Sustainable Development Goals

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I am grateful for the opportunity to contribute to the debate.

Although there is cross-party agreement on much of the United Kingdom’s aid programme, it is perfectly proper for all of us to ask questions, raise concerns and demand evaluation, in order to ensure that the taxpayer’s money is spent transparently and wisely and we secure the best possible value for money in the outcomes that it produces. Those are genuine concerns that our constituents have raised with us. The more certain DFID can be that money is not going astray—and, moreover, can demonstrate to the British public that that is the case—the better.

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) on introducing his Bill, but it was chance that his name came up in the ballot and he chose that topic. It is a shame that it was left to chance, rather than being brought forward by the two Government parties, both of which had promised such a Bill in their manifestos.

Clearly, 2015 is a historic year for international development. It is a time when we will be talking about both the sustainable development goals and climate change, on two very important occasions in September and December of this year, and I want to see the UK really taking a lead, as we have done in the past. I certainly do not want us to be backtracking on anything to do with climate change, which I see as one of the most important issues. It is directly linked to international development. It is blatantly clear to us that while we have enjoyed economic development and have created many of the climate change issues, it is people in developing countries who are suffering the consequences;, and it will be they who suffer drought and flooding if the temperature rises and they who will have the least resilience. It is very important therefore that we help those countries to build the necessary resilience and that we recognise the importance of tackling climate change and raise it at every possible opportunity. We know perfectly well that our tackling it here is not enough; it needs to be done on an international scale.

It is important that we get value for money, so will the Secretary of State tell us exactly what she is going to do to tackle the issues raised in the National Audit Office report on the funding of the Private Infrastructure Development Group? The report said the Department

“lacks sufficiently robust information to demonstrate that investment in PIDG is the best option”,

and its financial control has been lacking. Likewise, please will she tell us what she is going to do about the concern that was raised about TradeMark Southern Africa—about petty cash and so forth—as that is important?

The Ebola crisis is ongoing, and it is too early for us to say what might not have been done as well as it could have been. I want to praise the efforts of all who have been involved and pay tribute to the sacrifice that many of them have made to help people, but concerns were raised in the evidence given to the Public Accounts Committee, and in what we saw on our TV screens, with Save the Children suggesting that perhaps there was not sufficient experience there. What can be done in future to identify people who would be able to help in such circumstances—people who would be able to go and help build the infrastructure, because it was a case of starting from zero? Can we make sure that if such people are identified they can be released to help, perhaps in the way that happens with reservist forces?

It also appears that not having direct flights has hindered some of the aid organisations and has increased costs. I would have thought it would be easier to identify planes coming in from Sierra Leone, for example, than having people change planes somewhere else and making it less easy to identify who is coming back from Sierra Leone.

The issue of human rights is fundamental to the SDGs. I congratulate the hon. Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on his International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014, but we know that rights and empowerment are often hard-won and easily eroded, so we can never be complacent. While there have been strides forward in getting more girls into school and raising the issue of violence against girls and women, there are still huge challenges.

Likewise, we need to do more to safeguard the rights of people in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender communities and of people who have disabilities. It is also important that we should promote the right to join a trade union, just as we talk about self-sufficiency and sustainability in terms of economic development and good governance. With these rights too, empowerment and training are vital, and it is regrettable that the Government have withdrawn funding for the International Labour Organisation, which I would like restored as soon as possible.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is right. Our job as elected politicians is to respond to people’s concerns and to address them. This is why I fear for the Christmases of Labour MPs. What are they going to talk about? This document says immigration. That is out of the question: they cannot talk about that. On the figures today, there is not much point talking about unemployment, because it is plummeting. They have got nothing to say about the deficit. They spent precisely one week telling us the deficit mattered before pitching up today and spending £2 billion on welfare. I think they will want to skip over leadership issues quite quickly. It is going to be a very difficult time for them.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

I do not know whether the Prime Minister has received any Christmas cards featuring husky dogs, but will he tell us whether he agrees with his right hon. Friend the Member for North Shropshire (Mr Paterson), who has said that the UK’s groundbreaking Climate Change Act 2008 should be scrapped?

