Girls’ Education

Dan Carden Excerpts

Thursday 5th September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of the statement and welcome him to his new role. He is the third Secretary of State I have faced in this position.

In its “World Development Report 2018”, the World Bank declared an international learning crisis. We know that it is too often girls who are most affected by the lack of education globally. They are twice as likely as boys to never start school. Given these figures, we welcome the Secretary of State’s focus on education, and girls’ education in particular.

While, like the Government, we recognise that the benefits of girls’ education reach far beyond the individual girl, does the Secretary of State agree that education is first and foremost a basic human right? That is why the Labour party is committed to a rights-based approach to education.

Last month, I visited Kenya and saw for myself the huge educational needs in that country. I visited state schools and low-fee private schools, meeting teachers, pupils, parents and civil society groups, and one thing was clear when it came to education: the people I met there wanted exactly the same things that my constituents in Liverpool want—decent, publicly funded schooling for their children. I am concerned about the growing support that DFID is providing to expanding private education in the global south, because we know that fee-paying private schools never reach the most marginalised children. We know from our own experience in the UK that universal public systems of education are the only way to reach all children. The International Development Committee has said that DFID’s support for private education is “controversial”. The last Independent Commission for Aid Impact assessment of DFID’s work to support the most marginalised girls found that DFID is “falling short” of its ambitions to educate the poorest and most vulnerable girls. One reason for that was a lack of influence by DFID on public Government-run education programmes.

In Kenya, I heard some worrying stories from parents and teachers about their experience with so-called low-fee private schools, and one chain of schools in particular: Bridge International Academies. Parents told me how they had been tricked into believing that their kids would benefit from scholarships, leaving them unable to pay fees and their kids missing chunks of schooling as a result. I met the head of the Kenya National Union of Teachers to discuss education in the country, and he had a very clear message: he wanted the UK to stop using aid money to privatise his country’s education system.

In August last year, Oxfam published its review of a DFID-funded education public-private partnership in Pakistan. It found that schools were failing to reach the most marginalised, relying on very low wages and poor employment practices. In February this year, the Send My Friend to School coalition released a report calling for DFID to ensure that its aid spending goes towards supporting education that is provided universally and is available free at the point of use. In April, a report from the National Education Union and Global Justice Now claimed that UK aid is being used to push an ideological agenda to expand fee-paying private education around the world.

Labour knows the importance of publicly delivered public services. That is why we will set up a new unit for public services within DFID that will champion education as a human right and a public good. Will the Secretary of State listen to the sector, to the unions and to teacher and campaign groups in the UK and the global south, who say that education is a universal right guaranteed by the state and not a market to make profits from? Will he shift his Department’s focus on education towards a human rights-based approach, so that all girls get the education they are entitled to?

[Alok Sharma]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his response. We are at a time when there is an enormous amount of rancour in this House and debates are perhaps not as good-natured as you would like, Mr Speaker, but this is an area on which I think we can all agree across the House. Education matters for every child, whether in our country or the developing world. I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be pleased at the reaffirmation yesterday of the 0.7% commitment in the Chancellor’s spending review statement.

I very much share the hon. Gentleman’s view that the work we do in developing countries is incredibly important. He talked about his visit to Kenya. I was in Nigeria recently to see the work we have done in Kaduna state, working with the state—the public sector—to ensure that thousands of teachers are retrained appropriately. I visited a school where the school roll was failing only a couple of years ago—it was down to 400—but it is almost double now, and over half the children there are young girls. I had an opportunity to talk to them, and they were incredibly enthusiastic and positive, not just about their own future but about their own country. That is because of the great education they are getting.

I agree with much of what the hon. Gentleman said, but I want to respond to his point about where DFID’s funding goes. I want to make it clear that over 95% of my Department’s education funding goes to the public sector to support improvements in education outcomes. That is right and proper. We are working across the developing world with countries and their education ministries to provide support. Of course, where state provision is weak or non-existent, it is right that we work with non-state providers, including paid-for schools, to provide education to children who would otherwise get none, and we continue to work with a range of education partners to ensure the best results and value for money.

The hon. Gentleman talked about ideology. There is one education ideology that I suspect we share, which is that it is vital that every child gets the right level of education. We are both committed to ensuring 12 years of education for every girl across the world.

Counter-Daesh Update

Dan Carden Excerpts

Wednesday 3rd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement. However, while the update is welcome, may I point out that it is only the second statement to be made in the House in the 365 days since 4 July last year, although the Government promised quarterly reports to keep the House updated?

We welcome the destruction of Daesh’s final enclaves in Syria. We know that Daesh is a threat to us all and that it must be defeated wherever it emerges. Just today, news reports have revealed the uncovering of another mass grave in Raqqa; 200 corpses have been found, and it is feared that more will follow. The dead, thought to be victims of Daesh, include bodies found in orange jumpsuits, the kind typically worn by their hostages.

Let me pay tribute to the UK forces who have put their lives on the line and show gratitude—as the Secretary of State did—to the Kurdish forces who have taken such huge risks in leading the fight against Daesh. Will the Secretary of State now reassure the House that the Kurdish community will not be abandoned or left vulnerable to attacks by Syria or Turkey? He mentions Yazidis, Christians, Shi’as and Sunnis in his statement, so will he tell us what he is doing to support the protection of all communities in the region?

There is also the question of the ongoing role of our forces. The 2015 motion that set down the terms for our engagement in Syria to eradicate Daesh’s safe haven in Syria and Iraq was worded in such a way as to avoid an ongoing military conflict in the region. Will the Secretary of State now set out the purpose of our forces, given that their original purpose of defeating Daesh’s safe haven has been achieved? Does he believe that the original mandate has now expired and that therefore a renewed mandate for military action—and clarity on the role of special forces—is required for continued UK engagement in the region?

