Humanitarian Crisis in the Mediterranean and Europe

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 9th September 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is right to point out that Britain is playing our role in dealing with crises that go far more broadly across the middle east than the Syrian conflict. I can reassure him that we are working specifically to try to ensure that we support children who are part of the many millions of displaced people in Iraq. Let me give the House some sense of that, although I know that I need to make some progress with my speech. We are providing not only the medical assistance that they will often need but trauma counselling. That is not uncomplicated as the specialised support the children need and the language capability required of the people providing it are not easy to access, but we are part of ensuring that that is done as far as it possibly can be. We are providing and helping to fund safe areas within camps so that unaccompanied children and parents who have lost their children can easily link up with them again. More than 80% of unaccompanied children in Jordan have managed to be linked up with their families through such efforts. Out of sight, we are working incredibly hard in a range of areas, particularly to help children affected by the crisis. We will keep doing that.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I commend my right hon. Friend and the Prime Minister for what they have said today and for what they have been doing. The World Food Programme is, as I discovered at a meeting in Luxembourg that I attended as Chairman of the European Scrutiny Committee on Saturday and Sunday, the centre of gravity, and it is quite clear that we not only have our 0.7% but are the second or third largest of all the donors to the programme. Germany, for all the hype, is way behind us over the past year and over the past five years. Does she accept that we have done an amazing amount of effective work in that programme? Will she comment on the implications of my International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014 and on whether it has any relevance to this matter?

[Justine Greening]

I pay tribute to the World Food Programme, which is operating alongside other UN agencies in some of the most dangerous places to get vital food and often other supplies to people affected by the crisis, and I have often met and talked to Ertharin Cousin who runs it. As my hon. Friend sets out, Britain has been one of the key funders of the WFP over recent years, more broadly as well as particularly in relation to the Syrian crisis. Agencies such as the WFP are having to make impossible choices about how to help the most people with limited resources, and I shall come on to that shortly.

My hon. Friend also asked about his efforts regarding gender equality, and I pay tribute to him for them and for how they fed into the UK response. I can reassure him that alongside his Act we had the UK Call to Action summit, held at about this time in 2013, which was about ensuring that we did not lose sight of the specific needs of women and girls. In these crises, the rates of forced marriage and sexual violence rapidly rise, and we have prioritised tackling that.

I have been out to the region often, visiting camps and host communities in Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey. I have been to the camp at Kilis in Turkey, which is close enough to Aleppo for people to be able to hear the bombs there. Half the Syrian population—more than 11 million people—have had to leave their homes. Only around 3% of those have sought asylum here in Europe. The vast majority of those who have been displaced are trying to stay in their home or to rebuild their life in a neighbouring country closer to home. Many still hold out the hope that they will be able to go back home and they have remained in a place more familiar to them where they may have family links.

Sustainable Development Goals

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 28th January 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady is somewhat misinterpreting the Government’s position. If she looks at the report by the high-level panel of experts co-chaired by the Prime Minister, she will see that it includes a range of targets and goals in relation to climate change. I shall come on to that later but, as I have said, no one can deny that the UK has played, continues to play, and will play a leading role in climate change discussions, not least because that flows into the work that we do in international development, for example, setting up the international climate fund and investing nearly £4 billion in projects that can help to tackle development and, in many cases, give a real lead in addressing climate change.

Since the report by the high-level panel, the open working group on sustainable development goals—a group of 70 member states mandated at Rio+20 to deliver a proposal on those goals—the UK has pushed for the highest possible level of ambition. We have been consistent in our drive for member states to agree an inspiring and workable agenda centred on the eradication of extreme poverty, with sustainable development at its core, ensuring, as I said to the hon. Member for Stretford and Urmston (Kate Green), that no one is left behind.

As part of that, we have consistently argued for a strong health goal that focuses on strengthening health systems and on ensuring effective health outcomes for all women, men, girls and boys at all ages. We have clearly stated that the framework must fully integrate environment and climate change, and it must have a strong goal on gender equality focusing on improving prospects for women and girls. I was disappointed that there was no explicit reference to the importance of having a strong gender goal and the mainstreaming of women and girls’ issues in the development framework. I hope that we can continue, as we have done in the past, to have cross-party consensus on those issues to make progress.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I thoroughly endorse what my right hon. Friend has said. I should like to take the opportunity yet again to congratulate her, the Prime Minister and all those involved from all parts of the House in helping to push through the International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014—something that that she has emphasised but which—and I say this with some regret—was not sufficiently observed by the Opposition spokesperson.

[Justine Greening]

I am grateful for that intervention. My hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) has worked tirelessly on gender equality issues. I am proud to have been in a Parliament and part of a Government who supported his Bill on international development and gender equality. I hope and expect that by the end of this Parliament we will have passed not just one Bill on international development introduced by a Conservative MP, but a second Bill introduced by a Liberal Democrat—a coalition effort on two Bills that will make a real difference for the long term.

We want to see, and the open working group included, the critical issues that the millennium development goals omitted, including peaceful and inclusive societies, economic growth, which is key if we are to increase people’s prosperity, and good governance. Today I shall reflect on the progress that the international community has made to date on agreeing the post-2015 development framework. The proposed sustainable development goals agreed by the open working group last July reflected a high level of ambition and the UK was instrumental in forging that outcome. Those goals have been welcomed by the NGO community, and, like the high-level panel report, they rightly devote significant attention to climate change and environmental sustainability.

The open working group’s gender goal is excellent, with targets on sexual and reproductive health and reproductive rights. Goal 16 on peaceful and inclusive societies and access to justice is especially welcome.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. He will know that in addition, the pledge that we made yesterday has increased our level of support for GAVI even further. The fund is not just able now to deliver vaccination and immunisation for those children; in the case of Ebola it can play a real role in stepping up to help us to combat new emerging diseases and health threats as well, so it has a much broader and more strategic impact on global health security than anyone could possibly have realised when it was being set up. It is also, critically, a model that pulls in the private sector, and allows drugs to get to children in a way that would never have been possible if we had not pulled together those different parties to work for one common goal with countries that have a common strategy on immunisation. It is incredibly important and we will continue to support it.

Our Prime Minister has led global summits in London—in 2012 on family planning and in 2013 on nutrition and combating stunting. In 2014 I was immensely proud to work with him on the Girl summit, where we catalysed a global movement to eradicate female genital mutilation and early and forced child marriage. It was a pleasure to be able to go back to Walworth academy last week to talk to people there about some of the progress that we have made over the past six months since that conference and the key role that they were able to play in ensuring that it was such a success. That focus on girls’ rights came on top of the global summit that my right hon. Friend the Member for Richmond (Yorks) (Mr Hague), now Leader of the House, organised to prevent sexual violence in conflict.

We will use this proud record and the credibility it brings us on the world stage to argue unashamedly for a post-2015 development agenda that works as a clear strategy for eradicating poverty, leaving no one behind and achieving sustainable development.

[Sir William Cash]

On FGM, the Serious Crime Bill has some very important stuff in it. It needs to be improved—as my right hon. Friend knows, I am arguing for that at the moment—but it is a huge step forward, is it not?

[Justine Greening]

It can be a huge step forward. My hon. Friend is absolutely right to see the broader opportunities in that Bill for enabling us to increase our ability to tackle FGM at home. One of the most important elements of the Girl summit was recognising that we have issues to resolve here in the UK, as well as playing our role internationally in helping other countries to tackle theirs.

