Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:

To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent steps she has taken to help ensure that the economic impacts of the covid-19 pandemic do not reduce children's global access to (a) health, (b) education and (c) nutrition services.

The UK is committed to mitigating the impacts of COVID-19 on children's global access to essential health, nutrition, and education services. We do this through our ambitious global health agenda as set out in the Integrated Review, and the government's manifesto commitment to end the preventable deaths of mothers, new-borns, and children by 2030. We are the largest donor to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, and have pledged £1.65 billion from 2021 to 2025 to support the provision of vaccines to 300 million children, saving up to 8 million lives. The Nutrition for Growth summit in Tokyo in December will be a key moment for galvanising international support for access to nutrition for children, and the UK will set out its future ambitions there.

The Prime Minister has launched the UK Girls' Education Action Plan, which sets out the UK's leadership and further commitments on girls' education in the face of the challenges presented by COVID-19, including getting 40 million more girls into school, and 20 million more girls reading by the age of 10 by 2026. The UK and Kenya co-hosted the refinancing summit for the Global Partnership for Education in July in London. The replenishment raised $4 billion on the day to help education systems build back better following COVID-19, and ensure girls return to school and learn.