Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I have spoken directly with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees lead, Antonio Guterres, about this. We also have discussions with our Home Office colleagues on the progress of that scheme. Our aim has been to help people to do what they want to do, which is to get support where they are, outside Syria, but also to have the prospect of returning home, which is what the overwhelming majority want to do.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T2. Will the Secretary of State tell us what her Department has done to address the serious and well-documented allegations of bribery and violence committed by SOCO International in the Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Ebola

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Phillips]

Of course I share that concern. I think that if soldiers, whether they are reservists or regulars, are being sent to Sierra Leone or, indeed, to any of the affected countries, they must be given proper training so that they do not expose themselves in any way to the possibility of infection.

Although a large section of the media has begun to shift the spotlight to other issues in recent days, I fear, as many do, that things will get worse before they get better. However, there is some good news. Following the Prime Minister’s Cobra meeting to discuss Ebola a month ago, the UK is now helping to lead the international response. That could, of course, have come sooner, but come it has. I understand that we are now one of the largest donors, that we have committed £125 million to the effort, and that we have, in Freetown, not only the Royal Fleet Auxiliary Argus with its hospital facilities, but several hundred military personnel. We have a good reputation in the region, and those heroes—which is what the personnel who have gone to Sierra Leone are—along with everyone else who travels to west Africa to help its people in this dreadful time, deserve our thoughts, our prayers and our support.

No doubt the Minister will tell me whether I am correct, but I assume that France, which I understand is taking the lead in Guinea, and the United States, which I understand is fulfilling a similar role in Liberia, are playing similar roles in the countries where they are leading the efforts. But is that enough? For our part, here in the United Kingdom, it may be, but when we hear of the efforts being made by other countries, it would seem not. The position may well have changed, and I should be glad to hear from the Minister that it has, but to learn that Canada, for instance, has pledged the equivalent of only £18.6 million is profoundly depressing, although it is doubtless a matter for Canadians. We learned this morning that Australia, which had originally given the equivalent of £6.2 million, is now doing rather better, having agreed to commit funds for the construction of a 100-bed treatment centre that the UK is building, but does that mean extra funds, or funds that the UK would have been providing in any event? Perhaps the Minister will tell us.

In September, the Secretary-General of the United Nations indicated that $600 million would be required just to fund the WHO road map to bring the outbreak to an end. No doubt the Minister will wish to update the House on where current international commitments have taken us. However, he will be aware not only that many consider that sum to be an underestimate, but that it is feared that very little of what has been committed appears to have paid for very much in the affected region. It is not just a question of money, or of promises which, all too often, appear to be poorly translated in practice; it is a question of how money is spent.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

What concerns me about this issue now is that many thousands of people are going to die. We already see hundreds of children being left as orphans. Does my hon. and learned Friend think that some of the money that we are spending in Sierra Leone, and in other countries, should be spent on helping those orphans—who have survived the disease—to come to terms with their position, and to seek a better life for the future?

[Stephen Phillips]

Of course I agree with my hon. Friend. I shall be dealing with the question of diversion of resources shortly, but I can tell her now that one of one of the great concerns is that funds are now being directed towards Ebola that were formerly used to deal with other health problems in the affected countries.

Significant sums are undoubtedly being channelled through non-governmental organisations, as they have to be, for the simple reason that there is no infrastructure in the region that is sufficient to cope with the outbreak, or with the funds that are being channelled to deal with it. However, we need to know that our money is being well spent, and it is not always clear that that is the case. For example, the International Rescue Committee, an NGO that is laudably trying to help the fight in Sierra Leone, is apparently charging the King’s Sierra Leone Partnership, another NGO, $5,000 a month for the use of each of its vehicles. Why? How can that sum be justified? How can the administrative costs associated with the unnecessary transfer of those funds be justified? Where are the funds coming from in the first place? I do not expect the Minister to be able to answer any of those questions tonight, but they demonstrate that we need to get a grip on the ground, and to ensure that in Sierra Leone, where we are taking the lead, moneys are being properly directed.

Another example is the medical and laboratory facilities that we have constructed in Kerry Town, which opened this morning. I understand that all the out-of-country medical staff are staying at an hotel called The Place. It is one of the most expensive hotels in Sierra Leone, perhaps the most expensive. Save the Children told me today that it has have negotiated a special rate, that rooms are being shared, and that it is necessary for its staff to stay there for reasons of hygiene; but is that really the best use of funds, and what alternatives were considered? I do not know, and if the Minister is handing taxpayer money to Save the Children, he will no doubt want to find out.

Let me turn to the UN Mission for Ebola Emergency Response. It has, I am told, 65 staff in Freetown. What are they doing? I know not and, it seems, neither does anyone else in the country. Here is what someone on the ground said to me in an e-mail:

“Their role is unclear, so far they are just eating money and trying to raise more. Not helping fight Ebola.”

What is needed are health workers, an issue to which I shall shortly come, not administrators spending money on salaries, allowances, accommodation and drivers.

The health systems of all the principally affected countries have been overwhelmed. It is frankly amazing that so many health professionals from here and other countries are prepared to risk their lives to help. They are the real heroes, but there are problems in this area as well.

The first is the disincentive to volunteering that is caused by much of the media coverage surrounding the outbreak. For tabloids to question whether Ebola might become airborne when all the virologists tell us that is highly unlikely is hardly helpful. This is not a film with Dustin Hoffman; it is a real-life situation where responsible reporting is required, including reporting how difficult it is to become infected by the Ebola virus in the absence of contact with an individual displaying symptoms.

Politicians are scarcely blameless. What sort of message, for example, do the Governors of New York and New Jersey think they send out to those who might volunteer by imposing unjustified quarantine requirements on asymptomatic patients which have no basis in scientific fact? What sort of message do the Governments of Canada and Australia think they are sending when they impose travel restrictions on those coming from west Africa which again have absolutely no basis in scientific fact? Cheap scaremongering politics at the expense of lives is not only counter-productive; it is just plain wrong.

Politicians in this country are not immune in this regard. The Minister will know that after British Airways took the unilateral decision to pull its west African routes—another decision which had no basis in medical or scientific fact—the only airline still flying directly to the principally affected countries was Gambia Bird, yet I understand that in early October the Government either ordered or told Gambia Bird to stop its flights. The World Health Organisation has been clear that international air travel is a very low-risk vector for infection, so why did the Government give that direction? Perhaps the Minister can tell us, because a difficult journey involving a long layover in Casablanca or elsewhere en route to the region is scarcely a compelling incentive to dedicated medical staff to volunteer to assist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Swayne]

We have 250 personnel who are going out on the Argus specifically to provide the training, so I am confident that the question of training has been addressed. They are going to deliver that training themselves, so I certainly believe that this has been done. If I have got that wrong, I will write to the hon. Gentleman and correct it. This operation is driving social change; it is also a huge logistical operation. It is motivating social change and bringing about the necessary logistical changes to drive the isolation of the disease.

[Pauline Latham]

One problem in those communities is that they do not have clean water. We often have water and sanitation programmes in those countries. Can the Minister assure me that he is continuing those programmes to help to keep people clean, because that is one of the key things they need to do?

