standards in Bangladesh. A number of companies have signed up to the accord on fire and building safety there. It covers just less than 2,000 factories, which still leaves many thousands of factories not within the scope of the accord. That is a concern, although the fact that some 1,800 or so factories are covered by the accord is a good thing.

When we were in the country with the all-party group, we had a number of conversations with Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha, the Bangladesh university of engineering and technology and other stakeholders in Bangladesh on regulations and building codes and their enforcement. Their point was not that the building regulations do not exist, because there is a strong and relatively robust system of regulations and codes; their point was more on the level of enforcement and capacity—having enough trained surveyors, architects and engineers to implement the regulations.

I am the daughter of a civil engineer. My dad is an expert in water and waste management systems, so I have grown up looking at maps, regulations and things like that. I was struck that the experiences of those experts was not that different from those of my dad as a civil engineer in Britain. They had similar relationships with colleagues and brought similar professionalism to bear. The problem is that there are not enough of them in Bangladesh and they are not organised into professional bodies, such as those we are privileged to have in this country with—for example, the Institution of Civil Engineers and the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors. That is the missing link, almost, in getting Bangladesh to a place where the regulations are properly implemented and enforced when buildings are being put up.

I am pleased that DFID has decided to focus its energies on fire and safety regulations, capacity and so on. That is an important step. I am a big believer that our activities through DFID in other parts of the world should not be seen as just giving money. We should help countries to build up the infrastructure and systems that they need to deal with these issues themselves.

One thing that remains a concern is that, although many organisations are carrying out inspections and reports into building safety in Bangladesh are being prepared, I am not clear or confident that the information captured will go quickly to a place where it can be implemented. For example, Tesco wrote to me in advance of this debate to say that it had ceased to work with one of its suppliers in Bangladesh because it does not believe that the building that the supplier works out of is safe enough. It is worried about that, but once it has ceased to work with that factory I am not clear what will happen to ensure that the factory ceases to operate or that it takes remedial action to ensure that it is a safe working environment.

There are so many assessments of building safety covering such a wide geographic area; I remain worried that the Bangladeshi Government will not end up with the data they need to take remedial action in situations where remedial action has not been enforced because the big clothing companies have ceased their relationship and walked away.

Issues remain on workers’ rights and the organisation of the labour force in Bangladesh. Trade unions in this country have been active in trying to support Bangladeshi workers to be in a position where they can organise. There is a lot of discussion on labour law amendments in Bangladesh—whether they go far enough and whether workers will soon be able to organise and to negotiate with company owners on wages and their safety at work.

Regardless of the politics of the trade union movement in this House, we are privileged to have such things in this country. I would very much like to see Bangladeshi workers and poorer workers across the world in a similarly strong position when it comes to negotiating rights at work. I would be very grateful if the Minister said a little more about what DFID is doing to support labour law and rights in Bangladesh. There has been a lot of discussion about whether to take the United States route, which is to deny trade privileges, or whether to try to work with the Bangladeshi Government in a slightly different way, which is what the UK and the European Union have decided to do.

There remains, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) said, a big issue on the Rana Plaza compensation fund, which does not have half the money that it aimed to have. It was said to need £24 million, but only £9 million has been raised. I find that disgraceful and shocking. For the big companies that are involved in this industry, which is worth billions and billions of dollars, £24 million is small change. It is a tiny sum.

I remain shocked and deeply upset that that fund has still not got the money that it needs. I pay tribute to the companies that have paid into it. Primark, which has a base in my constituency, wrote to me recently to inform that it has paid in and taken the action that it feels that it can, but we need to continue to press other British companies to do the right thing and ensure that that fund has all the money that it needs.

On compensation for workers, in this country we are privileged that we have a body of personal injury law that makes it easy for lawyers to argue on behalf of victims for compensation that truly and accurately reflects lifelong loss of earnings or amenity. We have formulae in our legal system that enable us to provide adequate compensation to victims of injury at work and elsewhere, but I am worried that the robustness that we expect in Britain or elsewhere in Europe or in the States through such legal formulae for deciding rates of compensation, especially in the cases of injuries that prevent someone from being able to work fully for the rest of their life, will not necessarily translate into what will be received by the victims of the Rana Plaza disaster and their families.

I would be grateful if the Minister could say a little about the British Government’s view on compensation, as that is important. We must ensure that the families of those who lost their lives are adequately compensated, as well as the 2,500 people who were injured. Some of them, who are desperately poor, will never be able to work again and, as each day passes, they are getting into more desperate circumstances.

