Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Penny Mordaunt and Alex Norris

Wednesday 1st May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

That is quite right; it will have no effect on our ability to be able to do things and to work with partners. I hope that the European Commission, and in particular its legal department, will see sense and recognise that 20% of the non-governmental organisations it currently uses are British because we are world-class. Its programming will be poorer if it does not continue to use world-class organisations.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

With time running out, the Government need to arrange a large volume of trade deals in a short period of time—deals they said would be easy but are not. There is a concern that to do so they may promise aid spending as an inducement to a favourable trade deal. Will the Secretary of State today commit to aid spending continuing to be untied and always being based on need alone, rather than for our own commercial and trade ends?

[Penny Mordaunt]

Yes, I have always said that and we will always do that.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Penny Mordaunt and Alex Norris

Wednesday 23rd May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

1. What steps her Department is taking to increase its support for the development of co-operatives throughout the world.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Penny Mordaunt)]

The Department for International Development has supported co-operatives across many sectors and is increasing support to small-scale farmers to help them to commercialise. For example, the ÉLAN programme is working with women’s co-ops in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to increase quality, improve marketing and establish systems for full traceability of product.

[Alex Norris]

The co-operative model of ownership has distinct advantages for sustainable international development. Regrettably, in 2011 the Government cut the £5 million fund for co-operative development. Will the Secretary of State commit to investigating the desirability of reinstating that fund, and match the ambition of Opposition Members by ensuring that the Department is looking properly at alternative models of ownership?

[Penny Mordaunt]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman that co-operatives can be a hugely powerful and empowering model for delivering economic development. I do not think we should have just a small £5 million fund. We should be levering all the investment we have from DFID into those organisations. Through a new initiative, “GREAT for Partnership”, we hope to build connections with organisations that can do just that.

Counter-Daesh Update

Debate between Penny Mordaunt and Alex Norris

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

The Foreign Office has ongoing discussions. Most recently, my right hon. Friend the Minister for the Middle East was in Turkey last week and spoke to the Deputy Prime Minister.

[Alex Norris (Nottingham North) (Lab/Co-op)]

The Secretary of State mentions the suffering of the Syrian people; does she agree with the constituents who came to see me at my surgery last Friday that that suffering has been compounded by the British Government’s shameful timidity regarding Turkish aggression in northern Syria?

[The Minister for the Middle East (Alistair Burt)]

Perhaps the vote in 2013 had something to do with it.