Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what progress she has made in allocating the increased funding to support women and girls announced in the 2021 Spending Review; and how much of that funding has been allocated to programmes with a focus on ensuring access to education.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We are restoring funding for women and girls to pre-ODA cut levels over the Spending Review period, focusing on giving more girls a quality education; ending the extremely harmful practice of female genital mutilation, supporting girls' health; and ending the abhorrent use of sexual violence around the world.
Following the Spending Review, decisions on allocations and individual programmes will be published in the usual way.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking to ensure participation by women and girls who have faced double vulnerabilities as members of a minority faith in the design, assessment and implementation of programmes to support women and girls.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We recognise that women and girls from religious minorities can often suffer because of both their gender and their faith. That is why we ensure our human rights policy work considers the intersectionality of human rights, including the importance of addressing the specific vulnerabilities experienced by women and girls from religious minority communities. The Foreign Secretary has publicly committed to putting women and girls at the heart of foreign and development policy, this will be set out in the upcoming International Development Strategy and the upcoming Women and Girls Strategy, which will emphasise the importance of taking account of intersectionality and those facing multiple exclusions including on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or belief. FCDO also has ongoing policy work on Freedom of Religion or Belief - Fiona Bruce was appointed as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief in December 2020.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps she is taking to help ensure that membership of a minority faith is recognised as an additional factor of vulnerability in her Department's work to support women and girls.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We recognise that women and girls from religious minorities can often suffer because of both their gender and their faith. That is why we ensure our human rights policy work considers the intersectionality of human rights, including the importance of addressing the specific vulnerabilities experienced by women and girls from religious minority communities. The Foreign Secretary has publicly committed to putting women and girls at the heart of foreign and development policy, this will be set out in the upcoming International Development Strategy and the upcoming Women and Girls Strategy, which will emphasise the importance of taking account of intersectionality and those facing multiple exclusions including on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or belief. FCDO also has ongoing policy work on Freedom of Religion or Belief - Fiona Bruce was appointed as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief in December 2020.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much of the increased funding to support women and girls announced in the 2021 Spending Review will support programmes with a focus on women and girls who face double vulnerabilities as members of minority faiths.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We recognise that women and girls from religious minorities can often suffer because of both their gender and their faith. That is why we ensure our human rights policy work considers the intersectionality of human rights, including the importance of addressing the specific vulnerabilities experienced by women and girls from religious minority communities. The Foreign Secretary has publicly committed to putting women and girls at the heart of foreign and development policy, this will be set out in the upcoming International Development Strategy and the upcoming Women and Girls Strategy, which will emphasise the importance of taking account of intersectionality and those facing multiple exclusions including on the basis of their ethnicity, religion or belief. FCDO also has ongoing policy work on Freedom of Religion or Belief - Fiona Bruce was appointed as the Prime Minister's Special Envoy for Freedom of Religion or Belief in December 2020.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what progress she has made in implementing Recommendation 5 in the final report of the Bishop of Truro's Independent review of support for persecuted Christians; and what research she plans to commission into the issues relating to that recommendation.