Terrible things happen in faraway parts of the world, but sometimes good can come out of those disasters and it is our duty to try to find that good. One such good is that, for consumers in wealthier parts of the world who enjoy fast and cheap fashion, this is a reminder of the human cost of our £10 dress from a British high street chain. We have responsibility as consumers to think more about that when we are buying and brands need to think not just about the moral and right thing to do, but their reputational risk when they find that they may have contributed in some way to the problems that caused disasters such as Rana Plaza.

World Water Day

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 11th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to raise the important issue of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.

Members will be aware of my long-standing interest in the issue both through my involvement in international development and my professional background. For 10 years before entering full-time politics, I practised as a civil engineer and spent the last five years of my engineering career working in sewerage rehabilitation and design. Others have said that that was good preparation for politics, but I could not possibly comment.

Through my work, I became increasingly aware and supportive of the work being done by WaterAid and other non-governmental organisations and charities to address the deficit of clean water and sanitation infrastructure in many developing nations. I believe it is vital to keep international development needs, especially those as basic and essential as water and sanitation, on the political agenda. Given that 2.6 billion people have no access to adequate and hygienic sanitation methods, the subject of the debate is inevitably and unavoidably broad, but the issue also impacts widely across a range of development objectives. That breadth of impact has contributed to the continuing and increasing political attention that matters related to water and sanitation have been receiving, as there is growing recognition that investment in water and sanitation can have a transformational effect on the lives of people in ways that were previously overlooked.

The timing of the debate is apposite for several reasons: first, world water day is on Saturday 22 March; secondly, we are at a defining moment with respect to the post-2015 development agenda; and, thirdly, the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting will take place in April. I will touch on each of those reasons in my speech, but I want to begin by noting the significance of water and sanitation in the context of last Saturday’s international women’s day.

Of the 2.6 billion people without access to adequate and hygienic sanitation methods, 526 million are girls and women. The impact on their lives, however, is disproportionate. These are girls and women without access to any form of sanitation, meaning that they are forced to defecate in the open, or in bushes or ditches, and they are forced to cope with menstruation in the absence of any real privacy, which adds further indignity to their ordeal. This forces women to make difficult choices: to wait until dark to use a public toilet, where one is available; to defecate in the open; or instead to defecate in their own homes. The World Health Organisation has calculated that women and girls in developing countries spend 98 billion hours each year searching for a place to go to the toilet, more than twice the total hours worked every year by the entire UK labour force.

Women who lack safe access to sanitation, or have no access at all, may end up waiting until it is dark to go to the toilet, have to walk long distances to find an isolated spot in the open, or use often poor public amenities. There are many reported incidents of men hiding in public latrines at night, waiting to rob or assault those who enter. Women and girls defecating in the open are also more at risk of rape and sexual assault.

A WaterAid poll of women in the slums of Lagos in Nigeria, where 40% of women are forced to go to the toilet outside, found that one quarter have had first-hand or second-hand experience of harassment, a threat of violence or actual assault in the past 12 months alone. Furthermore, 67% of women interviewed in Lagos said that they felt unsafe using shared or community toilets in public places.

The second choice is to defecate at home, which carries with it enormous social stigma and can result in isolation. In addition to the stigma, resorting to so-called “flying toilets”—plastic bags or buckets used at home—has detrimental consequences for the health of the family. The links between poor sanitation, water, and illness are well established, with an increased risk of diarrhoea, as well as infections such as trachoma, which can lead to blindness.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Some 768 million people have poor water quality, more than 2.5 billion people have poor sanitation and 1.8 million people die from diarrhoea as a direct result of that, so does the hon. Lady feel that the Minister should be saying in his response that international water aid should be a priority?

[Naomi Long]

I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, and he is right about the importance of water and sanitation. The biggest single health improvement in the UK came as a direct result of the introduction of sanitation and sewerage systems; in this city alone that one measure added 15 years to average life expectancy.

