Afghanistan

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 14th May 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for his questions. The first point he raised was how we can make sure we never forget the sacrifice that has been made by our servicemen and women who have served in Afghanistan. I understand that discussions on how we can make sure we commemorate and remember that work are under way in the Ministry of Defence, and I am sure it will have further updates to give the House shortly.

In relation to the work ICAI did on DFID programmes in Afghanistan, I think the first point to make is that it recognises, as we do, that Afghanistan is one of the most difficult places in the world to deliver aid. However, it said that we worked effectively with our partners, and, indeed, that

“our livelihoods programmes are delivering significant improvements to thousands of people”,

although the right hon. Gentleman raised some of the serious challenges we still face in making sure that the gains and advances we have made continue. It is probably worth pointing out that some of the training on vocational education has helped about 70,000 young people get into work in Afghanistan. The right hon. Gentleman is right that the livelihoods issue is one of the core elements of the programme going forward. We will work on the ICAI recommendations in the report and any that the IDC has made recently.

On the terrible mudslide and flooding around Badakhshan, the UN is working there on the ground. As the right hon. Gentleman points out, some areas in Afghanistan are harder for aid agencies to reach than others, but we have already made a £10 million contribution to the common humanitarian fund, and we stand ready to assess any further requests. Our current assessment is that adequate support is getting through to people, but he is right to point out that we need to see what we can do to help the people who remain rebuild their lives and get them back on track.

The right hon. Gentleman is right to raise the issue of the work on women’s rights. As everyone recognises, this issue presents one of the biggest risks: as troop draw-down takes place and Afghanistan transitions to a future in which it takes responsibility for its own security, and a presidential election results in a new President, it is important that this aspect of progress—the advancement of women’s rights in a country that remains one of the toughest places in the world to be a woman—is not left behind. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that I have made this issue a strategic priority for DFID within Afghanistan. We are undertaking a variety of projects that will continue in the coming years, such as the girls’ education project, and we will support the Government to make sure that the law on the elimination of violence against women is implemented on the ground. That will include working with the Ministry of the Interior and directly with the Afghan police, so that we can make sure that laws are implemented by them and they play their role in protecting and upholding women’s rights on the ground.

As the right hon. Gentleman pointed out, and as I mentioned in my statement, we have done work on women’s political participation. One of the most encouraging aspects of the recent first round of presidential elections—alongside perhaps less violence than we might have expected—was the number of women who are now exercising their right to vote. DFID played a role in the United Nations Development Programme, supporting the independent election commission, and on the ground in encouraging people to use their vote. In particular, it helped to ensure that women were registered, and that women candidates were supported and understood that they could be not just a voter within the election, but a participant. Some 300 women candidates came forward, and 20% of the provincial election council places will go to women after the election.

We are also ramping up our work on access to justice. We have teamed up with the existing Australian Government programme—a £3 million programme that will mean that we can provide better access to justice for women in six provinces. Of course, the existing Tawanmandi programme, which supports civil society organisations on the ground, continues. I am putting an extra £2 million into that, which should help to provide at least 10 grants to organisations that are focused on working to tackle violence against women.

The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of draw-down and security. Obviously, I cannot go into the details of that in the House, but he is right to point out that the environment faced not just by our forces but by Foreign Office and DFID staff working in Afghanistan is highly risky, even in the British embassy in Kabul. I would like to take this opportunity to pay tribute to those staff members, who do an immensely challenging job in difficult circumstances and are some of the most dedicated people I have come across in this job. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman that that duty of care to our staff is always of paramount importance.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I thank the Secretary of State very much indeed not just for her statement but for its positive character and for the fact that she is making it, because that indicates DFID’s increasing importance and profile as Afghanistan moves from a situation of troop engagement to development. I want to reinforce the International Development Committee’s view that the test of success in development in Afghanistan will be the progress maintained by women. Indeed, I am grateful to the Secretary of State for emphasising women’s rights and development. Does she agree with me and our Committee that the status of women will be the key to Afghan development, that it is important that women are supported, that all the people of Afghanistan must understand that the progress of women will determine the successful development of their country, and that in that, they will have the full partnership of the UK Government?

[Justine Greening]

I pay tribute to the work the right hon. Gentleman’s Committee does in scrutinising my Department and the work we do in Afghanistan. I can assure him that we will continue to play our role, as a key donor, in helping the Afghanistan Government to continue to make progress on women’s rights. It is fantastic that we now have a statutory duty to look at gender equality in international development, thanks to my hon. Friend the Member for Stone (Mr Cash), so we will continue to do that work. His legislation has sent a message across the world about the UK’s stance on the rights of women and girls, and it will permeate our entire work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 9th April 2014 Commons Chamber

[Mr Duncan]

I fully understand what the hon. Gentleman says. I think the Select Committee saw a direct example of the destruction of olive groves when it was there. It is essential that area C is able, through planning arrangements, to develop its economy; otherwise there can be no sensible or useful economic future in the Palestinian territories.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

May I confirm what the Minister says—that without access to area C there is no future for a two-state solution or for an economically viable Palestine? The Palestinian Authority pleaded with us to put all possible pressure on Israel to allow access. We met someone from a company who is saying that the cost of land in areas A and B is prohibitive and that without access to area C he cannot develop his business.

[Mr Duncan]

I fully concur with my right hon. Friend. I hope that a full understanding of this can be included in the peace talks that we hope are continuing towards a productive and useful conclusion.

Burma

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 13th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Following the point of order from the hon. Member for Brent North (Barry Gardiner), I am pleased to see the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the right hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Mr Duncan) sitting on the Front Bench.

I welcome the opportunity to make a statement on the International Development Committee’s report on democracy and development in Burma, which is also known as Myanmar. There is a little item in the report about the issue of its name. I had the privilege of visiting Burma last July as part of a delegation led by Mr Speaker and including my fellow Committee member the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), as well as the hon. Member for Walsall South (Valerie Vaz). The Committee also visited the country last November. We spent time in and around Yangon, and in the capital, Naypyidaw. From Naypyidaw we drove down to Mandalay, stopping en route, and then made visits in and around Mandalay.

We concluded that Burma presents unique challenges in comparison with any of the United Kingdom’s other bilateral aid partners. As most people know, the country has endured 60 years of conflict and decades of military dictatorship, during which development and progress have regressed. Per capita GDP is $800, while the per capita income of its neighbour Thailand is $4,800. Although the UK has remained engaged and has provided support, the circumstances have been difficult, as the Committee observed in its last report in 2007. At that time, we could only visit refugee camps on the Thai border; we could not visit the country itself.

