Sir Desmond Swayne
MP for New Forest West · Conservative · United Kingdom
“Just how confident is the Minister that this was not a cyber-attack? How confident is he of the resilience of the system in the event of such an attack, and how confident is he in the willingness and ability of the Government to retaliate in the event of such an attack, as the best form of deterrence?”
“I join that long list of UK Ministers who have raised, at the very highest level in Israel, the most egregious practices in the west bank, designed specifically to prevent a two-state solution, only for Israeli policy to double down. Accordingly, I congratulate the Secretary of State.”
“I am delighted by the reprieve—the New Forest was to be split, and part of it swallowed by Southampton. Will the Secretary of State accept my representation that we want the integrity of the New Forest to remain, and the last thing we want is for it all to be swallowed by Southampton?”
“To address one of the points made by my right hon. Friend the Member for South Holland and The Deepings, that takes account of the fact that there may be different levels of need in different areas.”
“Yes, essentially today we are putting these services on a statutory footing. Of course subsequent Governments can change statutes, but this Bill makes it an explicit decision of this House and Parliament, rather than a fiat by Government decision.”
“I will address exactly that point shortly. If a child is not developing properly and is not sleeping, feeding or communicating, parents need to know that they have somewhere to turn.”
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“I will certainly pass on what I took to be the application by the hon. Member for Glasgow North to be included in the delegation to UNGA. I do not know how the delegation is being made up; all I can say is that I know that I am not going.”
“I can reassure the House that there is no change in the definition of ODA, and no cut is being made to make money available for refugees, but clearly there are always opportunity costs: money spent in one way is not available to be spent in another. That is a perfectly proper evaluation for the Government to have made. I have already addressed the issues raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell. The hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) asked about the national interest. I do not see a disparity between our national interest and how we deploy our official development aid. I regard the way that we spend it as an investment in pursuit of our national interest. We want to live in a safer, more stable and more prosperous world. That is in our national interest, and I believe we should pursue it.”
“and learned Friend. I thought it was a triumph, particularly because it went beyond aid. I share his disappointment at the inability of other G20 and G8 nations to step up to the plate and deliver on the 0.7% target, but my understanding is that at Addis Ababa the EU made a time-bound pledge in respect of the least-developed countries. Its strength, however, lay in its going beyond aid—to questions of harnessing the private sector, of harnessing countries’ resources and of tax reform and widening the tax base. These important issues all came out of it. The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, as well as the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) in an intervention on him, asked about the transfer of the aid budget to dealing with the refugees.”
“Members for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) and for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow (Dr Cameron). We are alive to that concern, as is the document, which speaks of the need for a data revolution. That process has already begun. Our former colleague, Lynne Featherstone, when Parliamentary Under-Secretary, hosted a conference on data. We recognise the huge deficit and the need to make an enormous effort to address the matter. The question of the indicators is still open. We do not expect them to be finalised and published until next March. It might be of some comfort if I say that the national statistician, John Pullinger, is chairing the committee, and I am confident that the indicators will be focused and will enable us to make the appropriate measurements. I had a very different take on the outcome of Addis Ababa from my hon.”
“Are they still a useful operating model? All that has to take place. At the same time, there will be some conditioning as a consequence of the security and defence review, which will guide policy in those areas of the world where our concern is greatest. Our spending portfolio will have to evolve. We will have to do development differently and integrate climate change into everything we do. We have to be climate smart in all our projects and all our doings. These are things we will develop over the next few years. My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham quite properly drew attention to data, and was joined in that by the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), my hon. Friend the Member for South Ribble (Seema Kennedy) and the hon.”
“On specific choices, however, and on the question of where our main effort lies, they will be determined by those priorities and the process, which has already begun in the Department, of the bilateral aid review. We will examine every single country in which we operate and ask the following questions: why are we operating in this country? Are there other countries that we ought to be operating in instead? What are we doing in those countries? Are there things we need to be doing more of, or things we need to be doing less of? Are there things we are not doing that we ought to be doing? That whole process is under way. In line with that is the multilateral aid review. We have to examine all the partners through which we operate. Are they delivering value for money? Are their objectives aligned with ours? Are they efficient?”
