Oral Answers to Questions
Naomi Long Excerpts(9 years, 4 months ago)
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Seema Malhotra (Feltham and Heston) (Lab/Co-op)
6. What recent progress has been made on negotiations to agree the sustainable development goals.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
8. What steps she is taking to ensure that the UK plays a leading role in preparations to set new UN development goals in September 2015.
The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)
The UK plays a leading role internationally at the EU and UN and bilaterally to push for an ambitious and implementable post-2015 framework. As the hon. Member for Feltham and Heston (Seema Malhotra) will know, the first session of intergovernmental negotiations on the SDGs has concluded, and the open working group proposal includes 17 goals and 169 targets. We support the breadth and balance of the proposal but will be arguing for a much more concise and workable agenda as negotiations progress.
Justine Greening
Absolutely—yes. The Government play a leading role in raising the issue of violence against women and girls, and I pay tribute to the amazing work done by the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague). I can assure her that we will continue to play that role.
Naomi Long
The Secretary of State has already indicated the complexity of the goals under discussion. What steps are being taken to ensure effective integration of the different goals, particularly the proposed target on under-fives mortality and those on water, sanitation and hygiene, given that most diarrhoeal diseases result from a lack of investment in that sector?
Justine Greening
I very much agree with the hon. Lady. The key to success in getting a sensible outcome for a new post-2015 framework is to ensure that it is not a shopping list, but that it actually works as an overall strategy to bring change on the ground and lift people out of poverty over the next 15 years.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill
Naomi Long Excerpts(9 years, 7 months ago)
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Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
I am pleased to be here to support the Bill on Third Reading. I pay tribute to the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) for bringing this important Bill to the House. It will have a huge impact in the developing world by saving lives, supporting families and encouraging increasing independence. By demonstrating that we are making a commitment on which we will follow through, we will provide certainty about development aid, which will allow those who are involved in the expenditure of that aid to make long-term and properly structured plans that will make a difference in the societies that need them. In such a way, we will take an important step away from providing aid only in disasters and emergency situations, and towards delivering aid in a more strategic way that can make a tangible difference to people’s lives.
The Bill will have an important impact on our influence internationally. It will allow us to tackle issues related to aid, including fairness in society, corruption, support for stability in developing nations and progress for extremely vulnerable people who are not only on the margins of society, but on the margins of marginalised society. The Bill gives us an important opportunity to reinforce our support for those people.
The Bill will have an influence internationally by encouraging others to move in the same direction as we in this country and this Parliament have done. Other hon. Members have pooh-poohed the idea that anyone looks to this Parliament for leadership internationally on such issues, but they are wrong to do so. There is considerable evidence that where the UK takes a stand and does something important and significant, other countries follow. As an example, when the water, sanitation and hygiene measures were discussed at high-level meetings, the UK Government’s decision to send ministerial representation completely changed other nations’ decisions about who they would send to those meetings. That resulted in the taking of proper decisions rather than simply more talk on that key issue.
Northern Ireland still has one of the highest levels of charitable giving of any part of the UK, and in my constituency there is considerable support for the measure. We have heard other Members’ views about the lack of public support for any increase in international aid, based on polling. However, many things based on polling are predicated on myths peddled by those who are in principle opposed to the matter in hand, whether that be immigration or, as in this case, international aid.
Mark Hunter
claimed to move the closure (Standing Order No. 36).
Question put forthwith, That the Question be now put.
International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill
Naomi Long Excerpts(9 years, 9 months ago)
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Michael Moore
I acknowledge the important role played by the right hon. Gentleman as one of the original Ministers in DFID, and in piloting his own legislation through the House—I will refer to that briefly later in my remarks. I agree that this is a hugely important agenda, not just for now but for what it means for the future of people across the world.
In the United Kingdom, DFID continues to do hugely important work. Its 2013-14 report highlights that, over time, the Department has provided 43 million people with access to clean water, better sanitation or improved hygiene conditions. It has supported 10 million people—nearly 5 million of them girls—to go to primary and secondary school, and 3.6 million births have taken place safely that otherwise might not have done so. It has prevented 19 million children under five and pregnant women from going hungry, and reached 11 million people with emergency food assistance. A long, and I would argue impressive, list of work has been done by DFID in our name, and it is right that we should do that.
For reasons that have been advanced already from both sides of the House, this is not simply about our moral imperative and the importance of delivering for the poorest and most disadvantaged in the world; it is also about our interests in the UK. That is true in terms of jobs, as the hon. Member for South Derbyshire (Heather Wheeler) made clear, but also more generally. The problems of other parts of the world do not stay local for long, and, as we know, issues such as migration, conflicts that draw us in, or whatever it might be, affect us daily. I therefore argue that this is no awkward choice between what is morally right and what is in our self-interest; this is in our interests and it is the right thing to do.
The challenges that I have touched on are not new. We have seen over many decades constant campaigning to tackle the fate and plight of those who are most disadvantaged. Much important work has been done by faith groups: the World Council of Churches stimulated the debate in the 1950s, and other faiths have been very much part of it too.
In 1970, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution that included this goal:
“Each economically advanced country will progressively increase its official development assistance to the developing countries and will exert its best efforts to reach a minimum net amount of 0.7 per cent of its gross national product at market prices by the middle of the Decade.”
