International Day of Education

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Westminster Hall

[The Minister for Development (Anneliese Dodds)]

It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing this important debate on the eve of the UN International Day of Education. I am grateful to all hon. Members for the important points that they have raised during our relatively short debate. We have heard some illuminating speeches and I will do my best to respond to the many important points raised.

As many hon. Members have said, although there have been many improvements, such as in the absolute number of children able to access education, we know that education overall is in crisis. Globally, 250 million children and counting are not in school. As we have heard, poverty, gender, disability and lack of schools or teachers, particularly trained teachers, all play a part in that.

The climate crisis and conflict are now disrupting the education of more than 220 million children and counting every single year. Last year alone, extreme weather events meant that children in low-income countries missed out on 18 days of school. As I discussed with some young people in South Sudan, the children who are flooded out of their schools during the rainy season are the same children who are not able to learn because it is too hot during the dry season. That means that in many of those countries, some children are missing up to a whole month of school. Millions of the children who are in school are not learning effectively, including the 70% of children in school in low and middle-income countries who are still unable to read a basic text by the age of 10.

Young women and girls are disproportionately affected by all that, so I am grateful to the Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), for raising the situation for women and girls, as she has done frequently. That particularly applies when it comes to access to higher and further education. If we look at sub-Saharan Africa, for example, only 7% of eligible women are enrolled in universities and colleges, compared with the global average of 42%. I am pleased that the right hon. Lady also mentioned the role of the UK’s higher education sector in this context, because it is incredibly important to bring in that expertise. We are seeking to build that; I recently met Baroness Smith and other experts to talk about the UK’s international education efforts.

When we consider that every additional year of learning provides a 10% increase in later earnings annually, it is clear that education has a key role to play in tackling poverty and supporting resilient, long-term growth. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) ably set out how important education is not just economically, but for so many other things, such as stability, security, healthcare and other outcomes that we need to see. She has considerable expertise in this area, given her previous roles with the British Council. However, we know that the financing gap for education in low and middle-income countries is an estimated $97 billion every year. More than 60% of that gap is finance that would be provided by the Governments of those countries.

When we look at the overall contribution of official development assistance to education, we see that it makes up 3% of education budgets. As was mentioned rightly by my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green, who is really passionate about this issue, some 3.3 billion people are now living in countries that are spending more on servicing their debt than they are on the health or education that would underpin long-term, resilient and inclusive growth. All of that comes at a time when populations are on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa.

In short, we need the kind of massive global effort that many Members have said is necessary during this debate, to ensure that people are provided with a quality education. Over the last six months, I have been making the case for action around the world, from South Sudan to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, and at the World Bank in Washington and the COP29 climate summit in Baku. I also met the young people from across our country who have been championing global education in schools when they came to Parliament —perhaps other Members also met them; they were incredibly powerful advocates.

The UK is determined to work in genuine partnership with like-minded donors, multilateral organisations and countries and communities across the global south, so that we address the global learning crisis effectively and efficiently. Consequently, today I will highlight four areas that correspond to points raised by hon. Members.

First, we are making foundational learning for all a priority. That means using the best available evidence to support reforms and helping Governments to provide all children with the building blocks for their future. That work uses UK expertise to focus on foundational mathematics, and I saw how it made a huge difference when I was in Malawi. It involved moving away from rote learning, which often does not teach children the skills they need. Such work is important not just for numeracy, which I mentioned, and literacy; it is also important for the development of social and emotional skills, so that we can prepare children and young people to navigate a rapidly changing world.

Of course, we also need to target the most marginalised groups, including those living in poverty or conflict, refugees, those caught up in crisis, and girls; we seek to do that. The Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, mentioned the international women and girls strategy. She will know that where the previous Government aimed to make sensible reforms, my approach and the Government’s approach is not to put those plans in a drawer and not enact them. We are determined to make progress speedily. Of course, we must ensure that the strategy is up to date. However, we will not say that the main tenets of those reforms—especially those around education for girls, which we have been discussing—should not be held to in the future. We really want to enact those reforms—it is the key thing for us—and to embed long-term progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green rightly mentioned disabled children, and Myanmar was equally rightly mentioned by the Opposition spokes-person. This morning, I met—virtually, obviously—some education specialists based in Myanmar. As the Opposition spokesperson rightly said earlier, given the regime in Myanmar and how it operates, I cannot go into a huge amount of detail about exactly which organisations are involved. However, I am really proud of the fact that the UK is working directly with local communities and local experts, so that children, including disabled children and children who have had limbs amputated because of landmines or because other problems have befallen them, can access education. That is really a case where, as my hon. Friend said, education is not just a privilege but a right for children, including disabled children.

