Disability-inclusive Development

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Westminster Hall

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

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Thirteenth Report of the International Development Committee, DFID’s work on disability-inclusive development, Session 2017-19, HC 1880, and the Government Response, Session 2017-19, HC 2680.

It is, as ever, a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans, not least because you serve as a distinguished member of the International Development Committee. I thank you, and indeed the other members of the Committee who are not present, for your service on the Committee. I also thank the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), who previously served with great distinction on the International Development Committee and who, like me, is standing down at the forthcoming general election. He has played an extraordinary leadership role on the Conservative Benches and in working cross-party across a range of development and humanitarian issues. I pay tribute to him for that and wish him well for the future. I thank the Minister, the shadow Minister and the Parliamentary Private Secretary for their attendance today at what I hope will be a positive and focused debate on an important issue.

In July, the International Development Committee released our thirteenth report, addressing the Department for International Development’s work on mainstreaming disability inclusion. Earlier this month, the Government published their response to the report. I am pleased that they responded very positively, accepting either wholly or partially all but two of our recommendations. I look forward to hearing from the Minister how DFID intends to achieve progress in the areas to which it is committed.

When we launched this short inquiry last December, we invited submissions on all aspects of the Department’s work on disability. We had a particular focus on whether the Department’s new disability strategy provided an adequate framework for approaching disability-inclusive development. I am grateful to everyone who gave evidence to our inquiry, and I put on the record my thanks to the fantastic Committee staff, some of whom are in the Public Gallery, for their hard work on the inquiry.

We have seen in recent years a substantial increase in DFID’s focus on disability. The Department launched its first ever strategy for disability-inclusive development, and the United Kingdom co-hosted the first global disability summit with the Government of Kenya and the International Disability Alliance. It is against that backdrop that we took an early look at this work. Overall, we were very pleased that the Government have reacted positively to this agenda.

It was under my predecessor, Lord Bruce, that the International Development Committee made a number of recommendations, including that the Department should develop a specific strategy on disability. I believe it is a critical step both in boosting disability inclusion and in ensuring that the Department has a clear commitment to disabled people right the way across its programming on development and in humanitarian crises. It is crucial in the context of the global goals—the sustainable development goals. As the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, outlines:

“Societies will never achieve the SDGs without the full participation of everyone, including people with disabilities.”

Disability is surely at the heart of this endeavour. A billion people, or around 15% of the world’s population, have some form of disability. It is estimated that around four in five of people with disabilities live in the world’s poorest countries, and that one in five people in those countries have some form of disability. They are perhaps one of the groups most at risk of being left behind. In many countries, what we would regard as basic or essential services for disabled people are not available—or if they are available, they are of very poor quality.

The “UN Flagship Report on Disability and Development 2018” found that poverty rates are higher on average for disabled people. On global goal 2—zero hunger—it found that:

“the average percentage of persons with disabilities who are unable to afford a meal with protein every second day is almost double that of persons without disabilities.”

Of course, we live in a world scarred by conflict. Armed conflict is a major cause of disability. Research by Human Rights Watch across a number of countries, including Cameroon, Syria and Yemen, shows that people with disabilities in situations of armed conflict face a disproportionate level of violence, forced displacement and ongoing neglect. Even more horrifying, Human Rights Watch found that, in some cases, disabled people are simply abandoned in their homes or in deserted villages for days or even weeks, with very little access to food or water.

I recently met Bahia Zrikem, Humanity and Inclusion’s humanitarian and policy co-ordinator for Syria. For the past eight years of the Syria conflict, Humanity and Inclusion, previously known as Handicap International, has deployed rehabilitation teams and partners to help Syrians, particularly in Jordan and Lebanon. More than 60% of refugee households from Syria have someone with a disability, and one in five Syrian refugees now living in Lebanon or Jordan have a disability. The challenges that they face are enormous.

I support Humanity and Inclusion’s Stop Bombing Civilians campaign. I hope that ending the use of explosive weapons in populated areas will be at the centre of the Government’s forthcoming review of the protection of civilians strategy. I pay tribute to Humanity and Inclusion and all the other organisations working in this field for advocating the rights of people with disabilities. Such organisations represent the experience and views of people with disabilities, and the Committee did its utmost to ensure that those voices shaped our inquiry and its resulting recommendations.