That commitment was supported by the Labour Government in 1974 and by successive Governments. In 1997, we saw the creation of the Department for International Development, and the International Development Act 2002 enabled the Secretary of State to provide assistance to countries, territories and organisations if he or she was satisfied that such assistance would be likely to contribute to a reduction in poverty. The International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act 2006, authored by the right hon. Member for Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill (Mr Clarke), placed a requirement on the Secretary of State to report detailed information to Parliament.
The financial commitment more recently has also been critical. It began with a Labour Government. In 2004, a spending review pledge was made to reach the 0.7% target by 2013, and that was reaffirmed in the last Government’s 2009 White Paper. That commitment has gone on: in 2009, we spent £7.2 billion, or 0.5% of gross national income, on development assistance, and in 2013, historically, the coalition Government, supported by the Opposition, reached the target, spending £11.4 billion, or 0.72% of GNI, on development assistance. The 2013 spending review has committed us to that spending going forward:
“The Government remains committed to supporting those people across the world whose economies are most in need of development. This is in the UK’s national interest. Tackling global issues such as economic development, effective governance, climate change, conflict and fragile states provides good value for money.”
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
I thank the right hon. Gentleman for bringing the Bill before the House, and I support what he is trying to do. Does he agree that this is partly about Parliament showing global leadership to other countries, which must also live up to their international commitments, and that by putting this in legislation we are encouraging those who have made similar commitments and not lived up to them to do so?
Michael Moore
I thank the hon. Lady for being here to support my Bill and I welcome her observations. Yes, I absolutely endorse her point. I will be coming to it shortly myself.
We have made a lot of progress in recent times, and the UK can be proud of its leadership in that respect. However, challenges still remain. The millennium development goals, which started 14 years ago, are due for review next year. We have seen targets for reducing extreme poverty by half, achieving universal primary education and improving maternal health, but we have made patchy progress. Poverty in sub-Saharan Africa remains dire. More positively, we have made good progress on access to universal primary education, but there remains work to do.
During the financial downturn, across the world the level of official development assistance declined. In 2005, the UN highlighted that higher ODA spending was required and that the UN target had to be kept in place so that we could meet the millennium development goals. We remain short of achieving those goals, as we approach their temporary end point—the job is not done—and it is important that we commit to continuing our support. We should not give up now, having reached the target. As the hon. Member for Belfast East (Naomi Long) said, maintaining our commitment will enable the UK to show leadership across the world. More practically, it will also enable our partners in the developing world to plan for the future, conscious that the money will be there year after year. It will also allow us to switch the focus from arguing about how much we should be spending to how we should spend it and ensuring it is spent properly.
My introducing the Bill today reflects the cross-party consensus. As the Liberal Democrat shadow spokesman on international development for three years before the 2010 election, I was part of this debate ahead of the election. All the party manifestos included the commitment. The Labour manifesto read:
“We remain committed to spending 0.7 per cent of national income on aid from 2013, and we will enshrine this commitment in law early in the next Parliament.”
The Liberal Democrat manifesto read:
“Liberal Democrats will increase the UK’s aid budget to reach the UN target of 0.7 per cent of GNI by 2013 and enshrine that target in law.”
The Conservative manifesto read:
“A new Conservative government will be fully committed to achieving, by 2013, the UN target of spending 0.7 per cent of national income as aid. We will stick to the rules laid down by the OECD about what spending counts as aid. We will legislate in the first session of a new Parliament to lock in this level of spending for every year from 2013.”
The Scottish National party and others included similar commitments in their manifestos, and in the coalition agreement in 2010 we said:
“We will honour our commitment to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas aid from 2013, and to enshrine this commitment in law.”
The Bill would ensure we do that. Clause 1 would place a duty on the Secretary of State to meet the UN’s 0.7% target on an ongoing basis; clause 2 talks about the duty to lay a statement before Parliament if the target is not met; clause 3 deals with accountability to this place; clause 4 would repeal section 3 of the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act, as the 0.7% target will now have been reached; and clause 5 would set up an independent international development office, which fits with the long title of the Bill:
“to make provision for independent verification that ODA is spent efficiently and effectively”.
It is important that we match the statutory target with some form of statutory oversight. Large sums of public money are being spent, as many have already highlighted, and of course there are well documented examples of abuse, corruption and other issues we have to deal with. It is vital that the public have confidence that we are spending this money wisely and reaching the objectives set.
I have put in the Bill a proposal that builds on previous draft Bills and efforts in this House, but I believe that the principle, rather than the specific measures, is the critical issue. I welcome the constructive engagement of Ministers, and I acknowledge their concerns, but should we secure a Second Reading today, I hope we can revisit the matter in Committee.
Before concluding, I will turn briefly to Scotland, which my hon. Friend the Member for Aldershot (Sir Gerald Howarth) mentioned. We are in the midst of an almighty debate about our future. As a result, many Scottish colleagues are understandably absent today, and those here, on both sides of the argument, will, like me, be heading home immediately after this debate. I am particularly grateful to those who have taken the trouble to be here today. I say to my friends all across Scotland that development is a small but really important part of the debate. Reaching the UN’s target was an achievement of the United Kingdom as a whole, with Scotland an important part of it. As part of the UK, Scotland belongs to a family of nations that are the world’s second-largest donors of international aid.