[Mr Swayne]

My hon. Friend is right; water and sanitation are important, and that will indeed be part of our emphasis.

We are seeking to mobilise social change, but it is also vital—as my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham rightly pointed out—that we motivate the rest of the world. The United States is taking responsibility for Liberia, and France is taking responsibility for Guinea and the surrounding francophone zone. We are working closely with the United Nations to help it to address the situation, and we have contributed some £20 million to its trust fund. We are also working with the African Union, not only to secure funds but to ensure a supply of health workers. We are working with other international institutions as well.

On 2 October, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State chaired a conference in London that secured a further £100 million of funding. The Prime Minister then went to the European Council and came back having motivated those there to double the EU contribution to some €1 billion. The High Representative has been dispatched to draw up a programme, return and report at the next Council meeting.

Last week, we signed a memorandum of understanding with New Zealand. It will be supplying some 200 technical and health staff to a base camp in Sierra Leone, and my hon. and learned Friend rightly pointed out that yesterday we heard from the Australians that they will supply 100. My understanding is that it is 100 personnel, but I will write to him to correct that if I have it wrong. It is essential that we proceed to isolate and treat the disease. We are clearly going in the right direction now, but there is much work to be done and a long road to go. It is vital that we continue to secure volunteers and international teams of medical staff to drive this disease down and provide us with the capability to isolate it, because isolation is the key.

My hon. and learned Friend raised a number of concerns about non-governmental organisations on the ground. I seriously do not believe that representatives of, and workers from Save the Children, are living it up in the place at Kerry Town. I understand that they are sharing rooms and that they have negotiated a special price of some £60 a night in order to secure that place proximate to the hospital in which they are working. I am confident that we are taking the right measures to secure the proper expenditure of British taxpayers’ money in order to wipe out this dreadful disease.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Wednesday 5th November 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

There is only one problem with what the right hon. Gentleman says, which is that the deficit that Labour left, and we inherited, was 11.5% of GDP. It was bigger than almost any other country’s anywhere in the world. If he does not believe me, he can listen to his own shadow Chancellor, who said this:

“I think that the fact that you had the massive, global financial crisis which happened on our watch meant that people saw their living standards hit…I don’t think we would be being straight with people if we only said it was the financial crisis. It was also after 13 years in government we had made some mistakes.”

There we have it—some mistakes. You bet there were mistakes: overspending, over-borrowing, overtaxing, wasteful welfare, bloated expenditure. A complete and utter failure and it is extraordinary they are still sitting there on the Front Bench.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

The Prime Minister will be aware that millions of people have been to see the 888,246 poppies at the Tower of London, designed and commissioned by Paul Cummins from Derby. Will he congratulate the hundreds of volunteers who have helped to make them in Derby, and the hundreds and hundred of volunteers who helped to plant them, to commemorate this very important centenary?

[The Prime Minister]

I certainly join my hon. Friend in praising all those who have been involved in this extraordinary project, which has I think brought forward from the British public a huge amount of reverence for those who have given their lives and served our country. The numbers going to see this display have been truly extraordinary. It is worth remembering that out of this display a lot of good will come, because, as I understand it, the poppies are being auctioned to raise a lot of money for military and veterans charities that will be there to do good in many years to come. It is an extraordinary display and one that the country can be very proud of.

Refugee Camps

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd July 2014 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to have secured this joint debate with the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), and I am honoured, Mr Sanders, to serve under your chairmanship—for the first time, I think—on this, the last day of term.

During the past year, I have visited a number of refugee camps around the world. What has really struck me is the disparity between the conditions in different camps. In March, I went to the middle east as part of my work on the International Development Committee. I was given the opportunity to visit the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan, which is currently home to more than 82,000 people fleeing the conflict in Syria.

Despite the fact that it is the fourth largest refugee camp in the world, Zaatari is remarkably well run and the quality of life for its resident population is comparatively very good. The accommodation provided there was far better than I have seen in any other refugee camp in the world, with the refugees living in portacabins. Although living conditions were basic, it was clear that the issues caused by overcrowding were not as prevalent as in other camps. For example, a family of up to five could live in one of the portacabin units; if a family was any larger, a second unit would be provided for them.

The relative comfort in which Syrian refugees live in Zaatari is largely due to the fact that the camp receives a lot of funding from other middle eastern states, and it is pleasing to see that aid being put to good use. Having seen its living conditions, I think that Zaatari has a greater sense of permanency than many other refugee camps I have visited.

Most people in Zaatari believed that they would be going home to Syria in a relatively short time. The reality is that in many cases there is nowhere for them to go home to because many homes no longer exist. It is perhaps a good thing that the refugees there enjoy a higher quality of life than those in many others camps do. Achieving that quality of life should be reflected in the management of camps all over the world.

The services available for children and young people in the Zaatari camp are much better than what camps usually provide, due to the provision of child friendly spaces. Obviously, a number of children in the camp have witnessed the horrors of the fighting in Syria and even seen members of their families killed. The child friendly spaces scheme, run by various global non-governmental organisations, is designed to give children a safe place to play, to ensure that they can continue to have a childhood and can recover from the emotional and psychological scars that conflict has caused. Many young children in the Zaatari camp start off by being able to draw only guns and tanks, but after the work of the NGOs they start to draw pictures that are much more normal for children of their age, and they even start smiling again.

I was delighted to see the particular focus on education at Zaatari. UNICEF, which runs the education programme at the camp, has set up a compound of 14 classrooms and runs two schools a day, with girls being taught in the morning and boys in the afternoon. That dedication and commitment to ensuring that the children of the camp have a good education is unusual, and will serve to mitigate some of the disruption caused to the children’s lives, and, most importantly, normalise them. It should also ensure that when Zaatari’s young people leave the camp and eventually return to their country, they will have some of the skills they need to enter the work force and thrive.

The quality of life of the residents of Zaatari is significantly better than that in many of the camps I have visited. For instance, £1 million has been spent on laying down gravel on the site to reduce the nuisance and health issues caused by excessive dust, because the camp is situated in very arid conditions. Although dealing with dust is a lesser concern than providing education, addressing it has ensured that the lives of those living in the camp are much more comfortable; people there experience far fewer chest problems, including asthma in children, than they would otherwise.

The other measure that normalised the lives of Zaatari’s residents was the way in which food was provided in the camp. As I am sure many hon. Members will have seen, food provision in refugee camps typically consists of a rationing-style system, in which residents queue and are allotted a set amount of certain types of food every day. In many cases, refugees will eat the same thing day in, day out for the length of their stay, which often runs into years. That approach undoubtedly prevents people in camps from making their own choices, and I believe that it leads only to institutionalism.

In Zaatari, residents are given smartcards, which function like cash and can be used to buy whatever their holders want, albeit from a relatively limited choice, in the supermarket-style food stores in the camp. Although choosing what to eat may seem a small concern, it is important in helping to normalise the lives of those living in the camp. I would like the approach to be rolled out in refugee camps across the world.

