Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Alok Sharma and Sarah Champion(4 years, 2 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Will the Minister confirm that educating and employing women and girls will remain a key strategy for his Department?
Girls’ Education
Debate between Alok Sharma and Sarah Champion(4 years, 7 months ago)
Commons ChamberRead Full debate Read Hansard Text Read Debate Ministerial Extracts
Alok Sharma
My hon. Friend raises an important point. She talks about Yasmine, whom she met, and who I suspect, like her, is a role model and a champion for young girls—she in her constituency and Yasmine in other areas. On support, as I have pointed out, a large element of the £90 million—£85 million—is going to Education Cannot Wait. I agree with her that this is an incredibly important programme to support.
Sarah Champion (Rotherham) (Lab)
Female genital mutilation, child sexual exploitation, child marriage and child trafficking all cause girls to drop out of school. DFID and the British Council have been excellent at changing culture abroad. Can the Secretary of State say how we can learn those lessons and bring those lessons to the UK so that we can change our culture here?
Alok Sharma
First, I agree with the hon. Lady that education is absolutely vital because we know that, for every girl who goes to secondary school, infant mortality is cut in half. About 12 million children would escape stunting due to malnutrition if every girl went to secondary school, and we would see significantly higher GDP growth across the world. Of course, we share any learnings that we have across government, and we will continue to do so.