Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office plan to take to ensure that allocations of aid will contribute to environmentally sustainable development as set out on the (a) Millennium Development Goals and (b) the International Development Act 2006.
Answered by James Duddridge
As the only G7 country to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas development, the UK remains committed to environmentally sustainable development set out in the Millennium Development Goals and the Sustainable Development Goals, agreed in 2015. We will continue also to report on our aid expenditure as required by the International Development Act 2006.
Climate change, environmental degradation and biodiversity loss all pose a threat to sustainability – with the poorest and most vulnerable most at risk. In September 2019 the Prime Minister committed to doubling the UK’s International Climate Finance over the next five years. The UK is prioritising protecting the environment and reversing biodiversity loss in line with the Government’s manifesto. Uniting development and diplomacy in the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will provide an opportunity for the UK to have even greater impact in this area and on other development priorities.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, how the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will ensure that future allocations of aid will contribute to achieving universal (a) primary education and (b) healthcare.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The UK Government is committed to achieving the Sustainable Development Goals by 2030 and to spending 0.7% of GNI towards this. This includes achieving the goal of universal health coverage, under SDG3, in particular ending the preventable deaths of mothers, new-born babies and children by 2030; and quality education for all, under SDG4, in particular universal primary education and greater opportunities for girls. Through our bilateral programmes and as the largest contributor to both the Global Partnership for Education and Education Cannot Wait, we are also proud to be a leading donor in support of basic education.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what progress her Department has made on Millennium Development Goals in relation to tackling (a) child mortality, (b) covid-19 and (c) other diseases.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The Millennium Development Goals expired in 2015 and were replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which run until 2030. Significant progress has been made in recent decades on global health, for example the global neonatal mortality rate fell from 31 deaths per thousand live births in 2000 to 18 deaths per thousand in 2018, while the number of global malaria deaths fell from 840,000 to 405,000 over the same period.
The UK has played a strong part in this. UK investment in Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance since 2000 has supported the immunisation of 760 million children and contributed to preventing thirteen million deaths from vaccine-preventable diseases. The UK is also the second-highest country donor on malaria.
COVID-19 risks reversing these earlier gains. The UK is committed to supporting developing countries’ health systems to respond to COVID-19 and to achieving the health-related SDGs. We will do this with a particular focus on ending the preventable deaths of mothers, new-born babies and children by 2030 and also through increasing UK leadership on malaria.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, with reference to Recommendation 12, paragraph 45 of the 12th Report of the International Development Committee of Session 2017-19, on the UK's progress on the Sustainable Development Goals: The Voluntary National Review, HC 1732, if the Government will take the opportunity of the merger of her Department with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office to review the location of responsibility for leading and reporting on the UK’s domestic performance against the UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The UK remains committed to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the SDGs will play an important role in collective approaches to post-COVID-19 recovery. Responsibility for the oversight of the SDGs will need to be considered in the round as part of the formation of the new Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. Notwithstanding this, all government departments have responsibility for the aspects of the SDGs that relate to their respective policy responsibilities.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, when her annual report will be laid before the House as required by the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act 2006.
Answered by Wendy Morton
DFID’s Annual Report and Accounts 2019-20 will be laid in Parliament and published on gov.uk on 21 July 2020.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government will take to ensure that Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office expenditure on Official Development Assistance is subject to independent review as required under the provisions of the International Development (Official Development Assistance Target) Act 2015.
Answered by Anne-Marie Trevelyan - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will be accountable to parliament for how it spends UK aid. We remain committed to full transparency in our aid spending and there will continue to be parliamentary and independent scrutiny of the aid budget – the form this takes following the merger will be set out in due course.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps the Government has taken to (a) embed gender equality and (b) empower women through UK Official Development Assistance in the new Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office.
Answered by Wendy Morton
Advancing gender equality and women’s rights are a core part of this Government’s mission, and vital to fulfilling every girl’s right to 12 years of quality education. The Government remains steadfast in its commitment to this agenda.
