Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, what steps his Department is taking to support disabled children abroad.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office's ambition is for all children with disabilities to realise their right to education, equipped with the foundational skills and knowledge to lead fulfilling lives, and to learn in an environment that is inclusive, accessible, safe from all forms of violence, and free from discrimination.
Through the FCDO's Disability Inclusion and Rights Strategy and Girls' Education Action Plan, we have committed to prioritise interventions that tackle the barriers that children with disabilities experience in accessing quality education.
The Girls' Education Challenge has supported 154,386 girls with disabilities to attend school and the programme has provided over 5,000 assistive devices to learners who need them and addressed stigma and discrimination at community and school level to make it easier for children with disabilities to access schools.
Our Disability Inclusive Development programme is testing 'what works' in providing children with disabilities quality inclusive education in Nepal, Nigeria and Tanzania. The programme has already supported the education of 1,684 children with disabilities and the lessons learnt are being shared across FCDO's network of education programmes as well as being published as a global public good.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, whether he has made an estimate of the total value spent by his Department supporting educational opportunities worldwide in each of the last five years.
Answered by Andrew Mitchell
The UK is one of the most generous global aid donors, spending nearly £12.8 billion in aid in 2022. Education is an important international development priority. From 2018 to 2022, the FCDO (including former DfID) is estimated to have spent £2.5 billion in bilateral education ODA. The UK is estimated to have spent £906 million in multilateral education ODA from 2018 to 2021. UK support to education also extends beyond financing, to include country partnerships; influential research and expertise; and encouraging global financing from other partners.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to tackle faith-based persecution overseas; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Mark Field
The protection of the right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) is a priority of Her Majesty's Government's foreign policy and will continue to be so. In their interactions with foreign governments, Foreign and Commonwealth Office ministers and officials routinely raise individual cases and highlight practices and laws that discriminate against people on the basis of their religion or belief.
The United Kingdom also actively promotes FoRB through multilateral diplomacy. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO) minister with responsibility for human rights, Lord Ahmad, stressed the importance of working to defend the right to freedom of religion or belief (FoRB) when he addressed the UN Human Rights Council in September 2017.
The FCO is also supporting a number of projects to promote tolerance through the Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights and Democracy. Current projects include work to support human rights defenders in South and Central Asia.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent steps he has taken to tackle religious persecution abroad.
Answered by Mark Field
Her Majesty's Government promotes Freedom of Religion or Belief (FoRB) in many countries through diplomatic channels, public statements and support for projects to promote tolerance. A small selection of examples of steps Her Majesty's Government has taken recently to tackle and condemn religious persecution is provided below. It would place a disproportionate burden on resources to produce an exhaustive list of all recent actions taken by Foreign and Commonwealth Office officials abroad in this area.
During his recent visit to Bangladesh, Lord Ahmad visited an Ahmadiyya mosque where he spoke publicly of the importance of religious tolerance. In the wake of recent attacks against Coptic Christians in Egypt, the Foreign Secretary made a statement condemning religious intolerance and violence against religious minorities. We have issued a number of statements in response to Russia's Supreme Court ruling banning Jehovah's Witnesses as 'extremists'. Officials from our Embassy in Moscow have attended court hearings and continue to monitor this case closely. In Eritrea, we have continued to call on the Government to release all prisoners detained without due process, including those detained for their religious beliefs. And in Sudan, we lobbied consistently on behalf of four imprisoned Christian pastors (now released – partly, we judge, as a result of our efforts).
At the United Nations Human Rights Council we continue to work to sustain consensus on the adoption and implementation of the European Union sponsored Resolution on 'Freedom of Religion or Belief' and the Organisation for Islamic Cooperation sponsored Resolution on 'Combating Religious Intolerance'. We also continue to support a number of projects to promote tolerance through the FCO's Magna Carta Fund, including a project to promote legal and social protection of FoRB in secondary school curricula across the Middle East and North Africa.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the contribution made by trade in illegal ivory to the financing of international terrorism.
Answered by Mark Field
The UK Government has not seen conclusive evidence of a direct, significant link between the trade in illegal ivory and the financing of international terrorism. Recent research by the Royal United Services Institute tends to disputes previous claims that ivory is a major source of finance for global terrorist networks such as Al Shabab. This research suggests instead that organised crime and widespread corruption are a greater threat to endangered wildlife. The Government will continue to monitor reporting on the issue. Global terrorism and the illegal ivory trade are issues of serious concern to the UK Government and tackling both is a priority.
Asked by: Justin Tomlinson (Conservative - North Swindon)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to tackle faith-based persecution in countries with a high level of such persecution.
Answered by Tobias Ellwood
This Government remains firmly committed to the promotion and protection of Freedom of Religion or Belief in all countries. Through our bilateral work we lobby host governments to raise individual cases and highlight practices and laws that discriminate against people on the basis of their religion or belief. For example, the Foreign Secretary, my Rt Hon. Friend the Member for Uxbridge and South Ruislip (Mr Johnson) raised the rights of all Pakistani citizens, including religious minorities, during his visit to Pakistan in November 2016. Multilaterally, we work to sustain consensus on the adoption and implementation of two important Resolutions: the European Union's resolution on Freedom of Religion or Belief and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC)'s resolution on Combating Religious Intolerance. We also support a number of projects through the FCO's Magna Carta Fund for Human Rights. For example, we support a network of human rights defenders in South Asia working on this priority. In October 2016 the FCO hosted a groundbreaking international conference to draw attention to the importance of freedom of religion or belief to global efforts to counter violent extremism.