The hon. Member for Wakefield (Mary Creagh) accused the Government of failing to support a stand-alone goal on health. She seems a little befuddled on this point, as her claim is inaccurate. We have supported a stand-alone goal throughout this process. Going back to the high-level panel report, if she looks at goal 4 she will see that it explicitly states that it is to “ensure healthy lives”. That is partly why, under this Government, spending on health in relation to international development, just bilaterally, has risen from £750 million a year when we came into government to about £1.25 billion a year now. We absolutely have invested in this area.

I should correct the hon. Lady on another matter where she seems to have got her facts mixed up. In a recent interview, she said that spending by the Department on fragile and conflict states has “reduced under this Government”. I have to update the House by saying that that is incorrect. In fact, investment has risen from £1.8 billion in 2009 to £2.8 billion in 2013. On the issue of poverty, where we are talking about matters of life and death, and how we can lift people out of sometimes miserable day-to-day existences, it does not do those people, or the challenges they face, any justice to be kicked about as a political football. If the hon. Lady must engage in what she calls hand-to-hand combat, I ask her at least to get her facts right.

On a stand-alone goal on climate change, I point to our Prime Minister’s own words:

“Climate change is one of the most serious threats facing our world. And it is not just a threat to the environment. It is also a threat to our national security, to global security, to poverty eradication and to economic prosperity.”

In short, climate change is too complex an issue to belong in just one goal; as we have said repeatedly, it needs to be interwoven or mainstreamed throughout the entire post-2015 framework.

I was only too happy to come to this place to talk about the Government’s record on shaping the sustainable development goals. As I said, I would very much have liked women and girls, and particularly tackling violence against women and girls, to have been mentioned explicitly in the motion.

Gender Equality in Overseas Parliaments

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 25th June 2014 Westminster Hall

[Catherine McKinnell]

I am delighted to have secured this debate on the link between gender equality in Parliaments and political corruption, not least because I have been trying to secure it for some time now, in my capacity as the co-chair and co-founder of the all-party group on corruption. As the Minister will be well aware, female politicians can be very persistent and do not tend to let an issue go without achieving some sort of resolution. As a result, I am pleased that we finally have an opportunity, albeit a brief one, to discuss the issue today.

Before I turn to the specific subject of the debate, I want to remind us of the position in which women around the world continue to find themselves in relation to influence and power. An excellent paper published by the international development charity VSO—Voluntary Service Overseas—highlights that women are estimated to account for almost two thirds of the people globally who live in extreme poverty. Women perform two thirds of the world’s work and produce 50% of the food, but earn only 10% of the income and own only 1% of the property.

At the same time, around the world, including here in the UK, women are not participating in public and political life on equal terms and in equal measure to men. As the VSO paper goes on to highlight, all the evidence suggests that we are still very far from solving the problem. Only one in five parliamentarians worldwide is a woman—the figure is 22% for the House of Commons and 23% for the House of Lords. Women hold only 17% of ministerial positions around the world and just three of the 22 full Cabinet positions in the UK. At the highest level, women account for only 13 of 193 Heads of Government, although of course the UK has had a very highly respected female Head of State for the past 62 years.

In local government, women make up only 20% of elected councillors and hold mayoral positions in only 10 of the world’s capital cities; only 32% of councillors in England are women and London is yet to have a female elected Mayor. On the basis of those current trends in representation, women will not be equally represented in Parliaments until 2065—in more than 50 years’ time—and will not make up half the world’s leaders until the quite staggering date of 2134, an achievement not a single person alive on this planet will get to see.

In its paper, “Women in Power: Beyond Access to Influence in a post-2015 World”, VSO makes an incredibly persuasive—indeed, inarguable—case for putting women’s rights at the heart of the international development agenda as the United Nations considers a new international development framework for after the millennium development goals expire in 2015. As VSO argues, a new post-2015 goal of empowering women and girls to achieve gender equality needs to take account of the obstacles to that and how and why they are being perpetuated, as well as evidence of measures that have proved successful in addressing them.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Am I right in saying that the hon. Lady will be 100% behind my International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014? She is quoting from and drawing on the same VSO paper as I quoted on Third Reading before my Bill was enacted, and so her explanation has been almost word for word the same as mine—she is not copying me, of course. She is absolutely right. I commend her for taking such a strong line and wish her well.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support and very much agree with the sentiments he has expressed. He clearly sees the urgent need to take action on the problem rather than simply talking about it.

Indeed, we are not alone: the former US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, once said:

“Data not only measures progress, it inspires it…what gets measured gets done…nobody wants to end up at the bottom of a list of rankings.”

I know that the Prime Minister is co-chairing the high-level panel on the post-2015 development agenda, and developing countries are being asked to identify their priorities for 2015 and beyond. I would be interested to hear the Minister’s thinking on whether gender equality will form one of the post-2015 goals.

[Catherine McKinnell]

Indeed. No one in this Chamber thinks that we should not be making greater strides on gender equality and political representation here in the UK and around the world, and I will give some examples. The hon. Gentleman mentioned Egypt, but I will focus on Rwanda where a remarkable transformation has taken place on gender representation.

What does the issue have to do with corruption? The Minister may be aware that earlier this year, to mark international women’s day, the Global Organisation of Parliamentarians Against Corruption published a position paper on gender equality in Parliaments and political corruption. The all-party group on corruption, which I co-chair, is a member of GOPAC, which based its research on a 10-year analysis of trends in the proportion of women elected to national Parliaments, correlated to trends in levels of national corruption.

The research found that an increase in the number of women in Parliament will tend to reduce corruption but, crucially, the GOPAC paper also made it clear that women politicians cannot be expected to tackle this issue on their own. It concluded that increasing the number of female parliamentarians must take place in tandem with steps to increase institutional political transparency, to strengthen parliamentary oversight, and to enforce strong penalties for corruption. In other words, an increase in the number of women in Parliaments will tend to reduce corruption if the country in question has a reasonably robust system to uphold democracy and to enforce anti-corruption laws.

On publication of the paper, the vice-chair of GOPAC’s women in Parliament network, Dr Donya Aziz, commented:

“'The status of women has come a long way since the first International Women’s Day in the early 1900’s, but our participation in the political sphere is still far too low in most countries across the world. Our paper demonstrates that the strongest fight against corruption is one that includes and embraces the female perspective as a critical part of strengthening parliamentary oversight and parliamentary democracy.”

The GOPAC paper illustrated its findings with the fascinating case study of Rwanda, a country that has made significant strides since the appalling genocide of 1994. As the Minister will know, Rwanda is the only country in the world where an outright majority of parliamentarians are female. Indeed, as of 2013, an unbelievable 63.8% of Rwanda’s Members of Parliament are women. The paper explains that that is partly the result of concerted efforts by Rwandans to increase female participation in politics, such as the introduction of a gender quota system, employing seats reserved for women and the establishment of legislated candidate quotas.

Such measures have seen the number of female parliamentarians in Rwanda increase from 17.1% in 1997 to 25.7% in 2002 and 48.8% in 2003 when the gender quota was established. The rate increased again to 56% in 2008 and then to the staggering 63.8% that Rwanda enjoys today. While this rapid change in gender representation has taken place, Rwanda has also strengthened its parliamentary oversight mechanisms. For example, in April 2011, the Rwandan Parliament established a new public accounts committee to examine financial misconduct in public institutions and to report misuse of public funds. Previously, despite evidence of continuous theft of public monies, no parliamentary body had that responsibility.

Subsequently, in 2012, the Rwandan public accounts committee released its examination of state finances, which reported that 9.7 billion Rwandan francs—$16.3 million —was lost in 2009-10 as a result of failings in Government operations. The Rwandan PAC went on to present recommendations for Government reforms and established the requirement for Parliament to act to remedy gaps in the management of public funds.

