Asked by: Ruth Jones (Labour - Newport West)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
What recent assessment he has made of the political situation in Zimbabwe.
Answered by James Duddridge
We remain concerned by the current situation in Zimbabwe, particularly human rights violations. We continue to press for genuine political and economic reform and for the constitutional rights of Zimbabweans to be upheld.
Extreme poverty is increasing sharply. The worsening economic situation with annual inflation at 402% is due to economic mismanagement and corruption.
Asked by: Helen Hayes (Labour - Dulwich and West Norwood)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effect of the covid-19 pandemic on poverty rates in the global south; and what discussions he is having with international partners on that matter.
Answered by Wendy Morton
COVID-19 is likely to have resulted in over 140 million additional people living in extreme poverty - around 2 per cent of the global population - and many more will have temporarily fallen below the poverty line. This is a seven-year reversal in progress to reduce poverty.
The UK is at the forefront of the international response, committing up to £1.3 billion of new ODA to counter the health, economic, and humanitarian impacts, and to support the global effort to find and equitably distribute a vaccine.
The UK has prioritised engagement with our international partners to encourage a more coordinated and inclusive response - for example, playing a leading role in securing agreement of the new G20 Finance Action Plan and suspending all debt repayments for the poorest and most vulnerable countries until the end of June 2021. Just this month, the Foreign Secretary held discussions with the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund on the COVID-19 response.
We will continue to engage with our international partners at all levels and use our Presidencies of the G7 and COP26 to drive a sustainable, inclusive and green recovery from COVID-19.
Asked by: Jon Trickett (Labour - Hemsworth)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, if she will make an assessment of the implications for her policies of the finding of research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation that 1 in every 100 households in Blackpool, Hull, Liverpool, Manchester, Newcastle upon Tyne, Nottingham and Salford are in extreme poverty.
Answered by Will Quince
No assessment has been made.
Asked by: Chi Onwurah (Labour - Newcastle upon Tyne Central)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what effect the reduction to the Official Development Assistance budget will have on the level of funding allocated to scientific research from that budget.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
Scientific advances have helped drive significant reductions in extreme poverty, increases in agricultural productivity, declines in childhood mortality and increases in life expectancy across the developing world.
The Covid pandemic's economic impact has forced the government to take the difficult decision to temporarily reduce ODA to 0.5% of GNI. The Foreign Secretary has set out a strategic approach to ensure maximum impact for our aid spend. This includes the use of ODA to support research to identify what development interventions are most effective, and develop and test new technologies and innovations, that can provide new solutions to critical challenges in development, such as climate change and infectious diseases.
Difficult decisions will be necessary, and we are currently running a prioritisation exercise on allocations, to ensure that every pound we spend on ODA goes as far as possible and has greatest impact.
Asked by: Baroness Hodgson of Abinger (Conservative - Life peer)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask Her Majesty's Government whether the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office is retaining the Department for International Development's (1) commitment to 'leave no one behind', and (2) strategies on gender and disability.
Answered by Baroness Sugg
Leaving no-one behind is an essential element of the mission of the FCDO, alongside building shared global prosperity, eradicating extreme poverty, tackling climate change, strengthening the international rule of law and global security, and promoting universal human rights and free, open societies.
As part of the creation of FCDO as a new Department we are refreshing and building on existing strategies, as well as developing new approaches where appropriate. We do not see the core ambitions of the Strategic Vision for Gender Equality nor the Disability Inclusion Strategy changing. Advancing gender equality and women's and girls' rights are a core part of this Government's mission, including fulfilling every girl's right to 12 years of quality education. The advancement of the inclusion of persons with disabilities is as important now as when the strategy was published in 2018 - the new department will strive to ensure the aims of the strategy are realised. The Government remains steadfast in its commitment to these agendas.
Asked by: Alex Cunningham (Labour - Stockton North)
Question to the Department for Work and Pensions:
To ask the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, how many children lived in (a) poverty and (b) extreme poverty in (i) Stockton North constituency and (ii) the Tees Valley in each of the last 10 years.
Answered by Will Quince
Protecting families with low incomes during the COVID-19 outbreak is of upmost importance to this government. The policies implemented in response to the outbreak, such as the Job Retention Schemes and the increases to the welfare budget have made a huge difference, particularly to those with low incomes. This was shown in HMT’s recently published distributional analysis about the Impact of COVID-19 on working household incomes. This publication shows that the lowest income decile of working households has seen no fall in income due to Government measures that have been put in place. This is available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/impact-of-covid-19-on-working-household-incomes-distributional-analysis-as-of-may-2020
The Government launched its Plan for Jobs in response the impact of the pandemic. Progress can be seen in the recent launch of Kickstart, the new Job Entry Target Support (JETS), an extension of the Work and Health Programme and the expansion of the Sector-based Work Academy Programme. A New Job Finding Support Service, involving the private sector recruiters, will also be introduced.
