Oral Answers to Questions

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Wednesday 29th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to raise this issue. First and foremost, I would like to commend all the partners and agencies working in Somalia in quite terrible, difficult and harrowing conditions. We work with a range of trusted and experienced partners in a country that is very difficult; there is no doubt about that. I have met many of them, as have my DFID teams and officials in country. Our priority, as I have said, is to get emergency food and water to the people who need it, and we are working with a range of agencies to do exactly that.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

The scale of the humanitarian crisis in Somalia, the rest of east Africa and Yemen is truly appalling. I welcome what the Secretary of State has said about the UK donation, but what are we doing to ensure that other wealthy countries rise to the challenge as well?

[Priti Patel]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for making that remark. He will know that thanks to the generosity of UK taxpayers, the east Africa Disasters Emergency Committee appeal has reached £40 million. UK aid has contributed to that, and rightly so, through our match funding. Others need to do more; I have been unequivocal about the fact that I think that other countries need to pull their finger out. We have led the way in terms of lobbying and making calls. All Ministers across DFID and across Government, including Foreign and Commonwealth Office Ministers, have been doing exactly that—pressing the wealthier countries to contribute more to tackling these famines and to step up their own responses.