As a result of trying to limit going to the bathroom for long periods of time and drinking less water over the course of the day, women are also more susceptible to urinary tract infections and dehydration, adversely affecting their health. As women are generally responsible for the disposal of human waste when provision is inadequate, they are also exposed more frequently to diseases such as dysentery and cholera. It has been calculated that every day 2,000 mothers lose a child due to illnesses caused by poor sanitation and dirty water. Half the hospital beds in developing countries are filled by people suffering from diseases caused purely by poor water, sanitation and hygiene. Such statistics are staggering, unimaginable and, in this day and age, unjustifiable. These women and girls are suffering from shame, indignity and disease in their everyday lives as a result of something as routine and necessary as carrying out basic bodily functions.

Lack of access to private sanitation facilities also prevents many young girls from continuing in school beyond puberty, limiting their ability to become financially independent and to contribute fully to their community, and denying them the right to a proper education. History shows that the health, welfare and productivity of developing country populations are closely linked with improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene. Few interventions have a greater impact on the lives of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people, particularly women and girls, than reducing the time spent collecting clean water, dealing with sanitation and addressing the health problems caused by poor sanitation and hygiene. Although vaccines offer some hope of improvement on the health front, their efficacy is significantly improved where programmes are undertaken in conjunction with improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene. Neither can vaccines alone free women and girls from the time and physical burden of collecting water or from the safety risks posed by lack of sanitation.

I wish briefly to discuss an opportunity the Government have to make such an intervention: the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting taking place in Washington on 11 April. The Sanitation and Water for All partnership, of which the UK Government are a founding member, aims to bring about a step change in the performance of the WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—sector, acting as a catalyst to overcome key barriers and accelerate progress towards universal and sustainable access. It is a global partnership of Governments, donors, civil society and other development partners working together to co-ordinate high-level action, improve accountability and use scarce resources more effectively. The biennial high-level meeting presents a unique opportunity to increase political prioritisation, and to strengthen accountability and the commitment to strengthen the sector’s performance. I want to take this opportunity to press for the Secretary of State for International Development to represent the UK at this important meeting.

HIV and AIDS

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Tuesday 10th December 2013 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Dobbin, to contribute to this debate, which I congratulate the hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) on bringing to the Chamber. She has been a champion of the issue here and in the House, and it is clear from the questions being asked that there is interest in and compassion for those who most need help.

I thank the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) for his contribution. Not many people can say that they belong to the Kilimanjaro club, and I do not believe any other hon. Member can do so. I also thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for her valuable contribution.

It is good to make a contribution on such an important issue because MPs and parliamentarians have a role to play not just here at home, but internationally. The debate is about the international response to HIV and AIDS, and sometimes when looking elsewhere in the world, it is good also to look at home. HIV is prevalent in other parts of the world but, unfortunately, it is also an issue at home: during the past 12 years, there has been a 384% increase in Northern Ireland, which is a large increase. When focusing on the issue internationally, we must always remember what is happening in our own country.

More than 35 million people live with HIV/AIDS, and in the past year 2.3 million were newly infected. That is the magnitude of the issue. Every hour, 262 people die from AIDS. In a debate here last year, I and others asked what can be done to halt the epidemic, and the reason for this debate today is to ask what steps the Government are taking. Are they addressing the issue effectively?

There was an increase in the number of under-15-year-olds diagnosed with the disease last year, and although diagnosis is good because treatment can start, it is not good that more people are being so diagnosed. We must look at that issue. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts referred to a large drop of 50% in HIV infection in sub-Saharan Africa and that is good news, which arises from steps taken by Governments internationally in the global war against AIDS, malaria and other diseases.

When addressing the international response to HIV/AIDS, we must remember groups such as the Elim church mission in Newtownards in my constituency, which works hard on issues such as health, education, house building, business, farming and orphans. It addresses such issues in Zimbabwe, Swaziland and Malawi, three countries where there has, unfortunately, been a large increase in the diagnosis of AIDS. In the last couple of years, I have had the opportunity to meet some young people from Swaziland who have AIDS, or are orphans because their mums and dads died of it. No one could be other than impressed by the smiles of those young people and their zest for life, which was a result the Elim church mission and many other groups and individuals from other churches making financial, physical and practical contributions to help such people and to give them hope and a chance in life. The hon. Member for Airdrie and Shotts talked not just about medical help but about the hope that can be given, and I too will focus on that.

When we saw and heard those young people, I thought that African choirs are some of the most wonderful. Ours are also good, but African choirs have a different flavour, especially those with young people. Their zest for life and interest in others impresses me. Their Christian belief sustains them, and makes one humble.

