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Preet Kaur Gill
Main Page: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)Department Debates - View all Preet Kaur Gill's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)
By the middle of this century, Africa will be home to 1 billion children, yet in places such as northern Nigeria half of girls are out of school. Achieving universal girls’ education would end child marriage, halve infant mortality and drastically reduce early childbearing. Can the Minister update the House on what progress has been made towards our G7 presidency pledge to get 40 million more girls into school? Can he explain how that squares with the Government’s decision to cut the FCDO’s education, gender and equality budget in half last year?
Mr Mitchell
We are looking at the budgets for the next financial year, and indeed the year after, and we will come to the House and set out what they are. However, the hon. Lady should be in no doubt that this is a top priority, as I explained to the hon. Member for Blaydon (Liz Twist). If we want to change the world, we can do so by educating girls. That is the first and foremost way of achieving it, and the Government are absolutely behind that agenda.