Let me say a few words about the ongoing conflict in Syria. There remain serious concerns for civilians in Idlib. What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that there are safe corridors for civilians to leave, given that the United Nations has warned that up to 700,000 people could flee Idlib as refugees? Given that dozens of health facilities have been damaged and destroyed in recent months and more than half a million civilians have been unable to access vital medical care, what steps are the Government taking to encourage parties to the conflict to adhere to international humanitarian law and protect civilians?

Last month, I was lucky enough to meet members of a delegation from the Syrian Women’s Political Movement. They spoke about their experiences of being denied their rights to employment, education and medical care and facing sexual and gender-based violence and exploitation. They called for increased women’s representation in peace negotiations and decision-making positions. Will the Secretary of State take this opportunity to respond to their calls?

As for Iraq, does the Secretary of State share the growing international concern about the arbitrary, draconian and legally unsound way in which the Iraqi authorities are conducting trials of alleged jihadist collaborators and the resentment caused among the Sunni community in the country?

What discussions are taking place about the huge number of detained suspected Daesh fighters? More than 55,000 suspected fighters and their families have been detained in Syria and Iraq. Most of them are citizens of those two countries, but overall they come from at least 50 countries. More than 11,000 relatives are being held at the al-Hol camp in north-eastern Syria. Michelle Bachelet, the UN human rights chief, has said that the relatives of suspected fighters should be taken back to their countries of origin. Does the Secretary of State agree with her call?

Let me finally raise the issue of Daesh’s ongoing influence beyond the physical battlefield. The Secretary of State has spoken today about Daesh’s physical territory, but its influence online is an ongoing threat and deeply worrying. What are the Government doing to work with our allies to ensure that action is taken by social media companies so that Daesh cannot find new safe havens online to spread its hatred?

[Rory Stewart]

The shadow Secretary of State has touched on a number of issues, stretching from the Kurdish community to Daesh online. I shall try to deal with them in turn.

What I think is at the heart of the answers to all these questions is that the only way in which we will be able to resolve the problems is through a proper political settlement. Many of the issues raised by the shadow Secretary of State—whether the issue is the minority rights of Yazidis and Christians, or the relationship between Kurds in Syria or Iraq and their national Governments—will have to be resolved in that way. It is very easy to stand at the Dispatch Box and try to talk about an inclusive political settlement, but that is unbelievably difficult to achieve, particularly after eight years of war, deep resentments and a massive militarisation of societies. We see the challenges all the way from Somalia to Yemen, and it will be just as difficult on the Syria-Iraq border, but ultimately that is the only way to resolve these issues, and the more support we can provide for mediators to try to come up with those political solutions, the better off we will all be.

The hon. Gentleman raised a technical and important question about the purpose of British forces. The reason for our forces on the ground was the Iraqi Government’s request for self-defence against Daesh and Syria, and the justification for their continuing presence is to do with the continuing threat posed by Daesh as a terrorist organisation, but not as a territory-holding organisation. I can, however, reassure the House that the nature of our presence is relatively limited. We are talking about airstrikes many of which are not conducted, the planes not being based in the middle east itself, and we are talking about British troops who are predominantly involved in training operations such as counter-IED and first-aid training. Some are based in the Kurdish regions, others in Iraqi bases. We are talking about a few hundred people. This is not the type of operation that we were talking about in relation to Iraq or Afghanistan, and I therefore do not think that a whole new mandate is necessary.

I share the hon. Gentleman’s frustration that a debate on an issue as important as this should be so poorly attended in the House of Commons. I hope that our sense of seriousness as a nation means that the next time such a statement is made, people will engage more in the debate.

Idlib is a source of huge concern. DFID has put £80 million into humanitarian support in Idlib, but it remains true that the populations in Idlib are under a ferocious and brutal attack from the Syrian Government. It remains very difficult to access people within Idlib, and we continue through every mechanism to call on both the Syrian Government and their supporters, including their supporters from Russia, to exercise restraint, but our options have been very limited and we need to do so in a way that does not repeat the mistakes made in the past of laying down red lines that we cannot maintain or raising the hopes of communities in ways that we cannot vindicate or justify.

This brings me to the question of resettlement in Iraq and the 55,000 suspected Daesh fighters and their families and social media. All that is leading up to a much bigger issue: there are clearly some legal issues raised, and there are consular and human rights issues raised, but at the heart of all this has to be the question of Daesh mark 2, or in other words, how we prevent all the same conditions—all the same resentments, all the same abuses, all the same lack of public services and all the same corruption—that led to the emergence of Daesh in its first form back in 2004-5 and its new form of 2011-12 from re-emerging again. We have to work with the Iraqi Government and with those areas of Syria controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces to ensure that people’s rights are respected, that reconstruction money is going in and above all that Sunni Arabs feel they have a stake in a political settlement, whereas at the moment they often feel deeply excluded by the regimes, by the ethnicity of the regimes and by the sectarian allegiances of the regimes.

Sustainable Development Goals

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I pay tribute to the Secretary of State, who I think has an important engagement in around two hours’ time—perhaps talking about saving the world is a pretty good warm-up act for talking about how to save the Tory party in his meeting later today.

The sustainable development goals set out an ambitious vision for the world: a world that is free from hunger and poverty, where men and women have equality, where everyone, regardless of income, can realise their right to health, education, water, energy and decent work and where peace, justice and climate action are top of the agenda. It is a vision that no one could disagree with. The crucial thing about the SDGs is that they are universal. Unlike their predecessors, the millennium development goals, the SDGs have to be realised by all countries, including our own.