We are not passive in this process either: 40% of DFID staff are based in Abercrombie House in East Kilbride, which I had the privilege to visit twice with the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), when he was Secretary of State. Together with the rest of the United Kingdom, our money goes further and our impact is stronger. Scots who want their country to be a force for compassion and relief should reflect on what we have today and recognise that we can do more as part of the United Kingdom. Why would we walk away from all of that?
Mr Brown
The hon. Gentleman makes the argument for a long-term commitment to aid—for building up the capacity of health care systems in those countries; for encouraging them to invest for the long term; and for paying the doctors sufficient salaries in those countries so that they stay in them. Does he not also make a point that Government Members who oppose what we are doing should listen to—that if we can be a catalyst for other countries, if we can make a long-term commitment to aid and if we can honour our promises, we have a chance, as a large country, of influencing the rest of the international community?
Naomi Long
Does the Minister agree that the argument that the investment of international development money somehow creates a dependency culture is seriously flawed, given that it is being invested to make communities more sustainable and to make people better able to trade their way out of their difficulties, rather than being dependent on aid for the rest of their lives?
Mr Swayne
I absolutely agree with the hon. Lady. That is the nub of the argument. As the Select Committee in the other place pointed out, international development aid can be misspent, and it can have a perverse effect when that happens. However, this has been one of the most transparent Governments, and we have set up the independent commission to ensure that what we spend is well spent.
I shall digress briefly. There is a minor issue on which I take a different view from that of my right hon. Friend the Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore), the promoter of the Bill. I am confident that the procedures and institutions that we have put in place to hold the Government to account on their commitment—the Select Committee, the independent commission, questions in this House—are adequate. That, however, is a matter that we can return to in Committee, and I was glad that he acknowledged that fact.
Oral Answers to Questions
Naomi Long Excerpts(10 years, 2 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
I join my hon. Friend in what he says. We have seen 185,000 apprenticeship starts in the west midlands under this Government. We now have 1.6 million nationwide, so we are on target for 2 million during this Parliament. I want to ensure that we continue to grow apprenticeships and see an increase in the quality of apprenticeships. Crucially, we want to see better information for young people in school when they are deciding the pathway they want to take, whether it is an academic pathway through university or looking at apprenticeships. We will be doing more on that front.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
Q9. Despite all the progress achieved in Northern Ireland, a recent poll found that 67% of 15 to 24-year-olds think their future lies outside Northern Ireland, with 70% citing their view that local politicians were not capable of agreeing a shared vision for the future as a factor in that. Does the Prime Minister agree that that should act as a wake-up call to those who continue to indulge in the politics of division and fear to start showing real leadership to inspire young people and give them hope for a shared and better future in Northern Ireland?
The Prime Minister
I pay tribute to the hon. Lady for the work that she does on this front. Anyone who believes that change is not possible or that politicians cannot rise to a challenge in Northern Ireland will have been struck—as I was—by seeing Martin McGuinness around the table at Windsor castle, toasting the Queen at the banquet celebrating British-Irish relations. People have come a huge way and we need to continue that vital work, including the work to fight racism and sectarianism wherever it arises. Above all, what we need is politicians in Northern Ireland to build a shared future, to take down the peace walls, and to make sure that the economy can grow and opportunities are there for everyone in Northern Ireland.
World Water Day
Naomi Long Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
I am grateful for the opportunity to be able to raise the important issue of access to clean water, sanitation and hygiene.
Members will be aware of my long-standing interest in the issue both through my involvement in international development and my professional background. For 10 years before entering full-time politics, I practised as a civil engineer and spent the last five years of my engineering career working in sewerage rehabilitation and design. Others have said that that was good preparation for politics, but I could not possibly comment.
Through my work, I became increasingly aware and supportive of the work being done by WaterAid and other non-governmental organisations and charities to address the deficit of clean water and sanitation infrastructure in many developing nations. I believe it is vital to keep international development needs, especially those as basic and essential as water and sanitation, on the political agenda. Given that 2.6 billion people have no access to adequate and hygienic sanitation methods, the subject of the debate is inevitably and unavoidably broad, but the issue also impacts widely across a range of development objectives. That breadth of impact has contributed to the continuing and increasing political attention that matters related to water and sanitation have been receiving, as there is growing recognition that investment in water and sanitation can have a transformational effect on the lives of people in ways that were previously overlooked.
The timing of the debate is apposite for several reasons: first, world water day is on Saturday 22 March; secondly, we are at a defining moment with respect to the post-2015 development agenda; and, thirdly, the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting will take place in April. I will touch on each of those reasons in my speech, but I want to begin by noting the significance of water and sanitation in the context of last Saturday’s international women’s day.
Of the 2.6 billion people without access to adequate and hygienic sanitation methods, 526 million are girls and women. The impact on their lives, however, is disproportionate. These are girls and women without access to any form of sanitation, meaning that they are forced to defecate in the open, or in bushes or ditches, and they are forced to cope with menstruation in the absence of any real privacy, which adds further indignity to their ordeal. This forces women to make difficult choices: to wait until dark to use a public toilet, where one is available; to defecate in the open; or instead to defecate in their own homes. The World Health Organisation has calculated that women and girls in developing countries spend 98 billion hours each year searching for a place to go to the toilet, more than twice the total hours worked every year by the entire UK labour force.