Just last month, the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria confirmed £12.07 billion to fight those diseases. The bigger countries have pledged to address the epidemic throughout the world, and that sum was an increase on the 2010 figure but falls short of the £15 billion that is estimated to be needed for the next three years. We have made a commitment, but it has not been significant enough to address the total issue, and we must look at that again.

[Nic Dakin (Scunthorpe) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Airdrie and Shotts (Pamela Nash) on securing this timely and important debate. Given that last year, 320,000 HIV-positive people died from TB, which is the leading cause of death in people with HIV, does the hon. Gentleman agree that it is crucial that TB REACH be properly resourced in future so that innovative solutions are not sacrificed as we try to tackle these dreadful diseases?

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. HIV cannot be considered alone; TB and malaria must also be considered because they incapacitate people who are HIV-positive. A joint strategy is required.

It has been disclosed that the Government will add £1 billion to the overseas aid budget in the next year due to an increase in Government spending. Will the Minister confirm that that money will be earmarked specifically for dealing with HIV/AIDS? We cannot ignore the overseas budget, and although some people may have concerns about increasing it, I believe that it is right to do so.

Will the Minister respond to the suggestion that the UK will deliver its contribution dependent on other countries doing their bit, and that if their pledges fall short—I hope they will not—the UK and USA may not deliver their commitment? Will she confirm that the Government’s contribution is ring-fenced and will be delivered, whatever amount other countries may deliver under the global health fund? At meetings and summits such as G8, Governments make commitments to respond to world disasters, but when looking back a year later, I sometimes wonder whether they actually delivered on their commitments. Delivery is important, particularly this year, and the present momentum of reducing HIV/AIDS must be maintained. The disease ravages those in third-world countries, makes children orphans, condemns mothers to sickness and destroys communities.

Previous speakers have referred to technology. Scientific progress has been significant. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North referred to drugs and their availability. They can preserve life and communities. We must translate that into making a difference to the world’s population. I believe, as do many Members, that a person is measured by their compassion and interest in others. This great nation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland will also be measured by its compassion for others. I know that our Government are delivering physically and practically, and I hope the Minister, whom I have the highest respect for, will outline in detail what the United Kingdom will do in the global war against the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

Tuberculosis

Jim Shannon Excerpts

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Westminster Hall

[Grahame M. Morris (Easington) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dobbin.

In the last three Westminster Hall debates that I have attended—on the privatisation of the east coast main line, the privatisation of blood products laboratories and free schools—I have found myself at loggerheads with Government Members. Unusually, however, today I find myself nodding in agreement with the excellent contribution of the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert). I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) for securing this timely, important and significant debate.

I echo the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs in paying tribute to the work of the all-party group on global tuberculosis and its members and officers, including the hon. Member for St Ives (Andrew George), who has been an absolute stalwart of the group for a number of years.

I will concentrate on one aspect of this terrible condition that is close to my heart. As Members know, I have the pleasure of representing Easington in east Durham. Easington is a coal mining constituency with a long and distinguished history as one of the great heartlands of the north-east coalfields. I thought it would be poignant in this debate to reflect on why our pits were closed and why Britain now imports more than two thirds of the coal burned in our power stations, when once we imported none.

The UK coal industry was modern, efficient and very health conscious. My right hon. Friend the Member for Neath (Mr Hain) spoke about the incidence of TB among South African miners, which is relevant. I have just come from the annual general meeting of the all-party group on coalfield communities, where we talked about the problems that we face in coal mining communities, the physical legacy of pollution and the ill health associated with mining. That is another reason why this debate is close to my heart.

Although, by its very nature, mining will never be completely safe—it is an extractive process—our mines were about as safe as they could be, and the health, safety and well-being of miners was paramount. There are those who would argue that that drove up costs.

Today, much of the world’s coal production has been offshored and outsourced to countries where health and safety standards are minimal and labour is cheap. There is still blood on the coal, but nowadays it is more likely to be the blood of miners in Colombia, China or South Africa. The price of the irresponsible pursuit of profit and cheap labour is the health and safety of mineworkers worldwide.

Mining is one of the biggest employers of men in South Africa. Tens of thousands of those miners are migrant workers, from neighbouring countries such as Mozambique, Lesotho and Swaziland, who work and live in crowded townships in mining areas. As has been said, diseases such as malaria, TB and HIV/AIDS are rife. South Africa’s mining industry has been the subject of intense international and national media scrutiny due to the recent industrial unrest. Members will be aware of the appalling shooting of striking miners by armed police in scenes reminiscent of the worst days of apartheid. Mining is one of the driving forces of the South African economy; it contributes some 20% of the country’s gross domestic product and is a major employer.