I want to raise one concern. In last Thursday’s business statement, the Leader of the House announced a

“general debate on the UK voluntary national review on the sustainable development goals.”—[Official Report, 6 June 2019; Vol. 661, c. 271.]

Today’s debate was meant to focus on the UK’s own voluntary national review process. I accept that the Secretary of State did his best to talk about the UK’s report, but let us bear in mind that the report is meant to go to the UN in less than three days.

A further question to be answered is why responsibility for the UK’s voluntary national review should sit with DFID: an entirely outward, international-facing Department. It is clear, and has been stated on the record, that the domestic delivery of the SDGs is a function for the whole Government. The Cabinet Office should be co-ordinating the process.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend share my disappointment that the Government did a VNR only at the end of the cycle? The Netherlands has already done one and is embarking on a second. The Government should consider doing a domestic VNR and an international VNR as separate processes. Donor countries do only a domestic VNR, but we are a country that both gives and has to look at what we are doing ourselves. We should probably do that as two separate processes involving different stake- holders and people.

[Dan Carden]

My hon. Friend makes an important point. I will come to some of the criticisms of the Government’s handling of the process.

[Mr Jim Cunningham]

Following on from my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), some months ago a United Nations report was critical of poverty in this country. I would like to hear more about how the Government will address that. Does my hon. Friend not agree that that should also be a top priority?

[Dan Carden]

Absolutely. I will come to the special rapporteur’s report in a few moments.

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

Does my hon. Friend share my concern that one of the reasons for the conflation is that there are still Conservative Members who would love to remove the 0.7% contribution of our national income towards foreign aid? It has already been diluted. Does he worry that that is in play according to some of the leadership candidates?

[Dan Carden]

My hon. Friend is right. The previous International Development Secretary looked at ways to water down the 0.7% commitment, although this Secretary of State committed to it at International Development questions last week. I asked whether he would call on his opponents in the Tory leadership race to make the same commitment, but I do not think we have heard much from them. It is certainly a worry throughout the sector.

As I have said, the Cabinet Office should be co-ordinating the process. We heard the Secretary of State try to talk about some of the domestic issues, but they go far further than those he could elaborate on. In particular, following numerous complaints from UK charities that the Government are not taking the SDGs or the voluntary national review seriously, it is remarkable that there does not seem to be even a basic understanding of who is responsible for what. I was therefore somewhat surprised to see on the Order Paper yesterday that the focus of this debate had changed, shifting unannounced away from the UK’s own performance to the much broader topic of the SDGs in general. The scope of the debate now covers the whole world—quite an extension.

There could not be a bigger agenda out there than changing the world by 2030, yet there is little or no leadership in the UK. There appears to be poor co-ordination and zero vision. The Secretary of State may be very good at talking to people in the streets and on Twitter at the moment, but the truth is his Government and Departments have given up talking to one another.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

The UN Secretary-General has said that the process in a voluntary national review should be for the Government to consult Parliament and the Opposition, as well as members of the Government and civil society. Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government have been pretty lacking in real, detailed consultation during this process, particularly in Parliament? We have had one or two informal sessions and an inquiry by the International Development Committee, but there has been no proactive, issue-by-issue engagement on the Government’s part.

[Dan Carden]

Both the International Development Committee and the Environmental Audit Committee have expressed concern about a lack of co-ordination and a lack of discussion of these issues in Parliament. The Secretary of State was not able to address that in his speech, but I hope that the Minister will do so later. Our VNR report is due to be with the United Nations in just three days’ time. It is a blatant attempt to sweep under the carpet the UK’s failure to make any progress towards meeting the global goals for its own citizens—its failure to tackle poverty, hunger and homelessness in our own country, the fifth richest on the planet. There is a total lack of leadership, and I have to ask what on earth is going on, because we have been given no satisfactory details about the process today.

In the meantime, let me set out what I do know about how we, as a country, are doing on the SDGs. I do not need to be shadow Secretary of State to make these judgments; I can talk about my own constituency in north Liverpool and the poverty that I see there.

The first and most crucial goal is the ending of poverty. In that regard, sadly, we have little to be proud of here in the UK. Under this Tory leadership, one fifth of the population are currently living in poverty. In the past year alone, the Trussell Trust issued 1.6 million emergency food packages across the country, more than half of which went to children. Rough sleeping has risen by 165% since the Tory party took power in 2010, and child homelessness has surged by 80% in the same period.

The UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights was damning of poverty in the UK. He said that it was

“patently unjust and contrary to British values that so many people are living in poverty.”

His report warned that on current trends, child poverty rates could hit 40% by 2021. He said:

“The results? 14 million people, a fifth of the population, live in poverty. Four million of these are more than 50% below the poverty line, and 1.5 million are destitute, unable to afford basic essentials. The widely respected Institute for Fiscal Studies predicts a 7% rise in child poverty between 2015 and 2022, and various sources predict child poverty rates of as high as 40%. For almost one in every two children to be poor in twenty-first century Britain is not just a disgrace, but a social calamity and an economic disaster, all rolled into one.”

What was the Government’s response to that damning report? They tried to smear it. However, I can tell the House that I see poverty day in, day out, with my own eyes, in my constituency, where 40% of children are already growing up in poverty. A study by the Centre for Cities revealed Liverpool to be the city hardest hit by austerity, with a cut of £816 per head in day-to-day spending since 2010. A staggering 64% has been slashed from our local authority budget; 3,000 council staff have been lost; and local services are stretched to the limit. Liverpool now has the second highest levels of destitution in the UK, and that means a lack of basic essentials, including food and shelter. According to the Office for National Statistics, even life expectancy is starting to creep backwards in Liverpool. Austerity is literally cutting lives short.