During the same period, Rwanda consistently improved its score on the corruption perceptions index, which has been published every year since 1995 by Transparency International. Over the past nine years, Rwanda has improved its CPI rating by 23 points, well above the eight-point global average improvement between 2003 and 2013. It scored 53 on the CPI in 2013 and was ranked 49th least corrupt country of the 177 countries surveyed. To put that in context, the UK scored 76 and was ranked 14th least corrupt country.

GOPAC’s paper concluded:

“Although Rwanda’s CPI score leaves room for improvement, it has experienced a significant reduction in corruption, clearly correlated with an increase in female political participation, in the context of improving systems of parliamentary oversight.”

GOPAC draws the link between a fall in levels of public corruption and an increased number of female parliamentarians, combined with improved parliamentary oversight mechanisms, while making it clear that that first step of having more women in Parliament is insufficient to reduce the problem.

[Sir William Cash]

I am deeply interested in what the hon. Lady is saying. The connection with corruption is in many senses new to many of us. A few years ago, I introduced the International Development (Anti-corruption Audit) Bill with the hon. Member for York Central (Hugh Bayley) and one or two other hon. Members. We are learning a great deal from what the hon. Lady is saying, which is very helpful.

[Catherine McKinnell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his support and for his work on the issue. I look forward to us working together to take the matter forward. I also look forward to the Minister’s response and to hearing what the Government can do to take the issue forward as part of the millennium development goals.

I have asked myself whether it is entirely coincidental that Rwanda happened to see such significant improvements in its oversight of public funds and financial misconduct at exactly the same time as a significant increase in the number of female parliamentarians. The two developments may not be linked, but I contend otherwise. I would be interested to hear the assessment of the Minister and her Department.

Earlier this month, I had the privilege of meeting a delegation of Kenyan women parliamentarians during their week-long visit to the UK and Westminster, which was organised by the CPA. As the Minister knows, Kenya is often held up as another African country leading the way in female representation following its 2010 constitutional reforms, which stipulate that no more than two thirds of any appointed or elected body can be of the same gender.

The delegation was keen to hear more about the work of the all-party group on corruption. We spoke for over an hour about their experiences as female politicians in a very male dominated culture. They highlighted the fact that although there are now six women in Cabinet posts, including in defence and foreign affairs, there is a motion before the Kenyan Senate—their upper house—calling for the number of parliamentary seats for women to be scrapped and citing cost as the reason. Clearly, any progress made on gender equality and therefore on corruption cannot be taken for granted.

I have considered at length the link between increased female representation and reduced levels of corruption, but what about the female experience of corruption, which is often termed “graft”? Everyone knows that corruption is wrong. It keeps poor people poor and allows rich people to capture power and money. It stops development aid from countries such as the UK reaching the right people in the right places at the right time. Perhaps most importantly, it prevents developing countries from being able to develop their own tax base in order ultimately to reduce their dependence on aid.

We know from the statistics that I outlined at the beginning of my speech that the majority of people living in extreme poverty in the world are female and therefore at risk of being kept poor by this pernicious problem. Various research projects have looked at the different ways in which corruption has an impact on women, as opposed to men, in developing countries. Women remain the primary care-givers around the world, so they tend to face more corruption because of their increased interaction with public services, whether they are trying to obtain a school place for their child, support a relative through the health system or obtain legal documents for their family.

Recent reports suggest that the experience of many women facing corruption goes beyond the traditional gender spheres. One study found that the major problems were about starting a business. There have also been suggestions that, as more women access higher education, there is an increasing convergence of sexual harassment and academic corruption. When I visited Kenya earlier this year with CAFOD, I saw and heard about the damaging impact that corruption can have on many women’s lives.

In addition to the top-down approach of ensuring that there are more female elected representatives at decision-making level, a report from October 2012 by the UN Development Programme suggested that those who face corrupt officials most often develop the most efficient techniques for dealing with them. Such a bottom-up approach, in which relatively simple projects brought together groups of women who faced that problem, resulted in a marked success.

Simply by joining together, women empower each other by sharing experiences, comparing success stories and training their peers to deal with corrupt officials. Such projects are vital to enable women to break free from a culture—the norm in many parts of the world—that prevents women and girls from reporting corrupt practices, most notably practices such as sexual extortion, which carry a huge stigma.

I have attempted to cover in a relatively short time a significant and wide-ranging issue that affects many millions of women around the world. I am keen to emphasise the context of the debate. Almost two thirds of people globally who live in extreme poverty are women. Women perform two thirds of the world’s work and produce 50% of the world’s food, but they earn only 10% of the world’s income and own only 1% of the world’s property.

Given such pitiful levels of female representation, is it any wonder that we still find ourselves in a situation where today alone, 800 women will die unnecessarily in childbirth, 29,000 under-fives will die from preventable causes, 67 million children are not in school when they should be and almost 1 billion people will go to bed hungry? The money required to remedy that totally unacceptable situation is entirely available, but all too often corruption means that it is stolen for private gain instead. I strongly believe that empowering more women and girls around the world, from the top down and from the bottom up, will prove to be one of our strongest weapons in tackling this appalling injustice.

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Bone. I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) for and congratulate her on her persistence in getting a debate on this topic. I do not think I disagreed with a single word of what she said. Her speech was powerful and she put the case forcefully.

The participation of women in political life is absolutely crucial for gender equality and poverty reduction around the world. We are in an appropriate venue for debating it—and I thank the hon. Lady for her attempts to get me promoted to the Cabinet. I also congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Sir William Cash) on the work he has done on gender equality. The Department for International Development has a woman as Secretary of State and a woman as Under-Secretary of State. Although that may not be the case in perpetuity, we are now required in perpetuity by law to consider gender in international development, which is a welcome move forward.

I will not repeat all the relevant statistics; otherwise, the hon. Lady and I will end up making the same speech. I agree that around the world, it is not adequate for only 22% of elected representatives in national Parliaments to be women. The hon. Lady mentioned that Rwanda leads the world in that respect because 64% of its parliamentarians are women. I visited Rwanda two weeks ago, and the country’s story is remarkable—perhaps all the more remarkable when we think where it has come from. Perhaps because of where it has come from, there was a recognition, in Rwanda’s desire for change, of the need to have no differences. I think that is one of the motivating factors.

Rwanda also ranks second in the world for ease of doing business, which the country has made a priority. I am not sure how strong the evidence is on lack of corruption, because it seems to be conditional on institutions and the application of law, as well as female representation. Rwanda is an exemplary development partner and a beautiful country that has seen amazing progress over the past 20 years. At the same time, as I am sure the hon. Lady acknowledges, there has been a lack of political space and there are concerns about human rights. Rwanda is, however, certainly an exemplar in terms of development and women’s participation.

What difference does it make to have more women in political roles? Helping more women into power improves inclusiveness; it creates female role models, which are incredibly important; and it leads to legislative changes to tackle gender inequalities that might not happen if women were not in a position to take them forward. I am sure, like me, the hon. Lady occasionally wishes that we did not have to fly the flag on those issues, and I am sure she longs for the day when women do not have to fly the flag, which is why it is so nice to have the flag raised by a gentleman.

[Sir William Cash]

rose—

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thought my hon. Friend might come in at that point.

[Sir William Cash]

I commend the Minister and the Secretary of State for what they have done. Mariella Frostrup, the GREAT Initiative, WaterAid and others have been enormously helpful over the past year.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North asked that we put women at the heart of international development, and we have lived up to that. I have not attended an occasion or met a Government anywhere in the world without raising that as a primary issue.

The hon. Lady also asked about the post-2015 agenda. The high-level panel report was excellent and, amazingly, it was applauded by people across the spectrum, and from all sides of the political debate, across the world. I assure her that the Prime Minister, the Secretary of State and I are focused on the stand-alone goal for gender in the post-2015 agenda.

