Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have a range of programmes to help improve livelihoods. Most recently, when my right hon. Friend the Minister of State visited Bangladesh, he announced an £18 million UK-funded programme to help people, particularly factory workers, to develop skills. We are taking a range of measures. I should add that we also work with international organisations such as the International Labour Organisation to improve workers’ standards and drive workers’ conditions upwards.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

As the Secretary of State may know, the Prime Minister of Bangladesh was in London last week. I discussed with her the high level of diabetes in Bangladesh, which has one of the highest levels of any country in the world. What health projects do we have in Bangladesh specifically to help to reduce diabetes?

[Justine Greening]

I am grateful for the right hon. Gentleman’s question. DFID has health programmes and general programmes to lift people out of poverty, but also to ensure that they have access to services like health care that can help them get on with their day-to-day lives. I will write to him with a fuller update on whether we engage in any direct diabetes-related programmes, which I hope will be helpful to him.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 12th June 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

One of the great achievements of this Government is the great co-ordination between the Ministry of Defence, the Foreign Office and DFID, under the auspices of the National Security Council. When it comes to spending, we work very closely with those two Departments, but we must stick within the OECD rules that govern the definition of official development assistance.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

How much of that percentage will be made available to the people of Yemen? Only yesterday, Jamal Benomar, the UN special representative, said that 1 million children were dying from malnutrition there. How can we save those children?

[Mr Duncan]

Our focus on Yemen is acute, and I take charge of that personally. The right hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. Indeed, one of the comments at the nutrition event at the weekend, attended by Ministers from Yemen, was that more than half of their children under five are stunted. We have to focus on that need, and I assure the right hon. Gentleman and the House that through our programmes in Yemen, that is exactly what we are doing.

Syria (Humanitarian Response)

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Monday 4th February 2013 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and the work that she has done in this regard. There are 150,000 Syrian refugees in Turkey. So far, 23,500 have claimed asylum in the EU, mostly crossing the border between Greece and Turkey, and that is the pressure point as far as the EU is concerned. She mentioned many countries in her statement, but what support is being given to the Greek Government to help them to deal with this problem, which will eventually become a problem for the United Kingdom?

[Justine Greening]

I will need to write to the right hon. Gentleman to give him further details on that. He is right to point out that a number of countries in the EU have taken in Syrian refugees, including Sweden, which has a substantial Syrian diaspora. We need to make sure that we deal with the totality of this humanitarian crisis, and that involves making sure that when refugees end up in the EU we provide the support they need.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 30th January 2013 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

It is the policy both of our presidency of the G8 and of DFID more generally in our work in poor countries to get far greater transparency from global corporations and to ensure that they pay their fair share of tax and that they do so to the most appropriate tax regimes in which they work.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

T9. Given recent events, what additional help does the Minister propose to give to the people of Yemen?

[Mr Duncan]

The Friends of Yemen meeting is looming; we are supporting the social fund for development to meet urgent food and welfare needs; we are encouraging the Government of Yemen to set up an executive bureau for national dialogue; and we are ensuring that pledged funds can be properly disbursed so that they go to the projects that are so desperately needed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

The UK’s aid budget is, of course, untied, but technology transfer is an increasingly important part of DFID’s programme. For example, through our AgResults programme, we will harness technological innovation so that we can improve agricultural productivity and food security in some of the world’s poorest countries. Part of the Government’s strategy for life sciences is to export the benefits of our research to the developing world.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister for all the work he has done over the years to support the people of Yemen, but he will know that half the people of Yemen are still malnourished. How can we ensure that we give them the capacity to be able to use trade-related skills in order to help themselves?

[Mr Duncan]

We see trade as an important ingredient in all our development activities. I recognise the right hon. Gentleman’s own personal interest in Yemen and can assure him that the UK has been in the lead in garnering international support to raise pledged donor contributions reaching $8 billion. The key now is to ensure that those funds are disbursed honestly and effectively.

International Development

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Tuesday 12th June 2012 Ministerial Corrections

The following is the answer given by the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Eddisbury (Mr O'Brien), to the supplementary question from the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz) about development and priorities as recommended by the Copenhagen Consensus 2012 expert panel.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

How will these excellent priorities help the people of Yemen, almost half of whom are starving?

[Mr O'Brien]

In Yemen, many of the current challenges are humanitarian. Today, we have announced £26 million of humanitarian support and aid to ensure that some of the needs of the population—nearly half of whom, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly observes, are starving—are met. While we are in the humanitarian phase, that is patently the most important response, but we also need to look at the future of governance and resilience in order to improve the lot of the population.

[Official Report, 23 May 2012, Vol. 545, c. 1119.]

Letter of correction from Stephen O’Brien:

An error has been identified in the oral answer given on 23 May 2012 to the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz).