“They remain our strategic priorities: the reform of the international system, to make sure that all the agencies and multinationals with whom we work also bend themselves to these new global goals; and our right and proper attachment to the gender question and the rights of women and girls. That must remain one of the forefront activities by the Department. We have to, quite properly, retain the emphasis we have placed on sustainable and inclusive economic development as the only permanent way of exiting poverty. Of course, we still—hon. Members have been right to draw attention to it—have to provide the very basics of water, nutrition and health to so many of the world’s poor people.”
“The foundation is the 0.7%, but there now must be a clear line of sight between the goals as set out in the document and the departmental plan we develop. The goals are, of course, universal. They apply to us. Members have referred to the fact that there must now be a cross-Whitehall approach led by the Cabinet Office to ensure we meet the global goals. As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, there must be no cherry-picking—we are committed to the entire package. As far as DFID’s work is concerned, however, we have to consider where our comparative advantage lies: what we do best, where we can make the greatest impact, where we can secure the greatest value for money and what are our strategic priorities already.”
“A just, equitable, tolerant, open and socially inclusive world in which the needs of the most vulnerable are met.” Those are our values and we have managed to get them into the declaration in an unequivocal way. That is an enormous achievement, against all those countries who, frankly, believe that development is just about economics and, if you please, leave human rights at the door. If I may say to my hon. Friend the Member for Bracknell (Dr Lee) I share his ideological outlook. We are from the same stable. It all just goes to prove how two like-minded people can read the same document and come to radically different conclusions, but I am happy to have that discussion with him. We have the global goals and they must now be the starting point for everything the Department does.”
“I just draw the attention of Members to one single quote from the document, if I may treat them to it: “We envisage a world of universal respect for human rights and human dignity, the rule of law, justice, equality and non-discrimination; of respect for race, ethnicity and cultural diversity; and of equal opportunity permitting the full realization of human potential and contributing to shared prosperity. A world which invests in its children and in which every child grows up free from violence and exploitation. A world in which every woman and girl enjoys full gender equality and all legal, social and economic barriers to their empowerment have been removed.”
“I have every intention of addressing those issues, if the hon. Gentleman will bear with me. There is the full integration of climate change into the heart of the process. At the last minute—I hope this will be of some comfort to my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy)—we even secured the language that we wanted on anti-microbial resistance. There is the inclusion of modern-day slavery, on which there is cross-party consensus.”
“] I see that I am trespassing on the time. I am sorry if I have been unable to answer all the questions; I will write to hon. Members, but I must give the remaining time to my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Sleaford and North Hykeham.”
“That is a measure of the way that we have placed primacy on the international development role, but in all those operations we represent one Government—Her Majesty’s Government. My hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), who has long experience in Rwanda—I have joined her there on a number of occasions—spoke of the need for long-term sustainability, particularly in respect of goal 8. The hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) brought to bear his important experience from Sierra Leone and his other operations. He rightly drew attention to the importance of our pitch at the Paris climate change summit in December. I have spent some time over the summer visiting countries and getting them to up their game in their offer for Paris. In particular, I have encouraged Bangladesh to make sure— [ Interruption.”
“He said that he regretted the absence of solidarity. I commend the document to him: the word leaps out of the page several times. I assure him that solidarity is there. My hon. Friend the Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport (Oliver Colvile) reminded me of the very enjoyable time I spent among his students and his congregation, even if it was small. [ Laughter. ] There were many more students than there were in the congregation. He reminded us of something that is increasingly true and that many hon. Members will have experienced on their travels to see our operations in the rest of the world. In many of our posts the DFID element is significantly bigger than the Foreign Office element.”
“My right hon. Friend the Secretary of State is in her place and will have heard this exchange. The hon. Gentleman is right to draw attention to that important relationship and I very much look forward to meeting Humza Yousaf, which is scheduled in my diary for Monday. My hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) referred to the importance of biodiversity and tourism. That is an important point. We must not forget that tourism is an important earner for many poor countries. The hon. Member for Glenrothes (Peter Grant) asked a very important question, on which I have reflected a great deal: “If you wanted a shorter list, what would you have left out?” That is one of the reasons why, on reflection, I have come to the belief that we have the best document that we could have come out with.”
“Gentleman that half of the expenditure on our relevant multilateral programmes is on teacher training. Concentrating on quality is key. I know one of his particular concerns is the need to get away from chalk and talk and to have much more engaging education for children. I entirely support that agenda.”
“Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) is absolutely right that if we are looking for an investment to reduce poverty, the best thing to do to have the greatest impact is secure education for girls. The hon. Member for Ceredigion was right to suggest that we focused too much on enrolment rather than on the quality of education. As the hon. Member for Lewisham East pointed out, it is all very well to have 250 million children in school for four years, but if they come out unable to read, write or count, the whole enterprise will have been a waste of time. It is a question not just of access but of outcomes. It is worth repeating the sustainable development goal: “Ensure inclusive and equitable quality education and promote lifelong learning opportunities for all”. I point out to the hon.”
“We can say that 90% of children have at least got some sort of education, and he was right to draw attention to the fact that whereas there were 100 million children out of school, that figure is now 58 million—notwithstanding an increase in population, which could mean that the measure is better than it would appear on the surface—but the hon. Gentleman was right indeed to draw attention to the fact that, under those headline figures, there are some real worries, particularly with regard to sub-Saharan Africa and girls’ education. On the latter, if we take the headline figure for those at school, the balance is about 50-50, but there are places where the education of girls is greatly lacking. That has to be dealt with. The hon.”
“We are ahead of the game—indeed, the British Government have been driving the agenda forward—but we all know the political reality: if we cannot count it, it will not count. It is vital that we get the metrics right in order to hold Governments to account for whether they have met the targets. We have seen what was millennium development goal 1 morph into sustainable development goal 4. The hon. Member for Ceredigion was quite right to express a measure of disappointment about our achievements in relation to the original aim of getting all children into primary education by this year. That will not be achieved.”
“What underpins the targets are the indicators—the indicators that will be measured to see whether the targets have been achieved—and that discussion will get under way more substantially and be agreed in March next year, so this is a good time for the all-party group and for the Government to consider what the indicators should be and what we believe needs to be counted. The hon. Member for Lewisham East is right to draw attention to the huge question about the statistics and how we are to disaggregate them in order to be able to measure the very things that we need to measure. For example, we need to know how many disabled children there are and the nature of their disabilities. We have to be able to disaggregate and break down all the statistics to measure properly.”
“There was a genuine feeling that we had got a good set of goals and we were pleased with them, and any attempt to reopen the question and to narrow the numbers down, perhaps by combining some items—a whole process of reopening negotiations—might lead to a loss of some of the gains made. So we are where we are. The important debate on much of what the hon. Gentleman discussed begins now. There is a continuing conversation to be had with him and the all-party group about how we should proceed. I extend to him an invitation to meet and continue the discussion with my fellow Minister of State at the Department for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Welwyn Hatfield (Grant Shapps), who will be dealing with the matter.”
“I acknowledge entirely the concern of the hon. Member for Ceredigion that we have 16 goals and 169 targets. Where does sustainable development goal 4 and the seven targets that underpin it fit into that? I acknowledge the problem. Our ambition was for a smaller number of goals and of targets. The United Kingdom Government, with all their sophistication, measure our economic and social progress across about 60 targets, so I wonder how a Minister in Burkina Faso will be held to account on performance against 169 targets. Our ambition was for something smaller, and we were prepared to expend a considerable amount of political and diplomatic capital on reopening the question and driving the numbers down to something more manageable. Frankly, our allies did not have the will to come with us, perhaps for understandable reasons.”
“Member for Ogmore (Huw Irranca-Davies) said, that is a guarantee of enthusiasm for our future. I receive a great deal of correspondence from my constituents complaining about the level of international development aid and how much we are spending, so it is excellent that children in our schools are alive to the very reasons why we need such spending. I look forward to the time when they have more influence on their parents in getting that message across, and as they grow up and change the attitude of society generally. I have said in several forums that one of my ambitions for this Parliament is that, by the end of it, instead of being curmudgeonly about the amount that we spend on international development aid, my constituents will be proud of what we are doing and achieving. I said that the debate was timely.”
“It is a pleasure to follow the hon. Member for Lewisham East (Heidi Alexander). I thank the hon. Member for Ceredigion (Mr Williams) for calling this timely debate. We are well served in this Parliament by such an active all-party group, and I look forward to working with it to advance the agenda at such an important time. I will say a little more about that shortly. Every Member who has spoken has mentioned the fantastic Send My Friend to School initiative. I recall that when I was the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister, at this time of year I was continually ferrying those cardboard cut-outs to No. 10 Downing Street, and I was always impressed not only by the amount of physical work that had gone into them, but by the effort pupils had made to understand the problem and to advocate a solution. As the hon.”