Since cyclone Nargis devastated the country, it has become apparent internally that if the country is to develop, it needs to change. The military Government have transferred some powers to the Parliament, and after by-elections last year, Aung San Suu Kyi was elected to Parliament along with 42 of her National League for Democracy colleagues. Full elections are promised for next year.

While a host of problems remain, a key opportunity exists for UK development programmes to help deliver transformational change. We must seize the moment. The Committee’s main conclusions are: that the Department for International Development should be more engaged with the political nature of Burma’s development—this is not just about development; it is about politics, too—and that the UK should continue to press for constitutional reform for the development of a federal structure inside Burma, which is being talked about widely there, and for the removal of the block on Aung Sa Suu Kyi standing for president. That is not because she has to be the president, but because it would be somewhat strange if a clearly popular elected opposition party candidate were not at least eligible to be a presidential candidate. As part of this, the UK Government should work to help the armed ethnic groups and the Burmese military to make the transition to delivering civilian Government. That is a huge challenge.

DFID has given a substantial chunk of its budget to health programmes and we saw, and heard, how radical and transformational they were, but the Department should place even more emphasis on addressing drug-resistant malaria in Burma as it is a problem that threatens to spread to the rest of the world with potentially devastating consequences.

One specific issue, which an exchange with the Minister shows he understands, is that DFID’s education budget in Burma is currently too small to be effective. We are not saying it is of no value, but we do think it should increase, with a major focus on teacher training. We have, effectively, a lost generation in Burma that desperately needs education.

We also think that DFID’s work to assist the peace process, to improve public financial management, to encourage the inclusion of women and to reform the Burmese military should continue, with additional funding made available as opportunities to expand these programmes arise. These are all major challenges.

We welcome the UK support for the Burmese Parliament. It should be a long-term partnership and the UK will need to reform its approach to parliamentary strengthening to ensure that DFID and the Foreign Office can rely less on non-UK organisations—such as United Nations Development Programme and the National Democratic Institute—and draw more on UK organisations. The Westminster brand is valued, and we think it is strange that we are buying expertise from other models when people would like to hear more from ours.

The UK is doing a very good job in helping to co-ordinate the role of the development partners as chair of the working group, and we believe that that should continue. Smaller donors should be encouraged to be part of that process, rather than to try to operate independently.

We recognised when visiting the peace centre that there is a ceasefire across most of the country, but as yet there is no peace process. The situation in Rakhine is critical and could threaten the whole reform process if it is not addressed. DFID can help by doing more to promote inter-faith dialogue and inter-community understanding.

We accept that in the current situation progress will be unpredictable and uneven, but supporting the reform process by working to deliver public services and develop livelihoods offers unprecedented potential.

To achieve these transformational objectives we recommend that the bilateral budget for Burma be increased from its current level of over £60 million to around £100 million. We think that there is more than enough work in education, in parliamentary strengthening and in building Government institutions to justify the steady build-up of expenditure and we believe that DFID could, and should, find that resource.

I hope the House will accept that the UK has a crucial role to play in Burma. We have partners we can work with. We have an opportunity that may not come again and we should not miss it.

[Meg Munn (Sheffield, Heeley) (Lab/Co-op)]

I refer to my entry in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests. Like the right hon. Gentleman, I had the opportunity to visit Burma last summer, looking specifically at issues around maternal health. What struck the group that went out with Marie Stopes was that the budget for health in Burma is extraordinarily small. The right hon. Gentleman has mentioned the importance of developing the political process. Did the Committee look at the balance between UK funds helping to directly provide health services, for example, as opposed to working with the Government and Parliament and has it looked at the overall funding compared with international comparators?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

We recognise that Burma needs capacity right across the whole system. Frankly, its spending on health and education has been minimal and its capacity to do that at the moment is pretty limited. We have to work with the partners we can find, sometimes directly. Of course we want to build up capacity within the Government, provided that the partners within the Government will respond in the right way, but we did see very good co-operation and real evidence that we are making specific changes. So our view is that we can expand the development support and help build those institutions, but we also need to strengthen the political capacity. One particular step is to enable Parliament to raise the funds that will ultimately enable these developments to be taken forwards as the economy develops. That is crucial and it is something DFID does very well in many other countries.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his statement. I am the chair of the all-party group on malaria and neglected tropical diseases. I and my colleagues on that committee are extremely concerned about the growth of resistance to artemisinin-based drugs, which are our main hope for tackling malaria in Burma and the surrounding area. Does my right hon. Friend think the international community is giving enough weight to this issue?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I commend my hon. Friend for his assiduous work on the all-party committee, which is extremely important. The answer to his question is that it has not been possible to do enough because of the problems of conflict and lack of access. Indeed, that is the very reason why it has become an endemic threat to the whole world. We hope that, with a ceasefire in place and hopefully the beginnings of a peace process, the opportunity to engage will increase. That is why we have made a specific recommendation that greater priority within the health budget should be given to tackling that problem, and I am certain that my hon. Friend will ensure we focus on that.

[Mr Nigel Dodds (Belfast North) (DUP)]

The report refers to DFID’s main contribution to peace-building having been in funding Jonathan Powell’s non-governmental organisation Inter Mediate, with strong experience being drawn from what happened in the Northern Ireland peace process. Has the Committee made any assessment of the work of Inter Mediate and the way in which the experience in Northern Ireland has helped to develop peace-building in Burma?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

We did not make a specific engagement within that process, but we learned from DFID that the Northern Ireland experience was seen to be of some value and relevance. We obviously have to be careful not to assume that what happened in Northern Ireland is automatically transferable, but some kind of understanding of how we get beyond entrenched conflict to a situation where communities can start to work together is clearly useful, and the justification for supporting Jonathan Powell’s organisation was that he had some experience of doing that. The right hon. Gentleman may have a subjective view on how valid that is, but it seemed to us that this was well-received by the Burmese who felt it helped them to think about how to stop hating people and start working with those who were enemies, and that seems to be of some value.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for the report. Bearing in mind the situation in Egypt where the military have had real problems in giving up power, will he give us his candid assessment of the chances of the Burmese military ceding power to a democratic Government in the near future?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

That is a very good and fair question and we took a lot of evidence, ranging from people who felt the military would never let go to others who felt the pressures on Burma to open up were so intense that the reforms that have been started could not be reversed, although their progress will, I think, be uneven and bumpy. All I can say is that the authorities representing the military who we met looked to the Indonesian model as the way forward—in other words, a gradual move away from military control through the building of civilian capacity. But I guess that the day when the military is subservient to Parliament is a long way off.