I pay tribute to Sightbox, a small charity born out of the passion and leadership of Dr John Patterson, who is the headteacher of St Vincent’s School for the visually impaired in my constituency in Liverpool. Pupils at St Vincent’s have created Sightbox containers filled with equipment, providing blind and visually impaired children with the means to access education and sport, and to have a more independent lifestyle. The boxes have been sent around the world to countries including Nepal, Gambia and Pakistan.

Too often in the past, development programmes have left out people with disabilities, and disabled people have not been involved in the decisions that affect their lives. That is why we welcome DFID’s decision to mainstream disability inclusion across the work of the Department.

Last year’s global disability summit was an important step forward. The Department announced initiatives that became part of the disability strategy, alongside the charter for change, which was signed by participating countries. The Committee commends those initiatives, which demonstrate true global leadership. We know that disability inclusion was a high priority for the previous DFID Secretary, who is now the Home Secretary, and particularly for her successor, the right hon. Member for Portsmouth North (Penny Mordaunt). We have seen a lot of change in the Department this year, and I urge the Minister to reflect on that. It is so important that DFID maintains momentum on delivering on the global disability summit commitments, and that it continues to take the lead in urging other donors to act and deliver on their commitments. I hope that the priority given by the two previous Secretaries of State will be maintained—the current Secretary of State was very positive when we asked him about the subject last week.

I welcome the Government’s commitment in their response to develop robust accountability on this issue. I hope the Minister can say a bit more about the Department’s plan for an independent secretariat and governance structure, so that everyone, including DFID, is fully accountable for the delivery of its commitments

As part of its strategy for disability-inclusive development, the Department has a twin-track approach that involves funding projects that are disability-specific alongside mainstreaming disability across other programmes. The Department takes a similar approach in other cross-cutting thematic areas, such as climate change, and the Committee believes that in principle it is the right approach. It has the potential to achieve real and sustainable improvements, provided the commitment is there in a sustained and sustainable way. Early progress has been positive, but much work still needs to be done.

The Committee received several pieces of evidence expressing concern that aspects of the strategy and delivery plan were vague, adding to a broader worry about the lack of clarity about what is expected of the staff who are to implement mainstreaming. Programmes, business units and teams across the Department need clarity about what mainstreaming involves in practice, so that they can implement it as effectively as possible. As Humanity and Inclusion told us,

“Disability Strategy’s Delivery Plan does provide a framework for actions, with lead departments, and as such is a vital and welcome tool for outlining DFID’s work on inclusion. But in many cases actions are too vague and lack specific outcomes.”

The Committee is concerned that there is a risk that implementation might be inconsistent across DFID, and difficult to measure. I am pleased that DFID has committed to monitoring the progress of its business units in meeting inclusion standards. Hopefully that will help provide a better understanding of how effective the two-strand approach to inclusion is.

Sightsavers, a fantastic charity, recommended that DFID republishes its delivery plan to make it more specific, and to include a clear evaluation mechanism, and a timeline for when all business units should meet the minimum standards. The Department has extended the deadline for its republished plan to June next year. I really appreciate the desire to get it right, so I hope that the Minister can outline what opportunities there will be for a consultative update on planned changes to the delivery plan in that period. I hope also that DFID will use the opportunity to update its strategy to include some of the more neglected areas on which there should have been specific commitments, such as health, ageing, and the inclusion of people with intellectual disabilities.

The Committee feels strongly that barriers to education should be removed as a top priority. The Minister leads on education for the Department and gave evidence to the Select Committee on it earlier this week. I know that his personal commitment is strong. We know from the evidence that disabled children face huge barriers to education. We know from constituency casework, and the evidence that comes before us and the Education Committee, that that is the case in our own country. The Education Commission has estimated that half—50%—of all children with disabilities in not only low but middle-income countries are out of school. Of course, that is an average. In some of the poorest and most fragile countries, the figures are even worse.

As we said in the IDC’s 2017 report on education:

“DFID has shown leadership on education for girls and young women...The Department should now use its influence in the same way to shine a light on the needs of disabled children. It has made great progress with the Disability Framework, but needs to now ensure this is being implemented across all DFID programmes.”

I know that DFID’s education policy, “Get Children Learning”, is working towards that aim, and is supporting children with disabilities in moving into mainstream education wherever possible. It supports comprehensive and cost-effective interventions, and most importantly, it is increasing the number and quality of teachers and support staff available. I urge DFID to do all it can to address the specific needs of children at each stage of education, starting with the early years and early child development, and taking into account both the obvious and less obvious barriers to education.