National Statistics on the number and percentage of children in low income are published annually in the “Households Below Average Income” publication. The rates of children in absolute poverty in the North East region in the three years to 18/19 has decreased, both before and after housing costs, compared to the three years to 09/10.
These statistics can be found at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/households-below-average-income-199495-to-201819
The Department now publishes supplementary official statistics on the number of children in low income families at constituency level. Children in Low Income Families data is published annually.
The latest figures from 2014/15 to 2018/19 can be found at:
Asked by: Dan Carden (Labour - Liverpool, Walton)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what recent assessment he has made of the effectiveness of the $1.90 level of the World Bank's international poverty line in accurately measuring and identifying trends in global poverty; and if he will make a statement.
Answered by James Duddridge
Officials at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office are actively involved in discussions about how best to define and measure global poverty, working with officials in developing countries, academia and international organisations, such as the World Bank and UN.
The international poverty line of $1.90 per capita per day continues to be the benchmark for monitoring extreme poverty at a global level. Set by the World Bank to reflect how the world's poorest countries define poverty, it provides a measure of absolute deprivation which allows us to compare levels of need between countries; track progress - or setbacks - over time; and focus resources and efforts where they are most needed. By this measure, 10 per cent of the world's population - around 734 million people - lived in extreme poverty in 2015. While still far too many, this represents remarkable progress from 1990, when 36 per cent of the world - around 1.9 billion people - lived below $1.90.
As with any definition of poverty, the $1.90 poverty line has limitations, which are well recognised, including by the World Bank.
Following the recommendations of the 2016 Atkinson Commission and others, there is a global consensus that we need a range of complementary poverty measures to provide a rounded picture and meet differing policy needs. FCDO-funded investments in data collection and research supports this agenda. However, the $1.90 measure remains essential to monitoring poverty, allowing us to understand and improve the degree to which growth and economic and social policies affect the poorest. For this reason, it is the measure used in the first of the UN Sustainable Development Goals - 'by 2030, eradicate extreme poverty' - and a key consideration in how donors allocate aid on the basis of need.
Asked by: Apsana Begum (Labour - Poplar and Limehouse)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, whether she plans to allocate additional funding to help tackle the covid-19 outbreak in Bangladesh.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The UK has major health, humanitarian and extreme poverty programmes in Bangladesh. These have re-prioritised funding and interventions to tackle the immediate health needs and the broader social and economic impacts of COVID-19 on the poorest and most vulnerable. To date the UK has allocated £21 million to support the Government of Bangladesh’s Preparedness and Response Plan objectives. This includes more than £7 million for testing and treatment by the national health system and £3 million through UNDP to reach more than 2 million of the poorest people living in urban slums. In the Rohingya refugee camps, over £11 million has been allocated to UN and NGO partners to prepare for COVID-19 and to provide critical humanitarian services, including testing, isolation and treatment. DFID is collaborating with Unilever on a mass global handwashing media campaign, which will run across Africa and Asia, including in Bangladesh.
Asked by: Yasmin Qureshi (Labour - Bolton South East)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what proportion of his Department's aid was targeted to projects with gender equality as a (a) principal objective, (b) significant objective and (c) not-gender related in each of the last 5 years.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The UK's Gender Equality Act 2014 (an amendment to 2002 International Development Act, IDA) requires all overseas development funding to consider the impact of how it will contribute to reducing gender inequality. The UK Aid Strategy prioritises the rights of women and girls under its fourth strategic goal of tacking extreme poverty and helping the world's most vulnerable. The FCO support a number of Official Development Assistance programmes targeted at promoting girls' education, empowering women peacebuilders and supporting female survivors of sexual violence in conflict. The programmes include lobbying efforts encouraging foreign governments to prioritise girls' education reforms, financial support for women mediator organisations, capacity building programmes for female judges and women peacebuilders and consultations with survivors of sexual violence.
Additional information on the FCO's ODA programmes can be found at: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/official-development-assistance-fco-programme-spend.
Asked by: Preet Kaur Gill (Labour (Co-op) - Birmingham, Edgbaston)
Question to the Department for International Development:
To ask the Secretary of State for International Development, what steps her Department is taking to ensure that the disaggregation of data by age is (a) improved and (b) prioritised in the work of the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office; and what progress the Government has made on the implementation of the Inclusive Data Charter Action Plan.
Answered by Wendy Morton
Responding to the needs of older people is essential in our efforts to tackle extreme poverty. This is being highlighted right now as we see the vulnerability of older people to the COVID-19 pandemic. We are paying attention to their needs in our response our COVID-19 and are engaging internationally to push for others to do the same.
DFID published our Inclusive Data Charter Action Plan in 2019, setting out our ambitions to increase the collection and use of disaggregated data, and to improve disaggregation at a global level. This includes our £45 million investment in the World Bank Trust Fund for Statistical Capacity Building fund, which strengthens the capacity of statistical systems in developing countries, including on age disaggregated data.
We are a key stakeholder in the Titchfield City Group on Ageing, an international group set up to improve data on ageing and age disaggregation.