The stark reality faced by so many of the people I represent could not be further from the rosy picture painted by Ministers at the Dispatch Box. That is exactly what Philip Alston meant when he described an “almost complete disconnect” between what Ministers and the public see, and it is why so many people were outraged when our multimillionaire Chancellor said that he does not accept that large numbers of British people are living in poverty; he really should take a step outside Downing Street.

Hunger is addressed as one of the global goals, and I have with me the “Agenda 2030” paper, which explains the UK Government’s approach to delivering the global goals for sustainable development at home and abroad. Goal 2 of “zero hunger” does not even mention food banks in this country; it talks about secure farming and childhood obesity, but it is incredible that a report on how we are delivering on the global goals in this country does not even mention food banks. I hope that the Secretary of State will take this opportunity to finally break with the state of denial that has shamefully typified his Government when it comes to the scale of poverty here in the UK.

Far from eradicating poverty, this Government have exacerbated it. It is no wonder that they decided to shift the focus of today’s debate at the last minute rather than face up to these realities at home, because what an embarrassment it is that this country will go tail between our legs to the UN high-level meeting in July. With our global reputation already smashed to pieces, this Government have only two choices: double down on their attacks on the special rapporteur or admit that our own record on poverty is, despite our being one of the wealthiest countries in the world, utterly shameful. With such an appalling domestic picture, how can this Government seriously be trusted to lead on work eradicating poverty globally?

Let me now say a few words about our work towards achieving the SDGs internationally. DFID staff work extremely hard to bring about meaningful change in people’s lives across the world, and we in the Labour party fully back the UK’s role as a global champion of international development. Although I am grateful for the Secretary of State’s confirmation just last week in the Chamber that he supports the continuation of the 0.7% spending targets, unlike some of his colleagues, I remain deeply concerned about the way that aid has been spent in recent years. Under this Government, aid has been diluted and diverted away from poverty reduction towards spending in the UK’s national interest, including for the benefit of UK commercial and business interests.

If we are serious about achieving the SDGs at a global level, we must prioritise supporting people across the world in seeking to build their own public services. We know from our own experience right here in the UK how essential free schooling—state schooling—and our national health service are in ensuring equality and that people can have a dignified life. That is why in government a Labour DFID would establish a dedicated unit for public services within the Department.

Another major barrier to achieving the SDGs both domestically and globally is this Government’s policy incoherence. I welcome the Secretary of State’s plans to prioritise the climate crisis, which is crucial to achieving goals 13 and 7 on climate action and on clean energy, but his colleagues do not appear to be on the same page. It is this Government who have shut down the dedicated Department of Energy and Climate Change. It is this Government who continue to promote fracking and support the growth of fossil fuels overseas; over 99% of all energy support provided by UK Export Finance goes to fossil fuels. And it is this Government who continue to spend our aid money on new oil and gas projects overseas through the prosperity fund and CDC investments.

The Government’s policy is not just incoherent in the area of climate; it is also fuelling conflict through arms sales. According to Christian Aid, while DFID allocates at least 50% of its development spending to conflict-affected regions, more than 50% of UK arms exports are now sold to countries within these same regions. Meanwhile, ongoing arms sales to Saudi Arabia fuel the conflict in Yemen, directly undermining goal 16 on peace.

[Lloyd Russell-Moyle]

Does my hon. Friend find it appalling, as I do, that British fighter jets using British ammunition and flown by people trained in Britain on routes that are set out in Saudi control centres where British personnel are based end up bombing British-paid-for aid in Yemen? That country is suffering one of the worst humanitarian disasters we have seen in 100 years, and something being done in the voluntary national review to change our policy on Saudi Arabia and Yemen would be one instance in which we could actually see progress. Does he agree that if that is not done, it will show the Government’s commitment to peace and international justice for the sham that it is?

[Dan Carden]

I am pleased to agree 100% with my hon. Friend, and I congratulate him on his tireless efforts to highlight these utterly disgraceful practices.

I should like to raise a final point relating to the SDG agenda. If we are to bring about the kind of world envisaged under the SDGs, we need to start talking about the structural causes of poverty. Debates about the sustainable development goals have become dominated by discussions on how to mobilise trillions in additional finance and, in particular, how we can mobilise private finance and philanthropic funds. This is not good enough; charity alone will not solve the world’s problems, especially if we are ignoring the reasons that these problems exist in the first place.

I have said before, and it really cannot be said enough, that poverty is not a technical problem. Poverty is man-made, and to solve it we need to change the unfair global economic order that is rigged in favour of the few at the expense of the many. I support efforts to increase funding, and I am a passionate believer in the continuation of our 0.7% aid spending, but we need to go further. We do not talk enough about the unfair structures and the imbalanced voting power within global financial institutions such as the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. We need to do more to tackle the tax avoidance that means developing countries losing out on trillions of pounds of revenue each year. The SDGs do not go far enough in preventing unjust debt burdens. Does the Secretary of State agree that poverty is not simply about a lack of funds and that the answer to global poverty does not lie in taking a begging bowl to the world’s billionaires? Will he instead use the UK’s moment at the high-level political forum in July to raise the questions on the structural causes of poverty that are missing from the current agenda?

To conclude, the UK’s voluntary national review, which is due to be with the United Nations this week, has been mishandled and botched by this Government. It has lacked leadership; it has not been taken seriously from the start; and today the Government have backtracked on their own decision to have a full parliamentary debate on it within days of announcing it. It is a total and utter embarrassment. If this process had been taken seriously, it would have allowed the Government to face up to their record in office over nine years and own up to the utter failure of austerity. I hope that this Secretary of State will therefore use this as a moment to take stock of his Government’s failure on poverty and inequality here at home in the UK.