“Education will deliver so much more than just the delivery of educational results in themselves.”
“If education has not been delivered on, it will not be possible to deliver economic growth and the healthcare benefits that accrue as a consequence of having educated girls, which leads to later marriage and fewer problems with maternal health. All sort of things are transformed because of education. An additional year of education can increase a worker’s income by 10%, with all the effects that that has. I would go further and say that the huge benefit of an educated population is that it delivers a stable, well governed country that provides for development—for the golden thread of economic development. Countries are poor because their elites choose to keep their people poor, because it suits them to do so and there is not an educated, active, civil society able to hold them to account.”
“Most of our fellow donors deal with that through scholarships, but there is a weakness with scholarships in that all the expenditure is carried out in the donor country. It does not actually get out beyond that to the nations that are developing and that require it. How we deliver such things will have to be considered in more detail than perhaps it has been hitherto. There is a great policy decision to be made. My view remains that primary education is of key importance in building foundations for development. It is one of the things that delivers huge improvements in delivery of other goals. Education is not only a goal in itself, but the door to other SDGs in terms of health outcomes and economic development.”
“Member for Ceredigion was right to consider whether we can provide the finance to deliver the goal. I think that we have to take a step back and consider policy and what we can do to address the needs of lifelong learning in a way that goes well beyond the emphasis on primary education. We are already active in that area. We have been supplying early years education for 150,000 children in Burma, and through the organisation BRAC in Bangladesh we have supplied 2.7 million children with pre-primary education, but we also have to address the needs of tertiary education. We are certainly active in technical and vocational education, but we need to consider particularly the concerns of further education beyond that.”
“Therefore, part of our effort has been driving forward the agenda of delivering education over the longer term. That will be part of our agenda in Oslo and Addis: to make sure that finance is available not just as a one-off donation, but on the basis of a commitment on which Governments and Ministers can plan to provide for the educational needs as required. As for the systems that underpin the principles of learning and equity, I have drawn attention to the fact that we need to address a whole series of statistics and metrics—things that we need to be able to measure—in order to ensure that data are used properly to deliver the outcome that we require. The new SDG is a considerable expansion beyond the primary objective of the MDG. That raises all sorts of questions about finance, and the hon.”
“We have put enormous effort into ensuring not just that no child is left behind but that there should be no lost generation. We have invested a huge amount of resource into ensuring that in both Jordan and Lebanon refugee children can be enrolled, through having two shifts, one in the morning and one in the afternoon; there are also enrolment targets. We are also funding the education Ministries. A new funding model is required for these emergencies. It is no good stumping up money and saying, “Here’s our commitment of £50 million” or £100 million, or whatever it is. Ministers who are delivering education in Lebanon and Jordan need to be assured that the finance will be there next year and the year after if they are to have plans.”
“For example, any school we fund has to be accessible by disabled people. However, we do not want simply to make things accessible—it is no good children getting into a school if they are not actually learning anything when they are in there. Disabled children must have the same access to education, which is why we have invested heavily in specific projects dealing with the needs of disabled people—for example, providing Braille resources for 10,000 blind children in Ethiopia and for the Ghana Blind Union. We must be much more alive to this issue in the design of our future projects if we are to meet the targets. The hon. Members for Glasgow North and for Lewisham East both talked about children in conflict areas, Syria in particular.”
“The manifesto commitment of the new Government is to do that for another 11 million children by 2020. The principle on which DFID works in delivering our education effort is to combine learning with equity. By learning, we mean that all boys and girls are to gain a foundation in skills to further their education and employment and realise their potential. That means a quality education that delivers what it is supposed to. As I say, that is done on the basis of equity. The hon. Members for Ceredigion, for Glasgow North and for Lewisham East all rightly drew attention to that agenda. It is the key principle. On disability, the principle of “nobody left behind” must underpin the delivery of our efforts. It is how we will measure whether the goal and the targets have been achieved, and we are making enormous strides on that agenda.”
“Every DFID project must now consider disability on the principle of “nobody left behind”. The hon. Gentleman asked whether our teacher training work takes disability into account. Clearly, the answer ought to be yes, absolutely, because that requirement is now a condition on which the whole Department has to operate. We are stepping up to the plate. We are spending about £800 million a year on our education effort—a figure that has risen since last year by £180 million. Generally speaking, ICAI’s follow-up report gave us pretty good marks for how we are dealing with education. Our target is that by the end of this year we will have trained 190,000 teachers and educated 11 million children through primary and early secondary school, and I am confident we will meet that target.”