I was talking about legislative changes that come from having women in elected positions. In India, for example, greater representation of women in local government, which is an important level of government, resulted in greater budget allocations for women and children’s services. I have always said to women colleagues that we need to get into decision-making positions on budgets, because budgets ultimately make the difference.

If we want to get more women elected, we have to get more women involved and active in political processes. We also need to get more women voting. In the run-up to the 2013 election in Pakistan, it was discovered that 8 million women were missing from the voter roll. Thanks to support from the UK and other donors, the register was updated and millions of women were able to vote for the first time. Women candidates also need support. The UK provides considerable support to elections across the world, and we have supported 11 freer and fairer elections since 2010. That includes helping election organisers to meet the needs of women candidates and voters.

Changes to national constitutions and legislation can also be powerful tools to signal change. The hon. Lady mentioned Kenya, which adopted a new constitution in 2010 that guarantees gender equality and the use of affirmative action. I have met women parliamentarians, and in Kenya I met equally powerful women parliamentarians. I very much hope that Kenya does not change its decision. I am wildly off message in my party on quotas, of which I have always been a great supporter.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

I discussed the issue yesterday with the Archbishop of Canterbury, who, very bravely, had been with local church leaders to the town of Bor, which has been the site of some of the most serious fighting. It is a very different part of the world from the one we discussed earlier, but some of the same rules apply. We need a Government who govern on behalf of all the people in that country, Dinka and Nuer, and who do not try to divide the country along ethnic lines. We will do what we can. When we talk about intervention in this country, it is intervention through diplomacy, through aid, through assistance and through advice, and we will continue to do that good work.

[Sir William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

Is my right hon. Friend aware that at the conference this weekend in Athens of the national chairmen of the European Select Committees, which was attended by delegates from all parties as well as by chairmen of the European parliamentary committees, the British delegation defeated an attempt to treat the word “euroscepticism” as equivalent to xenophobia and racism; and, furthermore, that on the question of the procedure relating to the proposed appointment or election of Mr Juncker, the conference agreed with the British delegation that that was an unprecedented, unacceptable and unsuccessful procedure?

[The Prime Minister]

There are no surprises that my hon. Friend was successful in this very important negotiation on behalf of Britain. There is support right around Europe for the concept of the Council of Ministers making these choices, but, as I say, it requires the elected Prime Ministers and Presidents to vote in the way that they believe.

Afghanistan

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

Order. Nobody can deny that the hon. Member for Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney (Mr Havard) used his temporary leadership opportunity comprehensively, and I hope he is satisfied with the result. Mr William Cash.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

In my earlier question to the Prime Minister, I mentioned Nigeria and Syria, but as my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State has made clear today, Afghanistan is also right at the top of the tree regarding gender equality and international development, and I am grateful to her for her remarks. I would also like to take this opportunity to thank not only her but the staff in her Department, the Minister of State and others for playing an active and very supportive role on this issue. That extends to the whole House, including members of the Opposition, who gave their support to the International Development (Gender Equality) Bill to ensure that it went through Parliament. I thank them all very much indeed, because it will do a huge amount to help women and girls throughout the world.

[Justine Greening]

It was a wonderful message that we sent out: that not just the Government but the whole of our Parliament regards the issue of women and girls’ rights and prospects as so important to what we are doing. It is fantastic that my hon. Friend has put his thanks on the record, and in fact most of our thanks go to him for developing the Bill and taking it through.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right to raise that point. The Department for International Development committed £20 million of funding to help the UN work to support the elections, including nearly £5 million for a programme to support women’s participation. As we go forward, we must ensure that the constitution that is already in place to support women’s rights is enforced, that we are working at grassroots level and putting more money into community programmes and that across government, for example in the police, women get the chance to play their full role. As far as I and the Government are concerned, we are determined to ensure that those hard-won additional rights for women are not just maintained but built on further.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

May I thank the Secretary of State for that reply? I hope that now that the International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014 has received Royal Assent, she will be able to give the maximum opportunities to protect women and make certain that they are fully empowered.

International Development (Gender Equality) Bill

William Cash Excerpts

Friday 17th January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read the Third time.

I am extremely grateful to you, Mr Speaker, for calling me to move the Third Reading of this Bill. As you well know, navigating a private Member’s Bill is rather like navigating between Scylla and Charybdis, those mythical sea monsters noted by Homer and experienced by Odysseus on opposite sides of the strait of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Scylla was a six-headed sea monster on the Italian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. I am sure that you will appreciate that in this analogy, Scylla is the Whips and Charybdis the procedural hazards of private Members’ Bills, not to mention the amendments that can scupper such a Bill. I am extremely glad to say that such amendments as were tabled were withdrawn and I am grateful to all those concerned for giving us the opportunity to debate the Bill on Third Reading.

The Bill was originally No. 18 on the list for the private Member’s Bill ballot, so I must admit that when I first proposed it I did not really believe that I would be standing here today. It all arose because—as you will know, Mr Speaker, as the former shadow Secretary of State for International Development—I have taken an active interest in matters of international development for the 27 or so years for which I have been a Member of the House.

Last year and the year before, I had the opportunity to go to India where I noted the incredible work done by women on sanitation and water. I also have the honour to be chair of the all-party group on water and sanitation in the third world, which I set up about five years ago. What struck me was the dignity of the manner in which those wonderful women, who lived on the streets as often as not, would go around and collect money—one or two rupees—from the slums of Delhi and Mumbai and aggregate that into millions of rupees that would then be used to build lavatory facilities that were not available through the municipal authorities. I had also known for many years that in Africa it is women who do much of the down-to-earth small business work in the marketplace and so on, including in the slums of Nairobi and elsewhere. I have therefore always wanted to try to help in this field.

Let me put on record my grateful thanks to the various organisations that have helped with this Bill, particularly the GREAT Initiative, Plan UK, WaterAid UK, with which I have worked very closely for many years, and Voluntary Service Overseas. The net result is that the Bill, which many would have thought had very little chance to begin with, has been greatly boosted by support, particularly from the Secretary of State for International Development who, sadly, cannot be here today. I am extremely grateful to the Minister of State who has come along today to help with the passage of the Bill.

I also want to put on record my great thanks to those on the Public Bill Committee, which went very well, and to the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), who spoke in support of the Bill. I also thank the Deputy Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and our own Prime Minister. On Tuesday, the Prime Minister appeared before a meeting of the Liaison Committee and one of the subjects raised was pertinent to the Bill. I mentioned to him:

“On the United Kingdom’s implementation of international agreements on violence against women and girls, the UN committee recommended that the Government encourage Parliament to implement its international treaty obligations and the recommendations of the UN treaty bodies.”

As he had put great emphasis on the matter during his appearance before the Committee, I asked him whether he thought that the Bill would establish

“a statutory benchmark for other countries”

particularly after 2015, when there will be important developments as regards the millennium development goals, so that

“we will be able to promote the ideas internationally”.

He replied:

“It is an absolute yes, because this is another brick in the wall of the whole argument that this should be the year when we really deliver a massive joined-up agenda on women’s empowerment and women’s equality all across the world. This helps us because the Bill will make Britain have a leading role in examining gender equality before we deploy aid and other resources”.

[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

Does my hon. Friend accept that when half the population is effectively locked out of a country and prevented from being productive and from pursuing opportunities in education or anywhere else, there is no realistic and sustainable path to proper development?