Answered by Vicky Ford
The FCDO continues to fund research activities which look into the intersection between Freedom of Religion and Belief (FoRB), other human rights and broader issues. This includes two large programmes: CREID (Coalition for Religious Equality and Inclusive Development - led by the Institute of Development Studies at the University of Sussex) and the FoRB Leadership Network (through the University of Oxford). In 2021, we used the John Bunyan Fund to deepen understanding of the intersecting vulnerabilities experienced by religious minorities living in poverty in the shadows of Covid-19.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent discussions she has had with the European Haemophilia Consortium and other stakeholders on ensuring that patients with bleeding disorders who are forced to flee the war in Ukraine can access treatment, care and support as quickly as possible.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK has now committed £395 million in aid to the current crisis. This includes £220 million of humanitarian assistance which will be used to save lives and protect vulnerable people inside Ukraine and in neighbouring countries. £25 million has been given to the Disasters Emergency Committee, the largest UK aid match ever, which will help aid agencies respond to the deteriorating humanitarian situation by providing access to basic necessities and medical supplies. To date, we have contributed £3.5 million to provide medical supplies to Ukraine. Over 760,000 UK medical items have been delivered across the Polish-Ukraine border. UK Government humanitarian experts have also deployed to the region to support those fleeing the violence.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what specific steps her Department has taken to advance the two global targets for girls’ education since those targets were endorsed at the G7 in June 2021.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We have built on the momentum of the G7 and UK-hosted Global Education Summit to push forward progress on girls' education. At COP26, we shone a spotlight on the links between education and climate and called for countries to prioritise early learning in their efforts to mitigate climate change. In Afghanistan, the UK has called for girls' right to secondary education to be restored, and UK humanitarian funds are helping provide safe spaces for learning for 38,000 displaced children, including 28,000 girls.
As of mid-December, more than 647 million school children were still affected by partial or full school closures. Ministers are pressing national governments to reopen schools as a matter of priority, while our bilateral education programmes and flagship Girls' Education Challenge continue to support children to catch-up on the learning they have lost. On 26 January, the UK helped launch a new report by the Global Education Evidence Advisory Panel focused on recovering children's education.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what plans she has to track progress towards achieving the two global targets on girls’ education endorsed by G7 leaders in June 2021.
Answered by Vicky Ford
We have committed to publish an annual report tracking progress against the two new global objectives, in collaboration with UNESCO and the UN Girls' Education Initiative. The report is due to be published in the summer of 2022 and annually will highlight the progress that low- and middle-income countries have made in getting 40 million more girls into school and 20 million more girls reading by the age of 10, as well as demonstrating the obstacles that are still to be overcome.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, pursuant to the Answer of 7 December 2021 to Question 88755 on Xinjiang: Export Controls, what progress the Government has made on (a) developing and (b) consulting on amendments to the Export Control Order 2008 to prevent the export of equipment for use by the Chinese military, police, or security forces, or entities acting on their behalf, in human rights violations in (i) Xinjiang Province and (ii) elsewhere.
Answered by Amanda Milling - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
Introducing the revised Military End-Use Control announced via Written Ministerial Statement on 8 December 2021 requires changes to the Export Control Order 2008. We are planning to make these changes through the normal Parliamentary process and expect them to come into force in Spring 2022.
The enhanced Military End-Use Control will strengthen our ability to prevent the export of items that might be used directly or indirectly to facilitate human rights violations in all destinations subject to an arms embargo. This includes the export of goods, software or technology intended for use by the military, paramilitary, police, or security forces in any destination subject to an arms embargo.
Asked by: Kirsten Oswald (Scottish National Party - East Renfrewshire)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps her Department is taking to help enable low-income countries to meet the Independent Allocation of Vaccines Group recommendation, published on 21 December 2021, on vaccinating 70 percent of all countries populations against covid-19 by mid-2022.
Answered by Amanda Milling - Government Whip, Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury
The UK is committed to ending the acute phase of the pandemic as soon as possible, and strongly supports the COVAX Facility as a key mechanism to deliver this. COVAX has now delivered over one billion vaccine doses to 144 countries and territories. The UK is among the largest donors to COVAX's Advance Market Commitment, committing £548 million to supply vaccines in up to 92 low and middle income countries. The UK has also donated more than 30 million doses, with millions more to be sent globally in 2022.
Many factors contribute to vaccination coverage levels, including supply, health system capacity and demand. The UK worked closely with the Independent Allocation of Vaccines Group established by the World Health Organisation (WHO) to develop WHO's global vaccination strategy and endorsed it at the G20 Leaders' Summit in October 2021. The UK recognises its recommendation for 70% vaccination coverage as well as its advice that countries need to set their own national targets based on local context and demographics.