Asked by: Navendu Mishra (Labour - Stockport)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what support in terms of (a) vaccinations and (b) general medical assistance the Government has provided to Nepal since the outbreak of covid-19 in that country.
Answered by Nigel Adams
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the British Embassy in Kathmandu has reprioritised over £40 million of its development budget including: the construction of an oxygen plant in a Kathmandu hospital; technical advice to local government on managing the impact of COVID-19; water, sanitation and hygiene facilities to support around 400,000 people; safe spaces for women in isolation centres; cash and voucher assistance for the most vulnerable; and nutrition support for pregnant and lactating women. In response to the second wave of COVID-19 the UK has also donated 260 ventilators and various pieces of personal protective equipment as well as constructing an oxygen plant in Kathmandu.
With regards to vaccines, the UK is a leading donor to COVAX, having committed £548 million to the scheme. COVAX has delivered 348,000 doses to Nepal so far and another tranche is expected in the coming months. As G7 chair this year the UK has also secured a commitment to donate 1 billion vaccine doses to the developing world by June 2022, including 100 million donated by the UK. The majority of these doses will be donated to COVAX. As shareholders and contributors to both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the UK has also pushed hard for multilateral organisations to provide finance to countries for vaccine procurement, including Nepal. The World Bank has now made at least $75 million available to the Government of Nepal for that purpose; a further $165 million will soon be proposed to the board of the Asian Development Bank, which the UK will also support.
Asked by: Matt Rodda (Labour - Reading East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to provide covid-19 related support to Nepal.
Answered by Nigel Adams
Since the beginning of the pandemic, the British Embassy in Kathmandu has reprioritised over £40 million of its development budget including: the construction of an oxygen plant in a Kathmandu hospital; technical advice to local government on managing the impact of COVID-19; water, sanitation and hygiene facilities to support around 400,000 people; safe spaces for women in isolation centres; cash and voucher assistance for the most vulnerable; and nutrition support for pregnant and lactating women. In response to the second wave of COVID-19 the UK has also donated 260 ventilators and various pieces of personal protective equipment as well as constructing an oxygen plant in Kathmandu.
With regards to vaccines, the UK is a leading donor to COVAX, having committed £548 million to the scheme. COVAX has delivered 348,000 doses to Nepal so far and another tranche is expected in the coming months. As G7 chair this year the UK has also secured a commitment to donate 1 billion vaccine doses to the developing world by June 2022, including 100 million donated by the UK. The majority of these doses will be donated to COVAX. As shareholders and contributors to both the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank, the UK has also pushed hard for multilateral organisations to provide finance to countries for vaccine procurement, including Nepal. The World Bank has now made at least $75 million available to the Government of Nepal for that purpose; a further $165 million will soon be proposed to the board of the Asian Development Bank, which the UK will also support.
Asked by: Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what requests for bilateral support they have received from the government of Nepal to help tackle the COVID-19 pandemic; and what their response has been.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK Government is one of the leading donors to Covax, committing £548m to the scheme, which will provide more than a billion vaccines to developing countries including doses for almost a fifth of Nepal's population. The UK has also funded a new £180,000 duplex oxygen generation plant at the Nepal Police Hospital in Kathmandu to help address oxygen shortages to treat COVID19 patients. The UK is also providing £15m of support to international NGOs and the UN to provide shelter, nutrition and other critical needs in Nepal - including cash and voucher assistance to 220,000 vulnerable people's basic needs, nutrition support to 120,000 pregnant and lactating women and infants, 400,000 people with WASH (UNICEF's water, sanitation and hygiene) support, and 210 truckloads of relief supplies to 52 different destinations.
On Friday 28 May, a plane carrying the UK’s donation of 260 ventilators and 2,000 visors arrived in Nepal, in response to an urgent request for medical supplies from the Government of Nepal. Moreover, since the beginning of the pandemic, British Embassy Kathmandu has helped Nepal respond to COVID-19 by reprioritising over £40m of its aid budget. This support has included the construction of an oxygen plant in a Kathmandu hospital; technical advice to local government on managing the impact of COVID-19; water, sanitation and hygiene facilities to support around 300,000 people; safe spaces for women in isolation centres; cash and voucher assistance for the most vulnerable; and nutrition support for pregnant and lactating women.