[Geoffrey Clifton-Brown (The Cotswolds) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Bristol East (Kerry McCarthy) and I visited Burma in 2012. One of the Government Ministers there had been given the task of mediating between the various ethnic minority groups. I have a suspicion, however, that the disputes between some of the groups have got worse since then. Will my right hon. Friend tell us what he found in that respect?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

The Committee did not have the opportunity to visit some of the more disputed territories, either for security reasons or because access was not granted or there was insufficient time. We understood, however, that there was at least a ceasefire in place across the whole country, except in the north. That is good news. The bad news is that the process of turning that ceasefire into a proper process of moving towards civilian government and letting go from the centre has not begun. Indeed, there is plenty of evidence that the army has consolidated its position in exactly those provinces. That does not bode well, unless it starts to accommodate the other armed ethnic groups as part of the process of change. That is something that we think the UK Government could contribute to, so long as we have partners to work with.

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

We welcome this thoughtful and comprehensive report, which reflects upon the progress being made in this troubled Commonwealth nation. The Chair of the Committee referred to the role of DFID in helping to build democratic capacity and strengthen Parliament in Burma. Of course, DFID is not just the charitable arm of the UK Government; it is a major force for soft power. What work is the Committee planning to do to examine DFID’s wider work on building democracy, particularly in the light of recent examples such as Bangladesh, where those processes have had mixed results?

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments; I completely agree with him. Incidentally, we thought that the co-operation between DFID and the Foreign Office in Burma was particularly successful. Indeed, our visit would not have been the success that it was without the full co-operation that we had from the Foreign Office and from the ambassador and his team, although that is not in any way to suggest that the DFID team was not also extraordinarily important. That is the kind of working that matters, because this is a political process as well as a development process.

We actually had a much fuller section on parliamentary strengthening in the draft report, and we concluded that that was an issue to which we should return separately. The Committee has not yet agreed on that, but I think that we have unofficially agreed that we should produce a short report on how DFID could expand its role of parliamentary strengthening in all the partner countries. If we are concentrating on post-conflict countries and fragile states, building democratic institutions and making them work are surely central to that task. We have a unique capacity to do this work, and our view is that we need to put a lot more investment into it to ensure that our engagements are sustained and continuous, and that the contacts are maintained. These processes need to develop full, long-term relationships, rather than ending up with the odd seminar here and there or the odd secondment. I hope that we will be able to come up with a report that will develop that theme.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Mr Alan Duncan)]

I rise briefly to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Gordon (Sir Malcolm Bruce) and all his Committee for this report, and for the thoroughness of their inquiries. It is refreshing to be broadly commended in a Select Committee report, and to be asked to spend more. The request to raise our budget from £66 million to £100 million a year is an ambitious one, particularly as our funding increases have plateaued over the past few years, and there are further demands on our resources for the likes of humanitarian efforts in Syria. I can assure the right hon. Gentleman and the House, however, that we will study all 39 recommendations and take them all into consideration when deploying our resources and focusing our efforts in the future.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention, which we very much appreciate. We would not have expected him to accede to our requests immediately, but we think that he is up to the challenge. This is not just a question of our saying, “Let’s spend more money.” We have identified specific sectors in which we think that would be useful. We took out of the report a section dealing with where we thought the money should come from, because it is the job of Ministers to prioritise such matters, but if they want to talk to us informally about that, we have some ideas.

royal assent

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Mrs Eleanor Laing)]

I have to notify the House, in accordance with the Royal Assent Act 1967, that Her Majesty has signified her Royal Assent to the following Acts:

Supply and Appropriation (Anticipation and Adjustments) Act 2014

Children and Families Act 2104

National Insurance Contributions Act 2014

Citizenship (Armed Forces) Act 2014

International Development (Gender Equality) Act 2014

Leasehold Reform (Amendment) Act 2014

Offender Rehabilitation Act 2014

Anti-social Behaviour, Crime and Policing Act 2014

Northern Ireland (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2014

Security of Women in Afghanistan

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 6th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Sir Robert Smith) for securing this timely debate and the Backbench Business Committee for allowing it to happen. I feel privileged to be taking part.

As important as this debate is—and it is very important —we should not overestimate our ability to influence cultural change within Afghanistan just by speaking in this Chamber; the challenge is much bigger than that. Fundamentally, the change will have to come from people within Afghanistan whom we can support.

In January, Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch said:

“Afghan women are all too well aware that international donors are walking away from Afghanistan.”

As the Secretary of State is in her place, I am sure that she will want to make it clear that that is not the case with Britain. Indeed, the longer and deeper our commitment is, and the more that we talk about it, the better we will be able to support those in Afghanistan who are working for change.

Reference has been made to the visit the International Development Committee made to the country in 2007—we also visited it 18 months ago—in which we had a robust meeting with President Karzai. He was challenged on the rights of women. Specifically, we talked about the fact that more than 80% were beaten by their husbands and other male family members, and that those who fled violent relationships were jailed while the perpetrators of the violence had immunity from any sanction.

At the end of the exchange, Mr Karzai said that we had to understand that Afghanistan was a conservative country with its own values. He said that the last ruler who challenged those values was the king who was assassinated in 1929, and Mr Karzai did not want to repeat that example.

In an article in The Guardian last month, Nushin Arbadzadah warned of the challenges. She said that

“the idea that we could empower Afghan women by making them aware of their individual rights was preposterous and bound to fail from the inception. Anyone who has spent even two days in Afghanistan knows that individualism as a concept does not exist there. The idea that we could treat women as a separate entity, legal or political, and disconnected from their family was flawed from the start.”

She said that those who fought for those values were likely to do so perpetually and in isolation. In her conclusion, she said:

“Afghanistan’s patriarchal clans have survived leftist coups and rightwing wars, becoming the only source of stability in a society constantly in turmoil. To dismantle their power would amount to freedom not only for women but also for men. But to reach that end, we need more than the rhetoric of individual rights imported from the other side of the planet.”

That is a sobering article. We feel angry and we state our case, but we must realise what we are up against. Very often, it is women, and not just men, who are oppressing women, and not supporting them when they stand up, which is why I agree with my hon. Friend that the role of men is important too and that we need to be part of it.

[Bob Stewart]

It is not only the role of men that is important, but the men themselves. They are the people who drive the change, and we must put all our efforts into making them understand and be more enlightened, in our way of thinking, towards their women.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

Of course I accept that, but we should not underestimate the challenge. That is why we need to work with local women and women’s groups and accept the way in which they want to achieve change and support them.

