Aid Sector: Safeguarding

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 20th February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

We need to do several things, but, in a nutshell, we need to ensure that every organisation is doing all in its power to prevent such actions from taking place. But if and when they do take place—we must recognise that people are working with a huge number of organisations, including local organisations, in what is, quite frankly, chaos—we must ensure that they are reported and dealt with appropriately, that those who have done things wrong are held to account, and that the whole process is transparent.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Does the Secretary of State envisage that an international register of aid workers will bring the capability to strike off abusers and ensure that they can no longer find work in the aid sector?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Yes. Since this story broke, we have received a number of suggestions from a number of organisations. We need to decide what we in the UK think is the best course of action, and that is what we will do on 5 March, with experts and representatives of the UK sector. We will then share that work with our fellow nations and do something together. That is the plan of action.

Foreign Aid Expenditure

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I am very proud of the contribution that this country makes to international development, but in my constituency, and I am sure constituencies up and down the country, we have a plethora of food banks. Some of my constituents are not able to feed their families. Until those problems are addressed, the same question will keep arising; my constituents will continue to ask me, “Why are we spending this money on foreign aid, when our children are hungry here?”

[Steve Double]

I understand the hon. Lady’s point, but my point is that it cannot be a simple either/or. We need to fulfil our responsibility in the world and address some of the challenges facing it; that is in our national interests. If we do not, those issues will come closer to us. It is still the right thing to do, although I understand the concerns of her constituents and, indeed, many of mine.

Although I had visited Kenya a number of times before in my previous charity work, my most recent visit was a chance to see Kenya with a different focus. I spent three jam-packed days in the country, meeting members of the Kenyan Government, UK representatives, campaigners and charity workers. On one occasion, I visited an extremely rural area, where the impact of climate change is felt most acutely, and met a local farming community. Rainfall is now much less frequent but heavier, which creates significant challenges of soil erosion and flash flooding. I visited a farm where a partnership of the UK and Kenyan local government has helped to fund the construction of water-capture pits for the farmer. When it rains, the pits enable him to store water, which can last for several months during a drought. This means that farmers can expand their farms and provide employment for more local people—so simple, yet so effective.

Having met these people and heard their stories, which begin with anguish but have a positive and hopeful outcome, I understand much more clearly why this spending is so necessary. My trip made it very clear that climate change, as well as every other single issue facing those who receive aid, is being felt in the poorer countries of the world, where people are less resilient and less able to adapt.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Brandon Lewis]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point, and I am pleased to reassure her constituents that if they go forward with a neighbourhood plan, it will have weight in planning law, and if the local authority is failing to do its duty by its local residents in the community then the neighbourhood plan is the best way to proceed.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

A number of neighbourhood plans have failed because of insufficient evidence, unrealistic expectations and a failure to meet European environmental requirements. What help is the Department giving those formulating these plans to ensure that they meet the standards set down by the independent examiners?

[Brandon Lewis]

As I outlined in my initial answer, we not only have online resources and advice services, but give grants of up to £8,000, with a further £6,000 in particularly difficult areas. Workshops are also going out around the country, and the National Association of Local Councils is talking through its parish council network about how the system works. I gently say to the hon. Lady that every single neighbourhood plan that has gone to referendum has passed with a huge majority.

Zika Virus

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

What advice will the UK Government give to the blood transfusion service about travel histories for prospective blood donors? Will there be any retrospective screening of donations already made?

[Mr Hurd]

I am informed by the public health Minister that a 28-day deferral notice has already been communicated, and that she will correspond directly to the hon. Lady on the point she has raised.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 14th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Greg Clark]

That is a matter for the local services. The consultation proposes requiring that those discussions take place, but it is up to them what they conclude.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I also pay tribute to the magnificent response of fire and rescue services to the floods in Cumbria and other northern areas. Fire and rescue services are rescuing people, pumping out water from flooded high streets and homes and rescuing livestock, thus limiting damage to rural communities, yet all those fire and rescue services have suffered cuts over the last five years. We have lost nearly 7,000 firefighters—one in eight—and equipment and appliances have been cut by more than 12% in metropolitan fire and rescue services. The fire service is at a key juncture. It is not safe, effective or efficient simply to keep cutting resources. Does the Secretary of State agree that more cuts will further damage the service’s ability to meet the risk in local major incidents, such as the recent floods, and will he commit to providing adequate resources so that the service can continue to contribute to national resilience on the scale and at the speed the public expect?

[Greg Clark]

I would draw the hon. Lady’s attention to the National Audit Office report, which was published quite recently. It says that the picture to date is one of financial health and that

“fire authorities have not changed emergency response standards as a result of budget cuts”.

The evidence is that all but one stand-alone fire authority increased its reserves by 67% in real terms from 2010 to 2015. That tells me that the fire services are coping well with the reductions they have been invited to make.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 18th March 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the incredibly hard work he has put in to campaign for that station. I can tell him that, following the visit of the Secretary of State for Transport, £13.5 million has been secured through the local transport and growth deal to fund the project. It is because of my hon. Friend’s hard work that it is going ahead. It is essential that Wolverhampton benefits from good road, rail and other infrastructure connections so that it can benefit from the growth we are seeing in our country.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Q11. The Prime Minister has a record of looking the other way when it comes to allegations of wrongdoing in his own team. He did it with Andy Coulson and he is doing it now with the right hon. Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps). Can the Prime Minister explain why he has been so quick to rule out an investigation into his own party’s chairman?

