Clean Water and Sanitation (Africa)

Debate between Jim Shannon and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Thursday 21st April 2016 Westminster Hall

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I was going to acknowledge WaterAid’s work later in my speech, not least because Northumbrian Water, which is based in my constituency, does a lot of work with it. Northumbrian Water has been very energetic in getting MPs in our region to take note of the sort of issues that WaterAid gets involved with.

Since 2000, there have been two rounds of UN-sponsored global international development goals. The first was the millennium development goals, which ran from 2000 to 2015 and aimed to halve the number of people without access to improved drinking water and sanitation. Interestingly, the water target was met but the sanitation target was not met by a considerable amount—about 700 million people. The headline figures mask large geographical variations among countries and between rural and urban populations.

The MDGs have been replaced by the sustainable development goals. SDG 6 relates to what we are talking about this afternoon. We need to take on board the lessons learned from the MDGs, which showed that a donor-led approach on its own is not enough. Work has to be done in partnership with the recipient countries. There can be too much of a focus on short-term targets, rather than long-term viability. The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) touched on that point when she said that the facilities that are put in might not be appropriate or sustainable. It is really important that there is some sort of community partnership. There was a failure to exploit links with the private sector fully. The focus was on absolute numbers, so the poorest were often neglected because they were not picked out as a group for targeted intervention. I will talk more about SDG 6 in a moment, but it is interesting that it was informed by the lessons learned from the MDGs.

Globally, one in 10 people still has no access to a safe water source, and one in three has no access to proper sanitation. In parts of Africa, a third of the population does not have access to clean water. In Ethiopia alone, 42.2 million people have no access to safe water. There is still a significant problem, which is a big problem for the new SDG goal to meet in 14 years. Yet we know that it is really important. There cannot be societal transformation without proper access to clean water and sanitation. We know that from our own experience. It was only when the UK recognised, from its public health problems, that we needed properly piped water that we got the economic development that moved us on. There was a transformation in our public health, and that is what we want to see in other countries.

We are not only talking about health, because research has shown that, for every $1 spent on water and sanitation, $4 would be generated in increased economic opportunity. It has been estimated that, if everyone had universal access to water and sanitation, there would be $32 billion in economic benefits each year globally, from reductions in healthcare costs and from increased productivity as a result of reduced illness.

Interestingly, more than a quarter of the countries in sub-Saharan Africa are poorer now than they were in 1960. Therefore, foreign aid is going in, but if it is not directed in the right way, we do not necessarily get the development that we would want. The lack of access to clean water and basic sanitation is among the reasons given for the lack of economic development flowing from aid. Some of the biggest challenges are in sub-Saharan Africa: only about 30% of individuals have access to improved sanitation services; and nearly half of all people who use unimproved sources live in the region.

We have already heard this afternoon about some of the health impacts. According to the World Health Organisation, 50% of malnutrition is associated with infections caused by a lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene. Globally, malnutrition accounts for 45% of child deaths, of which a large proportion is in Africa. A truly stark figure, also mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford, involves children in sub-Saharan Africa, who are over 14 times more likely to die before the age of five than children in developed regions. The figures speak for themselves and are clear: there is an urgent need to improve access to clean water and good sanitation.

Another thing we have heard this afternoon is that limited access to clean water and good sanitation disproportionately affects women and girls, who are more than twice as likely as men to be responsible for water collection. On average, women and girls in developing countries walk 6 km each day to collect water—time that could be spent in school or at work. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, each day, women spend a combined total of at least 16 million hours collecting drinking water. That is a truly staggering figure.

Additionally, more than half of girls who drop out of primary school in sub-Saharan Africa do so because of a lack of separate toilets and easy access to safe water. However, the issue is to provide not any sanitation, but the right sort of sanitation. I have visited villages in Asia and Africa where money has come through for new sanitation in schools. Toilet blocks were put in, but the schools might as well not have bothered, because the toilets were communal ones, could be too easily accessed by a wide range of people, or had doors that did not close properly—people could look over the top. There was a complete lack of consideration about what actually needed to happen to make the toilets a secure, safe place, in particular for girls, enabling them to stay on at school. So, alas, despite new sanitation facilities, the girls could not continue at school anyway, because they still did not feel safe. So many girls leave education at puberty. Obviously, therefore, co-operation with the local community is necessary, and water sources should be as close as possible to the people who need them.

I will now outline some of the things for which WaterAid is calling, before finishing with a few questions for the Minister. As we know, world leaders committed to reach everyone, everywhere with safe water and sanitation by 2030. That is a wide-ranging goal, with eight objectives, and if they are met that should be a good and helpful step forward. WaterAid, however, has said that Governments must bring about a dramatic and long-term increase in public and private financing for water, sanitation and hygiene to achieve strong, national systems so that there is universal access. Private and public sectors need to co-operate effectively to achieve that universal access. An integrated approach could ensure that improving access to water, sanitation and hygiene services is embedded in plans, policies and programmes on health, nutrition, education, gender equality and employment. Last but not least, pledges made at the 2015 Paris climate summit must be implemented, because they are about the long-term sustainability of water supplies.