[The Prime Minister]

I have not checked all my Christmas cards, but I do not think I have so far had the one the hon. Lady suggests. I spent an hour and three-quarters in front of the Liaison Committee yesterday discussing issues of climate change. The legislation we have in place is delivering cuts in carbon emissions. Under this Government, we have seen the world’s first green investment bank—beating the rest of the world in doing that—and we have doubled the amount of investment going into renewable energy compared with the previous two Parliaments. That is what is happening under our Government.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend will be pleased to know that I toughened up our policy in precisely that way several months ago. We do, therefore, take that stance and have been lobbying others. Unlike the Opposition, we do not want to see aid going to countries that do not need it or will misspend it. For example, under Labour Britain gave £83 million to China in 2007-08, the very year that China spent £20 billion hosting the Olympics.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

T3. While £600 million of UK aid is being channelled through the New Alliance for Food Security and Nutrition—[Interruption.] What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the new alliance does not bully countries such as Ghana into passing legislation that is designed to restrict local farmers’ ability to save and exchange locally produced seed, making them dependent on a few big suppliers and decreasing biodiversity?

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

When someone comes second in the ballot for private Members’ Bills they are inundated with requests for different types of Bills, so I heartily congratulate the right hon. Member for Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk (Michael Moore) on choosing this particular topic, which is vital. I must express my disappointment that although this was a commitment from all the major parties for the 2010 election, in four and a half years we have not had a Government Bill on the subject. I was pleased to hear the Minister’s speech today and I hope he will do everything he can to facilitate the Bill’s passage before the next general election.

I want also to pay tribute to my right hon. Friend the Member for Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath (Mr Brown) for the immense amount of work he did as Chancellor and as Prime Minister, from the setting up of DFID to his work on the home front and in the international sphere. In our time in government we increased our spending on overseas aid from 0.26% of GDP to 0.56% and made a commitment to bring that up to 0.7% by 2013. I also pay tribute to his excellent work on the international stage, such as his work with G7 nations to convince them to cancel the debts of some of the poorest countries.

Of course we have serious problems of inequality in our own country and we must continue to tackle them, but they are problems of inequality and redistribution and we remain a very rich country—the 20th wealthiest in the world and the sixth biggest economy. We are not only a wealthy country; we are still a very influential country. That is why this Bill is important. In the same way as we had a world first with our Climate Change Act 2008, this is an opportunity to make a public commitment and to use the fact that we have made that commitment to give reassurance to those to whom we are giving aid and set an example to the many other countries that we would like to follow suit.

The Bill enjoys enormous public support and I pay tribute to the many people up and down the country, both young and old, who are very generous with their own money and are involved in a great deal of work fundraising or campaigning to raise the profile of overseas development. The point about the commitment, however, is the stability it offers. Our commitment will enable people to invest in longer-term projects as they will know that the funding will not suddenly be cut from year to year, so that will help significantly in many instances.

Other Members have mentioned the benefits to us of overseas aid, as it increases the trading ability of poorer nations so that they become good trading partners and can lead to money from that budget being spent on equipment manufactured in the UK, but those are not the most important considerations. The most important considerations for most of us are the moral considerations, which mean that this is the right thing to do. That is the will of the British people. The British people want to see this done.

Of course we are right to be concerned about waste and corruption and it is very important that we continue to scrutinise and evaluate how money is spent to ensure that we are spending it in the most effective ways. I know that this is an area that DFID has been working on and I know that we, as Members of Parliament, will continue to keep it under scrutiny.

I pay tribute to the former Secretary of State, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), for his work on population and family planning. We know how important that is in poorer countries and we would like every family to have the confidence that their children will grow up and survive until adulthood, as that can be powerful in their choosing to have smaller families.

I turn briefly to climate change, which is absolutely crucial, without wanting to open up a whole debate on who is to blame. We have to take responsibility; we are the people who have benefited through our industrial heritage. Given our current consumption patterns, we produce many carbon emissions so have responsibility for climate change. Yet, of course, some of the very poorest countries are most badly affected—whether we think of the floods in Bangladesh or the fact that some sub-Saharan countries are increasingly prone to drought. We need to make every effort to take our responsibilities seriously and help such countries to build resilience with the adaptation and mitigation measures that they need.