Asked by: Lord Lancaster of Kimbolton (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal.
Answered by Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon - Minister of State (Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office)
The UK Government is one of the leading donors to Covax, committing £548m to the scheme, which will provide more than a billion vaccines to developing countries including doses for almost a fifth of Nepal's population. The UK has also funded a new £180,000 duplex oxygen generation plant at the Nepal Police Hospital in Kathmandu to help address oxygen shortages to treat COVID19 patients. The UK is also providing £15m of support to international NGOs and the UN to provide shelter, nutrition and other critical needs in Nepal - including cash and voucher assistance to 220,000 vulnerable people's basic needs, nutrition support to 120,000 pregnant and lactating women and infants, 400,000 people with WASH (UNICEF's water, sanitation and hygiene) support, and 210 truckloads of relief supplies to 52 different destinations.
On Friday 28 May, a plane carrying the UK’s donation of 260 ventilators and 2,000 visors arrived in Nepal, in response to an urgent request for medical supplies from the Government of Nepal. Moreover, since the beginning of the pandemic, British Embassy Kathmandu has helped Nepal respond to COVID-19 by reprioritising over £40m of its aid budget. This support has included the construction of an oxygen plant in a Kathmandu hospital; technical advice to local government on managing the impact of COVID-19; water, sanitation and hygiene facilities to support around 300,000 people; safe spaces for women in isolation centres; cash and voucher assistance for the most vulnerable; and nutrition support for pregnant and lactating women.
Asked by: Sarah Champion (Labour - Rotherham)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what assessment he has made of the effect of covid-19 in Nepal; and what (a) practical assistance and (b) expertise support the Government will offer that country to support its efforts against covid-19.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The UK Government is one of the leading donors to Covax, committing £548m to the scheme, which will provide more than a billion vaccines to developing countries including doses for almost a fifth of Nepal's population. The UK has funded a new £180,000 duplex oxygen generation plant at the Nepal Police Hospital in Kathmandu to help address oxygen shortages to treat COVID19 patients. The UK is providing £15m of support to international NGOs and the UN to provide shelter, nutrition and other critical needs in Nepal - including cash and voucher assistance to 220,000 vulnerable people's basic needs, nutrition support to 120,000 pregnant and lactating women and infants, 400,000 people with WASH (UNICEF's water, sanitation and hygiene) support, and 210 truckloads of relief supplies to 52 different destinations.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, how much Official Development Assistance has been spent on (a) water supply and sanitation, (b) renewable energy and (c) general environment protection in each of the last five years.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The Statistics on International Development (SID) National Statistics report, published on the gov.uk website, provides an overview of all official UK spend on Official Development Assistance (ODA). Detailed breakdowns of 2020 ODA spend, including spend by sector, will be published in autumn 2021, therefore the most recent five years with relevant data available are 2015 to 2019.
The total UK bilateral ODA spend to the OECD defined sectors of (a) Water Supply and Sanitation, (b) Renewable Energy and c) General Environment Protection between 2015 and 2019 is set out in the table below:
Table 1. UK bilateral ODA spend by broad sector
|
|
|
|
| £million |
Sector | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 |
Water supply and sanitation | 183 | 170 | 177 | 207 | 176 |
Renewable energy | 56 | 79 | 54 | 104 | 106 |
General environment protection | 318 | 303 | 306 | 334 | 330 |
Source: Statistics on International Development: Final UK Aid Spend 2019
These sectors will also receive aid from multilaterals, to which the UK contributes.
Asked by: Fleur Anderson (Labour - Putney)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what diplomatic steps he is taking to help ensure that COP26 increases the (a) quality and (b) quantity of finance for climate adaptation; and what assessment he has made of how that finance can be used to support access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities globally.
Answered by Wendy Morton
As COP26 Presidency, we are clear that we must deliver for people at the front line of climate change. We continue to call on donors to demonstrate the required action now, including meeting and surpassing the goal of mobilising $100 billion of climate finance a year for developing countries. The UK is leading by example - we have committed to double our International Climate Finance to £11.6 billion over the next five years - and we are calling on others to be equally ambitious. We are also committed to addressing concerns about the quantity, quality and composition of climate finance, and the recent UK-hosted Climate and Development Ministerial was an important moment to listen and respond to the concerns of developing countries on these issues.
