International Development (Gender Equality) Bill

Lord Loomba Excerpts

Friday 7th February 2014 Lords Chamber

[Lord Loomba (LD)]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McColl, and the Government on this important Bill, which recognises the importance of promoting gender equality in the assistance that our Government give to countries outside the United Kingdom. The Bill could not be more timely. On Wednesday, the Prime Minister spoke about getting more women into public life. He added,

“we will not represent or govern our country properly unless we have more women at every level in our public life and in our politics”.—[Official Report, Commons, 5/2/14; col. 264.]

That is relevant not only in the UK but across the whole world.

I have stated before that I am extremely proud that the UK Government have committed to spending 0.7% of income on aid to help the world’s poorest people. It is fantastic that the Bill is intended to focus further on reducing poverty in a way which is likely to contribute to reducing inequality. This builds on the excellent work which DfID is already doing in tackling FGM and focusing on education by improving learning, reaching more children than ever before and keeping girls in school for as long as their brothers.

Children are our future, and I hope that the Bill provides the world’s poorest children with more opportunities to improve their circumstances. As many noble Lords know, reducing the gender inequality gap is key to solving so many problems in developing countries, as we have heard from other speakers. I am also reassured that the Government recognise the importance of annual reporting to Parliament, which will help to provide an incentive for the department to deliver on the main purpose of the Bill.

I wish the Bill all success. I trust that the Government will recognise that gender equality provision should include a clear public statement that gender equality is at the heart of everything we do. Such a public statement should be publicised immediately as part of DfID policy. Gender equality has no meaning unless it is systematically monitored. There should also be periodic assessments to ensure that any shortcoming is addressed.

In this way, we will ensure that the objectives of this excellent Bill are met. I hope that the Bill is the first of many initiatives from the Government to promote gender equality, and I look forward to the later stages of the Bill.