In stark contrast, on a visit to Rwanda with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association earlier this year, I was presented with a sense of disorder and listlessness at a camp for refugees from the Democratic Republic of Congo. There was a huge number of young men, many of whom had been there for years; they were bored and had nothing to do. Those young men had no hope, and no chance of escaping and getting a normal life again.

Early marriage was common, due to the absence of any enrichment programmes or provision of education. We all know that education is particularly important for young women, as statistics show that those who receive education are likely to put off marriage and having children until later, meaning that they have better prospects and, above all, better health. This particular camp demonstrated that that is true. I learned that mortality in childbirth there was very high, because many of the girls and young women were getting married far too young, as there is nothing else for them to do.

Although there is a clear discrepancy between the provision of facilities in Syria and in other refugee camps, in camps outside the middle east a similar divide exists along gender lines, and provision for women is of particular concern. In the South Sudanese camp that I visited, toilets were non-existent and people defecated openly; when the rains come, the camp is flooded with human excrement. I heard stories of the women and girls there being too afraid to go to the toilet at night for fear of being raped. Given the duration of the crisis in South Sudan, it would make sense for more permanent toilet facilities to be built, which in turn would reduce the risk of rape that the girls in the camps face every day. However, there must be some sort of security for the toilets, so that women’s and men’s toilets are separated.

What is most shameful about the situation is that the guidelines for the protection of young girls, which specifically mention the need for the provision of lockable toilet facilities, have been in place for the last 10 years in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee’s paper on gender-based violence. It is absolutely essential that that advice should be followed in the running of refugee camps globally. In line with their strong stance on violence against women, particularly in conflict, I urge the UK Government to put pressure on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and other NGOs to ensure that women are adequately protected.

It is clear that there is a huge disparity between the conditions in refugee camps such as Zaatari and those in Africa. When the residents of refugee camps eventually leave the camps, it is important that they should be able to reintegrate into normal society. Achieving that requires an emphasis on the provision of education, ensuring that children whose lives have been torn apart by the horrors of war can continue to grow emotionally and psychologically, and, most importantly, become contributors to their communities, with reasonable job prospects.

Maintaining normality is key in ensuring that adult refugees leave the camps as functioning members of society. It is clear from how Zaatari is run that self-sufficiency is encouraged there. Although the introduction of supermarket-style food provision is a positive thing, and a welcome change from how food is distributed in the African camp that I described, more could be done to encourage refugees to be more self-sufficient, ultimately ending the dependence that the camps create.

Perhaps one way to do that would be to encourage more micro-economies to be created in camps. Such micro-economies would serve to normalise life for refugees and provide lives more like the ones they will experience when they eventually leave. The fact is that the Syrian refugees in Zaatari are more educated than those in camps elsewhere, but it seems unfair that they should be able to demand one type of camp, and get it, whereas people in camps in Africa, who are generally less educated, have to put up with much more basic facilities.

It would make sense for the Department for International Development to ensure that, in its aid policy and work with NGOs, substantial facilities are put in place in camps. The disparity between the facilities available at Zaatari, compared with the other camps I have described, marks unfairness in how they are organised.

Although Zaatari marks what could be the global standard for refugee camps, more than 70% of Syrian refugees in Jordan and 100% of them in Lebanon live outside them. Although refugees living outside are more likely to lead lives that are more typically normal, there is a challenge in keeping them safe. Many of them are living in basic rooms, with little sanitation and poor water, but they are at least kept in family units, in individual—albeit very small—apartments.

Organisations that run the camps, such as the UNHCR, are experienced in identifying vulnerable individuals and giving them the care that they need, but that is obviously problematic when those vulnerable people are not in camps. Living outside the camps presents a number of other problems, in that refugees have to pay for their own accommodation. Of the non-camp dwelling refugees in Jordan, 90% are now in financial crisis. One reason is that refugees must obtain work permits to work in Jordan, which can often be expensive. Another factor is that some 33% of households are run by women who have been widowed by the war.

One way of assessing the needs of refugees in non-camp settings is to create community boards, consisting of elected representatives from the community. That initiative has been successful within camps and provides aid agencies and NGOs with a useful way of monitoring refugee populations. CARE, the NGO, has been running similar schemes for Iraqi refugees, and they have been very successful. Like that organisation, I believe that community boards should be rolled out in refugee populations across the globe.

Although the UNHCR does a fantastic job of co-ordinating humanitarian efforts across the middle east, especially in Jordan, it goes without saying that one of the bars to providing assistance to, and improving conditions for, refugees who do not live in camps is its reach. For example, many Syrian refugees in Lebanon are unable to access services, due to their inability to travel because of sectarian concerns. In this instance, co-operation between NGOs in these areas and the UNHCR is essential. It is to that end that I would like DFID to use its relationship and influence with the UNHCR to encourage NGOs to co-chair working groups.

It is obvious that there is much to be done in standardising the quality of life of refugees around the world. Nevertheless, it is often easy to overlook the fate of those who do not go into camps. It is vital that provision be made for those people and that they are not rendered more vulnerable as a consequence of not having entered camps. With that in mind, I strongly advocate greater co-ordination between NGOs and the UNHCR, to ensure the widest possible delivery of services and the setting up of community representative groups as standard practice with non-camp dwelling refugee populations.

I have not yet mentioned the current crisis in Gaza. People there are living in schools because they have had to flee their homes. DFID should consider what money it can forward to those vulnerable people, who probably have no homes to go back to now because there has been so much bombing. They are in a desperate situation. I hope that the Minister will take back to the Department my feeling, which is that I should particularly like it to get involved and help the Palestinian people to have as much of a normal life as they can under the circumstances.

[Mr Adrian Sanders (in the Chair)]

I said privately to hon. Members that, if they wished to remove their jackets, they could. I now say that publicly.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Lynne Featherstone)]

It is a pleasure, Mr Sanders, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on securing this important debate and all hon. Members on their contributions. Hon. Members throughout the House are genuinely committed to the plight of refugees, wherever they are in the world. Meeting the needs of refugees and other forcibly displaced people is at the centre of the UK’s humanitarian work, and I welcome the opportunity to discuss it. I will try to respond to as many points as possible.

The debate is timely. A month ago, on world refugee day, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that in 2013 the number of refugees, asylum-seekers and internally displaced people worldwide had, for the first time in the post-world war two era, exceeded 50 million people. The increase from 2012 has been driven mainly by the Syria crisis, as many hon. Members said, but there have also been major new displacements in Africa, notably the Central African Republic and South Sudan.

My first visit to a refugee camp was to the north of South Sudan where refugees came across from South Kordofan and Blue Nile. That was also when I had my first trip in a helicopter, because there were no roads and the rainy season had started. The logistics of bringing in life-saving supplies were quite extraordinary in the direst of circumstances. Having to fly everything into refugee camps there partly explains the cost of the camps. I will go into the different costs, because where camps are situated and the countries they are in are critical to those costs.

This rise in the number of refugees is part of a worrying global trend reflecting the complexity of protracted crisis situations with regional and cross-border dimensions and the quadrupling of overall humanitarian need over the past decade. Increasingly, many refugee situations are continuing for extended periods. In 2011, a UNHCR study of 30 major protracted refugee situations found that the average length of displacement now is almost 20 years, compared with an average of nine years in the early 1990s.