[The Prime Minister]

I would have thought that with all the things happening in the part of the world that the hon. Lady represents, she could have come up with a better question. My right hon. Friend has acknowledged that he made a mistake, but his entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests was correct. I think the hon. Lady is barking up the wrong tree. While I am here, let me say that I am sure she will want to welcome the fact that the claimant count in her constituency has fallen by 54% since the last election.

Sustainable Development Goals

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

It can be a huge step forward. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to see the broader opportunities in that Bill for enabling us to increase our ability to tackle FGM at home. One of the most important elements of the Girl summit was recognising that we have issues to resolve here in the UK, as well as playing our role internationally in helping other countries to tackle theirs.

The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) accused the Government of failing to support a stand-alone goal on health. She seems a little befuddled on this point, as her claim is inaccurate. We have supported a stand-alone goal throughout this process. Going back to the high-level panel report, if she looks at goal 4 she will see that it explicitly states that it is to “ensure healthy lives”. That is partly why, under this Government, spending on health in relation to international development, just bilaterally, has risen from £750 million a year when we came into government to about £1.25 billion a year now. We absolutely have invested in this area.

I should correct the hon. Lady on another matter where she seems to have got her facts mixed up. In a recent interview, she said that spending by the Department on fragile and conflict states has “reduced under this Government”. I have to update the House by saying that that is incorrect. In fact, investment has risen from £1.8 billion in 2009 to £2.8 billion in 2013. On the issue of poverty, where we are talking about matters of life and death, and how we can lift people out of sometimes miserable day-to-day existences, it does not do those people, or the challenges they face, any justice to be kicked about as a political football. If the hon. Lady must engage in what she calls hand-to-hand combat, I ask her at least to get her facts right.

On a stand-alone goal on climate change, I point to our Prime Minister’s own words:

“Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing our world. And it is not just a threat to the environment. It is also a threat to our national security, to global security, to poverty eradication and to economic prosperity.”

In short, climate change is too complex an issue to belong in just one goal; as we have said repeatedly, it needs to be interwoven or mainstreamed throughout the entire post-2015 framework.

I was only too happy to come to this place to talk about the Government’s record on shaping the sustainable development goals. As I said, I would very much have liked women and girls, and particularly tackling violence against women and girls, to have been mentioned explicitly in the motion.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

rose—

[Justine Greening]

I will not give way because I need to make progress.

I know that the hon. Member for Wakefield has still not yet found time to go on any visits to see any international development projects in her role as shadow Secretary of State. As and when she does get a chance to visit some of those DFID projects, I hope she will realise, and agree with me, that putting women and girls at the centre of international development is absolutely the right thing to do.

Finally, we are proud to be the first G7 Government to have achieved the 0.7% target. We are supporting the Bill on the 0.7% target that is currently passing through Parliament. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) mentioned another international development Act, and I hope that it will be the second such Bill to make it through the House. That has largely been achieved by cross-party agreement on international development. Until now, the main parties have very much worked together to ensure that we can support the world’s poorest and most vulnerable people.

I regret that, as far as I can make out, cross-party consensus seems to be anathema to the hon. Member for Wakefield. From my experience in my current role, she seems to be doing the exact opposite of what is needed to achieve a successful post-2015 framework. It seems to me that she is picking a fight for the sake of it and, ultimately, putting politics before tackling poverty. I urge her to work constructively with us to build the strongest possible post-2015 development framework.

Oral Answers to Questions

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I can certainly give my hon. Friend that assurance. I know that he has campaigned tirelessly to improve roads in his High Peak constituency, and the trans-Pennine routes are vital. We can give that assurance because we have a long-term economic plan that is delivering the economic growth that we need and seeing our deficit come down. Because we have made that success, we can commit to these road schemes.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Q15. What steps the Government are taking to protect older people from ill health caused by cold and badly insulated homes.

[The Prime Minister]

The Government are using a range of measures, including cold weather payments, the warm home discount, and an increase in pensions. We will improve the warmth of 1 million homes by March 2015. That provides real help to older people by taking money off their bills and insulating their homes to ensure that they are able to keep warm this winter.

[Liz McInnes]

That is an interesting response, but my constituent William Sullivan has written to me to say how appalled he is that last year more than 18,000 people in England and Wales died simply because of the cold. What guarantee can the Prime Minister give me that no more of my constituents will suffer in the cold this winter for want of a properly insulated home?

International Development and Disability

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Wednesday 26th November 2014 Westminster Hall

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

I call Liz McInnes.

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Havard.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Order. May I just say that you are not a Front-Bench spokesperson—are you?

[Liz McInnes]

No, I am not. This is my first Westminster Hall debate.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Exactly. I am trying to be helpful to you in terms of convention; I am not trying to be difficult. Normally, you would sit in a seat for a normal Member and speak from there.

