Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

Let me give the right hon. Gentleman the figures. We need to look at spending power per dwelling, which is the combination of grant plus council tax. In the right hon. Gentleman’s area, the spending per dwelling is £3,122 whereas it is £1,872 in West Oxfordshire. I fully accept that the need is much greater in Knowsley than it is in West Oxfordshire, but I would argue that that provides a relatively fair balance between the two.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

Q10. Following decades of underinvestment and hollow promises from previous Governments, the coalition’s early decision fully to dual the A11 is driving investor confidence in Norwich and East Anglia. May I urge the Prime Minister to continue to look east, as a powerhouse for economic growth, and to back the opportunities available for investment in the great eastern main line?

[The Prime Minister]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to stand up for Norwich and for Norwich’s economy. The £100 million we are investing in the A11 is an important part of that. It will be completed in 2014, and it will cut congestion on the route between Cambridge and Norwich. For once, I have said something that the shadow Chancellor agrees with, because I know that he wants to go and watch the Canaries. Now we will be able to get him there a little bit quicker. There is no end to my munificence in trying to help the shadow Chancellor.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 17th July 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. United Kingdom companies also have a key role to play, and companies in his own constituency, such as Taylors of Harrogate, demonstrate how that can be done.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

Last week, I visited Lebanon, where I announced that the UK will allocate a further £50 million to help Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Lebanese people in host communities. I also visited Tanzania and Pakistan, and hosted donors and United Nations agencies in London to map out steps on aid co-ordination. Following my visit to Rwanda last month, I would like to inform the House that although the latest assessment of the partnership principles has shown some welcome progress, our overall assessment remains that it is not right to release general budget support, and we will re-programme the payment of £16 million to support specific education and poverty alleviation programmes.

[Simon Wright]

In 2010, the UK provided much-needed help to the people of Haiti following the outbreak of cholera. However, an NGO has recently raised concerns that five of the seven recommendations of a UN report on the epidemic have been either only partially implemented or not implemented at all. Will the Secretary of State urgently investigate those concerns?

[Justine Greening]

I had the chance to visit Haiti earlier this year, and I understand my hon. Friend’s concerns. The report he is talking about has not yet been formally endorsed by the UN or peer-reviewed, but I can assure him that the UK’s contribution to tackling cholera in Haiti has been substantial since 2010. We have provided support for more than 1.3 million people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Simon Wright Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

Absolutely. I welcome the hon. Gentleman’s question, because it illustrates the determination with which we seek value for money and take every possible opportunity to eliminate waste so that we can focus our taxpayers’ resources on the poorest people in the world, who are in such genuine need.

[Simon Wright (Norwich South) (LD)]

5. What progress her Department has made on developing sustainable development goals.

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

We are working internationally to secure a single set of development goals for the period after 2015. We want to build on the millennium development goals, finishing the job by eliminating poverty but also incorporating the sustainable development priorities that were agreed at Rio+20 in June.

[Simon Wright]

Will the Department support the Prime Minister in his role as co-chair of the high-level panel on the post-2015 development framework in order to guarantee integration and coherence between this process and the sustainable development goals, with the aim of putting environmental sustainability at the heart of the framework?

[Lynne Featherstone]

My hon. Friend raises a critical issue, that of ensuring that coherence and integration exist between the sustainable development goals and the post-2015 millennium development goals. I assure him that my Department is doing just that. Across Government, we have a single structure and approach to managing our engagement with both the high-level panel and the SDGs. The Prime Minister’s envoy is a senior DFID official, and is responsible for both those things.