Are the Government using their strong voice internationally to push up the international agenda the importance of clean water and sanitation? SDG 6 should become a real priority, so how will progress towards achieving it be monitored internationally? Will the Government use the expertise of the Department for International Development, which works on some very good schemes, to inform best practice everywhere and to ensure that women and girls are prioritised for sanitation and water supply?

[Jim Shannon]

There is much talk in the press maligning DFID projects, or saying that some are not used properly. Sometimes it is good, as the hon. Lady has just done, to focus on some of the excellent work that DFID does and on the projects that are successful. It is good to remind us of such things, because everything is not negative.

[Dr Blackman-Woods]

I echo that point. I urge the Minister to use that good experience to help to roll out best practice elsewhere.

Infrastructure Bill [Lords]

Debate between Jim Shannon and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Monday 8th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods (City of Durham) (Lab)]

We have had a really good debate, with interesting contributions from Members on both sides of the House. I want to start by thanking my right hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich and Woolwich (Mr Raynsford) for making a powerful point about how unworkable the Bill will be if this Government’s approach to devolution is accepted. I also thank him for his comments on the need for a balanced approach to deemed consent and the need to update new towns legislation.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent North (Joan Walley) made an excellent case for the need for long-term planning for sustainable development. I also thank the hon. Member for Bromley and Chislehurst (Robert Neill). He is no longer in his place, but I totally agree with him on the need to overhaul our system of compulsory purchase orders. Labour has made it very clear that we would do that, and he was right to point out that it is a mission set by this Bill. Indeed, my hon. Friend the Member for Bassetlaw (John Mann) gave a very good list of all the things it would have been helpful to discuss this evening in terms of adding to our infrastructure but that are omitted by the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green) made an excellent point about the need for more measures to deliver more housing and said that those homes should also be accessible.

As always, my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test (Dr Whitehead) made an excellent case supporting better climate change measures in the Bill. He also highlighted why we must not weaken the carbon abatement measures that should be in existence.

The right hon. Member for Arundel and South Downs (Nick Herbert) made an important point about the need to have infrastructure in place if we are going to deliver the homes needed in communities that people want to live in. I also agree with him about the importance of neighbourhood planning in this process. That point was also raised effectively by the hon. Member for Lancaster and Fleetwood (Eric Ollerenshaw).

I am not quite sure whether the hon. Member for Stevenage (Stephen McPartland) was arguing that graffiti is an invasive species and should be removed and not be part of the Bill. Unfortunately, he is not in his place to clarify that point.

Lastly, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Riverside (Mrs Ellman), the Chair of the Transport Committee, for addressing the need for longer-term strategic planning and funding for transport, as well as the need to put transport planning in a wider context. Clearly, that is missing from the Bill.

I am sure we all agree that the subject of the Bill is really important. We all know that if we are to facilitate developing our economy, then upgrading old and delivering new infrastructure is vital. Our problem with the Bill is that it promises a lot but in reality delivers very little. As my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Test said, this is a ragbag of measures. The Bill claims that it will bolster investment in infrastructure and improve Britain’s economic performance. It claims that it will improve the planning process, allowing us to get on and get Britain building for the future, and that it will provide a stimulus for job creation across transport, energy, housing developments and national infrastructure.

Although we acknowledge that a few measures here and there may be helpful—such as transferring land to the HCA, and simplifying procedures for nationally significant infrastructure projects—overall we think that the Bill represents a huge lost opportunity to set out a smart framework for the delivery of infrastructure that would provide high-quality places and the necessary support systems for the nation’s future needs.

This weak legislation has been produced against a legacy of poor Government performance and investment in infrastructure and in its delivery. They may have made a flurry of recent announcements on infrastructure, but they are unlikely to make up the ground lost in previous years when infrastructure investment slumped. For example, a Cabinet Office update in May 2013 showed that the value of construction work fell by more than a third—36%—or £11.1 billion between 2012 and May 2013. We have had a fanfare of announcements about the £40 billion for the UK guarantees scheme, but few projects have actually been supported, which recently led the CBI to comment that it was

“exasperated with progress to date.”