Our second report on Afghanistan, which was published 18 months ago, said:

“The treatment of women in Afghanistan after troops pull out in 2014 will be the litmus test of whether we have succeeded in improving the lives of ordinary Afghans over the last ten years.”

We urged the Government to prioritise women in their programmes, especially on education, supporting shelters and providing legal advice. I am sure that the Secretary of State will want to give us some insight about how that is being done under the DFID programme.

Like others, we have met articulate women MPs and civil rights campaigners who were fearful that there would be push back on the gains, but were determined to protect and advance the progress that had been made. We all recognise that educating girls and women is an essential part of that.

Everyone knows that Afghanistan has an uncertain future. We do not know what the next Government will look like or who will be President, although the candidates are now lining up. The idea that the whole country will quickly fall back into the arms of the Taliban seems unlikely. Many of the people who suffered under the Taliban have gained under the current situation and will not readily succumb to that again. Furthermore, the Taliban are not a single, coherent entity.

I note that Zalmai Rassoul, one of the frontrunners for the presidency, has chosen a woman as one of his running mates. Habiba Sarabi was the former governor of Bamiyan Province. Some members of the Committee visited the province briefly in 2012. Having suffered at the hands of the Taliban, not only through the destruction of the famous Buddhas but through much more serious infringements of lives and livelihoods, the people of the predominantly Shi’ite Hazara province of Bamiyan clearly told us that they were determined to pursue their own destiny and will at all odds resist any re-incursion by the Taliban. The principal of the university told us that fathers and husbands were actively encouraging their daughters and wives to go to university and that a third of the students there are now female.

I must also say, however, that I and a number of other members of the Committee met a young woman in Kabul. She was a highly educated and very articulate postgraduate, but when I asked her about her personal circumstances she said that she would of course have to marry whoever her brother, who was the head of her household, chose for her. I asked whether her brother would consult her, to which she replied, “How on earth would my brother have any idea what kind of man I want anyway?” I asked what she would do if she did not like that person or if she suffered violence and she said, “I am used to violence; I can accept it.” She is an intelligent, educated and articulate woman, more or less saying that she must succumb to her fate.

We have made progress. My hon. Friend the Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine rightly referred to girls’ education. The front cover of our first report in 2007 was a photograph of girls in school because we thought that was symptomatic of how Afghanistan was changing. My hon. Friend rightly said that 2001 was a moment of destiny, but I think that Afghanistan is a country in which the UK would be engaged regardless of that because it is one of the poorest countries on the planet and because we make a commitment to try to lift people out of absolute poverty. It is a poor country seeking to develop and exactly the kind of country that we want to help.

The Taliban are against development of all kinds, but many Afghans have experienced the benefits that development can bring. They have glimpsed the opportunities and will not, in my view, simply allow themselves to be pushed back. I suggest that our job is to stand by those who seek to move forward on their own terms. We must do everything we can to support those women who are campaigning to secure progress, but we must follow their leadership and not impose our own. They will understand how to make that change better than anything we can do. Although there are absolute rights and values that we stand by, we must accept that change will be brought about by people inside the community who understand how to do it. We must stand by them and say that we are here to help them in any way we can to secure progress.

I am grateful that the Secretary of State is replying to the debate and hope that she will be able to say that we are there to stand by Afghan women for as long as it takes.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 5th March 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We have already been part of the effort to vaccinate more than 200,000 children against polio in Syria—I think that I am right to say that—as part of the emergency support. The right hon. Gentleman is quite right to highlight that issue. In relation to education, the UK has played a leading role in designing the no lost generation initiative, which is all about making sure that we do not forget the impact of this terrible crisis on children, not least the lack of education.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

The UK contribution to humanitarian relief in the middle east has been unparalleled. Indeed, the United Nations would have had difficulty coping without it. Does the Secretary of State acknowledge, however, that it is difficult to sustain, and what is she doing to ensure that other countries, including France, make comparable contributions?

[Justine Greening]

We regularly raise our concerns about the lack of full funding for the UN appeal in relation to the Syrian crisis both in the European Union and more broadly internationally. My right hon. Friend is right to say that the UK has played a leading role: we are the second largest bilateral donor after the US, and we have already committed £600 million of funding to provide the vital humanitarian services and supplies that people need.

Violence Against Women and Girls

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I am pleased to have the opportunity to debate my Committee’s report on violence against women and girls. I am delighted, with the change of Chair, to be under your chairmanship, Mrs Brooke.

I welcome my colleague, the Minister, to her place. I appreciate her role as a champion for women and her campaigning enthusiasm for that. I know she shares with me and the Committee the recognition that the status and role of women is absolutely central to development policy.

Violence is of widespread concern. When we published our report in June, I said:

“Violence against women expresses a deep-seated contempt that, regrettably, persists in some countries towards women and girls. It has been the ‘forgotten Millennium Development Goal’. The way in which any nation treats its women holds the key to its social and economic advancement. When you treat women as chattels - when you mutilate them, abuse them, force them to marry early, lock them out of school or stop them entering the workforce – you fail to function as a society.”

It is that fundamental. I will not rehearse the statistics, but in many quarters they are shocking.

When we published the report, we made a number of recommendations, and I ask for an update on the Government’s progress on them. We know where the Government have agreed with us.

--- Later in debate ---

On resuming—

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

The interruption came at a natural break in my speech, because I was about to summarise some of the things the Committee welcomes that have happened since our report. I will then ask a few questions to clarify the progress being made, with a final couple of remarks about the situation in Afghanistan.

Commendably, the Foreign Secretary has maintained the cross-departmental prevention of sexual violence in conflict initiative, which has been widely welcomed and supported. The declaration of commitment to end sexual violence in conflict has been signed by 113 countries. The UK hosted a high-level event on violence against women and girls in humanitarian crises in November and plans a summit on ending sexual violence in conflict in June this year.

The Department for International Development specifically has made progress with its £35 million fund to end female genital mutilation within a generation, to which the Minister is extremely committed, and she will want to speak about when she replies to the debate. DFID has also launched a new £3 million programme on access to justice for women and girls suffering violence in Afghanistan. We welcome these initiatives by the Government.

May I address some of the issues arising from our recommendations? First, we acknowledge the “Theory of Change” initiative underlying the Government and Department approach. May we have more specifics on how theory becomes practice? What in particular is being done in those countries where violence is especially prevalent, such as the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Somalia—which is not to say that there are not other countries where it is a serious problem? Will violence against women and girls be prioritised specifically in the programmes in those countries?