What has not been subject to the same degree of media attention is the devastation caused to miners and their families by TB. The disease remains the leading cause of death in South Africa today. One third of all cases in sub-Saharan Africa have a link to the mines. TB is an airborne disease, spreading through the air when people who have it cough or sneeze, and it is often fatal if left untreated. Rates of TB among South African mineworkers are estimated to be as high as 7,000 per 100,000. That huge figure is 28 times the World Health Organisation’s definition of a health emergency and is the highest such figure in the world.

As we have heard, TB is closely linked to HIV, which is also a challenge in the mines. It is estimated that people with HIV are 21 to 34 times more likely to develop active TB. As we approach world AIDS day, it is important to reflect on that and on the interactions between the two. Such high HIV infection rates, coupled with cramped living conditions and exposure to silica dust, which damages miners’ lungs, creates a perfect breeding ground for the disease. The effects are devastating not only for the families of the many miners who die from TB, but also for communities, companies and Governments.

From a commercial point of view, the disease dents productivity—the issues I am raising are relevant to the British mining companies involved in South Africa—puts a drain on health budgets and spreads far into the rural areas that miners migrate from. Migration also means that the problem is not exclusive to South Africa, which is one reason why sub-Saharan Africa is not on track to meet the target of reducing deaths from TB by half by the expiration of the United Nations millennium development goals in 2015.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I apologise for not being here earlier; I had other business and could not get here any quicker.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned world figures for TB, but the exact number of TB sufferers is not known and many of them cannot be found. How does he think we can best address that problem?

[Grahame M. Morris]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for that relevant point. An estimated 3 million people with TB in southern Africa have not been reached, but programmes, such as TB REACH and those supported by the Department for International Development, exist to identify those people and to secure treatment for them. My point is about the incidence of known TB among miners in South Africa.

TB is curable with drugs, and the costs are relatively modest. Spending £15 a person should be easily affordable. Global underinvestment and indifference mean that the disease killed an estimated 1.3 million people globally in 2012. The failure to deal decisively with TB has allowed drug-resistant strains of the airborne disease to develop, which are much more difficult and significantly more expensive to treat.

Earlier this year, members of the all-party parliamentary group on global tuberculosis, including me, met the Secretary of State for International Development. I want to echo the words of Government Members and compliment the Minister and the Secretary of State for their commitment on this issue. We met them to put TB at the forefront of their dealings with major Anglo-American mining interests, particularly in the gold mining industry, which has a high incidence of TB as well as high rates of HIV. As my right hon. Friend the Member for Neath mentioned, an estimated 750,000 cases—I had to check that incredible figure, as I thought it was a printing error—of TB each year, 9% of the global total, come from South Africa’s gold mines.

Colleagues who represent former British mining communities, such as my right hon. Friend the Member for Rother Valley (Mr Barron), and I are determined to push the battle against TB up the political agenda here in the UK. Along with the South African mining unions, I want to see the British Government make the British mining companies involved in South Africa sign up to a new protocol launched by the South African Department of Health. That would help ensure that mining companies abide by a legal framework governing the treatment and compensation of occupational TB.

In the past, too many stricken miners simply returned to their towns and villages to die lingering and often painful deaths. In the 21st century, it simply cannot be acceptable that mining companies, or any other employers, should systematically endanger the health of their workers. Rates of TB in the mines have been estimated at 28 times the World Health Organisation’s definition of a health emergency. This is a global health emergency. We need Governments, employers and drug companies to act accordingly.

People do not have to live in a mining constituency to know that keeping the lights on should not come at the expense of the health and lives of South African miners and their families, or those in any other countries. That is simply wrong. Global mining operations headquartered in the UK must accept their social, moral and ethical obligations to address the issue as a matter of urgency.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Kevin Barron (Rother Valley) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe (Nic Dakin) on applying for and securing the debate. We have heard some of the dreadful statistics on TB throughout the world, and I want to spend a few minutes looking in detail at the cost of treating TB when it has not been caught first time round.