Ebola Outbreak: DRC

Dan Carden Excerpts

Monday 20th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I thank the Secretary of State for advance sight of his statement and for its comprehensive nature. I would like to start by joining him in commending all those who are working to fight this outbreak, honouring Dr Richard Kiboung, who was killed last month, and expressing our deepest sympathies to all those who have lost their lives to the latest Ebola outbreak in the DRC.

The death toll currently exceeds 1,000 people, and as the number of confirmed cases continues to rise, this deadly and cruel virus is certain to claim more lives in the days and weeks to come. The World Health Organisation has said it is unlikely that the virus will be contained, so its spread into neighbouring countries is not only possible but likely. This assessment from the WHO means that the world must act fast to prevent catastrophic outcomes, given the speed with which Ebola can contaminate and kill. David Miliband, who recently visited the region, confirmed that

“the Ebola outbreak is getting worse, not better, despite a proven vaccine and treatment.”

Through the Department for International Development, the UK is already playing its role in the response and making a difference on the ground, as it has done in previous outbreaks. Real credit is due to DFID’s staff and all responders for their tireless work and commitment. I am pleased to hear that the Secretary of State is discussing further action that DFID can take with other donor countries. Every day is crucial, and getting the response right is imperative. It is not simply a matter of issuing more money or resources. Given the complex security context laid out by the Secretary of State, a more hands-on and strategic approach is urgently needed.

It has been widely reported that one of the major barriers to delivering the necessary response is the breakdown of trust between the affected community and those trying to lead the response. A quarter of people in the region believe that the Ebola virus does not exist, and a third think that it was fabricated for financial gain. Foreigners have been accused of bringing Ebola to the DRC, and armed groups have stormed health centres and killed staff members.

Medical humanitarian agencies, such as Médecins sans Frontières, that have the expertise and experience to fight Ebola are being forced to suspend activities in the face of threats of further violent attacks. As a result, people are left untreated, vaccines are not administered, and the majority of Ebola-related deaths are now occurring within the community rather than health clinics. Lack of infection control and safe burials only speeds up the spread of the virus. In April, the country recorded its highest number of cases since the outbreak began, and we can expect this month’s caseload to be higher. Transmission is occurring in highly populated areas where health systems are weak and hundreds of armed groups operate.

What specific steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that all agencies prioritise working with the Congolese community in their response? What urgent steps is he taking to gain the trust of the Congolese community? Can he tell us more about his discussions on supporting efforts to stop the current rumour mill of misinformation and secure negotiated access to the affected population?

What more can the Secretary of State do to reduce the problematic dependence on armed escorts and military involvement in the implementation of humanitarian activities? Agencies active on the ground report a major difficulty being that actors involved in the Ebola response are the very same actors who have played a long-standing role in the ongoing conflict in the region. Can he give an assurance that he will uphold the principles laid out in the Inter-Agency Standing Committee guidelines, which state that military and civil defence assets should only ever be employed by humanitarian agencies as a last resort? Crucially, while we want to see everything done to get this emergency situation under control, does he agree that prevention is better than emergency response and that we must provide long-term support to ensure that the DRC can build appropriate public health systems for the future?

[Rory Stewart]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his moving and well-informed response to the statement; it is clearly very well informed by some of the actors on the ground. I will reply specifically to two of his questions.

On stepping up co-ordination, an assistant secretary-general of the UN is now operating out of Butembo with a broader co-ordination role for the different UN agencies. We have reached out to opposition leaders, who yesterday made the first in a series of statements to communities to encourage them to come forward to report cases. This is really important because those opposition leaders were at least complicit passively in allowing the rumours to spread that Ebola was somehow an invention of the Government, so there has been a very important shift. We want to thank those opposition leaders for coming forward and making those statements, and we would encourage them to make more such statements. Clearly, the Ebola response should not be politicised and should not be caught up in people’s disagreements with this particular Government in Kinshasa.

On the military-security relationship, the hon. Gentleman is absolutely right that we should be using military personnel only as a last resort, but it is very difficult situation. Nearly 200 separate insurgencies are taking place in the DRC—in particular, the Allied Democratic Forces and the Mai-Mai groups, which are operating in North Kivu and the surrounding areas—which, as we have said, have killed a doctor, mounted at least two attacks on Médecins sans Frontières facilities and attacked up to 40 other health facilities. With these kinds of problems, and when we are protecting our health workers not just from the risk of getting Ebola itself—health workers are of course among the individuals most at risk of contracting Ebola—but literally protecting them from being shot or attacked, it is understandable that in certain cases we have to work either with UN troops or the army of the DRC to address this outbreak.

We need to be very realistic about what this whole situation means. Part of that is resilience and, absolutely, investment in the public health facilities in the DRC. However, we should remember that the DRC Government have dealt with nine previous outbreaks. In fact, Ebola is named after a river in the DRC, and it was first discovered because of an outbreak in the DRC. The Congolese army and the DRC Government actually have a huge amount of experience in dealing with this. Their failure to grip it here is specifically about the conflict in North Kivu, rather than necessarily about their having the skills and experience to deal with it.

Finally, we need to invest in resilience in the neighbouring countries to make sure that were the disease—God forbid— to move into Uganda, Burundi or Rwanda, we have the proper response in place to contain it in each of them.

World Immunisation Week

Dan Carden Excerpts

Thursday 2nd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I genuinely welcome the new Secretary of State to his role. In his first two weeks as Prisons Minister he visited both the prisons in my constituency, which I thought showed a great sense of responsiveness to what was needed at the time. I hope that something along the same lines, and a close working relationship, will feature in his new role. I am also delighted that he used his first speech as Secretary of State to advance a robust intellectual defence of our aid spending, and I congratulate him on that.