Many hon. Members referred to the longevity of the camps, and I reiterate that primary responsibility for the assistance and protection of refugees lies with the host state. The UNHCR is mandated to lead and co-ordinate international action to protect refugees and resolve refugee problems worldwide, and to seek durable solutions to refugee displacement. I agree with all hon. Members who have said that we must normalise situations that last for a long time by providing skills, education and the hope of life beyond the camps. Solutions may include voluntary repatriation, assimilation within new national communities or resettlement to third countries. In 2013, refugee returns were fewer than 500,000.

The focus of this debate has been conditions in refugee camps, but it is important to note that the majority of today’s refugees do not live in camps. In 2012, a UNHCR study showed that only 35% of the 9.5 million refugees assessed lived in planned camps, and that the majority were living in private or rented accommodation. The hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier) referred to that, and I will respond in due course. More recently, it was estimated that 86% of Syrian refugees live outside camps.

It is critical to ensure that those with responsibility for meeting refugees’ needs are able to tailor their responses to different contexts. Camps are not usually the preferred solution for refugees, because they are expensive and often do not have good security. I have seen jealousy in host communities. Many hon. Members referred to education, and when it is provided in camps in countries where children outside the camps are barely in school, the balance must be carefully considered. My Department must consider the context or there may be all sorts of trouble between those inside and outside the camps.

The 1951 United Nations convention relating to the status of refugees and its 1967 protocol laid down the basic minimum standards for the treatment of refugees. The UNHCR has further developed them into detailed standards and guidelines in every sector of humanitarian assistance and protection. Today’s debate has rightly highlighted the fact that conditions vary widely from one camp to another. The issue is complicated. It depends partly on the political willingness and economic ability of a country to host refugees. In the middle east, as my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire said, host states are relatively wealthy compared with those in Africa and perhaps more politically willing to help with refugees. Certainly, as the hon. Member for Hexham (Guy Opperman) said, the Turkish refugee camps are of the highest quality. They are quite astonishing. I was at an iftar meal, as I am sure many Members in the Chamber have been. It was a Turkish evening, and the quality of the camps was referred to many times over.

Conditions vary widely depending on how well the camp has been planned in advance and where it is located. Often, as I said, camps are situated in very poor circumstances without proximity to natural resources such as water or wood. The capacity of the camp to expand to more refugee influxes is also a factor, because if different cultural groups are sited in the same place or in close proximity, it results in overcrowding and tension.

A number of Members raised the issue of women and girls in refugee camps. As I am sure everyone knows, DFID puts women and girls, and particularly preventing violence against women, at the heart of all its development programmes. The Secretary of State gave a call to action to address the danger to women and children and their vulnerability in refugee camps, as has been mentioned. One of my earliest meetings was with a number of the agencies involved, and I said that this was a first-order issue. For a long time, food, water, shelter and sanitation were the first-order issues, but it is now becoming recognised that that is not enough any more.

[Pauline Latham]

Is it not true, however, that in these camps, we still do not separate the girls’ and women’s toilets from the men’s toilets and provide security so that they can go safely to the toilet without fear of rape?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend is right, but that is beginning to happen. Camps are at a variety of stages in their evolution. The newest and most modern camps most definitely have separate, safe toilets and all those things, but other camps that have been in existence longer do not necessarily have them. The issue has been raised and everyone is now aware of it. The Secretary of State’s call to action has highlighted the issue and put it on the front page, so that the agencies understand that it is as much a part of humanitarian aid as the more traditional first-order issues. I think we all recognise the danger that women are in. They are vulnerable if they go outside the camps to look for wood; they are at risk of violence and sexual assault, and we have called on others—UN agencies, donors and non-governmental organisations—to do the same as we have and put women, girls and children at the heart of their humanitarian response.

I want to try and answer more directly some of the questions that have been asked. I thank my hon. Friend the hon. Member for Bradford East (Mr Ward) and the hon. Members for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and for Hexham for their contributions. Education and food were raised in particular. Enrolment rates in education are higher in camps than outside—in Iraq, they are 57%, in Jordan, they are 67%, and in Turkey, they are 80%. There are three schools in Zaatari and 20,000 children, but there are still problems maintaining regular attendance and reducing the overcrowding in classes.

On food, in camps in Jordan refugees receive a daily allocation of bread and food vouchers valid for two weeks. Those can be redeemed at shops inside the camp, which also benefits the local communities. It is a kind of win-win situation. In one camp, the Emirates Red Crescent provides full catering. Malnutrition rates in those camps remain low, but there is a real spectrum in what is available and where. DFID certainly encourages the use of our cash transfer system, and we are very proud of it. That is one of the great innovations of recent years, because it ensures that money is spent locally, so it benefits the community. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bradford East said, the ingenuity of refugees in camps beggars belief. Stalls arrive and there is a marketplace, and I understand that there is also not the best-tasting alcohol—not in the Muslim countries, but in Africa for sure.

Violence Against Women and Girls

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I am also pleased to follow the hon. Member for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne).

This important debate about violence against women and girls follows the publication of the International Development Committee’s report, the contents of which the Chair of the Committee, my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), has outlined. Violence against women and girls is a wide-reaching issue. Globally, one in three women will experience one type of gender-based violence or another in their lifetime. Although such violence is first and foremost an abuse of basic human rights, and, in some cases, even child abuse, it has other more wide-ranging societal implications, which the Department for International Development should address when apportioning aid.

One of the most shocking forms of violence committed against women worldwide, already mentioned by my right hon. Friend the Chair of the Committee, is undoubtedly female genital mutilation. Globally, up to 140 million girls have been subjected to the practice. The issue is all the more concerning when we consider that FGM is a culturally institutionalised practice and in some countries is endemic; the percentage of girls having undergone the procedure in Somalia and Kurdistan stands at 98% and 70% respectively. It is practised in about 28 countries worldwide.

I am pleased that DFID has recognised the need to step into the breach, as international donor support has been low, and that it has dedicated £35 million, along with programming, to

“end female genital mutilation in one generation.”

I am also encouraged by how DFID aims to do that. The Chair of the Select Committee mentioned the project we saw in Ethiopia—a powerful project about village empowerment to educate people against such practices. We saw that in action. Only by teaching communities about female genital mutilation and the complications it causes can they be made aware of the true brutality of the practice. I believe that in patriarchal societies such as those we have mentioned, such education should be focused on men and boys, especially village elders and religious leaders, as well as women and girls.

Alarmingly, however, FGM is not confined to far-away countries. Figures in a recent report showed that, as those who have been working for up to 30 years to stop the practice in Britain know, the incidence of FGM here has increased considerably over recent years. The National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children reports that last year 70 women sought treatment for injuries sustained during the procedure and illnesses associated with the practice. Some cases even led to death.