The impacts of climate change can be felt most acutely in the provision of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). At the same time investing in WASH is an important measure for strengthening adaptation and resilience, and this is why the UK is prioritising a range of water-related resilience initiatives, including the Water Resilience Accelerator and the Adaptation Action Coalition Water initiative.
Asked by: Liz Saville Roberts (Plaid Cymru - Dwyfor Meirionnydd)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps his Department has taken to support the one in four countries with ongoing humanitarian crises who are experiencing reductions of 10 per cent or more in household drinking water services compared with the beginning of the covid-19 pandemic.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK Government recognises that countries with ongoing humanitarian crises can be particularly affected by COVID-19 and that access to drinking water can be reduced. In the first response phase to COVID-19 we provided £20 million of finance to UNICEF for urgent COVID-19 support including for water, sanitation and hygiene. We also supported the provision of emergency drinking water in a number of humanitarian contexts, including to nineteen Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Yemen, through our support to the Hygiene and Behaviour-change Coalition (HBCC), working with Unilever during the pandemic. As a longer-term effort, the UK Government met its 2015 - 2020 target of 60 million people with improved water or sanitation, of which 26.2 million people were based in fragile states. Going forward, the UK will continue to work with the Sanitation and Water for All partnership, which includes 69 partner governments, to increase political commitment to improving access to clean water and sanitation in the context of COVID-19 response and recovery.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, what steps his Department is taking to protect oceans as part of work to tackle the climate emergency.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The work carried out by Surfers Against Sewage on their Ocean & Climate Report provides a timely reminder of the urgent need to reduce emissions and the importance of nature-based solutions in our response to climate change and biodiversity loss.
The most effective thing we can do to reduce the impacts of climate change on the ocean is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UK government has therefore set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Internationally, 2021 is a critical year for the ocean, climate and nature. We are committed to working closely with our partners to drive a recognition of the linkages between the ocean, climate and biodiversity. We will use our COP26 Presidency to secure ambitious emission reductions and drive action on the Leaders' Pledge for Nature commitments, recognising the role of nature-based solutions in building resilience and adapting to the impacts of climate change, as well as supporting mitigation.
At the recent One Planet Summit, the UK accepted the position as Ocean Co-Chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and between this and the UK-led Global Ocean Alliance we now have over 60 countries supporting a target to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030 as part of our aim for an ambitious and transformational post-2020 global biodiversity framework for adoption at the 15th Conference of Parties of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 15).
Together with Vanuatu, the UK Government is driving forward ambitious action to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean through the Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance (CCOA), a growing group of 34 Commonwealth member states. To support the ambitions of CCOA, the UK Government has committed up to £70 million to boost global research and support developing countries to stop plastic waste from entering the ocean in the first place. Through one of our UK Aid programmes, the Global Plastic Action Partnership, the UK is working in partnership with Indonesia, Ghana, Vietnam and Nigeria to stem the tide of plastics entering in the ocean.
The UK has also committed to launch a £500m Blue Planet Fund, financed from official development assistance (ODA), to protect the ocean and reduce poverty in developing countries.
In November 2020 the UK announced its support to start negotiations on a new global agreement at the United Nations Environment Assembly that will create the system change required to tackle increasing levels of marine plastic litter and microplastics.
The UK is also taking action domestically to avoid further irreversible impacts to the ocean from climate change and biodiversity loss.
The protection, restoration and management of the marine environment are central to objectives in the 25 Year Environment Plan and the UK Marine Strategy on clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse seas that are managed sustainably. We already have 38% of UK waters in Marine Protected Areas and our focus is ensuring these are effectively protected.
We have stated our intention to pilot Highly Protected Marine Areas in Secretary of State waters and we look forward to publishing the Government's response to Richard Benyon's review in due course.
The Fisheries Act 2020 protects our marine environment and develops plans to restore our fish stocks back to more sustainable levels.
As part of our commitment to ocean recovery we are supporting coastal and estuarine restoration projects, including blue carbon habitats. The £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund will help environmental organisations start work now on restoration projects across England, including the inshore marine environment.
Our new Storm Overflows Taskforce is bringing together government, the water industry, regulators and environmental NGOs to work urgently on options to tackle sewage pollution issues.