We know why immunisations matter and why today’s debate is so important. Vaccines are, quite simply, a matter of life and death. Between 2 million and 3 million lives are saved every year thanks to immunisations, and in recent decades they have drastically reduced suffering caused by infectious diseases that were once commonplace. Smallpox was completely eradicated in 1977 through a global vaccination programme, and the world is now close to eradicating a second disease, polio. My own grandad contracted polio and lived with it for 27 years, and when I was growing up I heard a great deal about the impact of a disease that paralyses the people affected by it. I pay tribute to one of my constituents, Andy Gilliland, a polio survivor who has lobbied alongside the One Last Push campaigners; I am delighted to have become one of the campaign’s polio champions since he lobbied me.

Thanks to successful vaccination schemes the world over, today’s generation and our children do not have to suffer from the diseases that were all too commonplace for our grandparents. Immunisations are not only saving lives, but are a cornerstone of global health security. They are vital to the achievement of several of the United Nations sustainable development goals and to ensuring that no one is left behind. They also provide a vital gateway to wider public health services. If you are a child or parent being given a vaccination, this may be the first time that you interact with the public health system. The simple act of being immunised can boost your chances of going on to access important services such as family planning, birth registration, testing and screening, and regular healthcare. For the hardest to reach, immunisation can be the start of proper inclusion in the public health system.

I am proud that the UK’s Department for International Development is a world leader in global health. That has been possible only because of the House’s commitment to spending 0.7% of our country’s income on overseas aid and to maintaining an independent DFID. However, I want us to do more. Twenty million children around the world are still under-vaccinated. Fewer than 10% of children in the world’s poorest countries receive all the vaccinations that they need. In Africa alone, more than 30 million children under five suffer from vaccine-preventable diseases every year, and more than half a million of those cases result in death.

Sadly, in recent years global immunisation rates have stalled, and in some places have even decreased. Key barriers to full immunisation include the high prices of vaccines, and a growing movement of vaccine hesitancy. It is clear that we still have our work cut out if we are to reach all children, across the world, with the essential vaccinations that they need and deserve.

As the Secretary of State said, next year Gavi, the global vaccine alliance, will be up for replenishment at a conference hosted by the Government here in London, and this year the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is being replenished at a conference in Abu Dhabi. The UK should make significant pledges to make sure both are fully funded, and should make the pledges promptly enough to encourage other donors to do likewise. I therefore hope the Minister will use today’s debate to update the House on the Government’s replenishment plans for both of these funds.

Let me be clear, however, that replenishing funds is only one step to ensuring all children are vaccinated; we can and must do more. Gavi is leaving millions of under-vaccinated children in middle-income countries without all the vaccinations they need. That is because the scheme uses a country’s GDP to determine whether it is eligible for support. This is a crude way to assess need: a country’s GDP does not take into account the specific needs of that country and its population’s health needs. It fails to take into account the state of its health system, and, crucially, GDP measures do not take into account in-country inequalities.

[Rory Stewart]

indicated assent.

[Dan Carden]

The Secretary of State is nodding, and I appreciate that.

This means many of the world’s poorest children are in fact living in middle-income countries with a GDP that makes them ineligible for either official development assistance or Gavi support. I hope the Secretary of State will listen to the all-party group on vaccines for all, which has called for Gavi to bring about new criteria beyond a country’s GDP.

Let me now turn to another major threat to universal immunisation coverage. It is a threat that we face both here in the UK and right across the world: vaccine hesitancy, a phenomenon that the World Health Organisation has not only warned is on the rise but has now identified as one of the top 10 major threats to global health for 2019. This year’s theme of “Protected together: vaccines work!” also points to the difficulties in this area.

Since 2014, the number of countries reporting hesitancy has steadily increased, and in 2017 only 14 countries out of 194 reported no vaccine hesitancy. In England, dangerous false stories about immunisations are routinely spread on social media. The likes of YouTube and Facebook are failing to clamp down properly on those who peddle these lies. We must take tougher action and tell the truth about immunisations because the increasing refusal of vaccines has been described by the head of NHS England as a “growing public health timebomb.”

[Chris Elmore (Ogmore) (Lab)]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the Government’s recently published online harms consultation needs to include the beefing up of this, and that Facebook and others must be held responsible if they allow such anti-immunisation scare stories to be included on their platforms, because, as we are seeing in America, this is risking and costing lives?

[Dan Carden]

I agree with my hon. Friend wholeheartedly. We must take tougher action to tell the truth about immunisations, and we need to act fast with global partners if we are to avert the destructive potential of this. According to UNICEF, half a million British children are not vaccinated against measles, and in 2018 there were 966 cases of measles across the country, more than double the number in 2017. This is a worrying and sharp rise that requires our attention.

That is why my colleagues in Labour’s health team have committed to a vaccination action plan that includes getting tough with the big social media companies that are providing a platform that is fuelling a new public health crisis. Labour wants to see the £800 million of public health cuts reversed, more health visitors recruited to provide proper health advice backed by science to parents and GPs given the investment they need to drive up vaccination rates.

[Mr Paul Sweeney (Glasgow North East) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making an important point about the massive positive impacts of public health campaigns, and I am reminded of the great public health drive in Glasgow to eradicate tuberculosis from the city in the 1960s, a public awareness campaign that was a huge success. But is my hon. Friend aware that this creeping cynicism around the positive benefits of immunisation is a critical national emergency, and does he agree that it is worth exploring making it a criminal offence not to immunise our children? Perhaps we should explore whether that is a necessary step given the critical nature of this.

[Dan Carden]

I agree with my hon. Friend. This is absolutely critical, and our discussion shows the importance of raising awareness in such debates.

