Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

As I have mentioned, we have published the “Civil Society Partnership Review”, on which I spent time speaking to many of the great organisations involved in the delivery of aid and humanitarian work around the world. We make sure that British aid—UK taxpayers’ money—goes to the right causes via the right organisations, and DFID will continue to pursue that. We are championing taxpayer value, while delivering poverty reduction and humanitarian support and assistance.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

T7. The scenes of the war crimes committed by Daesh in the Assyrian capital of Nimrud are, on top of their human carnage, truly depressing and a wake-up call to the world that we need to work together to protect the world’s cultural heritage. Will the Secretary of State commit to continuing to play our part within UNESCO, notwithstanding the reservations she may have about the organisation’s finances?

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend raises an important point about the destruction of cultural and heritage sites around the world. I have been clear that, in funding international organisations, we wish to see reform in the system to make sure that money is spent in the right way. We will continue to deliver value for money. DFID will publish the reviews that reflect on UNESCO towards the end of the month and he will see the approach we are taking.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Wednesday 8th July 2015 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

No, it will be an opportunity for the House of Commons to debate an issue and then have a vote, as we were discussing earlier. I do not know what everyone else came here for, but I think that that is quite a good idea.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

Q10. I am sure that the Prime Minister had time to study the “Building Great Britons” report from the 1001 critical days all-party group earlier this year, which put the cost of perinatal mental illness and child maltreatment at £23 billion a year. Will he commit to focusing the welcome additional child and adolescent mental health services spending on a pre-troubled families programme which invests in strong attachments between parents and babies at the outset as the best way to secure well-rounded children brought up in strong, loving families?

International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Bill

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Friday 12th September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Brown]

We know we are on a filibuster when a Conservative Member starts mentioning the Lisbon treaty and then mentions CND in the 1980s.

Why does the hon. Gentleman not get to the heart of the issue? Let us take one country—Sierra Leone: one health worker for every 5,000 people; the UK: one to 77. Sierra Leone has 100 doctors for a population that is bigger than Scotland’s, and 200 nurses and 100 midwives. Do we say as a result of that that the small amount of aid we give—the $12 per person for education and the $50 per person for health in sub-Saharan Africa—is too much? Do we say that it is too generous or too wasteful?

Let us project into the future. We know that this has been a summer of conflict—six wars around the world—and a summer of carnage for children. When we have 1.5 million child refugees displaced from Syria, with refugees in Iraq, Gaza, the Central African Republic and also South Sudan, how can we possibly justify not making a law that suggests that the small amounts of money that are given by the international community, which can make an absolutely huge difference, should continue? My claim is based not just on the success of what we have done and the enormity of what we still have to do, but on the cost-effectiveness of most of the aid that I see delivered by DFID and many other aid Departments round the world.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

The right hon. Gentleman is speaking with great authority. Having been in Jordan just last month and seen the schools operating there, partly funded by us, I do not think anybody can doubt the necessity of what continuity and sustainability of funding brings to education for those displaced people. On health, Ethiopia was the first place I ever visited as a Member of Parliament, where I learnt the shocking statistic that there were more Ethiopian doctors in New York than in the whole of Ethiopia. Do we not need to ensure the continuity and sustainability of aid, so that we build up a force of professionals who can stay in those countries to bring the health, education and business development that they so desperately need and with which this Bill can help?

[Mr Brown]

The hon. Gentleman makes the argument for a long-term commitment to aid—for building up the capacity of health care systems in those countries; for encouraging them to invest for the long term; and for paying the doctors sufficient salaries in those countries so that they stay in them. Does he not also make a point that Government Members who oppose what we are doing should listen to—that if we can be a catalyst for other countries, if we can make a long-term commitment to aid and if we can honour our promises, we have a chance, as a large country, of influencing the rest of the international community?

Afghanistan

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I very much agree with my hon. Friend. We are working in three areas: combating fraud, which we know was a feature of previous elections, registration and ensuring that women go out and vote. We are working hand in hand with the United Nations Development Programme on the latter.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

May I thank the Secretary of State for paying tribute to Lance Corporal James Brynin, who was from Shoreham in my constituency? He was bravely serving his country on his second tour of Afghanistan and was helping to defend civilians and ISAF personnel when he came under attack. He was described by his family as having the “heart of a lion” and by his commanding officer as

“immensely popular and an outstanding soldier in every respect.”

Lance Corporal Brynin was fighting for the safety of people in Afghanistan. When I visited Tajikistan a while ago, I taught in a school of Afghan refugees, who spoke well of their education in Afghanistan—they spoke excellent English—and the support for their schools, but had been driven out of their country by threats of kidnap and non-military violence from the Taliban and others. What is being done to stem the flow of people out of their country, so that we can look after them safely in their own country, where they belong?

[Justine Greening]

At the heart of all this is the work we have done to staff up and help to improve the Afghan national security force, which includes not only the army and the police but latterly the air force as well. As I said in my statement, they are now conducting 93% of operations and 90% of their own training. The draw-down takes place against the backdrop of our continuing work to ensure that they can play the role that my hon. Friend describes in the coming years. That role is vital, because as I said earlier, without security Afghanistan will not develop in the way that the people there and we want it to.

Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

Tim Loughton Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The US Agency for International Development—USAID—would accept that part of its development spend takes the form of tied aid, but I have made it very clear that that is not what I am talking about here. I know that the hon. Gentleman finds this issue complex, and I accept that there are risks that we will need to manage, but they can be managed. Instead of seeing only the risks, we should see the opportunities too.

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend for her patience when listening to such sanctimonious drivel from the other side. Does she agree that while well-targeted aid from agencies can alleviate poverty and suffering in the short term, it is only through private business helping to eliminate poverty through micro-finance and through using private ownership, private innovation and private employment that we can achieve a long-term solution to the poverty that she and I are both striving to eliminate?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. There is another reason that the involvement of the smallest companies in developing countries is so important. Many of them are agricultural smallholdings run by women, and we know that if they can invest in and grow those businesses, 90% of the income will be reinvested in their families and communities, providing a double bonus.