Stability was mentioned by several hon. Members. This week I was with the European Scrutiny Committee in Italy, speaking to the Ministers and teams who will be prominent in the Italian presidency of the EU. The Italian Ministers who deal with migrants who come across the Mediterranean were telling us that, in recent years, 80% of them have come from countries with very difficult political and war-torn situations. Our work in stabilising those countries and helping those refugees nearer to their countries of origin is absolutely vital in preventing lives being lost as people struggle to cross the Mediterranean to reach the shores of Italy and the European Union. That forms an important part of the work resulting from overseas development aid.

I want to make a brief reference to the transatlantic trade and investment partnership, in the hope that other Members will realise its importance and take up the debate at a more appropriate moment. I am very concerned that the treaty leaves the door open for large corporations to sue Governments for introducing measures to protect their citizens, such as when Philip Morris sued the Australian Government on the plain packaging of cigarettes. Such moves could have a significant impact on poor Governments who struggle to introduce health measures in their countries. We need to be aware of that and take the issue up at a more opportune moment.

I look forward to the Bill’s successful passage through all its stages and to seeing it on the statute book before next May.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

The Prime Minister was asked—

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Q1. If he will list his official engagements for Wednesday 9 April.

[The Prime Minister (Mr David Cameron)]

This morning, I had meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. In addition to my duties in this House, I shall have further such meetings later today.

[Nia Griffith]

The Prime Minister promised by the end of this Parliament to reduce net annual migration to the UK to tens of thousands. Will that promise be met—yes or no?

[The Prime Minister]

We have made very good steps forward on migration from outside the EU, which is down by a third and at its lowest level since 1998. That is a success, and we have seen net migration overall come down by around a fifth. What we have not seen is what we saw under Labour, when 2.2 million people net came in over 10 years. That was unacceptable, and we are getting the situation under control.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

This is an area on which my hon. Friend rightly spends a lot of time. Much of DFID’s work focuses on early-years health, including maternal health and antenatal and postnatal health education. Furthermore, our G8 focused on nutrition, which is particularly important in ensuring that babies grow up healthy.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

2. What assessment she has made of the extent to which the amount of food, medical supplies and fuel that is entering Gaza meets the needs of the population.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

The collapse in the supply of fuel and medical supplies entering Gaza in recent months and the rising price of food are exacerbating the already precarious humanitarian situation caused by restrictions on the movement of goods and people and the devastation of the winter storms.

[Nia Griffith]

The Minister will know that there are severe drug shortages in Gaza, leading to problems with the provision of proper emergency care. What is his Department doing to ensure that the Palestinians get better, more timely access to the health care that they need?

[Mr Duncan]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. I was in the Palestinian territories last week and I spoke directly to a number of people in Gaza. The shortage of drugs is a serious issue, and it has been since about 2007. DFID is supporting the UN access co-ordination unit to work with the World Health Organisation, Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the agencies to help to facilitate the transfer of medical equipment and supplies, and patient referrals, in and out of Gaza.

Oral Answers to Questions

Nia Griffith Excerpts

Wednesday 16th February 2011 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend speaks for many people in saying how completely offensive it is, once again, to have a ruling by a court that flies in the face of common sense. Requiring serious sexual offenders to sign the register for life, as they now do, has broad support across this House and across the country. I am appalled by the Supreme Court ruling. We will take the minimum possible approach to this ruling and use the opportunity to close some loopholes in the sex offenders register. For instance, we will make it compulsory for sex offenders to report to the authorities before any travel and will not allow them to change their name by deed poll to avoid having their name on the register. I can also tell my hon. Friend that a commission will be established imminently to look at a British Bill of Rights, because it is about time we ensured that decisions are made in this Parliament rather than in the courts.

[Nia Griffith (Llanelli) (Lab)]

Q10. Given the difference in tone between “Drink Responsibly” and “Smoking Kills”, what action will the Prime Minister take in response to the heartfelt pleas of my constituent Rachel Jones, who wants to see much harder-hitting labels on alcoholic drinks following the tragic death of her boyfriend, Stuart Cable, the former Stereophonics drummer?

[The Prime Minister]

I think we should be looking at what action we can take through the tax system to deal with problem drinks, which we are looking at, and at tougher minimum pricing for alcohol. That is where we should be putting our attention, rather than necessarily looking at labelling. Many of the problems that we have, such as people—particularly young people—pre-loading before they go for a night out, are related to deeply discounted drinks in supermarkets and elsewhere. That is what we should deal with first.