International Development White Paper

Matthew Offord Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady makes an extremely good point about the increase in humanitarian need—as she rightly, says, it has increased significantly—that I set out in my statement. That is why we have found £1,000 million to allocate in a budget for tackling humanitarian need next year. If she has a chance to look at the White Paper, she will see that it includes the resilience adaptation fund, which is designed to ensure that when crises take place, we can do things such as provide for greater irrigation, water retention and reservoir capacity in a drought, so that in the event that such crises take place again—which, alas, happens all too often—their impact is not as great as before.

The hon. Lady asks specifically about UNRWA. As we know, a very large number of UNRWA humanitarian workers have lost their lives, along with others, in the Gazan conflict. Any attack and any loss of life by a humanitarian worker is deeply to be regretted. Those are people who have put themselves in harm’s way for fellow members of humanity. They are unarmed and just trying to do good to their fellow citizens. On the humanitarian need overall, climate change has particularly exacerbated that, and it is of course the poorest who are hit first and hardest, as the White Paper emphasises.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

The lack of water, sanitation and hygiene facilities in developing countries particularly affects women, especially during childbirth, when they are routinely prescribed prophylactic antibiotics, and a greater number of women suffer from urinary tract infections when toilet facilities are absent. What discussions will the Minister have with partners at COP28 to further the WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—agenda?

[Mr Mitchell]

I anticipate, along with my colleagues, having many such discussions, and not only at COP but in other fora. My hon. Friend is entirely right that the absence of water and hygiene facilities hits girls in particular and stops many from going to school. He will know that Education Cannot Wait—an international fund strongly supported by the British taxpayer, to which we allocated £80 million earlier this year—is able directly to help people caught up in conflict in that way. We want them to go to school and they often cannot do so, for the reasons he has given, and Education Cannot Wait tries to alleviate that directly.