We had a specific concern with water and sanitation, which I accept that the Government acknowledged immediately, because there was no particular focus on violence against women and girls. Everyone knows that this is a prime example of where women and girls are especially vulnerable, either when they are going to collect water or are using sanitary facilities—they become vulnerable to attack. We welcome the Government agreeing that they should update the guidance. Will the Minister report on the progress made? They gave us 12 months’ notice, so we are halfway through that period.

Last week at the Liaison Committee, I also raised the subject of female genital mutilation with the Prime Minister. The International Development Committee was concerned that it was also an issue within the United Kingdom. It is not as prevalent here as it is in some countries, thank God, but many women living in this country have nevertheless suffered from it, and an estimated 20,000 girls are at risk.

We are aware, first, that female genital mutilation happens in this country, and yet there have been no prosecutions. Sometimes, too, girls are shipped out to have it done abroad and then brought back. Thirdly, the Select Committee was told, women who are British citizens and brought up here may go back to the country of their family’s origin where they are at risk, and yet the extent of our ability to protect them as British citizens is limited.

We are interested in finding out from the Minister how the DFID fund will deal with such issues and, in particular, whether there is any update on the possibility of prosecutions. There have been investigations, but no case has been brought to trial. As the Prime Minister said, getting people to testify and give evidence is the problem, but our view is that prosecutions would underline and demonstrate the strength of feeling.

DFID is a big player in the development sector and in engaging with multilateral agencies. The Committee hopes that when the Government engage with such agencies they will ensure that the issue of violence against women and girls is prioritised in their programmes. We are interested to know what steps the Government have taken to ensure that that is so. We are aware that the Secretary of State champions the issue in the World Bank, but the Government engage with other multilateral agencies where how the issue is being taken forward is not so apparent.

The high-level panel co-chaired by the Prime Minister made a welcome specific reference to target goals on gender equality, with one section on targeting violence against women and girls and another on child marriage, about which the Select Committee was particularly concerned. The recommendation is now going through a working party. Will the Minister tell us what the Government are doing to ensure that the recommendation comes out at the other end and is not lost or diluted in any way?

Some people have said, for example, that we cannot have a target of zero violence, but once we start to quantify things the feeling is that we are in effect diluting the commitment to achieve measurable transformational change in the sector. I guess that the challenge to our Government is whether they will continue to insist on a target of eliminating violence against women internationally as a key priority, to ensure that the post-2015 development agenda specifically and explicitly highlights that as essential to delivering progress.

When we visited Ethiopia to support the programme we visited a project on child marriage supported by the Department, which the Minister has also visited. I do not often do commercials, but I think there is still something about it on our website. An interesting thing was that although the funding came from DFID and the leader of the project was UK-based everyone else on the programme was Ethiopian. They worked with the community, but they did not arrive with a pre-determined objective. They sat down with members of the community to discuss how child marriage affects communities, and led them to realise how damaging it is. The participants went from thinking that it was in the girls’ best interest to understanding that it is not. We heard some powerful testimony from a young girl who had been divorced at 13; another who said she had been married—and she meant married—at seven; a mother who had married off her elder daughter and then realised she was wrong, and became determined not to do that to her younger daughter; and a young priest who championed the case against child marriage. He pointed out that it increased the poverty of the village. That was powerful evidence of what can be done.

A slight concern arose with respect to the campaign on female genital mutilation. I know that the Minister has visited the project in Senegal, and has praised it. It was believed to be effective, but we were concerned that it might become the blueprint for what would happen in every country. I hope the Minister will agree—I am fairly certain that she will—that the work must be done according to each country’s social norms, so that people can come to their own conclusion that female genital mutilation is not the thing to do. It is after all not in just low-income countries that it happens. The biggest country where it is practised is Egypt, where about 90% of the women have been subjected to it. Indeed, they accept it. There is a huge amount of work to do. Another sad statistic was from Ethiopia, where 70% of women thought that it was perfectly all right to be beaten by their husbands—that they had a right to do it. There are huge cultural challenges involved in turning things around. I had a strong engagement with President Karzai on the issue during a previous visit, and he came out second best.

As to Afghanistan, we recommended in a separate report that DFID should sharpen up its commitment to its programmes specifically on women. We said that women’s status after the military departure—we will stay there for development purposes—will be the test of whether our intervention made a transformation. The statistics are extremely worrying. A UN report shows that although there has been a 28% increase in violence against women in Afghanistan there has been only a 2% increase in prosecutions. Laws have been changed to disadvantage women. For example, family members are not allowed to give evidence, which makes prosecution extremely difficult. President Karzai proposed to support the reintroduction of the stoning of women for adultery. That is a shocking indictment of a country that we tried to support, and for which our men and women died. The values we are concerned about are not cultural; they are absolute. We are entitled to speak out without compromise and say, “I don’t care what your religion or social norms are; if violence by one sex against another goes unchallenged, that will demean and diminish your society. It is just wrong and should not be tolerated.”

We are glad that the Minister champions the issue, and that the Secretary of State is leading a global campaign. There is a huge amount to be done, but I hope that the Minister can give us some up-to-date sense of how the Government are taking things forward.

[Several hon. Members]

rose—

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank the Minister and all Members who took part. We can see how strongly people feel about the issues we have been discussing, and how determined they are that we should maintain pressure to improve the situation and make progress.

Last week, I asked the Prime Minister whether the conflict, stability and security fund would have specific targets for violence against women and girls. He did not then know the answer and has not yet replied. I urge the Minister to get not only an answer but the right answer.

We have had a very good debate. I thank everyone who has taken part—both the members of my Committee and others. It was very much appreciated.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 22nd January 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I do not think that the right hon. Gentleman is right. Obviously, the Home Secretary has already responded to the UN in relation to the issues that he has just raised. We will continue to look at what we can do to support the refugees. It would be wrong for anybody to say anything other than that the UK has played a leading role in the extent, the co-ordination and, latterly, the shaping of our support, in particular focusing it on helping children affected by the crisis.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

With a contribution of £600 million, the Government are probably the lead contributor to humanitarian relief, but does the Secretary of State acknowledge that there is concern that if there is not a solution to this crisis in the coming 12 months, there will not be enough resources in the world to meet humanitarian crises elsewhere? It is absolutely imperative that everything is done to try to achieve a situation in which we can sustain the support.

[Justine Greening]

Ultimately, we need a political solution to move forward in Syria, which is why the Geneva II talks are so important. We all hope that we can see progress there, but nobody underestimates the challenges.

Global Food Security

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Thursday 9th January 2014 Westminster Hall

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

I am glad to have the opportunity to initiate this short debate on the International Development Committee’s report on global food security. The report was published some time ago; I believe the recommendations will have been read and absorbed by the Members who are here, so I do not intend to reiterate them. I will pick out some of the key points.