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

The hon. Gentleman is making some extremely good points. Does he agree that it is also important to be positive and show the huge impact of past vaccination programmes? In the 1940s, diphtheria killed 3,500 children a year in the UK, but it now kills approximately zero. Showing what has happened in the past and how beneficial it has been for our children will, combined obviously with other measures that the hon. Gentleman has referred to, give us the confidence that vaccination is indeed the way forward to protect our children.

[Dan Carden]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman, and the figures in graphs and elsewhere in documentation show the remarkable impact that vaccinations have had. We must carry that story forward.

We know from this experience how vital universal public services are for ensuring that everyone in society, regardless of their income, can realise their right to a healthy life. The Labour party founded our national health service. We are today, like then, committed to a health service that is that publicly owned and publicly run and with universal access. Universal health systems are the building block for everything else: without them we cannot reach full immunisation coverage; without them we cannot protect all the population against the national security threat of disease; without them we cannot reach the poorest and most marginalised in society with the care they need; and without them we cannot invest properly in the health of everyone equally, or deliver the fullest benefit for our society or our economy. And crucially, without universal public health systems, countries cannot fight the soaring inequality that now exists the world over.

There is no greater public asset here in the UK than the NHS, and so too around the world people value and look to the founding principle of the UK’s NHS: health care available to all, regardless of wealth. And so I want to briefly mention two important commitments that the Opposition have made to how we would deliver aid and development differently.

Aid is, or at least should be, delivered on the basis of poverty reduction. The Labour party has committed to a second, dual goal—to use aid to tackle inequality, too—and we know there is no better way of bringing about greater equality than universal public services in health, education and other key services. It is a tragedy that while we have our national health service—our own best-loved institution—created by the post-war Labour Government, this Government sometimes use UK aid to export to developing countries the kind of botched privatisation models that have done so much damage in the UK in recent years, instead of helping those countries to secure their own universal public health services.

I have a simple message: as DFID Secretary I would use UK aid to work alongside communities and civil society groups across the global south who are fighting for their own universal public services, and I would use DFID’s resources to work in partnership with their Governments to build and strengthen them.

World Immunisation Week is a chance to celebrate the work being done to protect people from vaccine-preventable diseases and to highlight the challenges ahead and the collective action needed. This international awareness week promotes the core message that the immunisation of every child is vital to prevent diseases and protect life. Immunisations are one of the most successful and cost-effective global health interventions of our time. Delivering immunisations gives all of us in this House, as custodians of the UK’s important position as a leader in global health, the simple, remarkable ability to save countless lives.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dan Carden]

With the leave of the House, I would like to speak briefly in the closing of the debate. I add my congratulations to my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol West (Thangam Debbonaire).

This has been a debate of great quality. It is pleasing to know that across the House there is deep concern for the health and wellbeing of children and adults across the world. Care and compassion must never stop at our own country’s borders. I have enjoyed the contributions of all Members who have spoken today—the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt), the hon. Member for Central Ayrshire (Dr Whitford), and my hon. Friends the Members for Enfield, Southgate (Bambos Charalambous) and for Bristol West.

In many places around the world, parents walk for many miles simply to get to a clinic and a vaccine that they know could save their child’s life. Yet the same cannot be said in all parts of the world. Many barriers still exist in getting people the healthcare they need. No matter how much money we give or how many vaccines are developed, immunisation will not succeed, in the UK or overseas, unless people trust that clinics, hospitals, medication and vaccines are safe; and unless they know that the care they receive is available free of charge. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the alarming outbreak of Ebola continues to spread. It is a tragedy that many communities simply do not trust that the new Ebola vaccine is safe. Despite efforts to develop a new vaccine for this horrific virus, around one in 10 people who are offered the vaccine are not taking it up. So we need system-wide solutions that tackle the root causes of ill health as the only way to bring about sustainable improvements to people’s lives. Clearly, we need to build trust between communities and health services. Too often in developing countries, the clinic is thought of as the place we go to die rather than recover. If we want global coverage of immunisations for all, then we must do far more to support countries to invest in public, free health services.

I agree with Ministers on their goals for immunisation, but my party disagrees with the Government, in some ways, on how we should support health systems overseas. This Government send Ministers to developing countries to talk up public-private partnerships. They encourage Governments to open up their health systems to British businesses. Labour Members want the UK’s international development work to be focused on supporting publicly owned, publicly run services that everyone can access, and an end to promoting private finance initiative schemes overseas. The next Labour Government will increase the aid spend on health and education and set up a new dedicated public services unit within DFID to help countries to invest in their public services and get them working for everyone. We want a fairer international patent regime that helps people to access medicines, not pharmaceutical companies to hoard profits. Only with a system-wide approach like this will we achieve the goal of immunisations for all.

LGBT Action Plan

Dan Carden Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd July 2018 Commons Chamber

[Penny Mordaunt]

If my right hon. Friend has a moment—[Laughter.] I will tell him that there are many reasons why people value civil partnerships; it was not just about the absence of the option of marriage. Some people do not want to get married, but they want to have a partnership with their partner. Other people who have been married and then bereaved may not want to remarry, but they may want to establish a civil partnership. People value civil partnerships for many reasons. I know that my right hon. Friend is very exercised about this matter, but I can reassure him that civil partnerships will not be compulsory.

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Putney (Justine Greening) on her initiative—it is a credit to her that her initiative has engaged with 108,000 people from the LGBT+ community—and I thank the Minister for the action plan.

I was shocked when, last year, a church in north Liverpool was exposed by former Liverpool Echo journalist Josh Parry as giving gay cure therapies, which are some of the most disturbing practices that could be imagined. I have raised such gay cure therapies with Ministers in the House. There had been some contradiction on those therapies before the report, and I hope the Minister will clear up some of those contradictions. The Home Office was initially dismissive, and the Department of Health and Social Care said no action would be taken. Will she clear up the contradictory advice that came from the Government before the report was published?