I should also inform the Chamber that in October, we announced that the UK will launch a global taskforce to tackle sexual and physical violence, and psychological harm, in and around schools. Horrific abuse, both within schools and outside them, devastates lives, and it accounts for about 5% of school drop-outs and lower attainment worldwide. My hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green rightly raised that issue. We have to make sure that schools are safe. We are determined to advocate for that, which is in line with the fact that the UK is of course a signatory to the safe schools declaration. I am grateful to the previous Government for signing up to that declaration; it was right that they did so.

Of course, safety also has to be provided when it comes to freedom of religion and belief. I was grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for raising that issue, which he always champions, and I thank him for his kind words. It is absolutely right, as he said, that education provides dignity, and that a lack of literacy, numeracy and other skills disempowers people and prevents them from being able to make the choices that they might need to make for themselves and their families.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about the schoolgirls abducted in Nigeria. I have talked to schoolgirls in Zambia and I remember that they get up at 5.30 am to clean the place where they live. They were young—some as young as 13—but they do all the cooking for the household. They get ready to learn and they learn all day. They are thirsty to learn; they are determined to learn. We must always ensure that they have the safety that is surely their right, wherever they are in the world.

Secondly, we are scaling up finance for education around the world and seeking to make it smarter. We are sharing our trusted research and evidence to encourage philanthropic organisations to collaborate more and maximise our impact. We are pivoting away from funding education directly and towards helping Governments improve the way they support the sector for the long term, particularly with partners across the global south.

We are making the most of UK expertise and our diplomatic reach to champion innovative new ways to mobilise finance. The UK plays an important role in developing the international finance facility for education, which provides a sevenfold return on investment—it really is an incredible instrument and provides exactly the kind of multiplying effect we need to have on the funding available. We are now calling on others to join us in backing it. Together, we can unlock $1 billion in additional affordable finance for lower and middle-income countries’ Governments. Thirdly, we are determined to ensure that more children are safe and able to learn; that includes those, mentioned by many hon. Members, who live through conflict and in communities affected by the climate and nature crisis.

As Members have also mentioned, even with the welcome ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the impacts of that conflict remain devastating for education. In Gaza, 95% of schools have been damaged or destroyed. So in addition to our funding for the UNRWA core budget, the UK is contributing £2 million to Education Cannot Wait and £5.6 million to the Global Partnership for Education, to improve access to education for hundreds of thousands of children across Gaza and the west bank as they start to rebuild. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Esher and Walton and many others mentioned that.

The case of Afghanistan was also rightly mentioned. Appalling measures have been adopted by the Taliban—particularly in relation to girls’ secondary education, but also medical education and so many other areas in that country where women and girls are seeing their rights systematically stripped away. The UK Government are determined to play our part. To support girls in Afghanistan, we are ensuring that at least 50% of our education funding is going to support their education; we are determined to ensure that. We are also advocating more generally for girls and women in Afghanistan. I was recently pleased to announce in this Chamber that the UK is now one of the countries that is politically supporting the case when it comes to Afghanistan on the basis of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.

In November, we announced £14 million for education programmes in Sudan and for Sudanese refugees, where, as has been mentioned, 17 million children have had no access to education since April 2023. I was grateful for the words of the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) in that regard. In some areas 90% of children are now out of formal schooling in Sudan. The hon. Member, like the Government, has been determined to not just raise the profile of that appalling conflict, which is the worst displacement crisis in the world, but also to advocate for measures that will directly support Sudanese people; he knows that we have doubled the UK’s support to Sudan and to Sudanese people who have been displaced. We are using every avenue to push for an end to the hostilities and to ensure that international humanitarian law is upheld. Like him, I pay tribute to organisations such as the Windle Trust that are so critical for the education of children in Sudan. I am very proud that it is based in my constituency. It really does impress me that an organisation based in Oxford is having such an impact all around the world.