Women who lack safe access to sanitation, or have no access at all, may end up waiting until it is dark to go to the toilet, have to walk long distances to find an isolated spot in the open, or use often poor public amenities. There are many reported incidents of men hiding in public latrines at night, waiting to rob or assault those who enter. Women and girls defecating in the open are also more at risk of rape and sexual assault.
A WaterAid poll of women in the slums of Lagos in Nigeria, where 40% of women are forced to go to the toilet outside, found that one quarter have had first-hand or second-hand experience of harassment, a threat of violence or actual assault in the past 12 months alone. Furthermore, 67% of women interviewed in Lagos said that they felt unsafe using shared or community toilets in public places.
The second choice is to defecate at home, which carries with it enormous social stigma and can result in isolation. In addition to the stigma, resorting to so-called “flying toilets”—plastic bags or buckets used at home—has detrimental consequences for the health of the family. The links between poor sanitation, water, and illness are well established, with an increased risk of diarrhoea, as well as infections such as trachoma, which can lead to blindness.
Jim Shannon (Strangford) (DUP)
Some 768 million people have poor water quality, more than 2.5 billion people have poor sanitation and 1.8 million people die from diarrhoea as a direct result of that, so does the hon. Lady feel that the Minister should be saying in his response that international water aid should be a priority?
Naomi Long
I agree with what the hon. Gentleman says, and he is right about the importance of water and sanitation. The biggest single health improvement in the UK came as a direct result of the introduction of sanitation and sewerage systems; in this city alone that one measure added 15 years to average life expectancy.
As a result of trying to limit going to the bathroom for long periods of time and drinking less water over the course of the day, women are also more susceptible to urinary tract infections and dehydration, adversely affecting their health. As women are generally responsible for the disposal of human waste when provision is inadequate, they are also exposed more frequently to diseases such as dysentery and cholera. It has been calculated that every day 2,000 mothers lose a child due to illnesses caused by poor sanitation and dirty water. Half the hospital beds in developing countries are filled by people suffering from diseases caused purely by poor water, sanitation and hygiene. Such statistics are staggering, unimaginable and, in this day and age, unjustifiable. These women and girls are suffering from shame, indignity and disease in their everyday lives as a result of something as routine and necessary as carrying out basic bodily functions.
Lack of access to private sanitation facilities also prevents many young girls from continuing in school beyond puberty, limiting their ability to become financially independent and to contribute fully to their community, and denying them the right to a proper education. History shows that the health, welfare and productivity of developing country populations are closely linked with improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene. Few interventions have a greater impact on the lives of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people, particularly women and girls, than reducing the time spent collecting clean water, dealing with sanitation and addressing the health problems caused by poor sanitation and hygiene. Although vaccines offer some hope of improvement on the health front, their efficacy is significantly improved where programmes are undertaken in conjunction with improvements in water, sanitation and hygiene. Neither can vaccines alone free women and girls from the time and physical burden of collecting water or from the safety risks posed by lack of sanitation.
I wish briefly to discuss an opportunity the Government have to make such an intervention: the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting taking place in Washington on 11 April. The Sanitation and Water for All partnership, of which the UK Government are a founding member, aims to bring about a step change in the performance of the WASH—water, sanitation and hygiene—sector, acting as a catalyst to overcome key barriers and accelerate progress towards universal and sustainable access. It is a global partnership of Governments, donors, civil society and other development partners working together to co-ordinate high-level action, improve accountability and use scarce resources more effectively. The biennial high-level meeting presents a unique opportunity to increase political prioritisation, and to strengthen accountability and the commitment to strengthen the sector’s performance. I want to take this opportunity to press for the Secretary of State for International Development to represent the UK at this important meeting.
Lady Hermon (North Down) (Ind)
I am most grateful to the hon. Lady for allowing me to intervene in this important Adjournment debate, which she has successfully secured. In the recent past, have senior British Government Ministers attended similar meetings to the one she has encouraged the Secretary of State to attend this year? If they have attended such meetings, is there evidence to suggest that this has been useful, influential and for the good? Hon. Members in this evening’s debate would be interested to know that.
Naomi Long
I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. The previous high-level meeting in 2012 was attended by the then International Development Secretary, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), and it would be greatly encouraging to see the same level of representation in April, signalling continued UK Government leadership on this issue. On that occasion, such senior Government representation was instrumental in other countries also sending senior Ministers, and that permitted real progress to be made. I also know that the Secretary of State and her team in the Department for International Development are strong advocates of this issue and of the rights of women as part of the development agenda. It would be hugely encouraging if she were able to attend.
This year, the UK Government are particularly well placed to drive improvements in the effectiveness of aid to the sector, as the Secretary of State for International Development is also co-chair of the Global Partnership for Effective Development Co-operation. The first GPEDC ministerial meeting coincides with the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting, which provides a valuable opportunity for the UK Government to link the two initiatives and highlights the importance of effective development co-operation in the WASH sector.
I want to turn now to the issue of the post-2015 international development framework. The vision set out in 2000 as part of the millennium development goals included halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and sanitation. The millennium development goal on sanitation is the worst performing sector of all the MDGs, and is unlikely, at current rates of progress, to be met until the next century.
The best estimates show that at least 783 million people still lack clean water, although the true number may be far higher. Taking population growth into account and despite all the good work that has been done, there are almost as many people without access to sanitation worldwide as there were 20 years ago.