I welcome the Prime Minister’s commitment, reflected in the Queen’s Speech, to all girls having access to 12 years of quality education. The UK’s pledge at the recent UN General Assembly to higher investment in education is very positive, but we must as part of that address the particular needs of those who are disabled. I hope the Minister can provide assurances that children with disabilities will be front and centre in the Government’s efforts to secure 12 years of quality education in the Leave No Girl Behind initiative.

A key commitment of DFID’s at the disability summit was the inclusive education initiative, which aims to accelerate action by countries and to support their efforts in making education more inclusive. The initiative does this by helping Governments and other stakeholders to mobilise finance and develop programmes that ensure inclusive education. When he responds, will the Minister set out how the Government will build on the initial investment and, in particular, how we can bring other donors on board to maximise its impact?

Of course, it is important when implementing such programmes that we put pressure on national Governments to budget for the costs of disability inclusion in their planning. DFID agreed to the Committee’s recommendation that the Government should create a framework to ensure that programmes identify correctly the specific challenges in each host nation, and provide the technical guidance to deliver education projects that address those challenges. National Governments should also be encouraged to plan and budget for disability inclusion in their own education programmes.

More broadly, disability should not be an obstacle to participation in economic and social life. We welcome the inclusion of social and economic empowerment as pillars of DFID’s strategy. This reflects the high living costs and barriers to healthcare, employment and other economic opportunities that people with disabilities face. As we know, a large majority of people with disabilities are either not employed or are under-employed. If they are in work, they earn lower wages than people without disabilities. For women with disabilities, gender inequality compounds that divide.

We have called on the Department to gather more evidence on the impact of poverty reduction on social protection programmes, and to work with Governments and stakeholders to fund and support the inclusion of people with disabilities in existing social protection schemes, or, where necessary, to develop appropriate new schemes targeted at the particular needs of disabled people. The Department should also ensure that disability inclusion is mainstreamed throughout its economic development programming. Clearly, one of the most important opportunities for disabled people is to set up their own business, to get work, and to get the training that they need so that they have the skills required for the jobs of the future. Disability inclusion should also be an aspect of broader investment decisions, particularly by CDC, which should have a disability-inclusive approach to its investment.

Palladium, a contractor, said to us in evidence:

“Encouraging diversity in the supply chain by engagement of companies owned or led by people with disabilities and by encouraging programme implementers to do the same will increase economic empowerment and bring diversity of thought to DFID programming.”

People with disabilities should be assisted in overcoming skills gaps or accessibility issues that may prevent them getting work with DFID.

The disability strategy, alongside the summit, has provided a renewed focus on boosting disability inclusion. It has rightly been commended across the sector, but the progress needs to be sustained. As I implied, there is a concern that disability might not have the priority that it previously had in the Department, and that it was very much a personal priority of two previous Secretaries of State, but I am sure the Minster will be able to reassure us that disability inclusion absolutely remains a top priority for the Department, so that we really do leave no one behind. I hope that the Department is scaling up its spending on disability-specific projects, while further embedding disability inclusion across the strategy and budget of DFID.

This is the final report that I will have the opportunity to present as Chair of the International Development Committee. I am very proud of the work that the Committee has done, but I am particularly proud of the work that my predecessor did on this issue, which contributed to disability being a higher priority in the Department’s work. That goes to the very heart of the sustainable development goals.

I want to finish by speaking about a project I have spoken about previously, because it is so impressive. Two years ago, the Committee went on a visit to education projects in east Africa, and the one that sticks in my memory is the Girls Education Challenge programme in Kisumu in Kenya, which is funded by DFID and run by Leonard Cheshire. We were so impressed by the programme, which is aimed at girls with disabilities, that we reflected, on a cross-party basis, that we wanted more of those sorts of programmes to be funded by DFID. We also want DFID to act as a catalyst to enable Governments in countries such as Kenya to spread the very best practice—like what we saw in Kisumu—through their countries. It felt to me as if the very best of UK aid was reaching those who are often left furthest behind, and that it was also giving UK taxpayers the best value for money.