It appears that the lack of progress on loan guarantees is reflected elsewhere, with too little support for house building, transport and green energy subsidies. Let us remind ourselves of the Bill’s inadequacy with regard to the delivery of much needed infrastructure. As my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) pointed out so eloquently, there is complete bewilderment about why a top-down reorganisation of the Highways Agency has been proposed. I would have thought that Ministers had learned their lesson about unwanted and unnecessary reorganisations, but perhaps not. If they have, they need to explain why a reorganisation is necessary, when the market clearly wants funding certainty. As my hon. Friend said, the highways measures in the Bill will affect only 2% of roads.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

One of the things missing from the Bill is an emphasis on park and ride. To take people out of vehicles and on to public transport, we are making public transport more accessible and more cost-effective. In Northern Ireland, where it is a devolved matter, we have already taken steps to bring in park and ride—including in my constituency just last week—and there are other examples of what can be done. Does the hon. Lady share my concern about the absence of park and ride from the Bill?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman makes a very good point. I am tempted to add park and ride to the long list of items omitted from the Bill that hon. Members have mentioned.

Cost of Living

Debate between Jim Shannon and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Wednesday 27th November 2013 Commons Chamber

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I am sorry, but I will run out of time if I give way. I apologise to the hon. Gentleman.

The north-east has the highest proportion of people paid below the living wage—32% of workers are paid less—and research published by the Resolution Foundation has further confirmed that the north-east was the region where workers were most likely to be trapped in low earnings. The Office for National Statistics said:

“In April 2012, median gross weekly earnings for full-time adult employees in the North East were £455, joint lowest with Wales and lower than the UK median of £506.”

So people in the area that I represent are having to contend with lower wages, but they are also having to deal with rising prices. They are being burdened with not only increasing energy costs, but increasing costs for child care, for example. Energy prices have angered people throughout the country and all we have heard from the Government is excuses for the actions of the big six. When npower recently announced an eye-watering rise in electricity costs of 9.3% and in gas of 11.1%, The Journal, our local newspaper, reported that Dorothy Bowman, a campaigner for elderly people from County Durham, said that the price hike would leave householders with a stark choice. She said:

“They will have to choose food or heat, it will be too expensive for both. This is at the wrong time for people”.

She went on to say that npower did not care at all

“about their customers and the dire misery they are subjecting them to, they just care about their profits. If they were going to do this why not do it in spring, now people have no choice.”

She said the elderly would suffer, but so would young families living on a tight budget. I think she makes the point very strongly indeed.

In addition, The Journal reported on 25 October that an official at thinkmoney said:

“Regionally, problems with utility bills appear most severe in Northern Ireland, London and the North East.”

That is why we need Labour’s energy price freeze and long-term reforms to the energy market.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

If the hon. Gentleman is very brief.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

As an example of how dire things are in the high street and the household, Citizens Advice reported that 92,000 people had made inquiries about fuel debt, 81,000 people had made inquiries about water debt, and that there had been a 77% increase in child care costs over 10 years and a 78% increase in the use of food banks. Surely that is the reality of the high street and what is happening at present.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

The hon. Gentleman makes an excellent point and I hope to be able to come to some of those issues myself.

On child care, the cost of nursery places has risen by 30%—five times faster than pay for people on average wages. I opened a new nursery in my constituency a couple of weeks ago—Do Re Mi nursery—but without action from the Government many families will not able to take up places there. It is not good enough for Government Members to say that there is help for people and that there is universal credit. No one is on that at present and many are not getting any help with child care.

As the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, there are huge problems with debt. The charity StepChange in my constituency said that almost 2,000 people in the Durham area had been referred to it with debt problems from January to June this year. R3, the insolvency trade body in the north-east, found that almost a quarter of survey respondents were extremely worried or very worried about their debts, while 56% were worried about their credit card payments.

For some time, Labour Members have been raising issues about payday lenders and the extortionate rates of interest they have been charging. We obviously welcome the Government’s announcement on this, but as yet there has been absolutely no information about what will be in place to help people who have already taken out loans that they are unable to pay back. That situation is seriously compounding the problems that many families are facing.

Moreover, food poverty is increasing in Durham. The website of Durham food bank states:

“Durham foodbank has now completed two years of distributing food to local people in crisis. In our first year we fed 3686 people, our second year total is now in excess of 10,600.”

It thanks the army of volunteers who are helping it to meet this need, but makes the point, as I do, that that demonstrates a huge increase in the number of people requiring food banks. Indeed, the local citizens advice bureau has reported a 78% increase in the number of inquiries about the use of food banks. This flies in the face of the Government’s claims that they are turning the corner. Lots and lots of families in my constituency have a genuine cost of living crisis, and things are getting worse for them because of increasing prices and, at best, flatlining wages. They simply cannot afford to make ends meet.

Labour is calling for the Government to take real action to make a difference to families in Durham and across the country. We want a list of measures to be included in the autumn statement, including an energy price freeze, an extension of free child care, action to boost long-term housing supply, and a compulsory jobs guarantee—real action that would help people who are struggling out there in our communities. The Government are standing by and doing nothing to tackle the serious pressures on families right across the country, and we cannot let them go on and on doing the same thing. We need real action from the Government to support hard-pressed families. I support the motion.