Of course, those figures are not entirely representative of the true extent of the problem, as many women fear the consequences of telling the authorities. That makes it difficult for the police and prosecutors to identify cases of FGM, and to date there has never been a prosecution under the Female Genital Mutilation Act 2003 here in Britain. That situation presents law enforcement authorities with something of a problem, and I would welcome mandatory reporting by doctors, nurses and other health professionals, and teachers who feel that their pupils are in danger of either having the cutting done here or of being taken back to their home community to have it done.

It is important that public bodies are taught that FGM is not a culturally sensitive issue but a crime that needs to be reported to protect the girls whom it affects. It is child abuse, and until there has been a prosecution the practice will continue unabated. It is against British law and punishable in the courts. Why are the safeguarding boards not shouting from the roof tops about the issue? All those entrusted with protecting children, young people and women need to start taking a much more robust approach.

I am sorry to say that France’s record is much better than ours. It has had around 100 prosecutions to date and is setting a good example. We should look at what it has done and how, and then do the same. It is shocking that some French girls are sent here to be mutilated in this country. Why do we not change the law to prosecute the parents of girls who have been cut? The children are supposed to be under their protection, but the parents allow that to happen. They have been complicit, even when they have not done the cutting themselves. When a few parents have been prosecuted, more will think twice about the practice.

I pay tribute to the work of the previous chairman of the all-party group on genital mutilation, my hon. Friend the Member for Battersea (Jane Ellison), who is now a Health Minister and is following up every avenue she can. I have taken her place, and will be working with communities here in the UK to make progress on this issue.

Forced marriage, which was not mentioned in this report, is another area where fear of offending cultural sensibilities is seriously affecting the rights of young women. For some time now, I have been involved with a charity, Karma Nirvana in Derby, which runs a helpline service for men and women affected by the practice. It is run by Jasvinder Sanghera, who was herself a victim of forced marriage. Every year, Karma Nirvana writes to schools throughout the country to circulate information and literature promoting awareness of the issue, but to date only nine schools have responded to the initiative.

When Karma Nirvana launched its new poster campaign earlier this year, only two schools signed up. Some head teachers have torn them down from notice boards for fear of upsetting cultural sensibilities. Again, this is child abuse, and despite the disappointing figures, it is essential that schools take some responsibility in combating forced marriages because they know their pupils and should highlight possible victims. Some 35% of victims are school-age children.

I am aware that the offence of forcing someone into marriage against their will is set to enter the statute book later this year, but schools, other public agencies and the media are turning a blind eye to the problem. When a teacher and a white female pupil ran away to France last year, the media reported it every day for more than a week until they were found. There may be hundreds of Asian girls going missing every year, but that is not reported in the news. Those girls are British but not white. Is that the difference? If so, could we not blame the media for racial discrimination?

Shafilea Ahmed was murdered by her parents in 2003 after refusing to enter into an arranged marriage. She told five separate organisations that she was at risk, but all failed to act on her warnings. The police even attempted to provide mediation between her and her parents, who later took her life. It is clear that cultural sensitivity overrode the need to protect that young girl. Could that be called honour-based violence? Where is the honour in murdering your own child?

Jasvinder Sanghera’s sister poured petrol over herself and set herself alight, burning herself to death after being forced to marry a man she did not want to be with. There are countless similar stories, but time prevents me from going through them.

It is essential that the Committee should lend its support nationally and internationally to stamping out this social evil. A recent report by Demos praised the Department for International Development for its work in providing assistance and aid for victims of forced marriage, but there is so much more to be done. Greater co-ordination between in-country DFID representatives and Foreign and Commonwealth Office consular staff is paramount in promoting the regional presence of the forced marriage unit, allowing girls who are forcibly taken abroad to marry to be brought back safely to the UK. Perhaps there should be similar units in countries that practise FGM so that they can act when they suspect that a child has been taken to a country for the specific reason of cutting.

It is important to raise the issue of future funding for Karma Nirvana. It has taken 30,000 calls since 2008, but it is unsure whether its funding stream from the Ministry of Justice will be in place after September. It is the only charity providing hotline support for those experiencing honour-based abuse and forced marriage. It is obvious that forced marriage is not a small problem, and when the law against it comes into force it follows logically that the demand for support services will increase. I urge the Minister to make representations to the Minister with the relevant responsibility to ensure continued funding.

The Committee’s report makes important recommendations for ending barbaric practices such as FGM. I am pleased that it suggests doing that through education. I understand that DFID is undertaking initiatives to eradicate forced marriage, but it is important for the Committee to have further discussions on the issue to evaluate how we can further encourage efforts at home and abroad.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for International Development (Lynne Featherstone)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke. I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) on securing this important debate, and I thank the International Development Committee for providing a wide-ranging and thought-provoking report on the critical issues that we have discussed, to which my Department has formally replied. I thank all those who provided evidence to that Committee, and I thank the hon. Members for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham), for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), for Hornchurch and Upminster (Dame Angela Watkinson), for Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock (Sandra Osborne), for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma) and for Luton South (Gavin Shuker)—my opposite number—for their contributions. We are discussing an issue about which everyone is concerned, and on which everyone is committed to moving forward.

Tackling violence is a human rights and development necessity, and it is a priority for the UK Government. Many points have been raised in the debate, and I will address as many as possible in the time that I have. Since the International Development Committee presented its report on the Government’s work in this area, there have been several developments. Following the recommendation in the report, in November I updated the House in my role as ministerial champion for tackling violence against women and girls overseas on progress on tackling violence against women and girls.

I will address the issues on female genital mutilation more fully in a moment, but during the past two weeks, for example, I have organised and attended meetings with other cross-Whitehall Ministries. I met religious leaders—an important part of our armoury in tackling FGM—and representatives of the teachers’ unions. They, and indeed everyone, must be partners in this mission.

On 13 November, the Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Putney (Justine Greening), convened with Sweden the “Keep her safe” event, which brought together UN and NGO leaders and senior Government officials from across the international humanitarian system. They agreed a fundamental new approach to protecting girls and women in emergency situations, which the hon. Member for Luton South raised, to ensure that their needs are addressed as part of the initial response. At the event, £21.6 million in new UK funding was announced to help implement those commitments and protect girls and women in all emergencies.

In line with the Committee’s recommendations, DFID continues to scale up the implementation of programming about violence against women and girls. In Afghanistan, we recently announced a new £18.5 million funding package to help support women, which will strengthen access to justice for women who are victims of violence and raise public awareness of women’s rights.

The hon. Member for Luton South raised access to justice and the balance that had to be struck. That ties in with the Preventing Sexual Violence Initiative, which deals with the matter at the sharp end, where rape is used as a weapon of war. If there is impunity, we cannot move forward. Just as with preventing sexual violence in conflict, access to justice must go hand in hand with a change in social norms.

In Somalia, to bring gender issues to the forefront of our work, DFID recently created an internal gender policy group, which is led and chaired by senior management and has representatives from each sector. The scale-up is being supported by robust evidence from sources such as the violence against women and girls help desk, which has provided support to DFID country offices, and further DFID guidance on addressing violence against women and girls through security and justice programming. That note is part of a series of DFID guidance notes on violence against women and girls, and it will further support our scale-up efforts by providing practical advice to staff and other UK Departments.

