Global Gender Equality — House of Lords, 2019-06-17
Topic: Mixed Topics
Elizabeth Sugg (Conservative, Centre-right): My Lords, I thank every Member of the House who has attended the debate and contributed today. I thank, too, those noble Baronesses who were able to travel to Vancouver to attend the conference. It is great that we have cross-party representation at such international events, and long may that continue. We have heard some powerful messages from across the Chamber. It is vital that we continue to discuss and debate gender equality and to ensure that the issue receives the attention that it deserves. I also thank noble Lords—and, of course, noble Baronesses—for the important work that they have done to raise this issue outside the Chamber and to improve the lives of women and girls. Many issues have been raised. I shall try to get through as many of them as I can, so I shall turn to them straightaway The importance of girls’ education was highlighted by the noble Baronesses, Lady Hussein-Ece and Lady Goudie, and the noble Lord, Lord McConnell. The UK is a global leader on girls’ education. Our support helps girls to access and stay in education, so that they can help their families and communities to prosper as well as the economy. Over the last three years, we have spent nearly £700 million a year on average through our bilateral programmes on education. We also have the Girls’ Education Challenge, which is our flagship programme. We are determined to continue showing leadership in this area I agree with the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, on the importance of continued education in conflict zones, ensuring that girls—and boys—do not drop out in those difficult situations. We know that the situation is worse in conflict. Girls are two and a half times more likely to be out of school than boys. We are therefore one of the largest contributors to Education Cannot Wait, which is a fund for education and humanitarian emergencies. That fund expects to reach 8 million children by 2021. We are also supporting the No Lost Generation initiative, which has helped more than half a million vulnerable children displaced by conflict from Syria and Iraq to access education in host countries, including Lebanon and Jordan, as well as providing safe spaces, counselling and medical and psychological care I thank the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, for highlighting the important goal 16, on peace, justice and strong institutions. We in the UK were integral in getting that included, and we will continue to champion it. In fact, in July when I travel to New York for the high-level forum, I am due to attend an event to highlight goal 16 Many noble Lords raised the issue, as I did in my opening speech, of the global rollback of women’s rights. We have witnessed a visible drive against gender equality over the last decade. A growing number of states have been emboldened to challenge our internationally agreed positions on gender equality because of this rollback. It is evident at national level in developed as well as developing countries, as was highlighted today. We have seen legislation weakening the protection of girls against marriage in at least five countries in which we operate, but more progressive regimes such as here in the UK are countering this rollback. Our position is very clear that, in order to achieve gender equality and to empower all girls and women, we have to fight back against this rollback. We will continue to play a world-leading role on the global stage What are we doing on that? We are working really closely with like-minded countries to protect existing agreed language on sexual and reproductive health and rights in international negotiations. As I said, we deeply regret that the language was not included in Resolution 2467 and were disappointed that we were not able to see the inclusion of established language in the G7 gender equality communiqué. As for new international texts, we have the upcoming political declaration at the UN high-level meeting on universal health coverage ahead of UNGA this year and are working very closely with like-minded countries to advance UK priorities—that was something we discussed in Canada The noble Baroness, Lady Flather, highlighted how economic empowerment can change the perception of women in societies. I agree entirely. Women’s economic empowerment is one of the biggest potential levers we have to boost global prosperity and we are leading on that. We are helping to build a more prosperous world through women. Between 2011 and 2015, we helped more than 36 million women gain access to financial services and helped 3 million women improve their land and property rights. We have a flagship central programme on women’s economic empowerment, Work and Opportunities for Women, which looks to build on the momentum we saw after the UN Secretary-General’s High-Level Panel on Women’s Economic Empowerment Abortion was raised numerous times, and I was delighted to hear support from across the Benches for our policy on safe abortion, which takes an evidence-based public health approach that aims to reduce death and disability, which can be caused by unsafe abortions. We are clear, of course, that the best way to avoid abortion is to give women information and contraception so that they can decide whether, when and how many children to have. The primary aim and the vast majority of our investment in reproductive health is to increase the uptake of voluntary family planning, which of course helps reduce demand for abortion. There is still a substantial gap between the number of women who do not want to get pregnant and the number who can access contraception. A significant number of those women are at risk from death or disability because they are accessing unsafe abortions. We know that back-street abortions kill at least 23,000 women per year in the developing world. We know that restricting access to safe abortions does not reduce the number of abortions that take place; it just makes them less safe. Supporting comprehensive sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls saves lives and supports prosperity, so we will continue to do that The noble Baroness, Lady Tonge, raised the question of abortion in conflict. Our position on that is that, in situations of armed conflict or occupation, international humanitarian law principles may justify offering an abortion rather than perpetuating what amounts to inhuman or degrading treatment. I am happy to repeat that position over and over again—I will learn it by heart. We also support the roll-out of a minimum initial service package for reproductive health in crises, which includes the provision of safe abortion care I am happy to confirm our continued commitment to 0.7% of our GNI going to overseas aid—that is now on our statute book, happily. I am proud to have been part of the coalition Government who got that on to the statute book. We will continue to support NGOs delivering SRHR services. In addition, of course, to being the largest donor to the UN sexual and reproductive health and rights agency, a significant amount of our funding for family planning is delivered directly through NGOs. On the cost of these services, our family planning programmes are delivered in accordance with local government policies, and the financial model varies considerably from country to country. We are of course working to reduce the cost of family planning. We are promoting financial protection and reducing the costs of out-of-pocket health expenditure in the countries we work in to help reduce the burden on poor people and families and improve access to contraception. Our new regional WISH programme, with the IPPF, is focused on reaching the very poor and reducing costs on that. Some countries’ programmes charge clients who can afford to pay, but they also employ a no-refusal policy to allow poor clients to access those services The noble Baroness, Lady Hussein-Ece, quite rightly raised the issue of abortion in Northern Ireland. Abortion has always been a devolved matter in Northern Ireland, and there are strongly held views on both sides of the debate. The Government’s priority is to restore devolved government so that the people of Northern Ireland can decide, but we have put arrangements in place to allow women normally resident in Northern Ireland access to safe abortion services in England, including support for travel costs. The aim is to make them as accessible as possible, so that women can make use of these services without having to be referred by a medical professional in Northern Ireland Many noble Lords raised the US and its Mexico City policy—the global gag rule. Following the reintroduction and expansion of the Mexico City policy in January 2017, we have of course been keeping in close contact with our partners to ensure that the policy does not compromise UK support of comprehensive SRHR programming. The full implications are still not clear, but we are working, as I say, closely with other offices. We are not like-minded with the US on our policy on abortion. We do not agree with it on that, but we work with it closely on many aspects of international development. We have also worked closely together on family planning. It continues to be the biggest donor in that area, so we must work with it to advance common interests and tackle shared challenges where we can.