One of the things that we observed is that, although we are the International Development Committee and our concern is for poor people in poor countries, global food security affects us all. Food prices have doubled globally over the past 10 years, and food security, although it is a crisis for the hungry, has an implication for every society.

Indeed, it was pointed out to us in evidence that the UK is only three or four days away from a food crisis at any one time. The vast majority of our food is in transit on our roads and railways, which is where it is mostly stored. We saw that when we had a truck drivers’ strike; what brought that strike to an end was that the supermarkets and shops were about to run out of food. The Committee took the view that it was important to confront our own population, which rather backfired on us when we made the front page of the Daily Mail. As Members will appreciate, the Daily Mail does not support international development spending.

There have been two severe food shocks in recent years, in 2008 and 2011. Every night nearly 1 billion people go to bed hungry. We have reduced hunger, but we certainly have not improved nutrition. Indeed, malnutrition, which in a way is hidden hunger, is a major issue that is separate from the issue of people who simply cannot get enough to eat on a regular basis.

There are a number of reasons for those spikes, some more convincing than others. There is obviously the pressure of population growth although that was outside our report’s scope other than to acknowledge that, obviously, the more people there are in the world, the more pressure there is on food supplies. Therefore a population policy, to the extent that that is possible, is perhaps desirable. The experts also told us that they believe it is possible to feed the planet’s projected population, provided that we are organised to do so. However, the food spikes and the perpetual hunger and malnutrition that exist clearly demonstrate that we currently are not in that position.

Food waste is another issue. I was interested to hear reports this week that link to other aspects of our findings. Obesity is increasing in emerging economies. In places such as India, for example, there are people who are desperately poor and hungry, yet there is a middle class that is becoming increasingly overweight because of its diet.

There are two issues in that context, one of which is food waste. We received conflicting evidence; some people suggested that as much as 50% of world food production is wasted, but the settled figure seems to be about 30%. We are aware of how much food is thrown away in domestic bins. We all throw food away. We buy too much and we throw it away because we have not eaten it in time, but food is also wasted in the fields, in transit, in storage and in a variety of other ways.

By definition, addressing waste increases supply. That includes investing in security, refrigeration and cold stores and trying to ensure that food is processed as close to the point of production as possible. Many developing countries have a problem in that area because the cost of setting up storage and cold stores is high, yet without them food literally goes to waste. The Committee had an active discussion when we were in Afghanistan, where people were arguing that they have to process an awful lot of their food in Pakistan because they do not have the facilities in their country. That leads to waste in transit. Addressing that issue is clearly a relevant factor.

There are other problems. When a food price spike happens, it affects different commodities differently. One of the most volatile commodities is rice, but all the basic commodities can be affected. Some producers, as has happened in Thailand and Russia, for example, decide that they will protect their own populations by banning the export of such foods, but that exaggerates the problem for the rest of the world; it does not solve the problem. The Committee’s view is that we should discourage countries from export bans and encourage people to recognise that there is interdependence in the supply of food. There are issues on the supply side and on the demand side that need to be addressed.

There was an inevitable debate on the effect of biofuels on food availability—I have got to that debate only at this point because, although I think it is important, it sometimes dominates the issue of global food security. There is recognition that simple blanket encouragement of biofuels can lead to a switch away from food crops to biofuel crops, at the expense of food production. That is not desirable, but it would be wrong to assume that biofuels are therefore inherently a bad idea.

The issue is how to develop biofuels that do not compete with food production. There are some successful examples—Brazil is one of the better ones—of where waste products from food production can be turned into biofuels without affecting the delivery of food into the market. In some cases, there are areas of land on which food production is of limited value but where it is possible to produce biofuels.

The Committee is asking that we switch away from the blunt instrument of setting targets for biofuel incorporation into our motor car and vehicle fuels—the UK recognises that, but the EU is still wrestling with it. The UK Government have accepted that we should try to cap it at 5% and that we should try to ensure that, if possible, 100% of that 5% is made up of non-food alternatives. Indeed, the former Under-Secretary of State for Transport, the hon. Member for Lewes (Norman Baker), told us that encouraging the reuse or recycling of cooking oil has helped to increase the proportion of biofuels from less than 20% to more than 80%. Therefore, these things can be done, and that is almost wholly environmentally beneficial.

At the moment, the EU seems to be locked in a tussle over the level of the cap. The UK Government are committed to 5%, although they found themselves voting for 7% at one point. The European Parliament voted for 6%, but my understanding is that everything has gone back to the drawing board. I simply urge the Minister to use her good offices, and those of her Department and her colleagues in other Departments, to ensure that the principle should be to take the threshold down to 5% and to promote non-food-competitive biofuels.

Another logical and obvious point is that we need to improve the productivity of small farmers. It is important that people get to grips with the way the developing world has changed in recent years. There is an idea that the majority of poor people in sub-Saharan African or south Asia live on some kind of smallholding in a rural area or in the bush, scratching a living from subsistence farming. Well, many are, but half the world’s population now live in towns and cities and are not engaged in agriculture at all.

We therefore need to do two or three different things. One is to ensure that those on smallholdings get support to maximise their own food production and then—and only then—to sell food to provide additional support for their families. However, we must also improve yields to enable those people to supply towns and cities in their own countries, which often import food from outside. That goes back to the idea of improving storage and transport facilities.

There has been controversy over landholding. Different approaches have suggested that large-scale farming will somehow produce better yields than smallholders. The evidence we had—I suspect my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) will make a contribution on this—is that smallholding can improve productivity in a comparable, but much more appropriate, way. Obviously, it is up to individual countries to decide how they want to promote their agricultural mix. We have combined our farms to ensure we have larger-scale farming, so it would be wrong for us to criticise other countries that seek to do the same. However, we should not rush things, and, where large-scale farming is displacing smallholdings, there are certainly questions as to whether that is the best way forward.

I mentioned the Committee’s star coverage in the Daily Mail, which came about because of a particular interconnection with the fact that countries are changing their eating habits as they become more prosperous, which is also linked to the obesity issue. As the populations of emerging countries such as India, China, Brazil, South Africa and Indonesia become better off, they aspire to eat a more elaborate diet—in particular, meat—encouraging the production of cereal-fed livestock, diverting food into meat production and forcing up the price of meat globally, which, again, is something we notice in this country.