The £25 million research and innovation fund to address violence against women and girls will support programme implementation and scale-up by generating evidence on what works for the prevention of such violence. Although I share the frustration at the time that some such measures will take, some of them will go into play very soon. When we scale up, we must be sure that we are making an impact on behalf of British taxpayers and doing something that works, not something that we rush into only to discover that it was not what we needed to do.

I have many points to address. My right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon asked about the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria and South Sudan, and whether VAWG would be prioritised. We are currently in the process of a round of resource allocation across all DFID offices, and we are looking in detail at how we can most effectively scale up our VAWG programmes. I have mentioned Somalia, but in Nigeria we have a major programme, “Voices for Change,” to tackle the underlying causes of VAWG and gender inequality. DFID and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office are working closely on VAWG programmes in DRC, ensuring preventative action and effective responses to survivors.

I was asked what we are doing about water, sanitation and hygiene, or WASH. DFID has produced a new briefing note on violence against women and girls in emergencies, and over the next year will also produce guidance on how water and sanitation sector programmes can address such violence. Importantly, through the sanitation and hygiene applied research for equity programme—SHARE—DFID has funded development of a violence, gender and WASH practitioner toolkit, which will be available this year.

I was asked how we are ensuring that VAWG is prioritised in multilateral agencies. We are keen to ensure that VAWG is a high priority in multilaterals. UN Women is a key partner in such matters, and DFID helps to fund it. The call to action in November last year that I described secured commitments from a wide range of UN agencies to put women and girls at the heart of their humanitarian response. That includes protecting them from violence. It was a pledge not so much on finance, but on what UN agencies would do under the circumstances.

A lot of right hon. and hon. Members raised the issue of female genital mutilation, an issue about which I am passionate. I think that that comes from frustration, having spent two and a half years at the Home Office. Our diaspora is intrinsically linked with the developing world but there has been a lack of prosecutions. We were challenged on the latter continually, but I must also say that there were no prosecutions under the 13 years of the previous Government.

FGM is a major issue. I am sure that we all recognise how challenging it is for a child to give evidence against their parent. As many Members said, FGM is child abuse and it is illegal, so the inevitable consequences are that the child will be removed from the parents virtually as soon as it is known that something has happened. That has been the great inhibitor. It is important that we have prosecutions, as much as anything because of the message that they send out. The answer is clearly not to send 20,000 sets of parents to jail, but the message that FGM is illegal and unacceptable is very important.

The Minister for Crime Prevention, my hon. Friend the Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), is champing at the bit on this issue. He is working closely with the Director of Public Prosecutions, who believes that we are very near to the first few prosecutions. Part of the issue has been getting preparatory evidence on computers. That way, the process might not necessarily involve a child victim giving evidence in court—there will be evidence of plans to take a child to a mother country to have them cut. We are optimistic about prosecutions. I could not agree more with those Members who said that we must not tiptoe on cultural eggshells. For a long time, that has been the problem and a challenge. I am clear that that can have no standing. FGM is against our laws.

The hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire asked about what happens in France. They examine every girl every year until the age of six, as part of other examinations. When I met with my opposite number in France, she said, “You know, we just have a little look.” Given that there is no question about 99% of our population—they do not practise FGM—that would not necessarily be the best use of resources for us. There must be continual pressure from the Metropolitan police and the other forces around the country that were mentioned. They are now proactively looking for those who are perpetrating FGM and seeking to prosecute them.

Many Members also raised the point that our work should be much more to do with awareness and getting into and working with communities. The women of our Somali communities are very hidden. When I visited a school in Bristol, the first primary school in the country that has an FGM safeguarding policy and brings in the Somali mothers, that was the first time that they had all met to be able to discuss such things. The issues are not discussed in the way that we might in this country—the women are very isolated. That is why I have been trying to involve religious and community leaders, alongside those agencies that are working in this field and are best able to get into the communities and to deal with awareness.

I have also involved the TUC and the teaching unions, because they have an opportunity to look at teacher training and other such issues. Indeed, I am working with other Ministers on safeguarding, because the issues are hugely important. The Home Office produced guidelines—I am going to run out of time—for front-line workers, but we were shocked to find that eight out of 10 teachers do not even know about the guidelines, so we are working with the Department for Education on raising awareness about such issues.

I could not agree more with the view that we must be flexible with funding. However, the £35 million that was raised is, in a sense, to get things started. We need to find out what is right—part of the money goes on gathering evidence; part of it goes on social change. The funding helps to support the African movement, as well as the UN resolution banning FGM.

Early and forced marriage is very much in the same vein as FGM, inasmuch as both are social norms. That is a terrible indictment, because such norms are the most deep-seated and hardest things to change. That is why I am particularly interested in behavioural change. We continue to work with Girls Not Brides to develop a global theory of change on early and forced marriage, to underpin the new programmes.

[Pauline Latham]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lynne Featherstone]

I have only half a second, so I hope that the hon. Lady will forgive me if I do not.

We are pushing for an ambitious and stand-alone goal on gender for 2015, including strong target language on preventing and eliminating VAWG, as set out in the high-level panel report. It is feasible to have an ultimate target of eliminating VAWG and to measure progress towards that as we do for other ambitious goals, such as that for ending hunger.

I want quickly to address stoning in Afghanistan. Women and girls there continue to face huge issues. The proposal to reinstate stoning is symptomatic of the situation in which women and girls find themselves. In fact, I met the Afghan Minister for Education only yesterday. I raised the issue of violence against women and girls in schools in Afghanistan. He gave me many assurances, but one challenge in Afghanistan is that things are decentralising. Individual communities are going to be far from central control.

I must finish there. I am very sorry, but I will try to write to Members to answer the points that I could not address in such a short time.

Global Food Security

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I am pleased to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. I am also pleased to speak in today’s important debate on the International Development Committee’s report on global food security. The Committee put a lot of work into this comprehensive report, responding to the call to act on increasing worries about global food security, about which the public are concerned.

In the early autumn, for a whole afternoon and early evening—five or six hours—I led a debate with the Bishop of Derby in Derby cathedral about the IF campaign and global food security. The former Secretary of State, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), also came along and talked about food security. The debate was well attended, which shows that people out there are concerned, in particular about the taxpayers’ money spent on international development, because they want it to be used effectively. In this case, we can use it effectively.

The need for immediate action was put beyond doubt after average global food prices hit an all-time high in 2011. According to the International Food Policy Research Institute, the three main reasons for the increases were biofuel production, commodity trading and climate change.

Having visited various African countries, I am especially concerned that land grabbing by the private sector for the growing of biofuels, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, could cause food crises due to the unavailability of land for food crops. Nevertheless, I feel that the recommendations made by the report provide a pragmatic and sustainable solution to the situation. The Government have not fully accepted or agreed with the recommendation made by the report to put in place a cap on the level of food-based biofuel that can count towards the provisions of the European Union’s renewable energy directive, but I am confident that consensus can eventually be reached.