The role of faith-based organisations was rightly mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford, because they so often have a huge impact for communities all around the world. I thank him for mentioning that. The use of schools as shelters, which was mentioned in relation to Sudan, was also a problem in Lebanon when there was the crisis there. The UK was determined to ensure that we were playing our part for the children no longer able to go to the schools being used as shelters, and that they would get the emergency education that they needed.

A number of Members raised the issue of funding, including my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green, who asked about overall funding. I confirm that, as well as supporting Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education, we have a number of bilateral programmes that focus on promoting learning. We are currently the top bilateral donor to the Global Partnership for Education, and the second largest bilateral donor to Education Cannot Wait. I had the privilege of being at Education Cannot Wait’s annual general meeting. Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, is a strong advocate for the organisation and is achieving incredible things with it. We are in the middle of a spending review process and we will, of course, bear in mind hon. Members’ powerful comments about the importance of education as we develop our allocations and decisions for that spending review, both for the immediate future and the longer term. We will update the House on that as soon as is practicably possible.

There are three reviews at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, one of which, being undertaken by Baroness Minouche Shafik, is specifically focused on development capability and capacity in the FCDO. It comes after many years of a lot of turbulence around the UK’s approach to international development—in particular a huge amount of financial turbulence, which was not helped by the untrammelled growth of in-donor refugee costs in ODA. There was not a consistent approach but we are determined to have a consistent approach for the future. I hope that Members see that in the way that we are facing up to these issues.

On the point about teachers, I am sure that the National Education Union is keen to link its important work with work by Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education. Education Cannot Wait provides a lot of support for teachers, including direct financial support, support around recruitment and psychosocial support when teachers are operating in dangerous environments. There is an over-representation of fragile and conflict-affected states in the countries that receive the UK’s contribution to the Global Partnership for Education—60% of our funding to GPE goes to such states. There is a lot of work in this area and I am sure that the NEU will want to engage with it. I would, of course, be very happy to discuss that with the union if that would be useful.

Finally, we are investing to make education systems more resilient to the climate crisis and better able to help students thrive beyond their school years.

[Richard Foord]

Does the Minister agree with the Chair of the International Development Committee, who called the use of official development assistance for hosting asylum seekers in hotels “a spectacular own goal”?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I have enormous respect for the Chair of the International Development Committee and I have had a lot of discussions with her and other members of the Committee on this subject. The decision to count in-donor refugee costs within the overall category of overseas development assistance is, of course, a statistical decision taken by the OECD.

Different countries have had far lower levels of overseas development assistance going into those in-donor refugee costs. They have not seen the untrammelled increases that we saw under previous Governments. As I said, the current UK Government are determined to have a longer-term approach to the issue, and to get the costs down. In fact we have been doing so, as has been reflected in the decision taken by the Chief Secretary of the Treasury to increase the yearly ODA just after the new year. Part of that was from the reduction in in-donor refugee costs. It is a priority for the Home Secretary and the whole Government to ensure that we are dealing with those issues, so I am grateful to him for raising that point.

We are investing to make systems for education more resilient. At COP28 in Dubai, the UK helped to launch a new global declaration on the common agenda for education and climate change, through which 90 countries have now committed to action on climate that helps protect education. Ahead of COP30 in Brazil this year, we are working with our partners to prioritise the role of education in combating the climate and nature crises and to secure further action to protect children, including when they are learning, from extreme weather.

In response to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald), who is no longer in her place, I should say that she is right to underline the relationship between education, water and sanitation. That is important because children should be able to do something as basic as go to the toilet when they are at school; it is particularly important when it comes to girls’ education, because when there is not access to water that poses a particular problem for menstruating girls.

When it comes to resilience, we must ensure that we join up the UK’s strength in artificial intelligence and education technology, and harness their power responsibly so we can support marginalised children, tailor learning to students’ needs and boost the capacity of teachers, enabling them to reach children who cannot join them in the classroom. We are determined to ensure that more children can gain the skills they need to make the leap into higher and further education and employment. Once again, many thanks to all Members who have taken part in the debate. It has been an incredibly important one, and I look forward to the closing remarks.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Tuesday 14th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the right hon. Lady for her question, but she will surely understand that the COP agreement was about the global goal. The precise share for individual countries is worked out through the normal processes. It was her Government—a Conservative Government—who committed to the £11.6 billion climate finance goal. Unlike the previous Government, however, we are determined to fit that within our responsibilities and deliver on it for the sake of our climate and our economy.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

