International Development White Paper

Vicky Ford Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

As the hon. Lady knows, next year, we will increase bilateral funding to Afghanistan to £151 million. We are able to do that because the budget is much more carefully targeted and is now properly cultivated to deliver results. On the subject of education and of the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan, which is absolutely abhorrent, we do everything we can through various mechanisms, including the Afghanistan World Bank trust fund, to boost those important objectives. As the hon. Lady would expect, we focus on trying to win results with that money—which is paid by the British taxpayer—in the best way we possibly can.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

As this excellent paper sets out, the rise in autocratisation, the rise in humanitarian need, and the row-back of women’s rights are all terrifying. They are often linked, and it is women’s voices that are being silenced across the world. A woman’s right to education, to employment and to contraception are basic, fundamental rights. Does my right hon. Friend agree that if we really care for the world’s most vulnerable women, we should set aside our party political differences in this House, and get behind this White Paper and make sure its objectives are delivered for women?

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend speaks with great wisdom; from what we have heard today, her final point is clearly being achieved, which is very welcome. What she says about women’s voices being silenced and their fundamental rights being fettered is, I fear, absolutely right, and the White Paper addresses that head-on. We are finding ways of stopping impunity and calling to account those people who abuse human rights in a number of new ways that target accountability, and which I know my right hon. Friend—who chairs the all-party parliamentary group on Sudan and South Sudan—welcomes.