Furthermore, the report says:

“We are not trying to prevent LGBT people from seeking legitimate…support from their faith leader”.

I push the Minister to give a commitment today that she will not leave LGBT people in faith communities behind when this action plan is implemented.

[Penny Mordaunt]

I am happy to give the hon. Gentleman those reassurances. We are going to ban these abhorrent practices—with the most severe form involving corrective rape, some of these so-called therapies are appalling abuse—and we will consult on the best way to do that. It may involve legislation, but there will be other things we can do, too. We clearly need to work closely with healthcare.

Obviously, we do not want to close down completely legitimate and needed psychological support and other therapies that people might want to access as they explore their gender identity or their sexual orientation. Those are important supports for individuals, but wherever those other practices are found, including in religious settings, we will have no qualms about tackling them.

Counter-Daesh Update

Dan Carden Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Dan Carden (Liverpool, Walton) (Lab)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s statement and thank her for advance sight of it. I am sure the whole House will welcome her update that Daesh has been “all but destroyed as a territorial entity” and that it has lost 98% of the territory it once held. That is testament to the bravery and commitment of those on the ground, including our Kurdish allies, who have fought so hard to expel Daesh from their homelands in northern Syria and to recapture towns such as Manbij.

I welcome the continued humanitarian support that the UK provides through the Department for International Development. Given the scale of the humanitarian crisis in the conflict in Syria, it is right that the UK has played its part by getting humanitarian aid as quickly as possible to affected areas and by channelling substantial financial resources into helping to save lives in the years since the conflict began. I join the Secretary of State in condemning the appalling attacks on humanitarian workers across Syria, including on the 167 White Helmet volunteers who have lost their lives. Humanitarian workers must never be a target in conflict. Will the Secretary of State update the House on what steps she is taking to ensure full humanitarian access, especially in those parts of Syria that are now changing territorial control, both around Afrin and Ghouta?

I note that the Secretary of State warned Turkey that it must avoid “actions that undermine our shared efforts”, but is that really the strongest language that the Government will use to condemn Turkey’s incursion into northern Syria? That incursion is neither legitimate nor justified, has no basis in international law and should never have been allowed in the first place. This Government have stood by while Turkey and its band of rebel militias have marched into another country on the pretext of combating terrorism, while they have seized Afrin, while they have forced thousands to flee and while they have pulled down Kurdish statues. Does the Secretary of State agree that it cannot be right that this Government have not offered even a word of real criticism or condemnation, even as those same Turkish forces now advance and threaten to attack towns such as Manbij and seize those same Kurdish homelands? The Government must not abandon our Kurdish allies, who have given so much in the fight against Daesh. Will she condemn Turkey’s aggression unreservedly today?

One particularly sad story to emerge from the Turkish assault on Afrin is the death of UK national, Anna Campbell, who went to Syria last year to volunteer to fight with Kurdish forces against Daesh and insisted on being sent to the Afrin front at the outset of the Turkish assault. She was killed by a Turkish airstrike on 15 March, shortly before the fall of Afrin. She is one of eight British volunteers killed serving with the YPJ, the Kurdish women’s protection unit, and the first woman. While her father, Dirk, has expressed pride in her bravery and sacrifice, he has been angered in recent days by the Government’s inability to help repatriate her body for burial. Will the Secretary of State tell us what the Government are doing to help retrieve the body of this young woman who did her part in the fight against Daesh?

The United States has made it clear that the objective of coalition forces in Syria is to carry out what it calls “stabilisation activities” in “liberated areas” in the north of the country and to use those areas as a base to achieve the eventual transition of Syria from the Assad regime. Whatever one thinks of those activities, one thing is clear: they are a million miles away from the mandate for military action given to the Government by this House in 2015, which was exclusively to stop Syria becoming a safe haven for Daesh. Is it not time for the Government to come back to this House, set out their new strategy in Syria and seek a fresh mandate?

[Penny Mordaunt]

On behalf of all in this House, may I say that our thoughts are very much with Ms Campbell’s family at this incredibly difficult time. I am sure hon. Members will have heard her father’s incredibly moving tribute to her—she was an inspirational young woman. Obviously, we cannot provide consular support in Syria, but we are in touch with the family and will do everything we can to be of service to them, including in trying to repatriate Anna’s body. This is a very difficult situation, but I reassure all hon. Members that we are in touch and will do everything we can to bring her home.

On the wider issue of Afrin, we recognise Turkey’s legitimate security concerns, but we would support de-escalation of the situation. It is vital that we continue to defeat Daesh and that we continue to have greater stability in the area so that we can move to a political process, which is the only way this horrendous war will end. The indirect effect of what Turkey is doing is to remove fighting resource from the Euphrates valley area, which is clearly not beneficial to the coalition’s efforts in defeating Daesh.

I apologise to the House for the length of my statement, but I wanted to get on record some of the humanitarian atrocities that have taken place since the Foreign Secretary’s statement last year. The activities in eastern Ghouta are particularly shocking. The Foreign Office and DFID have made a continual combined effort to get access, whether it be for aid convoys or for the medical evacuation of casualties, particularly to remove children from the area. Despite the agreements, and despite the opportunities we were told they would be given, the partners we are working with on the ground have found it incredibly difficult to do that—one aid convoy was shelled after being given permission to go in.

We will continue to press for full humanitarian access to eastern Ghouta, and we are also looking at other areas of Syria that may be about to suffer a similar fate. We are trying to ensure that we do everything we can to protect civilians.