2. What discussions he has had with NATO allies on strengthening that alliance.

Sudan: US Determination of Genocide

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

The reality of the situation so far is that, although there have been very significant population movements, they have been into the countries neighbouring Sudan, particularly Chad, but also South Sudan, and many people have travelled to Egypt and further afield. Their situation has been very difficult in many cases. I have talked directly to those pushed out of Sudan because of the conflict into South Sudan when I was there last year. The UK will seek to do all we can to protect those individuals.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

Twenty years ago, the Save Darfur coalition was one of the biggest international social movements of its time, but today the campaigning voices of charities and NGOs on the conflict in Sudan are not being amplified in quite the same way, certainly not by Governments. Why does the Minister suppose this is, and what more can the British Government do to amplify the appeals for support from humanitarian organisations?

[Anneliese Dodds]

We have been seeking to amplify the voices of charities in this area. I have met them myself, and I have been particularly keen to ensure that I have heard directly from those operating in Sudan and those running the emergency response rooms. Those incredibly brave individuals, who are neutral in relation to the different warring parties in this conflict, are determined to support those who are suffering so much. The UK Government will try to ensure that their profile is increased in the weeks and months to come.

UK Leadership on Sudan

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Thursday 28th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

My hon. Friend raises a really important point. We are indeed seeing a huge amount of misinformation circulating, and a lot of it is digital. That is why we have been determined to support the Centre for Information Resilience, a research body that is gathering open-source evidence about the ongoing fighting. Where the facts about what is going on are being manipulated, that is linked to fuelling violence, so it is important that we see continued support for reliable information and evidence in this context and also that we combat that disinformation, which has been so damaging.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

The war in Sudan is plainly appalling. I heard that 14 million people had been displaced, but 11 million is also an appalling figure. As I understand it, this started out as a war between the general in charge of the armed forces and the general in charge of the Rapid Support Forces militia. That makes me think that we need to get upstream of such situations, to try to prevent them happening again. The UK used to be involved in defence engagement: we were delivering courses such as managing defence in a wider security context at the Kofi Annan international peacekeeping training centre, teaching things like democratic oversight and democratic control of the armed forces. Will the Government look again at that training, and see whether we might deliver more such training for military officers and officials in those developing countries that are receptive to it?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his interesting and important question. The issue of conflict prevention is absolutely fundamental, not just for me as a Minister but for the Foreign Secretary and, indeed, the Prime Minister. We have been seeking to ensure that the UK does all it can to exercise leadership in relation to what are often described as fragile and conflict-affected states. That includes states that are not yet in conflict but where there are the ingredients for conflict to increase. Unfortunately, of course, the climate crisis is now often linked to some of those conflicts. We have made sure that there is a stronger focus on economic development, for example. We had some good results a few weeks ago from the World Bank, which is focusing on this in its International Development Association replenishment. I will ensure that the specific issue of defence training is raised with the Defence Secretary, and I will definitely be thinking about it myself.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Tuesday 26th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for raising that and to her Committee for its work on this important issue. The UK Government have been absolutely clear that UNRWA is the only agency that can deliver aid at the scale and depth required in the middle of this humanitarian emergency.

My hon. Friend asked about representations being made by the UK Government. I have made those representations myself, including at the UN General Assembly. The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Lincoln (Hamish Falconer), made those representations yesterday. The Foreign Secretary has made them a number of times, including to his Israeli counterpart. It is clear that the restrictions on the operation of UNRWA must not be implemented by the Israeli Government.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

The humanitarian situation in the middle east is made worse by arms supply from within and beyond the region. The Liberal Democrats have a long-standing policy that the UK Government should not be exporting arms to Israel or to the Occupied Palestinian Territories given that they were referred to in the FCDO’s last human rights report. Will the FCDO extend the number of arms export licences denied to Israel by the UK?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I gently encourage the hon. Member to look at the action taken by the UK Government some weeks ago to suspend a number of arms licences. We believe that was important because of the risk towards breaking international humanitarian law. The UK Government take their responsibilities in that regard very seriously indeed.

Jailing of Hong Kong Pro-democracy Activists

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

In 2023 the Hong Kong police issued arrest warrants for eight overseas activists under the national security law. What are Ministers doing to challenge the extraterritorial reach of the national security law?