We remain committed to spending 0.7% of Gross National Income on development. The UK International Development Act (Gender Equality) 2014 also makes a consideration of gender equality in all UK Overseas Development Assistance a legal requirement.
The Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy is expected to conclude later in the year. This will define the Government’s ambition for the UK’s role in the world and its outcomes will shape the objectives of the new Department, including on gender equality and women’s rights. Both the review and the merger are evidence of the Prime Minister’s commitment to a unified British foreign and development policy that will maximise our influence around the world.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what recent assessment she has made of progress towards meeting Millennium Development Goal 8 and towards the development of an open trading system and debt relief in low income countries.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) expired in 2015 and were replaced by the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The UK is committed to the SDGs and last year published a Voluntary National Review of progress to date.
COVID-19 poses real risks to eroding progress on the SDGs and there is a need to accelerate global action to reach the Goals by 2030. The UK, G20 and Paris Club, will suspend up to $12 billion of debt repayments from the poorest countries due this year under the G20 Debt Service Suspension Initiative. The UK has also committed up to £150 million to the Catastrophe Containment and Relief Trust, to fund the poorest countries’ debt repayments to the IMF.
The UK is also committed to supporting developing countries to integrate into the rules based international system so as to benefit from free and open trade. Our Trade Advocacy and Investment Fund supports low income countries to participate fully in WTO negotiations. More broadly, our Aid for Trade portfolio supports developing countries to benefit from WTO Agreements and open trade, including our major contribution to the Enhanced Integrated Framework.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to integrate its (a) development and (b) humanitarian initiatives to protect children from violence in its response to the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The UK Government is committed to protecting vulnerable children and helping them to grow up free from violence through COVID-19 and beyond. DFID is working with international partners to ensure that child protection is prioritised and integrated into the multi-sectoral response to the pandemic.
We have committed £296 million to support the global health response and vulnerable countries, including £145 million to UN appeals. This includes: £20 million to UNICEF to support the continuity of essential social services for children, women and vulnerable populations, including child protection; £20 million to UNHCR to ensure continuity of critical protection activities, including child protection, through community-based interventions, remote protection interventions and counselling using a variety of channels and; £5 million to Education Cannot Wait to support children in crisis settings while they are out of school.
DFID is also working with all our humanitarian partners to ensure that they mainstream child protection within their operations and use available guidance and tools, including the 2019 Minimum Standards for Child Protection in Humanitarian Action. DFID’s existing development programmes – which often support crisis-affected communities - have also adapted to the pandemic, integrating urgent response measures to keep children safe. For example, our Children on the Move programme, which is improving the child protection system for children migrating in Sudan, Ethiopia and Somalia, has now established hotline services for children affected by the pandemic and is training social workers in family tracing.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to prioritise child protection in its response to the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The UK Government is committed to protecting vulnerable children and helping them to grow up free from violence through COVID-19 and beyond. DFID is working with international partners to ensure that child protection is prioritised and integrated into the multi-sectoral response to the pandemic. We have provided £20 million to UNICEF to support the continuity of essential social services for children, women and vulnerable populations, including child protection.
DFID is adapting its child protection programming to respond to COVID-19. For example, our support to the UN Global Programme to End Child Marriage is responding across 12 countries by strengthening national child helplines and the social welfare workforce and raising awareness on child marriage risks through radio stations. In Ethiopia we have provided an additional £5 million to UNICEF, which is supporting the provision of Mental Health and Psycho-Social Support services to affected children and families and capacity building for frontline health and education workers on child protection risks.
Keeping children safe while they are out of school is a priority for DFID. The UK is the largest donor to Education Cannot Wait and we recently agreed an additional £5 million of funding for the COVID-19 response that is supporting emergency education measures and information campaigns, and upgrading water and sanitation facilities in schools. As the largest donor to the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children our £5 million contribution to the Safe to Learn campaign is now focusing on keeping children safe in the out-of-school learning environment.