Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what progress they have made with donating safe vaccines to help with the international efforts to vaccinate the world, in line with the Communique of the G7 Summit in Cornwall.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Our G7 Presidency in 2021 secured agreement from leaders to commit to sharing at least 870 million doses by June 2022. The G7 has gone further since June, and donated 770 million doses by the end of 2021 and committed to donate an additional 1.2 billion doses.
We have met the UK goal of donating 30 million doses by the end of 2021, as part of our G7 pledge to donate 100 million doses by June 2022. To date, the UK has delivered 23.3 million doses to countries in need of which 17.8 million have been delivered via COVAX and 5.5m doses donated directly. A further 7.5 million doses have been received by COVAX and will shortly be allocated and shipped in line with COVAX's fair allocation model. The Prime Minister said at the G20 in October 2021 that we will donate 20 million further Astra Zeneca doses and 20 million Janssen doses to COVAX and we remain committed to meeting our 100 million pledge in full by June 2022.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of allegations that the government of Turkey is deploying chemical weapons in northern Iraq; and what plans they have to support an independent inquiry into their deployment by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The United Kingdom opposes the use of chemical weapons in all circumstances. We take any credible evidence of the use of chemical weapons very seriously. We have been monitoring the recent allegations of chemical weapons use in northern Iraq but the allegations remain unsubstantiated. Any evidence should be shared with States Parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention and provided through appropriate channels to the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) Technical Secretariat.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of reports that Turkey is using chemical weapons in northern Iraq.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
We take seriously all allegations of the use of chemical weapons - it is important that the full facts are established. We continue to reiterate the importance of dialogue and cooperation between Iraq and Turkey to combat terrorism, ensure regional security and protect civilians. We welcome discussions between Iraqi and Turkish Defence Ministers regarding Ankara's military operations against the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a proscribed terrorist group, in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). The Foreign Secretary discussed the stability of Iraq and the KRI with KRI President, Nechirvan Barzani, during his visit to London of 15-17 September.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many officials are working on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the Whitehall headquarters of the (1) Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and (2) Ministry of Defence.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Officials in the FCDO and MOD, centrally and across the global network, work collectively to deliver strategic outcomes as part of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and wider work. Given the breadth of the WPS agenda and global focus, information on the number of officials working on this issue is not held centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many officials are working on the Women, Peace and Security Agenda in the (1) Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, and (2) the Ministry of Defence.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
As stated in my reply of 6 July, officials in the FDCO and MOD, centrally and across the global network, work collectively to deliver strategic outcomes as part of the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda and wider work. Given the breadth of the WPS agenda and global focus, information on the number of officials working on this issue is not held centrally.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what the overall official development assistance reduction to (1) Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights, and (2) Family Planning, will be this financial year; and whether there has been an impact assessment of the effects of these reductions.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Foreign Secretary provided thematic ODA allocations for 2021/22 in a written ministerial statement which included £1,305 million allocated to global health. FCDO spend by sector is calculated using OECD-DAC sector codes. Details of FCDO spend by sector code for 2021 will be available in the Statistics on International Development publication in Autumn 2022 and details of FCDO spend for 2022 will be available in the Statistics on International Development publication in Autumn 2023. FCDO programme sector codes are available on DevTracker.
The impact of the global pandemic on the economy has forced us to take tough but necessary decisions, including within our global health portfolio. The aid budget has been allocated in accordance with UK strategic priorities against a challenging financial climate. Officials considered any impact on women and girls, the most marginalised and vulnerable, people with disabilities and people from other protected groups, when developing advice to Ministers.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government, further to the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, what steps they are taking to develop a more strategic approach to partnering with and supporting human rights defenders globally; and, in particular, women human rights defenders.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK strongly supports Human Rights Defenders worldwide to enable them to carry out their work safely and without fear. We are concerned about eroding respect for human rights, including targeted discrimination of women and activists and Women Human Rights Defenders online and offline. In 2019 I, as the Minister of State responsible for Human Rights, launched the document 'UK support for Human Rights Defenders' which was drawn up with significant and important input from relevant stakeholders, including Amnesty International, and which sets out how the UK Government engages with Human Rights Defenders to advance the human rights agenda globally.
Furthermore, the UK National Action Plan for Women, Peace and Security sets out how the UK will work on tackling the obstacles to women's leadership and meaningful political participation such as lack of an enabling environment for women's rights organisations and women human rights defenders. Following the publication of the Integrated Review, the UK remains strongly committed to this agenda and will continue to support and work in partnership with Human Rights Defenders to promote open societies. The Review also commits the UK to work with women's rights organisations to tackle the discrimination, violence and inequality that hold women back. We will reflect these commitments in the various strands of strategic planning which will flow from the Integrated Review. The FCDO also monitors repression of HRDs in its annual Human Rights and Democracy Report, the most recent of which was published earlier this month. That report paid tribute to the courageous work of HRDs and listed support for them as a UK international policy priority.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what steps they are taking to consult with civil society on the development of their plans for supporting, at an international level, (1) open societies, (2) media freedom, (3) anti-corruption efforts, (4) human rights and the rule of law.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The FCDO values civil society organisations (CSOs) as important policy and delivery partners at the forefront of delivering UK objectives. We have an ongoing policy dialogue with CSOs on open societies, and are committed to working in partnership with a diverse range of organisations across the whole of the UK and southern-based CSOs, both large and small. Civil Society plays a critical role in defending media freedom. In addition to regular consultations with CSOs, for example around the G7, we work closely with the 17 CSOs in the Consultative Network of the Media Freedom Coalition.
On anti-corruption issues we regularly engage with CSOs, for example holding civil society roundtables on our new anti-corruption sanctions regime and participating with colleagues from the Joint Anti-Corruption Unit in regular engagement with the UK Anti-Corruption Coalition. Ministers meet regularly with the Advisory Group on Human Rights, a group of 14 experts including civil society representatives. Open Societies were discussed at the most recent meeting. CSOs are also strongly represented in the UK war crimes network. Modern slavery is another important part of our human rights work. We are supporting the Home Office to review the government's modern slavery strategy and will engage external partners, including CSOs.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what actions they expect to complete in pursuit of (1) the Women, Peace and Security agenda, and (2) the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative, by the end of the present National Action Plan pursuant to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 in 2022.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK continues to champion the ethos of UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on Women, Peace and Security (WPS) through our National Action Plan (NAP) on WPS (2018-2022). We will continue to focus our work to ensure better protection and empowerment of women in conflict situations overseas through our diplomatic, development and defence engagements alongside our bilateral and multilateral partners. We will work to achieve this through the seven Strategic Outcomes of the NAP. For example, we remain committed to ensuring women have full, equal and meaningful participation in peacekeeping; providing £1.2m this financial year to the Elsie Initiative Fund to increase the number of uniformed women in peace operations. The UK will also continue to tackle gender-based violence, particularly violence against women and girls as the most prevalent form of gender-based violence.
The Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative will continue to deliver policy and programme interventions supporting its objectives of strengthening pathways to justice for all survivors of sexual violence in conflict, holding the perpetrators to account and enhancing support available to all survivors and children born of conflict-related sexual violence, including tackling the stigma they face.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government how many people will be working on the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative agenda by October.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
Information on roles undertaken by employees in the delegated grades (i.e. below Director level) is not held centrally.