We suggested that, over time, people in this country might want to consider eating less meat, which led to a headline along the lines of “Mad MPs seek to ban meat eating”. We were quite clear that we made no such suggestion, but we did think that people should consider balancing their diet away from meat. As someone who represents a beef-producing constituency, I did manage to win support from my local beef producers when I made it clear that there is a strong case for pasture feeding and natural livestock production and that there is a role for livestock.

What matters is how we raise that livestock, and I should put it on the record that the beef rearing we do in my constituency exemplifies the kind of meat industry we want, as opposed to the forced production of cereal-fed animals to supply a mass market. I think the Committee would stand by the suggestion that, over time, that is the sort of balance that needs to be sought.

It is estimated that, if we are to tackle hunger and feed the world, we need to increase food production by between 60% and 70% between now and 2050. That is a huge challenge, but we are assured it can be achieved if we introduce globally some of the measures recommended in the report.

I want to conclude by pressing the Minister on a couple of points and commending a measure that we saw in Ethiopia. Ethiopia’s productive safety net programme pays people in rural areas for work—sometimes construction work—thus giving them money to invest in alternative activities, many of which improved their farming productivity. We saw beekeeping and livestock rearing expanded, and living standards dramatically improved. The work also improved the physical environment—roads, access and so forth—in the community.

Of course, the programme cost money, most of which came out of aid money, and the objective in the long run is to find a way of making the programme sustainable. However, it definitely works, and we were very impressed to hear from some of the people directly affected about how their lives had been transformed and how they had gone from being unemployed and unproductive to being very satisfied, employed and productive, as well as having food and money in their pockets.

In two respects, the Government response was not quite as the Committee would have wished. One point was about social support. I have spoken about urban food shortages; the best way to deal with them is to give people the means to buy food—preferably from producers in their own countries. However, only 14 of the 29 countries with which we have bilateral programmes have social protection networks. The Government’s answer was that it was up to the country programme managers to make an assessment, and I accept that, as I think the Committee does. However, we would still make the point that, where possible and appropriate, provision could be improved and expanded.

The other issue was nutrition. Again, the Committee is pleased that, following previous reports, the Government have prioritised nutrition to a greater extent and recognise how important it is. Nutrition is about giving people not just food, but the right kind of food. While that is especially true of pregnant or nursing mothers and very small children, it is also true of the rest of society. The World Food Programme prioritises the issue, but there is an overlap between its target programme and the Department for International Development’s programme in four of the UK’s bilateral partners. We would like the Government to see whether they could, at least in those countries, bring the two programmes together to help the WFP’s programme and DFID’s own programme to be more effective in improving the nutritional element.

In summary, people are still hungry. If we are to achieve the millennium development goals and their successors, lifting everybody out of absolute poverty and leaving no one behind over the next 17 years, we absolutely have to address the issue of global food security and adopt measures, or encourage the adoption of measures, that improve supply, eliminate waste, improve storage, increase productivity and ensure that food gets to the people who need it, when and where they need it.

The Committee believes it has identified many of the areas where such work can be done. Much of it is being done, but, with nearly 1 billion people going to bed hungry every day, there are clearly too many parts of the world where it is not happening. The UK is a major player on this issue, and we commend the Government for what they are doing, but we hope they will accept that we have identified areas where they could do more.

--- Later in debate ---

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

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Ms Clark. I welcome this opportunity to speak on behalf of the Department for International Development in response to the debate on the report of the International Development Committee about global food security.

The report was warmly welcomed by my Department. It addresses an area of critical concern, as many Members have mentioned, and I congratulate all hon. Members on their contributions today. There has been a lot of wisdom in the speeches from the Committee members and Opposition Members about this critical issue. It is critical because feeding a growing human population sustainably into the future, in the face of climate change and resource depletion, is challenging. In a world where 842 million people go to bed hungry and 26% of the world’s children suffer from stunting due to malnutrition, an equally difficult challenge to address, it is vital to ensure that the UK’s aid and development efforts are effective in making a difference.

I want to address as many as possible of the points raised, and to make some of my own. The report was studied closely in DFID and other Departments, including the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, the Department of Energy and Climate Change and the Department for Transport. The Government’s response combined all those perspectives and departmental priorities.

My opposite number, the hon. Member for Wirral South (Alison McGovern), said that we are lukewarm, but I do not agree. The Government agree or partially agree with 33 of the 39 recommendations in the report and that is not a bad response to a report with so many recommendations. Everyone wants DFID to do everything, which is one of the challenges that we must try to accommodate.

We disagree with only two recommendations. I will go into them in more detail, but one was food waste, and DEFRA noted that voluntary controls rather than mandatory targets work best in reducing waste. On the recommendation on strategic food stocks, the Government believe that functioning markets rather than Government intervention are a better way to manage food stocks. I will address that fully in a moment.

In areas where my Department leads, the report addresses food and nutrition security, focusing on production, the role of smallholder farmers, reducing waste and loss in the food system and providing social safety nets for the most vulnerable people. Hon. Members raised those points, and DFID already prioritises all of them. The report also tackles more contentious areas, including using food crops to produce biofuels, which I will come to in a moment and which was raised by many, if not all, hon. Members, and the role of genetic modification in meeting yield gaps—especially in challenging natural environments, an issue that was not raised during the debate.

The growing potential of the private sector is recognised and the report reflects on how this sector may become a hugely more significant player in securing food security goals, particularly by working more closely with smallholder and commercial farmers, which is an area of great expansion in DFID’s work. We recognise that food security is as much about the quality of food as having enough to eat. Stunting is a critical issue to address because it is the future of the nation. If 20% of children in a country, or even up to 50%, are stunted, the future of that country is in jeopardy because it cannot achieve the necessary skills base.

The UK is scaling up nutrition programmes in more than 10 countries. In Bangladesh, for example, my Department is integrating the delivery of vitamins, minerals and other nutritional support into three existing programmes that tackle extreme poverty. Those interventions will reach 243,000 adolescent girls, 103,500 pregnant women and 225,000 children under five.

I was marginally upset that no one referred to the Nutrition for Growth event, which was a great step forward and indicated our seriousness about tackling nutrition and global food security. Food alone is not enough to ensure the future of nations. At the event, DFID gave a commitment to triple investment in nutrition-specific programmes between 2013 and 2020, which will reduce stunting by 20 million by 2020 and save the lives of at least 1.7 million children.

On emergency assistance, DFID is not abandoning commitments to continue to provide assistance to the most vulnerable and impoverished countries, including those affected by recent crises such as Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines and victims of the ongoing conflict in Syria. These responses will continue to include emergency assistance that may, when necessary, include direct provision of food aid and, when appropriate, cash transfers rather than food aid to allow disaster victims to purchase food when food availability is not the problem and available cash is the bigger issue. Access to food is an issue and when it is available locally, it is much better to enable people to purchase the food rather than simply giving it to them.

