Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

Jane Ellison Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. No one can achieve this agenda on their own. We have been working on it, but we must increasingly work on it together, adopting a single strategy rather than disparate parts. I agree with CARE that we should stop working in, as it were, a parallel universe with businesses, and start working in the same world.

[Jane Ellison (Battersea) (Con)]

Before entering Parliament, I worked for one of many good private sector companies, the John Lewis Partnership, which, through both John Lewis and Waitrose, does terrific work with suppliers overseas. Does my right hon. Friend agree that it is rather depressing that the Labour party has so little faith in the ability of such private sector companies to do good in relation to this agenda?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is very well placed to ask that question, and she is entirely right. I think that we should be proud of the work of companies such as John Lewis and Waitrose, which not only makes business sense for them but makes a huge difference to the thousands of young people whom they are not only employing but “skilling up” in countries such as South Africa. We are delighted to be working with Waitrose. It is projects of that kind that have led me to announce today that I want to do more, and to do it in a more structured way.

Let me also thank my hon. Friend for the incredibly important work that she has been doing in raising awareness of female genital mutilation.