Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what discussions she has had with her counterpart in the US on the provision of humanitarian assistance to those territories and states affected by Hurricane Irma.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Secretary of State for International Development spoke to her US counterpart Mark Andrew Green on 11th September and our teams are coordinating closely on the response effort to territories and states affected by Hurricane Irma.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to support those affected by Hurricane Irma.
Answered by Alistair Burt
The Prime Minister has made available £32million to support those affected by Hurricane Irma and a cross-Government response has been stood up. DFID has sent more than 40 metric tonnes of UKaid to the region including thousands of shelter kits and of solar lanterns. More supplies will be arriving throughout the month. We are also working with the Overseas Territories institutions to understand how we will move from disaster response to early recovery and long-term reconstruction. The Government will continue to do all it can to support those affected. Further details of our work are available on our website https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-for-international-development
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to tackle (a) barriers to economic development, (b) preventable diseases and (c) malaria in developing countries.
Answered by Alistair Burt
DFID is taking major steps to tackle the barriers to economic development. In January the Secretary of State launched DFID’s Economic Development Strategy which sets out how the UK is stimulating growth that transforms economies and how we are helping the poorest countries to attract investment, trade more, and create millions of jobs. This will help create prosperous economies that lift people out of poverty, help countries overcome the need for aid, and accelerate progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals whilst also benefiting Britain. The Strategy can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/587374/DFID-Economic-Development-Strategy-2017.pdf
DFID is a leading global actor on preventable diseases, including malaria, TB, HIV/Aids, providing significant funding to the World Health Organisation, the Global Fund on Aids, TB and Malaria, and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance and running programmes across regions and from country offices.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent discussions she has had with her South Sudanese counterpart on the flow of emergency aid into areas affected by the UN-declared famine in South Sudan.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
I visited South Sudan earlier this month. During my visit, I met with Stephen Dhieu, South Sudan’s Minister for Finance and Economic Planning, and delivered a clear message: that the Government of South Sudan must bring an end to the fighting and allow humanitarian access to all areas of the country.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether any funds from her Department will be used to support the 3,000 unaccompanied child refugees coming to the UK.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
Official Development Assistance (ODA) funding allocated to the Home Office is being used to meet the costs of supporting vulnerable refugees resettled or relocated to the UK for the first year, in accordance with internationally agreed guidelines. This includes unaccompanied children resettled from the Middle East and North Africa under the Vulnerable Children Resettlement Scheme, as well as unaccompanied children relocated from Europe.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in Sierra Leone.
Answered by Lord Wharton of Yarm
The Secretary of State recently returned from Sierra Leone and saw first-hand that although the Ebola crisis has ended, the country faces major development challenges, including some of the worst child and infant mortality rates in the world.
Ebola has made these challenges worse and reversed, for example, much of the progress in health made since the civil war, with high numbers of health staff dying and sharp falls in essential services, such as treatment of malaria and immunisation. UK support is helping the Government of Sierra Leone to build up better health services and save lives, ensure children get a better education, increase access to water and sanitation, and lay the groundwork for increased economic development.
Our cross-government response to the 2014/15 Ebola crisis saved lives and stopped the outbreak decimating development in Sierra Leone. Halting the disease in West Africa was the single most important way of preventing Ebola from infecting people in the UK.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how many projects in operation in her Department are related to the UK's exit of the EU.
Answered by Rory Stewart
In line with all Government departments, DFID is working to identify potential opportunities that will arise from EU Exit. The Government is united in its ambition to deliver a successful exit from the EU and form a new relationship with the EU. DFID will continue working with other departments to deliver this.
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what proportion of women are employed by her Department on an inner London pay structure in the following pay grades (a) Administrative Assistant, (b) Administrative Officer, (c) Executive Officer, (d) Higher Executive Officer, (e) Fast Streamer, (f) Senior Executive Officer, (g) Grade Seven, (h) Grade Six, (i) Senior Civil Service Band 1, (j) Senior Civil Service Band 1A, (k) Senior Civil Service Band 2 and (l) Senior Civil Service Band 3.
Answered by Rory Stewart
The table below confirms the proportion of women employed in each pay grade for inner London in relation to the workforce that are in overall DFID inner London pay structure for that grade.
CS Grade | Proportion of Female employees |
G6 | 47.4 % |
G7 | 58% |
SEO | 57.7% |
HEO | 62.4% |
EO | 65.5% |
AO | 59.25% |
AA | 0 |
Asked by: Catherine West (Labour - Hornsey and Friern Barnet)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, pursuant to the Answer of 14 October 2016 to Question 47281, if her Department will allocate funds to long-term projects in Haiti to address the lack of health infrastructure in that country caused by Hurricane Matthew.
Answered by Rory Stewart
In addition to the £5m of support to help thousands of people affected by Hurricane Matthew in Haiti, DFID announced a further £3m on 16 October to strengthen the response to cholera and wider health concerns. The UK has provided a total of more than £46m to Haiti since 2010, which has included support to Haiti's health sector. The priority now is to reach those affected by Hurricane Matthew and provide them with water, sanitation, healthcare and shelter. DFID is leading, with other key donors, on lobbying for an improved response to the hurricane, and is working to meet the needs of the most affected. DFID continues to provide support, including to the country's health infrastructure, through multilateral contributions to UN agencies, the World Bank, the EU and other international institutions.