[Mr Cash]

I agree that the implementation of the Bill represents a social revolution. The scope of the Bill and the statutory duties it imposes on the Secretary of State, which the Government and the Opposition have voluntarily and willingly accepted, will put more flesh on the bones of the existing policies in legislative terms. As my hon. Friend notes, half the world’s population are women. It seems an obvious thing to say, but it is true.

Let me give one or two examples of the necessity for such a Bill and the basis on which I introduced it, linked to my personal experience—including an article I wrote in The Guardian when I came back from India, in which I said “Eat your heart out, ‘Slumdog Millionaire’. I have been there and it is worse than you imagine.” The women deal with the problems on the ground, but they are estimated to account for almost two thirds of the people around the globe who live in extreme poverty. Women perform two thirds of the world’s work and produce 50% of the food but earn only 10% of the income and own only 1% of the property.

At the same time, all around the world, women are not participating in public and political life on equal terms to men or in equal measure. The evidence shows that despite all the great efforts made by the Secretary of State for International Development and the Department over the years, we are still not solving the problem. Only one in five parliamentarians worldwide is a woman, women hold only 17% of ministerial positions and, at a governmental level, women account for only 13 of 193 Heads of Government. Women from poor backgrounds, from rural and indigenous communities and from minority groups are particularly marginalised in decision-making processes and institutions. This is a unique opportunity in the post-2015 process that I described earlier, and the Bill will achieve as much as the British Parliament and the British Government can achieve by imposing a duty within the legislative framework of the international development statutes to put women’s rights at the heart of the international development agenda.

[Guy Opperman]

My hon. Friend will know that seven colleagues from the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists, including my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark), visited the Syrian-Turkish border last weekend and saw the international development assistance that this country is providing on an ongoing basis. Clearly the Bill is prospective, but will it have any retrospective impact, either in law or through the practical application of international aid?

[Mr Cash]

It will not have legislative retrospectivity, but it will reinforce existing policies by adding a statutory duty, which, as those of us who are familiar with administrative law will know, is what makes it bite. The fact that it will be a legal obligation enhances it beyond mere policy making. My hon. Friend mentions our hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark), who of course is one of the Bill’s sponsors, as indeed is the Chair of the International Development Committee, along with Members from both sides of the House—their names are listed on the back of the Bill. I want to express my gratitude to them for their active support in pursuing these objectives.

[Sir Edward Leigh (Gainsborough) (Con)]

Nobody could possibly be in favour of gender inequality, but can my hon. Friend assure me that this is not just another motherhood and apple pie Bill that will place a regulatory burden on the Department by pushing it in a direction which, according to common sense, it should be following anyway?

[Mr Cash]

I could not agree more. It is not a regulatory burden at all; it is an amplification by statute of existing policies. It will help to generate self-help, enterprise and productivity in the third world, because it is women who are driving forward the whole market programme and helping to create micro-economic systems of enterprise. It is precisely for that reason that generating all the advantages of enterprise through women in the third world, who do all the work in the marketplaces, in the slums and so forth, will increase all the things that my hon. Friend advocates. He knows, as I do—I certainly advocate those things—how important it is to generate enterprise in those countries, because that will effectively balance the amount of aid that is necessary. The Bill is about providing a means of promoting enterprise, not over-regulation.

[Guy Opperman]

On that point, it would be a bizarre day indeed if my hon. Friend, who has battled for generations to stop greater regulation, were ever accused of seeking in any way to over-regulate the state. I certainly endorse what he says. Does he agree with the philosopher Jostein Gaarder’s point:

“A state that does not educate and train women is like a man who only trains his right arm”?

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[Mr Cash]

I thoroughly endorse that proposition. I am also glad to be able to refer to the historical fact that it was a member of my family, Jacob Bright—John Bright’s brother—who in 1869 became the first person to introduce a Bill in this House promoting the representation of women. Hume had made proposals for that, but the first Bill to promote votes for women was produced by Mr Pankhurst—Emmeline Pankhurst’s father, I think—and brought in by Jacob Bright. I feel that, in a way, I can follow in their footsteps by promoting the role of women in the world in this way.

In summary, the Bill places duties relating to gender on the Secretary of State before she provides humanitarian or development assistance under the International Development Act 2002. The Bill amends that Act to require the Secretary of State, before providing such assistance, to consider whether it will reduce poverty—I repeat the word “poverty”—in a way that is also likely to contribute to reducing gender inequality and, similarly, to take account of gender-related matters before providing humanitarian assistance overseas.

Basically, the Bill will help enormously through the very efficient work that is done by those who work in the Department, and I pay tribute to them for the great work they have done in this entire exercise. It is part and parcel of a social revolution. It will also play a very big role in our international development thinking, because in order for them to give effect to any particular policy they will have to have regard to those measures, as set out in statute. The Bill has all-party support, including from the leaders of the respective parties, and an enormous amount of assistance has been given by the Department. I hope and trust that when it goes to the House of Lords it will manage to navigate between the Scylla and Charybdis of all private Members’ Bills there. I hope that my noble Friend Baroness Jenkin will be interested in taking it forward, which I believe is the case. It has enormous support in all parts of the House and, I believe, in the country at large.

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[Guy Opperman (Hexham) (Con)]

It is a pleasure and a privilege to speak in this debate. I pay warm tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash) for being the seasoned and veteran campaigner that he is. He has battled long and hard to bring this Bill before the House of Commons, and we all wish it Godspeed and good will during its passage here and through the House of Lords.

In preparation for the debate, I looked at an article that my hon. Friend wrote in the New Statesman some time after the visit he mentioned. I must confess that I was surprised, but also delighted, to find him writing in such a modern socialist magazine as the New Statesman.

[Mr Cash]

My hon. Friend might be interested to recall that Paul Johnson started out as the editor of the New Statesman, and we know what a great Conservative he is.

[Guy Opperman]

It is often said, is it not, that we all start out as communists, develop into socialists, and ultimately turn into Conservatives?

[Guy Opperman]

Obviously my hon. Friends on the Front Bench started out more right wing than Genghis Khan, but some of us have had an evolution as we have progressed. It is true to say that my hon. Friend the Member for Stone has evolved, if not in his journalistic practices then certainly in his political practices. It is testament to him and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) that they are addressing and supporting this issue in the House.

Gender equality is a basic right, and it does not need any economic justification. We can provide an economic justification for it, but we should not even need to go there. It is a harsh fact that women across the world continue to face daily abuse and seclusion for the sole reason that they are women. Any argument that promotes inequality has no place in the 21st century.

I spent last weekend with various colleagues from the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists on the Syrian-Turkish border. There are 600,000 refugees in Turkey at the moment. The British Government are providing international aid—particularly food aid, but also other types of aid that I will mention later—to the refugees, who are based in a variety of camps all across southern Turkey. I have not visited the camps in Lebanon or Jordan, where the position is genuinely different, but I can speak with some authority on the international aid being provided in this region. I was accompanied by a number of Members of Parliament, not least my hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (Mr Newmark), who is a co-signatory to the Bill and served on its Committee and is an expert on the provision of international aid to the Syrian-Turkish border, together with my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) and my hon. Friends the Members for Huntingdon (Mr Djanogly), for South Basildon and East Thurrock (Stephen Metcalfe), and for The Cotswolds (Geoffrey Clifton-Brown).

Over the course of four days, we saw the impact of international development on the camp that we visited, Nizip 2, which is approximately 40 miles north of Aleppo and 20 miles north of the Syrian border. It caters for people in northern Syria who are particularly dependent on aid and who have fled towns such as Homs and Aleppo. They are of all colours, races and descriptions; it is not only the opponents of Assad and the Alawites who have fled Syria. The camp is testament to the impact of the work of international aid, and it is important to bring that to the House’s attention. There were 17,000 people there, 9,000 of whom were living in tents. In some cases, there were as many as 15 people to a tent, albeit that they were very serviceable tents. That may sound like a huge number, but the people we met and talked to felt that their situation was much better than it would have been in Syria. The camp was also a container camp where people have, in effect, turned containers into homes, exceptionally successfully.