“I entirely agree with the hon. Gentleman’s analysis. Those are the key issues. I share his concerns about the way we teach. I was a teacher myself once; I used a great deal of chalk and talk, and I regret it. On disability, we have imposed a framework on our Department, after a great deal of thought and a huge amount of consultation, especially with disability groups and their advocates, on the grounds that there should be no decision made about them without them. An enormous effort went into the framework, and it is a living document, to be continually updated and reviewed and republished annually. We have doubled the number of staff working on disability and appointed a champion to take forward the agenda, which will inform absolutely every project that we undertake.”
“Our support has enabled the Palestinian Authority to carry out state-building reforms in public financial administration and security. The international community has recognised that the PA is now ready for statehood.”
“I assure my hon. Friend that no UK payments are made for that purpose. Our support to the Palestinian Authority is paid through a World Bank-controlled trust fund to named civil servants and then independently audited.”
“We make representations at every level all the time to enable goods and services to be exported into and out of Gaza. There can be no future for Gaza until there is a complete transformation in that process, and for that to proceed, a peace process is required.”
“The Department for International Development is one of the biggest international donors in Rakhine state. We have just increased our support by a further £6.2 million, bringing our support since 2012 to £18 million.”
“Absolutely. I have taken every opportunity to raise this matter with Burmese Ministers. My caution with respect to my hon. Friend’s suggested course of action is that I am not prepared to withdraw British aid from poor people simply because of the regime under which they suffer.”
“Our ambassador attended the recent conference with Malaysia and Bangladesh. We participated with a démarche of Burmese Ministers, along with the United States and the French, and we are doing everything that we can precisely to make this a regional response.”
“Movement restrictions damage the Gazan economy, with the result that 80% of Gazans are dependent on aid, 57% are dependent on food aid and 43% are unemployed. Most of the UK contribution to the relief effort is delivered through the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, and I judge that to be effective within the limitations of the funding and the movement restrictions.”
“The hon. Lady is right in that the state of affairs in Gaza is desperate. However, on the recent events and the election, I am tempted to call in aid the wisdom of the Ents and say that we should not be hasty. It will be some time before the true policies of the new Government emerge, after long negotiations over a coalition. In the meantime, we remain committed to the two-state solution and we make our representations known on all the issues that she has raised, at the highest level.”
“As of this morning, more than 60,000 individuals have had access to building materials, out of the in excess of 100,000 who need such materials. I am confident that the mechanism is working effectively, but clearly there will have to be a step change in movement and access which can result only from a lasting solution.”
“A great deal of aid for Gaza was pledged at the Cairo conference. We have delivered a quarter of our pledge, and within the first few weeks of the financial year we will have delivered all of the £20 million we pledged. We have been entering into a considerable diplomatic effort to get other countries that have made pledges to step up to deliver, and I am glad to say that Qatar and Kuwait have now done so.”
“One part of the Gaza reconstruction mechanism is the material monitoring unit, which my Department supports. It is designed specifically to do what my hon. Friend requests: to ensure that any materials supplied, stored and dispersed are for the proper purpose and that any infractions are reported.”
“We continue to make representations at all levels about movement restrictions, but I repeat what I have said: we will have to wait and see what the new Government’s policy is, after they emerge from the coalition negotiations.”
“I am aware that, like me, the Opposition Front-Bench spokesman, the hon. Member for Luton South (Gavin Shuker), was recently admitted to Gaza. Such visits do involve bureaucratic obfuscation, and we will continue to make representations in that regard.”
“We are improving working conditions through our country programmes and through global standards. For example, in Bangladesh, we are providing £7 million to improve working conditions and safety in 1,800 factories, and we support labour practices globally through the ethical trading initiative.”
“We have not withdrawn funding. After the 2011 multilateral review, we withdrew core funding because we had reservations about value for money and we wanted to shift our focus to fragile states. We continue to work with the International Labour Organisation. We have a £7.4 million project with the ILO in Bangladesh, and, together, we are pursuing the Work in Freedom project. We will review that work with the International Labour Organisation at the next multilateral aid review, as the Secretary of State has already said.”
“I entirely agree with my right hon. Friend’s analysis. Getting corporates to take control of their supply chains is crucial and the Act, as it will become, will be vital in that respect.”