[Anneliese Dodds]

We were very clear, as were the previous Government, at the time of the passage of that law. We believe it is incredibly important that people in Hong Kong and beyond are able to exercise political rights and, indeed, to participate politically. All that the group of individuals who have just been sentenced were doing was exercising their right to political participation. We will resolutely defend that right, including in the UK and elsewhere.

International Engagement

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I absolutely will confirm that. I am so pleased that my hon. Friend has raised this issue. I think that people up and down the whole country are delighted that we will see the return of the Commonwealth games to Glasgow in 2026. I know that my right hon. Friend the Scotland Secretary is very pleased to be engaging on this matter with the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland, including those in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We need to ensure that the games have a lasting, positive legacy on health and on engagement in fitness and sports, and this new UK Government are determined to achieve that.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for the update on the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Next Sunday, volunteers will head to the beach when Sidmouth Plastic Warriors meet to prevent litter from ending up in the oceans. When they do so, they will want to be sure that their Government are encouraging other Governments to take action on ocean plastics. How likely does the Minister think it is that negotiations will be concluded on a UN global plastics treaty by the end of the year?

[Anneliese Dodds]

When the hon. Gentleman’s constituents take part in that activity, they are joining a global movement in which the Foreign Secretary himself was engaged with young people in Samoa. It is about ensuring that we all play our part in removing plastic pollution. The hon. Gentleman asks about the prospects for a global agreement. We all want to see that happen through the UN, but the fact that the Commonwealth came together in Samoa to agree on it is very exciting. It shows that there is a strong prospect of making headway on this very important issue.

Gaza and Lebanon

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

The UK Government look very carefully indeed at any reports suggesting that there has been a breaking of international humanitarian law. We have been particularly concerned about the situation of many healthcare workers. We have seen many of them being killed, and that includes UK and UK-linked personnel. We continue to look carefully at all these representations, including those that have come from the UN.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

A moment ago, the Minister supported the current UN Security Council resolution 1701, which was established under chapter VI of the United Nations charter and relates to peacekeeping. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), said earlier that we could potentially deploy British troops to supplement UNIFIL. Will the Minister ensure that no British troops are deployed into that situation until there is a peace to keep, or, under chapter VII of the charter, peace enforcement?

[Anneliese Dodds]

The UK Government have been very clear that it is through diplomatic channels, and also through our humanitarian effort, that we are seeking to do all we can to promote de-escalation. Any decisions relating to any resolution would of course be taken very seriously indeed by our Defence Secretary and by the whole Government, but it has been through those humanitarian and diplomatic levers that we have been straining every sinew to de-escalate and improve the situation of the populations who are so badly impacted at the moment.

Ukraine

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Monday 2nd September 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

The Foreign Secretary has spoken of his warm relations with the running mate of Donald Trump, J. D. Vance. That is just as well, because Vance said previously that he does not really care what happens to Ukraine one way or another. While Russia’s Deputy Foreign Minister is talking about changes to Russia’s doctrine on the use of nuclear weapons, Vance is joking about how Britain is somehow the first “Islamist country” with nuclear weapons. Will the Minister tell the House what efforts the Government are making to rid Vance and some others in the Republican party of the idea that the security of Ukraine and the security of Europe is somehow not important to the security of the United States?

[Anneliese Dodds]

It is clearly not for us in this House to speculate about hypothetical scenarios, and decisions about the US election will of course lie with the American people. I underline to the hon. Member that the UK and the US have been steadfast allies, working closely together on foreign policy issues and defence matters for over a century. That has applied with leaders of all political stripes in the White House and in Downing Street, and with Parliament and Congress as well. We welcome and will continue to welcome sustained bipartisan US support for Ukraine, including passage of the supplemental funding package, which has been key to the international effort.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Richard Foord and Anneliese Dodds

Tuesday 30th July 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

The hon. Member will be well aware that this is a legal process and has to be complied with. This Government are absolutely clear that we must act with integrity and ensure that we are following all the legal procedures, as the Foreign Secretary set out last week in the House and has set out this morning.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

As shadow Foreign Secretary, the Secretary of State urged David Cameron to publish the FCDO’s formal legal advice on whether Israel is breaching international humanitarian law in Gaza. Do the new ministerial team still think there is a compelling case for publishing the Government’s legal advice, and will the Government be publishing it?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Member for his question. The Foreign Secretary has been crystal clear that he will be as transparent as he possibly can. He will ensure that Parliament is fully updated on these matters.