In some areas, progress has been more difficult. The Government have repeatedly stated that in relation to investment in biofuels in developing countries, food production must always take precedence over the production of energy from food crops. However, we are legally bound under the EU renewable energy directive to our commitment to source 15% of our overall energy, and 10% of the energy used in transport, from renewable sources by 2020.

As many hon. Members mentioned, the UK is, thankfully, the most progressive EU member state in addressing the developmental and food security impact of biofuel development. We actively lobby in Europe to minimise that impact. However, it is recognised that many member states do not see eye to eye with us on this issue. Securing strong political alliances with like-minded EU Governments is essential. The UK’s present position is not shared by a majority of states and we continue to make our case forcefully. Balancing legitimate business and investment concerns against the impact on the food security of some of the poorest people in the world is essential.

My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) said she was confident that we could make progress on biofuels, but I do not totally share her confidence. EU members are not in line on this because there is a conflict between two goods. The hon. Member for Edinburgh North and Leith (Mark Lazarowicz) referred to the EU renewable energy directive versus the use of land and inappropriate production of biofuels that could impact on global food security.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

Will the Minister give way?

[Lynne Featherstone]

Perhaps my right hon. Friend will wait a moment. My view is that we must start to think about 2020, which will be the end of the current target period to which we have signed up and which we cannot get out of. We must negotiate so that the onus is not on us and we can talk about fuel from waste and not from land that could be used for growing food.

All the comments from all hon. Members are important. There is an issue and we must drive harder at it. We will continue to press the EU, but we cannot control the issue so I want to lay plans in advance, if there is no change up to 2020, so that we are ready then to force through a change.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank my hon. Friend for explaining the position. It is as well to be up front and honest. The problem is not the Government’s position, but our partners’. However, too often the EU and sometimes our own Government do not look at the joined-up impact of some policies. The challenge is that if the EU really does care about poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, it should be prepared to re-examine its own policies and not put its commercial interests at the top of the list. The same applies to CAP reform. The Minister would have the support of my Committee if she argued that case energetically and tried to win support, but I accept that she is in a difficult position.

[Lynne Featherstone]

I thank my right hon. Friend. I could not agree more. I am simply being open and straightforward about the challenge that lies ahead. I am not saying that we will not tackle it and strive with European colleagues to change it before 2020, but I do not want to get to 2020 without having put in the work to ensure that if that is the point at which we have the opportunity to change, we have made enough allowances to make that change. It is the fall-back position.

One area where perhaps the IDC report did not give a sufficiently strong emphasis is one that is close my heart: the status and economic empowerment of women and girls. Women and girls benefit most from efforts to strengthen people’s food and nutrition security and to make them resilient to stresses and shocks. DFID recognises that as a high priority and is committing more time and resources to working with corporations and Governments globally to ensure that women and girls equally benefit from new investment opportunities in agriculture, as entrepreneurs and at a household level.

For example, the new DFID-supported Propcom Mai-karfi programme aims to raise incomes by up to 50% for more than half a million people in northern Nigeria, half of whom are women. That speaks to something else that Members raised, which was the improved productivity from agriculture. DFID puts an enormous amount of energy into that. I think we call it “stepping up”, so that everyone improves their income and their productivity through their actions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce]

I thank the Minister for that reply. The Committee agrees that the Department does great work and that we are working in the right direction on pretty much everything. I welcome her update on the commitment on nutrition. We welcome Nutrition for Growth, and I am sorry we did not mention it in the debate. We are well aware that women make up the majority of farmers, but perhaps we should have made that more explicit.

We would still like more engagement on the social transfers, particularly for urban food problems, recognising that the Bolsa Familia programme in Brazil was a radical way of delivering poverty reduction. I accept that we cannot impose social transfers, but we still think that the issue has a lot of mileage. I welcome the Minister’s response to our report.

Question put and agreed to.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 4th December 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

First, we are highlighting the risks to women and girls in emergencies, which is why I held an international call to action summit the very week, as it turned out, that Typhoon Haiyan hit. In respect of the particular crisis mentioned, we have sent two of our specialist humanitarian experts who are particularly specialist in this area to work with the UN and the clusters that are providing support on the ground, to ensure that not only direct, but indirect support is provided across all the work that happens.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

Given the call on British development funds from the Philippines and the Central African Republic, and following the outfall from the conflict in Syria, how will the Department budget for what are, by definition, unpredictable disasters, given that it has now reached its budget ceiling?

[Justine Greening]

The right hon. Gentleman is right to reflect on the number of different parts of the world facing crises of one form or another that the Department for International Development is trying to play a role in assisting. As he will know, that is just part of the uncertainties we have to deal with as a Department. We have a budget set aside for humanitarian response, and ultimately it is a flexible budget. As the right hon. Gentleman will have seen over recent days, we announced additional support for the Central African Republic, because we felt it was appropriate.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Bruce of Bennachie Excerpts

Wednesday 23rd October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

We are encouraging NGOs to work with grass-roots organisations, and they, too, understand that they need to do that. This is vital if we are to maintain the support of the host communities, who have been incredibly generous in accepting refugees. I should also point out to the right hon. Gentleman that one of the challenges is making sure that we can work with NGOs, which have the breadth and capacity to be able to work across the piece and across communities but are absolutely working on the ground with existing civil society organisations.

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

May I thank the Secretary of State for the comprehensive evidence session that she gave to the International Development Committee yesterday? I welcome the leadership role that the UK has played in committing these funds, but will she urge other countries such as those in Europe and the middle east also to step up to the plate and ensure that the UN appeal is fully funded and Britain is not left in front without followers?

[Justine Greening]

I could not agree more with the right hon. Gentleman. Britain has done exactly the right thing in playing a leading role in the humanitarian response. It is absolutely right for the Syrian refugees, but right for us too, to try to do what we can to keep stability in the region. However, we cannot do that on our own, and it is now time, in the run-up to the next donor conference in January, for other countries in the international community to ask themselves what more they can do alongside the UK in making sure that the next UN donor appeal, unlike the last one, is fully funded.

--- Later in debate ---

[Sir Malcolm Bruce (Gordon) (LD)]

T7. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that ethnic conflict in Burma is brought to an end? Otherwise, it threatens both the stability and the development prospects of that country.

[Justine Greening]

The Department is working hand in hand with the Foreign Office to play its role in improving governance and accountability, not only at regional and governmental level, but at community level, where, clearly, so many of the root causes of that situation lie.