Gender Equality

Lord Purvis of Tweed Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises an area of human courage that is almost impossible to imagine—people are defying the repulsive acts of this regime by providing education in sometimes very dangerous situations. We will look at anything that helps those groups of people. Of course, she understands the difficulties we face: we cannot take action other than multilaterally and through UN resolutions, but if we can find a way of supporting those groups, we certainly will.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, today is the International Day of Education and I agree with the Minister that education is critical to securing equality by the target date of 2030. Does he agree that it is concerning that access to education for girls, and for disabled children in particular, is getting worse? UNICEF has set an international benchmark for donor countries of 15% of their ODA being allocated to education. The UK had been at 5%; it has now fallen to 3%, putting us 22nd among donor countries. Will the Government look again at this to ensure that we are moving up to the benchmark rather than down from it?

[Lord Benyon (Con)]

Many of these areas will be taken into such programmes by our drive to achieve the 80% figure by 2030. A child whose mother can read is 50% more likely to live beyond the age of five —that is an extraordinary statistic—and girls living in conflict area states are almost 2.5 times more likely to be out of primary school and 90% more likely to miss secondary schooling, compared to those who live in more stable countries. We have to make sure that we are taking action now that means that future generations in these countries will have more of a chance. We know that that chance will be improved to a massive degree by education.