Of the 17,000 people in the camp, well over 10,000 are children and a vast proportion are women. I was extremely pleased to see wholesale and proper education of the young women and children there. I met a young man called Suleiman who was formerly an engineer in Homs. He had been a fighter in Homs and had lost several members of his family. He had fled north of the border to Nizip. As an engineer, he knew about maths. He was teaching year 7, 6 and 5 students in a makeshift classroom—it was another container; everything there is a container—so he had three class years similar to those in this country’s primary and secondary schools. The crucial point is that all the young girls were getting an education. It was not a restrictive education that entitled them to do only certain types of projects. It was fantastic to see integration in the classroom and no difference between young girls and young boys. There was positive encouragement for young girls to become whatever they wished to be.

I did a survey of the children in the class in the Nizip camp and asked them what they wanted to be. Most of the girls wanted to be one of two things. Many wanted to be doctors and discussed how they were going to learn about medicine, including in a practical sense: there was a surgery and hospital nearby. Many of the others wanted to be engineers. When I asked these young girls, who were 11 and 12 years of age—the equivalent of years 6 and 7—why they wanted to be engineers, it was fantastic to hear them say, “Because I want to go back to rebuild my country.”

Immigration and the state of Syrian refuges, 600,000 of whom are in Turkey, is a matter of discussion. The crucial point about international aid is that, by providing a site just north of the Syria-Turkey border, the international community is able not only to preserve the lives of refugees, but, more importantly, to provide an environment in which they are able to live relatively normal, healthy lives. I met dozens of Syrian refugees and they all told me that they were desperately keen to go home to their own country when the conflict in Syria abates. If it does, those men, women and children will have a chance to go home. Such international aid is outstanding and we should be very proud of the role it plays. The important point is that the women in the camp were given particular assistance.

I believe that this Bill will help. It is important that education improves. The young girls I met were 10, 11 and 12 years of age. The question the Minister needs to answer is: what happens to those girls, who are receiving a basic education in a container in a refugee camp, when they wish to have a university education? Given that there are 600,000 refugees in Turkey and that we are providing huge amounts of international aid to the children, I hope that, by utilising this wonderful Bill, that aid will provide assistance to those children so that they can maximise their education potential and address the gender inequality that has unquestionably existed for many a generation. This Bill will address the problems those children face. Primary and secondary education can be provided, but the problem starts when someone wants to be a doctor or an engineer and to rebuild their country. The Bill will make a massive difference with regard to the quality of their education aged 14, 15, 16 and 18.

On any interpretation, for too long women have battled for equality. They have fought generations of deep-seated injustice. We could name dozens of countries where that has been the case, but it is particularly true in places such as Afghanistan, Somalia, Nepal and central America, particularly Guatemala. One in three women worldwide will experience physical or other violence or deprivation during their lifetime.

The Bill’s background is the huge amount of gender-based violence, but that is merely one part of the oppression. Marginalisation is also an issue. Anyone who reads the international aid periodicals and journalistic articles will have read about marginalisation, which sounds like such a philosophical and normal term, but it is totally abnormal and abhorrent. It represents a denial of access to land, credit and banking facilities and other simple matters. There is plentiful evidence that some female farmers are denied access to seed and fertiliser in a way that male farmers are not. That is all about marginalisation: the weird way in which women are denied a fair chance.

[Mr Cash]

It is not just that they are marginalised. Women are often told to leave the room when meetings are held, even though they are doing the work. In certain countries and according to certain traditions, the men expect women not only to take second place, but to do the work as well.

[Guy Opperman]

Certainly. Shortly before I came to this House, I travelled through Karnataka, in central India, on my way to the town Hampi and saw the impact of that exact point: the men running the society were requiring the women to do the work and forcing them to take a secondary position. We have to acknowledge that there have been problems in communities in India, Afghanistan and Pakistan. I am reminded of the words of Muhammad Ali Jinnah, who said:

“There are two powers in the world; one is the sword the other is the pen. Great competition and rivalry exist between the two. But there is a third power, stronger than both, and that is women”.

The most important thing is to harness the capability of the female sex.

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[Mr Cash]

On the question of violence against and harassment of women, my hon. Friend may know that I went to India last year with, among others, Baroness Royall and Lord Harries of Pentregarth. We visited a hostel where the woman running it had been beaten almost to death 18 times when protecting women she was looking after who had been violently abused since childhood up to the ages of about 18 to 20. People need to understand that such a situation is intolerable and that women need not only to be given a greater opportunity through empowerment, but to be protected from such abuse.

[Guy Opperman]

In generations to come, future Members of this House and of other Houses of Parliament and Governments will look back on the evolution of rights and equality for women and shake their heads in wonder that this was ever an issue—that we could have reached the 21st century and still be trying even partly to close the gap in some countries. The rights of women in many countries—all of which are known to those of us who take an interest in international aid—are as limited as they are non-existent, and the encouragement being given by the British and other Governments is absolutely vital.

We have often talked about India, including about the work done by my hon. Friend the Member for Stone and me and what we have seen in our travels. I have travelled five times through India—mostly as a backpacker and looking very scruffy, I hasten to add—and one is reminded of the words of Mahatma Gandhi:

“Of all the evils for which man has made himself responsible, none is so degrading, so shocking or so brutal as his abuse of the better half of humanity; the female sex.”

I could not agree more. It is still absolutely and manifestly wrong that, particularly in countries such as India, Afghanistan, Nepal, Somalia, Guatemala and in certain central American counties, women are deprived of their economic rights, as well as in a multitude of other ways.

[Guy Opperman]

I do not know whether it is good or bad that my hon. Friend is the first female contributor to this debate, apart from your interventions, assistance and guidance, Madam Deputy Speaker. It is wonderful to welcome my hon. Friend to the debate. It is good that a group of men are talking about the fact that it is manifestly wrong that inequality should be shown towards women, but I welcome her and totally endorse her point.

My hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough, who is no longer in his place, said there are two elements in the Bill. The second is effectively about disaster and emergency relief, and I certainly hope that the Minister will respond on that matter. None of us wants gender inequality to impede the impact of disaster and emergency relief: everybody should fully understand the Bill’s implication that no regulation should prevent an immediate effort to sort out difficulties such as those we have seen in the Philippines, Haiti and all manner of countries to which international aid has been provided.

My hon. Friend the Member for Stone will correct me if I am wrong, but for me, however, the crucial element is in clause 1(2), which states:

“Before providing development assistance under subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall have regard to the desirability of providing development assistance that is likely to contribute to reducing poverty in a way which is likely to contribute to reducing inequality between persons of different gender.”

All Members of the House—particularly, I hope, Government Members—know that the fundamental way of reducing poverty and inequality is through education. Without getting into a debate about education, which I would of course be disallowed from doing, the purpose of the reforms to the education system is to try to reduce inequality, and to promote economic and development aspiration in this country. Surely, the point about clause 1(2) is therefore that the purpose of development aid is to reduce poverty and, fundamentally, the way to do that is by providing education internationally.

[Mr Cash]

In the light of what my hon. Friend said about the number of women who have spoken in this debate, I would point out that the Bill has four women sponsors, who are named on its back page. He and anyone else can see who they are.

[Guy Opperman]

I entirely endorse my hon. Friend’s point. I would have expected nothing less from him than gender equality in the preparation of the Bill. I am absolutely certain that he would not have missed such an important aspect of his own Bill.