[Liz McInnes]

I am happy to do so.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Sorry to be procedural at this stage. [Interruption.] That is smashing. Thank you for your help. You will soon catch on to the strange ways within the circus.

[Liz McInnes]

This is almost a maiden speech again.

People with disabilities make up one of the most marginalised and disadvantaged groups within society throughout the world. Sightsavers estimates that one in five of the world’s poorest people are disabled and that 80% of those people live in developing countries. They are routinely denied their most basic human rights; they are cut off and unable to benefit from mainstream education, employment and health care services. For far too many disabled people, having a disability means they will never receive an education, never have employment and never be independent.

The vast majority of disabled people in developing countries live in extreme poverty. Global efforts to address poverty cannot afford to ignore people with disabilities, yet they are frequently left behind in the international development debate. Estimates by Sightsavers indicate that unemployment among disabled people is as high as 80% in some countries. For disabled children, mortality is as high as 80% in countries where mortality rates for children under five as a whole have decreased to below 20%. Furthermore, 90% of disabled children in developing countries do not attend school.

The millennium development goals, set in 2000, did not explicitly address disability issues at all. One of the goals set was to achieve universal primary education. The deadline for achieving that goal is next year. Significant progress has been made in many parts of the world, but there has been no progress at all for many disabled children. The education goal will not be met because, as Handicap International notes, 19 million disabled children still do not go to school.

Over the next nine months, we must ensure that the sustainable development goals, which will succeed the millennium development goals from September 2015, focus greater attention on those who live with and are affected by disability. World leaders meet in January to begin formal negotiation on the new goals. The UK Government, alongside other Governments, must ensure the retention under the education goal of a target from the Open Working Group outcome document that explicitly targets tackling disparities in provision of education in relation to disability. We must learn lessons from the past, when disabled children were failed when it came to access to education.

We want the UK Government and the Department for International Development to consider disability as a central component of all their development programmes and to target explicitly the needs of disabled people. A good start would be to ensure that all buildings and facilities that DFID funds are accessible to disabled people. Disability has too often been an afterthought; for example, it was only in late 2013 that DFID announced that schools built with its funding would have to be wheelchair accessible.

It is not only in education that global agreements have failed disabled people; being disabled means you are less likely to access health care and less likely to work. In 2012, a joint publication by the World Health Organisation and the Liverpool John Moores university centre for public health reported that a child with a disability is three to four times more likely to be a victim of physical or sexual violence. In nearly all cases, disabled people are the most marginalised, vulnerable and poorest group in developing countries.

Violence against women and girls with a disability is of particular concern. The Violence Against Women with Disabilities Working Group has reported that disabled women are twice as likely to experience domestic violence and other forms of gender-based and sexual violence as non-disabled women and more likely to experience abuse over a longer period of time and to suffer more severe injuries as a result of that violence.

We must recognise that disability is diverse and ensure that we have an explicit focus on all types of disability, including motor and sensory disabilities, and mental health.

[Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)]

In a time of political and economic unrest across the whole world, when disabled people are more marginalised than any other group, it is important that we focus our attention on them. Some 80% of people with disabilities live in developing countries and 20% of those with severe disabilities live in the poorest part of the world. Charities do great work. The Minister, who is newly appointed, is responsive to hon. Members’ opinions. Does the hon. Lady feel, as I and many others outside the Chamber do, that disability issues should be key in the Department’s official role wherever it acts or has influence across the world?

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Order. Before the hon. Lady answers, I will help her. Normally, when there is an intervention, we sit down—you did at the end. The intervention was a bit long; they are not normally that long. It is your debate, and you would normally tell me if someone else wished to speak. If other Members do not wish to make a speech I am happy to take interventions, but they should be short and to the point.

[Liz McInnes]

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for his intervention.

As the World Health Organisation notes, the global estimate for disability is on the rise because of the ageing population and the rapid spread of chronic diseases, as well as improvements in the methodologies used to measure disability. Disability therefore requires urgent consideration and action from policy makers in development.

Additionally, we must not forget carers. Disability does not affect only those who suffer from it directly; there is also a significant impact on those caring for people with disabilities. We in turn must do more to support them, so that we can ensure that a child’s ability to go to school is not predetermined by whether their parent has a disability. When it is, that leads to a cycle of deprivation of opportunity for millions of children and young people around the world.

In nearly all cases, disabled people are the most marginalised and vulnerable and poorest group in developing countries. We want the UK Government and the Department for International Development to provide more support to organisations for disabled people in developing countries and to include more disabled people and groups in the design and delivery of programmes.

Disability has been absent from the development agenda for far too long. As the world meets over the next nine months to finalise the sustainable development goals—the successor to the millennium development goals—we must ensure that we learn lessons from our past mistakes and make explicit reference to targeting the needs of disabled people.

[Mr Dai Havard (in the Chair)]

Before I call the Minister, I remind hon. Members that they can intervene on him if they wish, to reinforce a point or get, perhaps, a better answer than the one they think he is giving them—although I am sure that, as ever, he will give comprehensive answers.