Oral Answers to Questions

Sheila Gilmore Excerpts

Wednesday 8th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr O’Brien]

I pay tribute to and congratulate Dolen Cymru on its tremendous ongoing work with Lesotho. It has not been a recipient of DFID funds; it has been self-supporting. On 30 June, I will be travelling to Wales on a ministerial visit, so I can discuss the most appropriate way, particularly now that Wales has the newer powers, to take forward the fact that development is a national responsibility while equally ensuring that we involve all parts of the United Kingdom in continuing good development work.

[Sheila Gilmore (Edinburgh East) (Lab)]

5. By what means he proposes to determine the level of funding his Department will allocate to UN Women. The Department for International Development recently reviewed the value for money of British taxpayers’ funding to all multilateral agencies through the multilateral aid review. We will apply the same broad criteria to UN Women’s strategic plan by assessing its organisational strengths and the relevance to UK aid objectives. This approach will help to determine the level of core funding for the agency.

[Sheila Gilmore]

One of the key priority areas for UN Women will be political empowerment of women. What plans does the Secretary of State’s Department have for backing up this work in Governments and legislatures around the world?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady is absolutely right. It is incredibly important to put girls and women at the centre of everything we do in development, which is what empowerment is. We are watching very carefully how the agency is developing. We have given nearly £660,000 as transitional funding to the agency and offered support staff on secondment. I am confident that once the plan is produced we will be able to fund it. I am sure that she will understand, however, that it is right to commit taxpayers’ money only when we can see what it is being spent on.