We are now faced with an opportunity to address the limited progress that has been made on water, sanitation and hygiene issues through the post 2015 millennium development goals, and I am hopeful that the Government will treat this opportunity with the significance that it deserves.
A key strength of the millennium development goals framework has been the provision of a tenable agenda that has established standards for international development co-operation. The post-2015 framework must continue those positive aspects of the MDGs while addressing their failures. We need to see an ambitious vision for international development once the MDG project comes to an end, which reflects the importance of water, sanitation and hygiene to the attainment of poverty eradication, increased equality, and sustainable human and economic development. For every pound invested in WASH there is an outturn of around £8 in increased productivity, so that is a wise investment of a resource from our limited aid budget.
The UK Government have a strong history of championing the aid effectiveness agenda, and we need to ensure that that is carried forward in the context of the water, sanitation and hygiene sector. Strong political leadership and increased sector investment are fundamental to accelerating progress towards universal access, but another important factor is the degree to which countries have developed the institutions and systems to organise and oversee the delivery of services. Increasing the effectiveness of aid is key to extending and sustaining services, particularly to poorer communities, and will be vital in achieving universal access.
Finally, I want to pay tribute to the important work that is being done on WASH both inside Parliament and in a wider context. I am greatly pleased that the International Development (Gender Equality) Bill will soon receive Royal Assent. I commend the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) for his efforts in bringing forward this important piece of legislation, and also the Secretary of State for International Development and her team for their support of the Bill. The Bill, which will place a duty on the Government to consider ways in which development and humanitarian funding will build gender equality in the countries receiving UK aid, is a massively significant and symbolic step in the fight for gender equality around the world, and I hope that it is one that other countries will choose to follow.
Let me mention the important and often life-saving work undertaken by charities such as WaterAid, Tearfund, Trocaire, Christian Aid and Oxfam. I was delighted to see that Team GB and NI rowers from Northern Ireland, Richard and Peter Chambers, recently visited Uganda with Tearfund to raise awareness of lack of access to water, sanitation and hygiene. Those elite athletes found that the 3 km trek up a mountain, two hours each time, twice a day, was just as gruelling a task as rowing for gold, yet it is one that women and girls in many countries have to do each day before their real work begins.
In conclusion, I want to make four simple appeals this evening. First, I appeal again to the Secretary of State for International Development to attend the Sanitation and Water for All high-level meeting next month, as her attendance would be invaluable. Secondly, I encourage Government to do all in their power to ensure that the post-2015 goal framework includes a goal on universal access to basic water and sanitation services, including a specific target date of 2030. Thirdly, I ask the Government to ensure that water, sanitation and hygiene targets and indicators focus explicitly on reducing inequalities by targeting poor and disadvantaged people as a priority, recognising the disproportionate impact on women and girls and improving the sustainability of services to secure lasting benefits.
Fourthly, and finally, I ask all of us to pause for a moment on world water day, consider how different our lives would be without adequate access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities and imagine how infinitely improved the lives of those in developing nations would be if we committed to playing our part in delivering the necessary infrastructure to make change for them a reality.
Security of Women in Afghanistan
Naomi Long Excerpts(10 years, 3 months ago)
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Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
It is an honour to follow the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), who was a hugely impressive Minister during his time in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. He set out clearly the Government’s policy on and support for freedom and justice internationally. It is a genuine pleasure to follow his important comments.
This is an important debate, not only as a precursor to international women’s day, but because it is happening on world book day, given the importance we place on access to information and education in transforming society and improving conditions for women abroad.
I do not want to repeat too much of what has been said but, as we are aware, the Afghan constitution affords equal protection to men and women. However, there has been growing controversy recently about the role of Afghan women in society. At 28% of members, the representation of women in the Afghan Parliament exceeds the level in this House. Although Afghanistan has quotas and we do not, we take proactive action to encourage young women to get involved in Parliament, and young women from our constituencies are visiting Parliament today and we hope that that will encourage them to take this Parliament seriously.
Many women who have stepped forward into politics in Afghanistan find themselves at the forefront of abuse and attacks, and although there has been progress, it is important to maintain it. According to the Afghan independent human rights commission, attacks on women and human rights defenders are increasing and include attacks on parliamentarians, the murder of female police officers, the targeting of critics of the Taliban, and the targeting of their families. Their male relatives—their sons, their fathers and their brothers—are often targeted as a way of silencing women who want to stand up and have a voice.
The right hon. Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) was correct when he said that if we want to transform society in Afghanistan the issue is not just about speaking to women there. Unless women have the support and encouragement of the men around them and wider society, it will be incredibly difficult for them to continue the change that is happening.
Honour killings and punishments for breaking traditional Taliban rules of society are still widespread. According to the United Nations, 87.2% of Afghan women and girls have experienced some form of violence or abuse. The UN described that as a pandemic and it is increasingly disturbing when we consider that many women will be totally opposed to reporting abuse, even if it puts their life in danger, because of fear of the consequences of speaking out about their situation.
There has been progress, and hon. Members have referred to the passage of the law on the elimination of violence against women in 2009, which, for the first time, made rape a crime, and outlawed forced marriage, as well as physical and verbal abuse. However, that must be set against the recent row-back to which the hon. Member for North West Durham (Pat Glass) referred. Only a few weeks ago, President Karzai had to make last-minute blocks to legislation that would have stopped relatives testifying against one another and would have prevented almost all prosecutions for domestic violence and rape. In the last year alone, Parliament has blocked a law to curb violence against women, and cut the quota for women on provincial councils. The justice Ministry has floated a proposal to bring back stoning as a punishment for adultery.