Last year, there were an estimated 450,000 cases of multi-drug-resistant TB. It is believed that 10% of those involve extensively drug-resistant TB and are, effectively, impossible to treat. Drug resistance is really a man-made problem resulting from the misuse of anti-TB drugs and the poor management of the disease. Drug-resistant TB can be passed from person to person in the same way as TB that is not drug-resistant. Clearly, early and rapid diagnosis and treatment completion are essential to control TB. As many Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Scunthorpe, have said, TB is the leading killer of people living with HIV/AIDS and accounts for one in five AIDS-related deaths.

Drug-resistant TB develops primarily because it is treated with a number of drugs taken over six to nine months. If medication is taken incorrectly or stopped prematurely, the TB bacteria can re-emerge and become resistant to the drugs used to treat TB. That sometimes happens because of the provision of substandard drugs, because patients do not complete their treatment or because the drugs are available only intermittently.

Multi-drug-resistant TB is a form of TB that does not respond to the standard treatment using first-line drugs and that is extremely difficult and expensive to treat. As I suggested earlier, extensively drug-resistant TB occurs when resistance to second-line drugs develops on top of multi-drug resistance. Drug-resistant TB can take two years or more to treat with drugs that are less potent, more toxic and much more expensive than those used to treat a standard case of TB. The drugs are toxic and are commonly associated with severe side effects, of which permanent deafness is the most common. Almost all of them have limited effectiveness, and most are more than 40 years old, as the hon. Member for Mid Dorset and North Poole (Annette Brooke) said. Fewer than 50% of multi-drug-resistant TB cases are successfully treated and considered cured.

On costs, multi-drug-resistant TB can be up to 450 times as expensive to treat as a standard case of TB. In all 27 high-burden multi-drug-resistant TB countries, the treatment cost is greater than the annual average income. If multi-drug-resistant TB is not correctly treated and develops into extensively drug-resistant TB, the chances of someone being successfully cured are less than one in 10. The world needs to recognise that. Extensively drug-resistant TB patients are practically impossible to treat, but they often remain infectious and capable of transmitting the disease to others. That scenario is often described as a time bomb.

[Jim Shannon]

Everyone is aware of the high prices of the normal drugs, but a number of countries—India is one—can produce similar, effective drugs more cheaply. Should we source those similar, cheaper drugs to help spread the cost?

[Mr Barron]

I am sure that is the case; indeed, the global fund does do that. However, that does not prevent the supply of drugs, even if they are affordable in part, from becoming intermittent. As a consequence, we end up with the more extreme cases of TB.

The UK Government have played a leading role in the response to TB globally, investing in research and development on new tools to tackle TB, supporting efforts to increase the profile of the disease through the Stop TB Partnership and supporting key institutions such as the global fund, which accounts for more than 80% of donor funding to tackle TB in developing countries.

I mentioned in an intervention that I visited Ethiopia earlier this year. I went there with Results UK in the February recess, along with the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler), my hon. Friend the Member for Workington (Sir Tony Cunningham) and two Members of the other place. In Addis Ababa, we visited St Peter’s hospital, which is Ethiopia’s national TB referral hospital. With support from the global fund, St Peter’s provides care for TB referral cases and patients with multi-drug-resistant tuberculosis. It also provides care and treatment to people living with HIV/AIDS, which is of course closely linked to TB.

The hospital demonstrated that, with proper funding, low-income countries can use minimal resources efficiently and effectively to respond to the threat of drug-resistant TB. As I said in my intervention on the right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert), we also visited Awasa and looked at the great work TB REACH was doing there to find the missing 3 million cases.

While we were in Ethiopia, we did not look just at TB, although that was our primary aim. We also looked at Ethiopia’s strong planning and innovative response to its human resource crisis. It is using its health extension programme, which quite a lot of our money has gone into developing. Funding to support such successful interventions has been provided by key multilateral organisations, including the global fund and TB REACH. I reiterate that, in addition to what they have done already, the UK Government have put £1 billion over three years into the global fund, and they are much to be credited for that.

Finally, I have travelled the Commonwealth on many occasions over the years. When we were out in Addis Ababa, we had a meeting with DFID—I say this because the Minister is here—and it was one of the most positive meetings I have ever had. The DFID people knew exactly where global fund money and our taxpayers’ money was going: to help people in dire need of an improvement in their health, as well as in their quality of life, through water supplies and things like that. We always hear negative views about what happens to taxpayers’ money when it goes to the developing world, so it is worth putting on record that that was the most positive experience I have had since becoming a Member of the House.