As announced on 22 January, and welcomed by Surfers Against Sewage, this Taskforce has agreed a long-term goal to eliminate harm from storm overflows.
Water companies have also agreed to make real-time data on sewage discharges available at bathing sites all year round. This data will be made available to help surfers, swimmers and other recreational water users to check the latest information and make informed choices on where to swim.
We recognise there is more that needs to be done beyond providing more and better information, and so we will continue to work with the industry to reduce frequency and harm of discharges from storm overflows.
Asked by: Stephen Morgan (Labour - Portsmouth South)
Question to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs:
To ask the Secretary of State for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, whether he has made an assessment of the implications for his policies of the January 2021 Surfers Against Sewage, Ocean & Climate Report; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by Rebecca Pow - Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs)
The work carried out by Surfers Against Sewage on their Ocean & Climate Report provides a timely reminder of the urgent need to reduce emissions and the importance of nature-based solutions in our response to climate change and biodiversity loss.
The most effective thing we can do to reduce the impacts of climate change on the ocean is to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The UK government has therefore set a legally binding target to achieve net zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.
Internationally, 2021 is a critical year for the ocean, climate and nature. We are committed to working closely with our partners to drive a recognition of the linkages between the ocean, climate and biodiversity. We will use our COP26 Presidency to secure ambitious emission reductions and drive action on the Leaders' Pledge for Nature commitments, recognising the role of nature-based solutions in building resilience and adapting to the impacts of climate change, as well as supporting mitigation.
At the recent One Planet Summit, the UK accepted the position as Ocean Co-Chair of the High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People and between this and the UK-led Global Ocean Alliance we now have over 60 countries supporting a target to protect at least 30% of the global ocean by 2030 as part of our aim for an ambitious and transformational post-2020 global biodiversity framework for adoption at the 15th Conference of Parties of the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD COP 15).
Together with Vanuatu, the UK Government is driving forward ambitious action to reduce plastic pollution in the ocean through the Commonwealth Clean Ocean Alliance (CCOA), a growing group of 34 Commonwealth member states. To support the ambitions of CCOA, the UK Government has committed up to £70 million to boost global research and support developing countries to stop plastic waste from entering the ocean in the first place. Through one of our UK Aid programmes, the Global Plastic Action Partnership, the UK is working in partnership with Indonesia, Ghana, Vietnam and Nigeria to stem the tide of plastics entering in the ocean.
The UK has also committed to launch a £500m Blue Planet Fund, financed from official development assistance (ODA), to protect the ocean and reduce poverty in developing countries.
In November 2020 the UK announced its support to start negotiations on a new global agreement at the United Nations Environment Assembly that will create the system change required to tackle increasing levels of marine plastic litter and microplastics.
The UK is also taking action domestically to avoid further irreversible impacts to the ocean from climate change and biodiversity loss.
The protection, restoration and management of the marine environment are central to objectives in the 25 Year Environment Plan and the UK Marine Strategy on clean, healthy, safe, productive and biologically diverse seas that are managed sustainably. We already have 38% of UK waters in Marine Protected Areas and our focus is ensuring these are effectively protected.
We have stated our intention to pilot Highly Protected Marine Areas in Secretary of State waters and we look forward to publishing the Government's response to Richard Benyon's review in due course.
The Fisheries Act 2020 protects our marine environment and develops plans to restore our fish stocks back to more sustainable levels.
As part of our commitment to ocean recovery we are supporting coastal and estuarine restoration projects, including blue carbon habitats. The £80 million Green Recovery Challenge Fund will help environmental organisations start work now on restoration projects across England, including the inshore marine environment.
Our new Storm Overflows Taskforce is bringing together government, the water industry, regulators and environmental NGOs to work urgently on options to tackle sewage pollution issues.
As announced on 22 January, and welcomed by Surfers Against Sewage, this Taskforce has agreed a long-term goal to eliminate harm from storm overflows.
Water companies have also agreed to make real-time data on sewage discharges available at bathing sites all year round. This data will be made available to help surfers, swimmers and other recreational water users to check the latest information and make informed choices on where to swim.
We recognise there is more that needs to be done beyond providing more and better information, and so we will continue to work with the industry to reduce frequency and harm of discharges from storm overflows.