There has been progress, but it would be wrong for us to be complacent about the amount of work that still needs to be done to change attitudes and to secure women’s position. That comes against the backdrop of the political situation, which is extremely vulnerable. The elections to choose the successor to President Hamid Karzai and the fear that many candidates have links to the Taliban or at least share their ultra-conservative views on societal norms in Afghanistan is a threat to women’s progress.
The right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire paid tribute to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and to the Department for International Development for their work. I add my support and thanks for their work when I have corresponded with them on these issues over the years. They have recognised the importance of women in post-conflict peace building. Societies in which women are safe, empowered to exercise their rights and can move their communities forward are more prosperous and stable as a result. Sustainable security cannot be achieved in Afghanistan or elsewhere unless we ensure the full participation of women at all levels of society, including in building that peace.
A country where women cannot realise their full rights and experience violence and attacks, both domestically and in the public sphere, almost with impunity, is not a peaceful or secure country; nor can the careful and delicate work that will be required to deal with the legacy of conflict be successful unless women are actively involved. The UK Government have a responsibility under UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security to ensure that women’s participation in all peace and security-related processes is not only assured but is seen as vital to the success of those processes.
I am always reluctant to cite Northern Ireland experience, particularly in a context such as this where the differences are immense and clearly seen. Although our situation is not comparable, some lessons can be learned. We are aware as a society of the important role played by women during the conflict and the post-conflict period. It is important to learn those lessons. Only this week, the deputy director of Relatives For Justice in Northern Ireland, Andrée Murphy, in a blog on a site called Vixens with Convictions, talked about the need for a gendered approach to peace building in Northern Ireland.
The experience of women in conflict is often distinctly different from that of their male counterparts. Many women find that their views have not been mainstreamed within the peace process and face challenges in post-conflict society when politics moves on and often leaves them behind. Many are affected by the lack of access to justice and many are dealing with the financial consequences of having lost the main breadwinner in their families. Lessons can be learned about how to go forward because without women’s participation in the Afghanistan process, we will face significant challenges in creating stability.
When western troops withdraw, taking with them money and attention, we must think of the public back home. It is hugely important that we as a Parliament do not lose our attention and focus, so I am encouraged that DFID has continued to see this as an important part of its work among some of the poorest people in the world.
Human Rights Watch’s 2013 annual report said:
“With international interest in Afghanistan rapidly waning, opponents of women’s rights seized the opportunity to begin rolling back the progress made since the end of Taliban rule.”
We cannot allow that important progress to be eroded or diminished. Too much has been lost for that to be the case. The UK Government have been hugely supportive of the democratic process in Afghanistan and have given financial support to initiatives aimed at increasing female participation in politics there. We must work with the international community to ensure that there is a specific country plan to allow that work to be taken forward and to allow those brave women who step forward in Afghanistan to be assured of our full support.
Oral Answers to Questions
Naomi Long Excerpts(11 years, 3 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
My responsibility is to respond properly to the Francis report, and I commend Francis for what he did. It is important to remember that it is this Government who set up a proper, independent inquiry into the disgraces that happened at Mid Staffs. Everyone has to learn their lessons from what went wrong, including Ministers in the previous Government, but I think we should listen to Francis when he says that we should not seek scapegoats. What we need to do, right across politics, the House and our country, is end any culture of complacency. I love our NHS; there are some fantastic parts to our NHS, but in too many parts we do see—as my hon. Friend said—very bad figures and we need to deal with them.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
Q7. In a few weeks we will be 15 years on since the signing of the Good Friday agreement, and although devolution is in place, significant challenges remain in delivering on the agreement’s full potential and the commitments contained within it to build reconciliation, unequivocal support for the rule of law, and to deal comprehensively with the past and its legacy. Does the Prime Minister agree that there must be renewed urgency in progressing those outstanding issues, and will he outline, in the light of this week’s positive engagement with the Irish Taoiseach, the rule he sees for both Governments as joint custodians of the agreement in moving that forward?
Oral Answers to Questions
Naomi Long Excerpts(11 years, 6 months ago)
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Justine Greening
I do. The work that the Westminster Foundation for Democracy does is extremely valuable in helping to promote democratic governance around the world. I know that the WFD is also working to strengthen further the value for money it provides to the taxpayer, and to change and modernise, and I fully support that work.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
T4. Will the Minister outline what discussions her Department has had with the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills on ensuring that small businesses, including fair trade businesses from developing countries, are able to be supported?
Justine Greening
The hon. Lady is absolutely right to raise that issue. I am determined to ensure that we provide fair aid, but I think that fair trade is incredibly important, too. We are discussing with BIS how we can work more effectively with that Department in developing our trade links, and I think that fair trade is an excellent way in which we can see the shift from aid to trade take place.