I applaud the Department for using its influence to shine a light on the needs of disabled children, just as it has successfully shone a light on the needs of girls and young women. UK aid should be about not just removing barriers but supporting people with disabilities to thrive in every facet of life. There is no surely no better example of leaving no one behind than enabling every child to go to school and every adult to participate in economic and social life and, perhaps above all, ensuring that the voices of disabled people are heard, listened to and acted on.

--- Later in debate ---

[Stephen Twigg]

Thank you, Mr Evans, not only for your chairmanship today but for your service on the Committee. I wish the Committee well in future. You anticipated one of the things I was going to say, as did the Minister. He made the point that in my four and a half years as Chair of the Committee, there have been five Secretaries of State for International Development, but what has been striking has been our ability to work together, not just as a cross-party Committee but with Government Ministers. No matter who takes over as Secretary of State after the election, today’s debate has demonstrated the strong cross-party commitment from the Minister and the shadow Minister to disability at the heart of our approach to inclusive development.

Mr Evans, you mentioned that the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) stood aside from the Committee, which was a huge loss, to enable the hon. Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham) to remain a member. I pay tribute to her; she has been a Committee member since 2010. She spoke up on sexual exploitation, abuse and harassment before the various issues were covered in the media last year. She has been a tenacious rapporteur on that issue and a passionate voice on other international development issues. I hope that when the new Parliament convenes, we shall not again be in a position where there is only one woman on a Committee of 11 in such an important area. We must ensure that Labour’s delegation on the Committee is not entirely male. We must have a more appropriate gender balance in this important area.

We have had an excellent debate. I join the tributes to the hon. Member for Stafford for his service to the House, the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and the all-party parliamentary group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases. In particular, I echo what he said about Burundi, which we took the opportunity to raise with the Minister when he appeared before us earlier this week.

The hon. Member for Woking (Mr Lord) made a passionate speech. In what he said about Syrian refugees, he spoke for all of us and for the best of this country, with that generosity of spirit. I hope that we can learn from that in our broader policy. After I became the Chair in 2015-16, the Committee’s first report was on the Syrian refugee crisis. One of our recommendations was that in taking vulnerable refugees in resettlement, the UK should absolutely focus on those with disabilities, so I welcome the local example from Woking. I also echo what he said in the context of the UK and Brexit. Whatever happens with Brexit, our commitment to development and humanitarian relief is an important part of our country’s soft power. As he said, our values of compassion, and of seeking and leading a positive role, should be at the heart of the approach.

My hon. Friend the Member for Nottingham North (Alex Norris) made several powerful points. We echo his point on the coherence of domestic and international policy, which is important in this area and others. The Committee raised that in the context of the sustainable development goals because, as we know, the global goals are universal. They say that, yes, no one should be left behind because of their disability in sub-Saharan Africa, but neither should they be in Nottingham, Liverpool, Stafford, Woking or any of our constituencies. Achieving that coherence is an important challenge for every Government.

I was delighted to hear the Minister reaffirm once again that disability inclusion is a top priority for the Department and that, in his words, it will “continue to be a leading light”. That is hugely welcome.

I thank everyone for their kind words on the work I have done with the Committee. It would not have been possible without the other Committee members or, in particular, without the amazing staff and specialist support that the Committee gets from advisers and the hugely vibrant sector. As the Minister said, there are very strong NGO, business and academic sectors in this area, and we rely on them for the best evidence that we get as a Committee. He rightly reminded us of the point that comes so strongly from disability organisations: nothing about us without us. That is the message of the debate.

I hope that next Tuesday I will catch the Deputy Speaker’s eye when there will be an opportunity for valedictory speeches. I intend to say that it is so important that we maintain the consensus for our global engagement, for our commitment that 0.7% of gross national income goes to development, and for DFID as a stand-alone Department. I know that there is not unanimity in the House on those issues but I hope that, moving forward, the cross-party consensus will continue behind those commitments, which speak to our moral purpose and sense of mission as a country. As the hon. Member for Woking said, they enable us to be an influential player in the world, rooted in the best universal values that this country has long been committed to.

I thank the Minister for his response. I feel confident that disability inclusion will remain a priority for the British Government. I am equally confident that, whoever takes over from me as Chair, the Committee will continue to press whoever is in Government to ensure that that is the case.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the Thirteenth Report of the International Development Committee, DFID’s work on disability-inclusive development, Session 2017-19, HC 1880, and the Government Response, Session 2017-19, HC 2680.