In preparing my speech, I spoke at length to my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) about the Bill and her work in Committee. She is detained on constituency business, but was very keen to be here to help navigate the Bill through. I also spoke to my hon. Friend the Member for Stourbridge (Margot James) about the Bill’s prospects and nature. I confess that I have not spoken to my hon. Friend the Member for Truro and Falmouth (Sarah Newton), but I certainly discussed the Bill with the other two. As is always the case on Fridays, constituency business often prevents us from being in the Chamber, even though we would very much like to be here. This is only the fourth sitting Friday on which I have chosen to participate—

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[Gavin Shuker (Luton South) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am grateful that we have got to this stage in the passage of the Bill. We had a positive, lively and celebratory Committee stage and it is good to get to Third Reading. It goes without saying that the Opposition fully endorse and support the Bill. I acknowledge the changes that were made in Committee to ensure that it would be workable in practice.

[Mr Cash]

May I make one point that I had meant to mention in my speech? The Secretary of State attended the Committee, which is very unusual, so I would like to place on the record my thanks to her for that.

[Gavin Shuker]

The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. We welcome the approach of the Government on violence against women and girls in particular and on gender equality more broadly. I believe that the measures in the Bill will be extremely helpful.

Before I turn to the substance of the Bill, I thought it might be helpful to the House if I clarified a couple of points that the hon. Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh) put to the Minister that are central to the argument over why the Bill is necessary. The Bill speaks to two scenarios. The first is where there is a broader programme of poverty reduction and the second is where there is humanitarian assistance. Humanitarian assistance relates not just to the period immediately following a disaster, such as that in the Philippines, but to the weeks and months that follow because such operations have a long time lag.

The consideration of gender equality can literally be a matter of life or death. In the light of recent conflicts and humanitarian disasters, for example, we have seen alarming reports of women finding themselves at extreme risk of exploitation and of serious and sexual violence. It is right for the Department to give due consideration to that point. The basis of all successful humanitarian interventions is effective planning, and DFID has also been doing good work in that regard. I believe that is why we have been a successful partner in work around the world. Awareness of gender issues is required, and we know that women, much more than men, are at risk of violence in lawless conditions. It is therefore right to have the dual provisions in the Bill.

We know that gender inequality is one of the defining issues of our time. It is core to development now and will be as we go through the post-2015 process. As the hon. Member for Stone (Mr Cash) rightly pointed out, we live in a world in which women shoulder 66% of the burden of work but own only 1% of the property. It is a world in which women account for two thirds of the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty and the 774 million people struggling with illiteracy; in which, tragically, an estimated 1.6 million daughters each year are not born because of a deep-seated preference for sons; in which one in five adolescent girls continue to be denied an education by the daily realities of poverty, conflict and discrimination; and in which one in three women are subject to violence, whether at a time of armed conflict or behind closed doors. We know the disproportionate impact of conflict on women, yet less than 3% of signatories to peace agreements are female. The House should also remember that only one in five national parliamentarians are female.

The hon. Gentleman mentioned the women who had helped him in the preparation of the Bill. The Opposition should draw attention to my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch (Meg Hillier), who I know was intensely involved in helping the Bill come to fruition, not least in Committee.

The fact that we live in the world that I have described places a moral duty on all of us to do more. Manifestations of inequality, brutality and cruelty still occur on a daily basis, which is why we welcome the Bill. In government, Labour started the journey of prioritising gender equality in development work—from DFID’s first ever gender policy document in 2000, which highlighted the importance of women’s empowerment beyond just regarding them as instruments of poverty reduction, to the three-year gender equality plan launched in 2007, which imposed specific responsibilities and embedded expertise across DFID’s delivery of programmes. In fact, one reason why we welcome the Government’s approach to the Bill is that at that time, there was concern about that action plan coming to an end. I believe that the Department has a genuine commitment to gender equality, from the Secretary of State downwards, and we support it in its work.

Some of the biggest global challenges that we face will require the empowerment, participation and achievement of all global citizens, both men and women. The UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation estimates that equalising access to productive resources between men and women could raise output in developing countries by as much as 4%, which is critical considering that more than 800 million people worldwide do not have adequate access to safe and nutritious food.

Reports documenting the impact of Typhoon Haiyan have emphasised the links between gender inequality and heightened vulnerability in the aftermath of environmental disasters, yet analysis last year by Development Finance International and Oxfam found that gender-related spending had fallen behind investment in other millennium development goals. That goes to the heart of why the Bill is important—it will set a standard for the rest of the world to meet.

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[Mr Duncan]

I will come to that point, but I say to my hon. Friend that there is value in embedding in everything we do an understanding of the issue, so that there is never any excuse for relegating it to a lower priority than it should enjoy. To that end, I commend my hon. Friend the Member for Stone for putting in all the effort for this simple, nearly one-page Bill, to ensure that that is the case.

The UK is already helping to give millions of girls and women voice, choice and control, for instance by supporting girls to complete primary and secondary education, to have jobs, incomes and access to markets, to live lives free from violence, and to have universal sexual and reproductive health rights. By 2015 we are on target to have saved the lives of at least 50,000 women during pregnancy and childbirth, to have enabled 10 million more women to use modern methods of family planning, to have improved access to financial services for more than 18 million women, and to have helped 10 million women get access to justice through the courts, police, and legal assistance.

We are supporting efforts to end the disgusting practice of female genital mutilation worldwide through a new £35 million programme that aims to reduce the practice by 30% in at least 10 countries over the next five years. We are also determined to do more to end violence against women and girls. Last November, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State launched an international call to action on violence against women and girls in humanitarian emergencies—something that has already been mentioned. The result was Governments and aid agencies around the world signing up to a ground-breaking commitment to make the safety of girls and women a life-saving priority in our response to emergencies. That is exactly the kind of process now embedded in the Bill.

[Mr Cash]

The advisability and advantages of an Act of Parliament include the fact that it imposes a duty that is voluntarily accepted by the Government and the Secretary of State, and endorsed across the House. It also acts as an encouragement and opportunity for other legislatures to regard it as a benchmark, and a lot of the advantages of the Bill will be derived from that.

[Mr Duncan]

I wholly agree with my hon. Friend. So much of the power that the United Kingdom is able to exercise, through the Department for International Development, is the power of example. Where we lead, many others follow. For instance, where we have led in assessing multilateral organisations, or in a review of how to respond to a humanitarian emergency, others have followed. I share my hon. Friend’s confidence and wish to see other countries follow that process of priority setting and giving attention to women and girls, and that is exactly what the Bill is attempting to embed.

I am proud of all the world-leading work that DFID is doing on girls and women, but we cannot afford to take our eye off the ball. Although we have come a long way on gender equality, there is so much further to go. There are still too many girls and women whose potential is wasted, and it will not be easy to reach them. We are talking about some of the poorest, most vulnerable people in the world—in many cases, the unseen and the unheard. We must keep up the pressure, the resources and the visibility of our actions to achieve better outcomes for women. That is why we all think that the Bill is so important. It will give our commitment to addressing gender inequality in countries where we provide development assistance a statutory footing, and enshrine it in law. If passed, the Bill will mean that a Secretary of State for International Development must have regard to reducing gender inequality before making decisions to provide development assistance under the International Development Act 2002.