The Prime Minister
I am very happy to meet my hon. Friend. I know that he stands up very strongly for Plymouth and for Plymouth’s economy. He rightly says that we made the decision right at the start of this Government to freeze the science budget rather than cut it, as so many other budgets were cut, and I am sure that that was the right answer. Since then, we have added money back into the science budget. On broadband, I will look carefully at what he says about city broadband. I am sure that he will be glad to know that Devon and Somerset have been allocated over £33 million to deliver superfast broadband. We are working very hard to make sure that all the plans are on track to deliver the superfast broadband that is important for cities but very important for rural areas as well.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
The Prime Minister and Members of this House will be fully aware of the very serious threat posed to democracy by dissident republicans in Northern Ireland. However, the police have stated that there is evidence of loyalist paramilitary involvement in some of the protests and violence in Northern Ireland this week, which included the sickening attempted murder of police officers who were protecting my constituency office. Will he take this opportunity to condemn this reprehensible assault on democracy from those who style themselves as loyal? Will he agree to meet me and my colleague David Ford, the Justice Minister for Northern Ireland, to discuss the very grave security situation that is developing?
Access to Sanitation
Naomi Long Excerpts(11 years, 7 months ago)
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Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
Each year, 19 November marks world toilet day. While that might, at first hearing, sound rather comical, the issue it seeks to highlight is extremely serious—that of the continued lack of access to basic sanitation for about one third of the world’s population—and it was to mark that event and highlight again this important issue in Parliament that I sought this debate.
I acknowledge the work that the Government have been doing as part of the UK’s overall international development agenda, and I will refer to that further later, but water and sanitation still suffers from a lack of overall priority in political and investment terms, both nationally and internationally, compared with other aid portfolios, such as health and education, despite the fact that it impacts heavily on the achievement of other development objectives. The former Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan, has noted that
“no other issue suffers such disparity between its human importance and its political priority.”
Clearly, without access to water, sanitation and hygiene, the progress that can be achieved in other areas is significantly constrained. The importance of access to clean water and sanitation cannot be understated. In the UK, the biggest step change in public health and mortality rates came as a result not of medical advances but of widened access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation. During the late 19th century, as both water and sewerage infrastructure expanded dramatically, the life expectancy of an average member of the population in this country rose by 15 years—a remarkable increase delivered over a relatively short period. Indeed, the British Medical Association has recognised the commissioning of the sewerage system in London as the most important breakthrough in public health—of more significance even than the discovery of penicillin or the development of vaccines.
As a direct result of poor or non-existent sanitation infrastructure, people—the majority of them children—are dying of diseases that, with the provision of potable water and sustainable sanitation, are preventable. In fact, they could be almost entirely eliminated. By way of illustration, I point to the fact that the biggest killer of children under five in sub-Saharan Africa, and the second-biggest killer globally, are diarrhoeal diseases, the vast majority of which are entirely preventable conditions caused by inadequate sanitation and hygiene. More children under five die annually as a result of these diseases than from HIV/AIDS, malaria and measles combined. Indeed, the disease burden of malaria itself is also impacted on by the availability of open drainage channels and sewers, providing environments conducive to the breeding of mosquitoes that spread the disease.
Every day 2,000 mothers lose a child due to an illness caused solely by poor sanitation and dirty water. Even vaccines that hold out the hope of progress are less effective in the absence of water, sanitation and hygiene—WASH. But the impact of inadequate sanitation infrastructure is not limited to disease; it extends to the one in three women worldwide who risk shame, harassment and even physical attack simply seeking somewhere to defecate. This debate is timely, then, not only in the context of world toilet day but because yesterday marked the international day for the elimination of violence against women.
I want to draw on the everyday ordeal that the lack of access to sanitation is for people, especially women, who are the most acutely affected. Globally, 2.6 billion people lack access to basic sanitation, 1.25 billion of them women—one in three women in the world lack access to safe sanitation. Put simply, privacy, modesty, cleanliness and safety are almost impossible for those who have no access to sanitation facilities. Their experience often involves trading those factors against each other simply to survive. The reality is often shame, indignity, disease and even violence.
Some 526 million girls and women are without access to any form of sanitation. They are forced to defecate in bushes or ditches, or even in the open, their choice being between doing so in broad daylight, compromising their modesty and risking shame, or waiting until dark to cling to their dignity but risk their personal safety. A 2005 UN development programme report confirmed that the need to travel further from home to secure the family’s water can expose women and girls to sexual harassment and rape, which can also happen when women who lack safe nearby sanitation move about at night in search of privacy. It is estimated that women and girls in developing countries spend 97 billion hours each year searching for a place to go to the toilet—more than double the total hours worked every year by the entire UK labour force. An 18-year-old mother from Mozambique has described her arduous journey each day to defecate in the bush. Her ordeal involves crossing a dangerous bridge that has claimed the lives of many people who have fallen through it. Sometimes she feels so ashamed that she returns home without being able to reach the point she needs to reach, or she waits until dark to go, so that no one will see her. However, at night the journey is even more dangerous. A woman and a boy have been stabbed to death on that bridge, and one woman she knows of has been raped on the journey.
Even where public latrines are available, provision is rarely adequate. In the Kifumbira slum in Kampala, there are only four toilets for every 2,000 people, these consisting merely of holes into a cesspit, covered in faeces and maggots. Women worldwide have reported incidents of men hiding in public latrines at night, waiting to rob or assault those who enter them. In two slum districts in India, women reported incidents of girls under 10 being raped while on their way to use public toilets. In work carried out by WaterAid in Bhopal in India, 94% of the women interviewed said they had faced violence or harassment when going in search of a toilet, and more than a third had been physically assaulted. Amnesty International has also reported that women and girls in the slums of Nairobi were staying away from communal toilet facilities at night because of their fear of physical violence and rape. A WaterAid poll of women in Lagos in Nigeria revealed that 67% of women interviewed said they did not feel safe using a shared or community toilet in a public place.