The correct answer should have been:

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd May 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr O'Brien]

My hon. Friend makes an extremely important point, and she is right to say that the Copenhagen Consensus puts bundled micronutrient interventions to fight hunger and improve education at the very top of its list of the most desirable activities to achieve maximum impact. Right across our programmes, we have been increasing the delivery of nutrient supplements and fighting hunger. My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State announced in Washington last week that we will be supporting the new alliance for food security and nutrition in order to improve food supply and farming across Africa and help to pull 50 million people out of chronic poverty over the next 10 years.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

How will these excellent priorities help the people of Yemen, almost half of whom are starving?[Official Report, 12 June 2012, Vol. 546, c. 1-2MC.]

[Mr O'Brien]

In Yemen, many of the current challenges are humanitarian. Today, we have announced £26 million of humanitarian support and aid to ensure that some of the needs of the population—nearly half of whom, as the right hon. Gentleman rightly observes, are starving—are met. While we are in the humanitarian phase, that is patently the most important response, but we also need to look at the future of governance and resilience in order to improve the lot of the population.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly support what my hon. Friend says. This law was long overdue. It is very important that home owners have proper protection from people, in effect, stealing their property, which is what squatting is. It is a criminal act and it is now a criminal offence.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Q11. Last week, it was revealed that officials at the UK Border Agency received bonuses of £3.5 million. Given the horrendous queues at our airports, the fact that 100,000 files have now been archived by the UKBA, and the fact that in the past six months 185 people have absconded having been given limited leave to remain, does the Prime Minister agree that in future we should reward success, not failure?

[The Prime Minister]

I completely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. There is absolutely no place in the modern civil service for a presumption of good performance. I believe in paying people bonuses if they perform well and meet their targets, but if they do not perform well and do not meet their targets, they should not get a bonus.

In terms of Heathrow and our airports, it is vitally important that we continue to make progress. This is an urgent issue for Britain. It is vital for our trade and vital for inward investment that people have a decent experience when they arrive at our airports. A new control room is opening at Heathrow this month, there are an extra 80 staff for peak times at Heathrow, and an extra 480 people will come on stream during the Olympic period, but I am still not satisfied as to whether we need to do more, including this week and next week, to really get on top of this problem.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 1st February 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

All three Department for International Development Ministers have visited Bangladesh in the past few months, and we are encouraging all political parties to work towards free, fair and credible elections to be held by early 2014. That requires the politics of vision, not the politics of venom, and the UK stands ready to continue our work with the Bangladesh Election Commission to make the elections a success and to help the democratic process.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Some 5.7 million people in Bangladesh suffer from diabetes. If this trend continues, 10% of the population will have diabetes by 2025. Which DFID programmes specifically assist the Bangladeshi Government in preventing diabetes?

[Mr Duncan]

Many of the multilateral programmes focus more than our poverty programmes do on this challenge, but the right hon. Gentleman does the issue a great favour by highlighting the significance of diabetes. I can assure him that we will give it the attention it deserves in all the work that we do in the country.

Humanitarian Emergency Response Review

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 15th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

Even though the Secretary of State has been in office for only a year, he is turning out to be outstanding at his job, supported by a very fine team of Ministers. Will he confirm that nothing in his statement will affect the Government’s ability to deliver relief to the people of Yemen? It is one of the poorest countries in the world, and it is on the brink of civil war. Will he confirm that we can still help the Yemeni people?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his kind remarks. We understand the importance of Yemen, which remains on a humanitarian knife edge. With the Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, we are looking specifically at needs mapping within Yemen for when we can get back there. We continue to give very strong support to the agencies that conduct humanitarian relief in Yemen, and to bear in mind at all times whether we can do more to assist.

Oral Answers to Questions

Keith Vaz Excerpts

Wednesday 30th March 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend is right to identify a most important issue. I have made clear Britain’s significant contribution to ensuring that migrants are flown home. On the other points that he mentioned, some of that is a matter for the Paris Club of creditors, the other international financial institutions and the significant funding available from the European Union through the neighbourhood funds.

[Keith Vaz (Leicester East) (Lab)]

12. What discussions he has had with his EU and UN counterparts on the development implications of the state of emergency in Yemen.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

We are in close contact with EU and UN counterparts. Recent instability is limiting the ability of DFID and other donors to run development programmes in Yemen. DFID is continuing to support the social fund for development which helps low-income groups to secure basic services such as health, education and water. We are also supporting humanitarian contingency plans. We do not provide any money directly to the Government of Yemen.

[Keith Vaz]

I thank the Minister for his answer. As he knows, a state of emergency was declared in Yemen last week. As it remains one of the poorest countries on earth, it is essential that the excellent work that has been undertaken by the Government through the development programme continues. Can the Minister ensure that, subject to the security of people there, this work will continue?

[Mr Duncan]

We share the right hon. Gentleman’s objectives in trying to deliver assistance wherever we possibly can, which we are continuing to do through the social fund for development, which is not Government-run. We have, however, had to withdraw our DFID staff from Sana’a given the security situation, but we remain committed to doing everything we possibly can to help the people of Yemen once the security position and the political position become clearer and appropriate.