Such a duty will bite not simply in the act of providing development assistance, but in the work that takes place beforehand—for example, in the preparation of a business case by officials that informs the eventual approval decision of a Minister. In other words, right from the outset the Bill sets in train a proper approach to the priorities that need to be addressed. That is crucial because gender equality is not something that can be just tacked on to our development programmes and humanitarian assistance, and it cannot be an afterthought if we want to get to the root of the problem. In that respect, perhaps I can address the concerns of my hon. Friend the Member for Gainsborough (Sir Edward Leigh), and reassure him confidently that as far as I can see no perverse consequences will ensue from the Bill. Indeed, to use modern jargon, it reinforces “best practice”—that is perhaps not a turn of phrase he uses, but he knows what we mean.

The Bill shapes ministerial leadership and does not in any way impede it. As we have heard, we already feel that there should be a keen focus on women and girls when taking humanitarian action, because as we know, women and girls are susceptible to rape used as a weapon of war, and that is the sort of humanitarian peril we try to address in our assistance.

The Bill will not introduce any significant costs. It is about ensuring that Ministers and officials fully take into account the interests of girls and women—as well as those of others—in administering the United Kingdom’s bilateral aid programmes. If the Bill is enacted, my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State and I will ensure that training and other measures are put in place in the Department to provide the necessary support for officials for the sort of actions and thinking that they need to adopt to implement the legislation.

Finally, this Bill comes at a timely moment. Many in this House will be aware that the deadline for the millennium development goals for tackling global poverty is fast approaching. The old ones expire in 2015, and a new set will be designed and implemented. In May 2013, the UN Secretary-General’s high-level panel reported back on recommendations for that post-2015 development agenda. The panel, co-chaired by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister, alongside the Presidents of Indonesia and Liberia, put forward a bold and ambitious vision for ending extreme poverty by 2030. At the heart of their report was a clear and powerful message that to defeat poverty we must leave no one behind, regardless of gender, ethnicity, geography, race or disability.

It is important that this ambition is not watered down in the final set of goals, which will replace the MDGs in two years. As negotiations get under way, the UK will push for a standalone goal on gender, with ambitious targets to tackle critical issues, such as ending child marriage and securing equal rights for girls and women to open bank accounts and own property, as well as integrating gender throughout the goals. I believe that the Bill, if passed, will set an example and put the UK in a stronger place to exercise influence in other forums, including those of multilateral organisations where the UK has a voting presence and to which we contribute significant funds.

Where half the population is locked out, prevented from being productive and from pursuing opportunities, there is no sustainable path to development. We urgently need irreversible gains in protecting the rights of girls and women and an end to violence against them. Improving the lives of girls and women is already a top priority in every area of our international development work. The UK is helping millions more girls and women to have voice, choice and control, and we are working to drive social transformation and shift discriminatory practices such as early and forced marriage and female genital cutting. The Bill—perhaps known for ever hereafter as Bill’s Bill—is another important step forward, enshrining our commitment to gender equality in law, and Her Majesty’s Government are proud to support it.

[Mr Cash]

I will simply say how grateful I am for the remarks from Members on both sides of the House. I am delighted that the Bill is about to have its Third Reading. I have no more to say, other than that I am extremely glad that we have now reached this point.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill accordingly read the Third time and passed.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I discussed that subject with Aung San Suu Kyi when she visited the UK a few weeks ago. Clearly, she is an incredibly important woman who can be involved in that peace process. Beyond that, much of the work the Department has done has been to reduce some of the ethnic tensions in various parts of Burma. The role that women play in that is obviously critical.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

May I congratulate my right hon. Friend and the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Lynne Featherstone) on all the work they have done in this area? May I also pay tribute to Opposition Members of all parties who have given such enormous support to my private Member’s Bill, which will be debated in Committee on 11 December?

[Justine Greening]

I am very happy to take that praise. It is an important Bill. It reflects the fact that no country can develop effectively when half of its population is excluded from that development. It is a matter not just of basic rights, but of ensuring that our Department and country have sustainable development approaches.

Oral Answers to Questions

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 12th December 2012 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

First, let me make the point that this Government have set up a green investment bank within two years, whereas the Labour party did nothing about that for 13 years. Secondly, even at a time of fiscal difficulty because of the mess we were left, we put £3 billion into the green investment bank, so right now it does not need to borrow because it has the money to invest. I think that what is needed in green investment is that equity risk finance, and that is exactly what the green investment bank can provide.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend goes to the summit tomorrow. Has he noticed in President Barroso’s blueprint for federalisation of Europe the following sentence: “The European Parliament, and only it, is the parliament for the EU, ensuring democratic legitimacy for the EU”? Does he agree with that or repudiate it, and what will he say to the other leaders at the summit tomorrow?

[The Prime Minister]

I agree with my hon. Friend on that one, not President Barroso, for this reason: it is the national parliaments that provide the real democratic legitimacy within the European Union. When we are discussing banking union, it is to this House that we should account. When we are discussing the European budget, it is to this House, which represents our taxpayers, that we should account. I always bear that in mind when I am negotiating, as I will be tomorrow at the European Council.

Water and Sanitation

William Cash Excerpts

Wednesday 21st March 2012 Westminster Hall

[Naomi Long]

I have congratulated the Government on that on numerous occasions, and I will congratulate them on other matters, but I will also press them on areas where further progress could be made.

This subject is important to my constituents, many of whom signed up to the recent Tearfund postcard campaign calling for more action on water and sanitation. Last October, the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) and I joined Tearfund to present more than 10,000 postcards to the Under-Secretary of State for International Development, to highlight the importance of action.

I recognise that in the UK, the biggest step change in public health and mortality rates resulted not from medical advances, but from widened access to clean drinking water and adequate sanitation. During the late 19th century, as both water and sewerage infrastructure expanded dramatically, the life expectancy of an average member of the population in this country rose by 15 years—a remarkable increase, delivered over a short period.

[Mr William Cash (Stone) (Con)]

I am chairman of the all-party group on water and sanitation in the third world. Does the hon. Lady agree that whatever progress has been made on access to drinking water, which we acknowledge is improving, only 63% of the world population have access to sanitation, which is well below the 75% target, and that if we do not get sanitation right, water will not be right either?

[Naomi Long]

I agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman, and I hope to come to that point.

The British Medical Association has recognised that commissioning of the sewerage system in London was the most important breakthrough in public health—more significant than the discovery of penicillin or development of vaccine programmes. If developing nations are to experience a similar step change in their outcomes, there can be no more effective place to start than investment in water, sanitation and hygiene.

There has been progress, particularly on access to clean water, and this month brought the welcome news that the UN millennium development goal on water has been met five years early. However, it is clear that approximately 10% of the world population still have no access to clean water and there is still much work to be done. Also, the global figure disguises the disparities in progress between, and even within, different countries. That needs to be considered carefully when planning future programmes. For example, almost half the progress towards the millennium development goal can be accounted for by progress in India and China alone, whereas progress in sub-Saharan Africa has generally been much slower; and although Sierra Leone, for example, has made significant improvements in access to water, with a national average of 55%, that masks a significant disparity between rural access, at 35%, and urban access, at 87%.

Even allowing for the complexities of the picture, significant progress has been made on access to clean water. However, my understanding is that, by contrast, the millennium development goal on access to sanitation is not on track for delivery. Indeed, it has been identified as one of the most off-track millennium development goals. I would welcome the Minister’s views on what action the UK Government could take to try to ensure that focus is maintained on taking forward work on that specific problem.

At the current rate of progress, it has been estimated that it could take 350 years to ensure that everyone in Africa alone has access to adequate sanitation. That differential delivery between water and sanitation may be due in part to the stigma that surrounds discussion of sanitation in many cultures, including our own. That needs to be tackled in the developing world because education on hygiene is critical to improving public health. In India, for example, it is estimated that almost 51% of the population still defecate in the open, and that poor sanitation costs India around 6% of its GDP.