The only alternative for those women—if it could be called that—is to defecate at home. However, that too carries huge health risks and social consequences. One woman living in Kampala in Uganda has said that
“when someone knows you defecate in your house, your household is hated and people”
will not visit. In addition to the stigma attached to this choice, resorting to so-called “flying toilets”—plastic bags or buckets used at home—carries significant health risks, not only for the woman but for her family, as storing and disposing of waste and maintaining even basic hygiene is almost impossible. Women are more susceptible to urinary tract infections and dehydration by trying to limit going to the bathroom for long periods and drinking less water over the course of the day, and as a result are more likely to become seriously ill.
Further, as women are generally responsible for the disposal of human waste when provision is inadequate and for caring for others in the family who are affected by communicable hygiene-related diseases, they are more exposed to diseases such as dysentery and cholera than their male counterparts. This caring role and enhanced risk of contracting disease significantly restricts the degree to which women can be economically active and financially independent, and provide for the most basic needs of their family. That compounds the effect that a lack of provision of proper and private sanitation facilities has on girls’ ability to access education, particularly as they reach puberty.
Having outlined the problem, I want to turn my attention in the time remaining to the progress being made towards achieving millennium development goal 7, target 10—halving the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation by 2015. Although we have met the target of halving the proportion of people without access to improved sources of water, the sanitation target is significantly off track. At the current rate of progress, it will be over 25 years before south Asia meets its sanitation MDG target and 70 years to achieve universal access. Even more starkly, it will be the 23rd century before sub-Saharan Africa meets its sanitation MDG target and 350 years before universal access is achieved. The failure to meet the water and sanitation target threatens the progress of many other millennium development goals and undermines wider development efforts. Without water and sanitation, nothing else really works.
I welcomed the UK Government’s commitment in April 2012 to double, to 60 million, the number of people whom they plan to reach with water, sanitation and hygiene promotion by 2015. I remain concerned, however, at the lack of clarity as to how the Government intend to ensure that that commitment will effectively target the areas and the people in the greatest need and as to how DFID will effect delivery on this scale through DFID’s current WASH budget.
Good governance and stewardship of international assistance by foreign Governments also remains a challenge to the effective implementation of the Government’s plans—a matter to which I am sensitive. For example, the freezing of international assistance to Uganda due to the risk of corruption will mean that people living in the slums of Kampala who have benefited from DFID projects will see no further improvement in their circumstances in the short term. Urgent consideration must therefore be given to how the most needy can be targeted on the ground, even in the most volatile and unstable regions, and to how this increased commitment can be accompanied by an increased number of advisers dedicated to WASH, in order to maximise the impact and value for money of WASH sector support. I believe that the UK should take the lead on this issue, encouraging multilateral partners—particularly the World Bank, the European Community and the African Development Bank—to increase investment and better to target WASH investments.
I believe that this is the time to give consideration to how the current trends will be addressed after the millennium development goals have expired in 2015. If present trends continue, 2.4 billion people will still lack access to safe sanitation facilities in 2015, so it is imperative to construct a post-2015 goal framework to include a commitment to universal access to basic water and sanitation services, including a specific target date of 2030. I also believe that post-2015 goals should better reflect the central importance of WASH to human health, education, welfare, economic productivity and gender equality, as well as reflecting the interdependence of those goals. Water, sanitation and hygiene targets and indicators must focus explicitly on reducing inequalities by targeting resources at poor and disadvantaged groups as a top priority.
The United Nations human development report estimates that for every £1 invested in this sector, £8 is returned in saved time, increased productivity and reduced health costs. It is therefore a wise investment as well as a necessary one, and its impact can be multiplied if the Government also collaborate with non-governmental organisations and charities, as well as with Governments, who can assist in providing education to local communities through church and community networks and supporting increased capacity among state and non-state players.
I therefore urge the Department for International Development to outline how it will achieve its commitment to improve WASH for 60 million people in its budget, how it will ensure that the neediest can be prioritised, even in volatile and difficult countries, and how it will take the lead in framing the goals for the post-2015 agenda and ensure that a goal for universal access to basic water and sanitation services remains a key priority.
Oral Answers to Questions
Naomi Long Excerpts(11 years, 8 months ago)
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Mr Duncan
Yes, I can give my hon. Friend the assurances he seeks. We work very closely with UNRWA, and I regularly meet Filippo Grande who runs it. I have visited the area with him on many occasions, and look forward to doing so again, while also expressing our support in terms of hard cash for the future.
Naomi Long (Belfast East) (Alliance)
The Minister will be aware that water security has huge implications for economic and social development in the region. What specific actions are the UK Government taking to ensure that water is no longer used as a weapon against some of the most vulnerable people in the region?
Mr Duncan
We are well aware of the access restrictions to safe drinking water in the west bank and Gaza. The UK Government regularly discuss these issues with Israel, and we continue to call for the full implementation of the relaxation of access restrictions for Gaza that Israel announced in June 2010.