Lindisfarne Gospels

Debate between Jim Shannon and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Wednesday 26th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

I thank the hon. Lady for bringing this important matter to the House for consideration. She, the Prime Minister, many others in the House and I have called the Gospels a national treasure because they are one of the most important pieces of informative history in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Does she agree that such is the historical importance of the Lindisfarne Gospels and the interest that they create across the whole of the United Kingdom that opportunities should be given to all regions, including to Northern Ireland, to see them?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. I agree: it would be wonderful for the people of Northern Ireland to have the opportunity to see the Lindisfarne Gospels and other important historical texts in the region too.

Bearing in mind the Prime Minister’s comments, I should be grateful if the Minister said whether his Department will continue to support the loan of the Gospels to the north-east region on a regular basis, and whether the Government will encourage the Heritage Lottery Fund to give access funding to the Gospels exhibition so that not only schools but everyone attending the exhibition can view the Gospels free of charge, just as tourists and others can do in the British Library. I believe that that is particularly important, given that the north-east is the country’s poorest region. Having to pay a charge to see the Gospels does not seem to be entirely fair. It is fantastic, however, that the British Library has agreed to lend the Lindisfarne Gospels to Durham this summer so that they can be displayed in the north-east and many people in the region and elsewhere will have an opportunity to see them.

School Food

Debate between Jim Shannon and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Tuesday 19th July 2011 Westminster Hall

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Indeed. I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I will say something about how parents have been involved with the process, because obviously it was important initially to get parents signed up, which is why schools had taster sessions. As the pilot progressed, what schools felt was really important. When they sorted out with children how to have a balanced and healthy diet by choosing different things on different days, and ensured that salad or vegetables and a balanced meal were always available, they decided to get the parents to sign up to whatever meals the children were choosing. That was important, because parents across the board—given that the take-up was 100%, that meant all parents—had to engage with what their children were going to eat in school, and to talk to them about the importance of a balanced meal. That required the schools to undertake work with parents.

That is what we mean about changing the culture. We know how to do it, and the evidence exists. My hon. Friend and I were able to see that before our eyes, and indeed the schools managed to develop, probably inadvertently, evangelism in the children, who were able to explain carefully to us how the food system worked in their school.

[Jim Shannon]

The United Kingdom is a multicultural society where ethnic groups introduce their own food ideas. In the pilot schemes, was the hon. Lady able to introduce some of the benefits of other foods to make food exciting?

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

That is an important point. Schools in Durham managed to do that, but perhaps not as effectively as schools in Newham, and it was an important aspect of the pilots, as the evidence suggests. That is what I mean when I say that schools that embraced the scheme were able to add the subject to the curriculum and use it to talk about other cultures, and so on.

I hope that I have made the point that the pilot was really successful. It had started to change the way in which schools, parents and young people think about food and exercise. I saw with very great sadness that the Government’s priorities meant that the first thing they did on taking office was cancel that pilot programme. The Minister has some questions to answer about that. We know that the Liberal Democrats have form on such matters because when they took over Hull city council, the first thing they did was to cancel the free school meals programme. That showed an extraordinary set of priorities, which I simply do not understand.

If the Minister wishes to find allies in the coalition Government, she might like to ask her fellow Ministers why it is that private schools ensure that their children have a healthy, usually hot, school meal at lunchtime. The coalition Government are good at emulating the private sector across the public sector, so how come that aspect of the private sector, which could easily be transplanted to public sector schools, is not on their list of priorities? Instead of concentrating on the needs of children and families, the Government—really quite staggeringly—lifted the ring fence on the school lunch grant from April this year. That money now has to compete with all the other priorities currently facing hard-pressed schools.

Such concerns lead me to ponder the fact that the Labour party has to make a tough call; we have got to win the argument about the importance not only of healthy school meals, but of universal free school meals at primary school level. There is no point in having healthy school meals if no one takes them up or if they are too expensive for most parents to afford, but unfortunately, that is the route down which the Government are taking us.

Finance Bill

Debate between Jim Shannon and Roberta Blackman-Woods

Tuesday 28th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

People’s interpretations of these issues are different; we see things in different ways and have different opinions. I do not necessarily agree with what the hon. Lady has said, but there are issues to be addressed.

[Roberta Blackman-Woods]

Does the hon. Gentleman accept that there is inconsistency among Conservative Members, in that they want to support marriage while taking away huge amounts of financial support from ordinary families?

[Jim Shannon]

I do not believe that there is an inconsistency in relation to this matter, although, with respect, I would disagree with certain other proposals relating to the benefit system.