I am also encouraged that the European Parliament has voted on the incorporation of indirect land use change factors into the directive. The directive, if accepted by the Government after discussions, combined with the revision of the UK renewable transport fuel obligation to exclude agriculturally produced biofuel, as recommended by the report, will ensure that land grabbing is kept to a minimum and that local people are able to feed themselves and their families for years to come.

I am in particular pleased at the news that the Government have agreed with the Committee’s report on the need to improve rural infrastructure to ensure global food security. I am pleased that my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for International Development has launched a new challenge fund window for private companies willing to invest in eastern and southern African staple food markets.

The Government will also offer grants to companies that seek to invest in storage and collateral systems; my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) mentioned storage, refrigerated vehicles and cold storage, which are problems particularly in parts of Africa with little electricity. Perhaps we could encourage solar energy technology companies to invest in such areas in Africa to help. They have so much more sunshine than we have here, and we are heavily investing in solar power, so there is no reason why they should not. The more people who use it, the cheaper it will become for them.

The Government also hope to invest in import markets and co-ordination and information systems in markets. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) mentioned roads going in. I am pleased to see that happening. Roads open up markets and make it easier for people to get their produce to market. I am also pleased that mobile phone technology is helping people in African countries to find the best markets and the best prices for their food.

Some encouraging things are going on in different countries. What DFID does well is to take best practice from country to country and help people improve their techniques. DFID’s plans will help encourage food production and save thousands of people, not just from starvation but from malnutrition and undernourishment. It will also ensure that countries and farmers have the resources to build their own rural economies and help the global community reach the UN’s post-2015 millennium development goal of halving global poverty.

I would like to share one example with the Minister. When we were in Ethiopia, I went to meet a British glove manufacturer from the south-west that has always invested in Ethiopian sheep pelts for its gloves. It has now built a factory in Ethiopia and is manufacturing gloves over there, but the farmers there have stopped dipping their sheep. As a result, the sheep get various infestations that cause holes in the pelts, which means that the pelts are not of such good quality.

The company was umming and ahhing about what to do. Its core business is glove manufacturing, but it felt that if it could set up a model farm and train the local farmers to dip their sheep, they would not produce flawed pelts with holes. Not only that, but if they showed them how to let the rams in only at certain times of the year, as we do—so that when the lambs are born they have plenty to eat—they would get bigger lambs, bigger sheep, bigger pelts and more meat to share. That is the sort of lateral thinking that we can encourage. Maybe DFID should consider how it can operate model farms to show farmers how best to do such things.

Alternatively, because I believe that a lot of farmers in many countries need better education about farming practices, maybe we should be encouraging agricultural colleges to set up branches abroad or get people to come here to learn more about agriculture. However, it would be better for people to learn in their own countries, because we do not have to deal with the same climates or water shortages as they do in African countries. If farmers could be taught to use fertilisers and much better farming methods, including irrigation, we could help improve farming practices throughout the continent, which would inevitably improve productivity, which other hon. Members have discussed.

Another problem, discussed by my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford, is land tenure in Rwanda. We saw on our visit that Rwanda has a problem. It has allowed people to build all over the place, so that buildings are dotted about, meaning that there are no large amounts of land for people to cultivate, but lots of smallholdings. Until such countries have better planning laws, they cannot have large farms; they can only have various sizes of smallholding. Maybe some education could be delivered, or work done with Governments of other countries, to improve planning laws so that buildings are not built all over the place. Countryside is lost when that happens, and there should be better ways of planning for the future.

The report’s recommendations are clearly having an effect on Government policy. I am particularly encouraged by the partial consensus in the Government response that the UK will do its utmost in its role in Europe to promote the food security interests of less economically developed countries. I am hopeful that the International Development Committee will continue to be effective in dealing with that important issue in future. As hon. Members have said, we will have to produce much more food for the world. The land is there; we just need better technologies. We are well placed to help developing countries to produce more and better food.

I should perhaps declare an interest. I am involved with a charity in this country called Free the Children, which works internationally. It talks about adopting a village and does health and education work, but it also spends a lot of time teaching children in schools how to grow crops, so they can then go back and teach their parents. Free the Children shows them how to use water and fertiliser, and what happens if they are not used appropriately, so they can take the technology back to their parents, who can see that they get much more crop yield per acre or hectare than if they did not use that technology.

There are ways for us to be innovative, as Free the Children has been, by working with schoolchildren, as well as with our agricultural colleges working out there. We can also encourage British and European businesses investing in developing countries to think laterally and consider how they can help by setting up model farms and demonstrating ways to do things, so that best practice is spread as quickly as possible. Everything is very good, but it is all fairly small-scale. It needs to be much more rapid if we are to satisfy the world’s needs in the next 25 years.

Afghanistan

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The principal route for DFID, aside from our strengthening of institutions in the security and policing spheres, has been the focus on livelihoods, particularly in the agricultural sector. The reality is that we simply must give Afghan farmers an alternative to cultivating poppies. That has clearly been a real challenge. We have seen some significant progress, but the challenge remains, which is why DFID’s livelihoods work will continue.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State mention the HALO Trust which, along with MAG, is helping to de-mine large areas all over the world. When the Select Committee went to Afghanistan, I noticed that women were employed to de-mine areas, which helps to raise their status in the country. I hope that we will be able to continue to fund that in the future and the wonderful ICRC-funded hospital—everyone who works there is at least a single amputee if not a double amputee, providing fantastic role models for disabled people.

[Justine Greening]

I am very grateful for that question. As I have said, we want to allow HALO to continue the important work it does and clear Herat province of mines by 2018. I can assure my hon. Friend her that this work on health, and particularly improving the access of pregnant women to health facilities, will continue to be one of our key priorities.

Oral Answers to Questions

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Wednesday 13th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question and for her very constructive work in Northern Ireland. I know that the whole House wants to wish her well with the difficulties that she and her office have faced in recent weeks.

I think there is of course a responsibility for the Taoiseach and the British Prime Minister to work together, and we had a very good set of meetings this week; but the greatest possible responsibility lies with the devolved institutions. It is great that they are working and that the agreement has bedded down, but I would appeal to the First Minister, the Deputy First Minister and all those involved in the Assembly to put away the conflicts of the past, work on a shared future for the people of Northern Ireland, start to take down the segregation, the peace walls and the things that take people apart in Northern Ireland, find the savings from those things and invest in a better future for everyone in Northern Ireland.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

Q8. When he next expects to visit Mid Derbyshire constituency.

[The Prime Minister]

I have no immediate—sorry. I look forward to visiting Mid Derbyshire soon. I very much enjoyed my recent visit to Derbyshire, when I went to the Toyota factory, in which many of my hon. Friend’s constituents work, and I am sure I will be back there soon.

[Pauline Latham]

I know that my right hon. Friend is quite rightly taking a proactive role in leading trade missions to India and other countries. Does he agree that small manufacturing companies such as those based in Mid Derbyshire should also be given the chance to play their part in driving Britain’s exports to emerging markets such as India, China and the rest?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We have improved our performance in terms of exports and goods, as I said earlier, to these key emerging markets, but the real challenge is to get SMEs exporting. If we could increase the figure from what I think is one in five to one in four, we would wipe out our trade deficit and create many jobs and a lot of investment at the same time. I have led trade missions to every single G20 country, apart from Argentina, and I look forward to doing more in the future. I will certainly include SMEs, and perhaps some from my hon. Friend’s constituency.

Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady might have seen that I have today set out our plans to work with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to set up a tax capacity-building unit, which will provide tax expertise to developing countries to help them to broaden their tax base and improve their tax collection. The Chancellor has made it clear that we want to see real progress on tax and tax transparency at the G8, which is why they are on the agenda.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and I came back from Ethiopia last week. A company called Pittards is investing money from this country to upskill people there—it has helped 1,500 so far and it wants to get up to 5,000. It is paying more than the minimum wage. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is the best way for companies to invest, to get the right products coming back to this country and exported all over the world, and to get women into better jobs?

[Justine Greening]

I completely agree. My hon. Friend has provided a really good example of how this can work in practice. Another good example would be Taylors of Harrogate, which has worked to improve its tea collection and tea capability in Rwanda. It has not only improved things but brought about new products that benefit us all. This is a really practical way of lifting the poorest people in developing countries out of poverty—not just through cash transfers, but by genuinely providing them with what they want: a job.

Afghanistan

Pauline Latham Excerpts

Thursday 17th January 2013 Westminster Hall

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

It is a delight to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Walker, for what I believe to be the first time. I visited Afghanistan for the first time with the Committee last year. I particularly want to focus on the rights of women and girls, as did my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce), the Chair of the Select Committee on International Development. It is an appropriate topic to discuss, because the UN theme for international women’s day, which is very soon—8 March—is:

“Elimination and prevention of all forms of violence against women and girls.”

Since 2001, when we went into Afghanistan following the attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York, we have spent £30 billion on aid to the country, and I still believe that the rights of women and girls have not been fully recognised. I would like to point out, however, that the aid we have invested in Afghanistan has achieved an enormous amount. For example, as my right hon. Friend said, more than 3 million girls are now in education. Maternal mortality has also been brought down.

Prior to 2001, the Taliban banned girls from going to school. The role of women has been key to transforming Afghanistan. I am pleased that the report, in recommendations 19 and 20, clearly states what needs to be done to ensure that work in that area continues to move forward, and gains need to be capitalised on, not lost. Some women we met when we took evidence here, who were modestly but well dressed professional women, were asked what would happen if they dressed that way in Afghanistan; the simple answer was, “We’d be stoned to death.”

I would like to mention three headlines on three consecutive days in December 2012. One from Reuters states:

“Female government worker shot dead in Afghanistan…Nadia Sediqqi, acting head of women’s affairs department in Laghman province, is shot dead on her way to work. Violence against women appears to be on the rise in Afghanistan…Unknown gunmen have shot dead a senior female government worker five months after her predecessor was killed in a bomb attack, officials in eastern Afghanistan say.”

One on 11 December states:

“Afghanistan women ‘still suffering horrific abuse’…Thousands of Afghan women are being failed by the country’s justice system…Yet the reality suggests many women still live with the daily fear of violence. Last month police said they arrested two men in Kunduz for allegedly beheading a teenage girl after her father rejected a marriage proposal. It came soon after four policemen were sentenced for raping an 18-year-old.”

And on 12 December:

“Afghanistan: Women suffer despite anti-abuse law, says UN”.

Things are not as rosy as we would like.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the point raised by the Chair of the Select Committee about the worrying failure to recruit female police officers highlighted something concrete that the UK can do to improve the situation? More female police officers would help, not only because they would be recruited into economic activity, but because there would be women in the security services who those suffering violence could go to, so they could access protection from the police force, which is often hostile. Afghanistan has a target of recruiting 5,000 female police officers by 2015. Surely, we should support that target.

[Pauline Latham]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. As we know, we also need more female doctors able to examine girls when they have been raped or abused in any way, so that they will share their stories with females, rather than be unable to talk because they are being examined by men or, very often, taken into custody because they have been raped.

To say that women in Afghanistan are second-class citizens is still a vast understatement. The Taliban are still present in Afghanistan and some would argue that they have moderated their view on women, which I believe many of them have, but there is a divide, with some of them wanting to return to their old-fashioned values. For example, I am sure that most people are aware of the incident in Kandahar, when students were forced to watch as their head teacher was executed for ignoring Taliban orders to stop the schooling of young girls. In addition, only a year ago the current Government, led by President Karzai, supported senior clerics in the country who have allowed husbands to beat their wives in certain circumstances.

The organisation Global Rights has stated that 87% of Afghan women will suffer domestic abuse in their lifetime, and those who stand up to their husbands are punished for their behaviour in disrespecting their husband. In Afghanistan, we met an educated woman who has a good job, but her brother will still decide who she marries. She has no choice in that, and she cannot even tell him the sort of man she would like to marry, because he will ignore it. That is not uncommon there; it happens all the time.

Before I visited Afghanistan, I read a story on the BBC News website about the “I had to run away” report published by Human Rights Watch. The report highlighted that hundreds of Afghan women are in jail for so-called moral crimes, including running away and extramarital sex. It stated that women were punished for fleeing domestic abuse and violence, and that some rape victims were imprisoned. I want to point out what is meant by “extramarital sex” in that context. It is sex outside marriage where a woman is forced to have sex against her will—what I think most people in this room would consider a clear case of rape, but which is in fact deemed a moral crime. The report also calls on the Afghan Government to release about 400 women and girls held in jails or juvenile detention centres.

There has been a sharp rise in honour killings and violent crimes against women. Forced marriages and forced child marriages remain widespread, which, apart from a range of emotional distress, means that women and girls are unable to become independent. They become trapped in a vicious circle that often makes them reliant on their abusive husbands. That is the current situation in Afghanistan, more than a decade after military intervention. My deep personal fear, which is shared by Orzala Ashraf, the independent civil society activist who gave evidence to our Committee, is that as we approach the withdrawal of forces in 2014, women risk “dropping off the agenda.”

I must pay tribute to the former Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell). On his appointment to that role, he made the empowerment of women a central theme of his Afghanistan development strategy. Our report points out our slight concern that that may not be being translated into a priority for DFID on location in Afghanistan. Should that be true, I hope that the Government will encourage such a priority and press it as the most important part of what they can do.

It is extremely important that the Government work with the international community to support Afghanistan fully to meet United Nations Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. I am therefore pleased that DFID, in its response to the Select Committee report, has agreed with recommendation 19, which is to seek to combat violence against women through support for women’s shelters and legal services, and to continue to ensure that women and girls are a major focus for its education and wealth creation programmes.

However, I urge DFID to rethink its disagreement with recommendation 20, which proposed the creation of a joint donor and Government plan for women and girls during the transition. That would encourage donors to commit themselves to specific programmes and objectives based on evidence and consultation. I believe that, as it states in our report, that

“could help catalyse greater commitment and sustained political will to ensure that women and girls are not forgotten in transition.”

I hope that the report will make a real difference to the people of Afghanistan and to world security. I know that the Minister will do all that he can to support our views.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—