Humanitarian Situation in Mosul

Jo Swinson Excerpts

Wednesday 12th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend rightly highlights the immediate needs of the more than 1.8 million displaced people in Iraq who have returned to their homes. We are working with the Iraqi Government on stabilisation, as well as with UN stability programmes in the areas where they are working to provide necessary infrastructure—renovated water facilities, power networks, clinics, schools, and also homes. The destruction that has taken place is incomprehensible to us. Vast swathes of land and homes were deliberately destroyed by Daesh, and it is our responsibility through UK aid, and working internationally with our partners, to ensure that we rebuild and rehouse the many millions who have been displaced.

[Jo Swinson (East Dunbartonshire) (LD)]

I welcome the statement and thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of it. Tens of thousands of children have been without education in Mosul for many years, so it is good news that 750 schools have reopened, but what work is being done to assist schools to tackle the very particular and sensitive challenge of helping older children, teenagers and young adults to plug the significant gap in their education and prevent there being a lost generation?

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right to speak about the lost generation. There is a high level of displacement, including a horrifically high number of displaced children, across the whole region affected by conflict—Syria and Iraq. Many children have lost their education; they have been out of school for several years because of the extent of the conflict. The hon. Lady knows that the United Kingdom is an enormous supporter and big funder of the Education Cannot Wait programme, which focuses on exactly this in areas of conflict, as well as host communities—Jordan and Lebanon, for instance. We are providing resources to introduce a double-shift system of education. She also mentioned older children, and it is important, with the funding we put in through the partners with which we work, and particularly through Governments directly, that organisations provide education—they are—as well as technical and vocational training opportunities.