It is a great honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Amess.

In the light of the way in which the proceedings are being conducted, I thought I would start with a little background to how the Bill came about. I spent time in India last year and the year before. Over the years I have been the chairman of a number of all-party groups relating to Africa and elsewhere—back in 2000, for example, I was chair of the all-party Jubilee 2000 coalition group, which more than 300 MPs joined to support our, ultimately successful, proposals to reduce third-world debt, and we had similar success on water and sanitation a few years later—but when I went to India, I became conscious of the enormous role women were playing in the alleviation of poverty. It was women who were collecting millions of rupees in Delhi and Mumbai around the streets of the slum areas to provide sanitation and water. I was also conscious that in Africa it was women who provided much of the driving force behind the small and medium-sized businesses, the collection of water, and education: they were doing the real work. It struck me that something had to be done to encourage greater awareness of what women achieve. To be quite blunt, they represent half the world. Not only should their contribution towards poverty alleviation and humanitarian and development assistance be noted and encouraged, but every conceivable effort should be made to give them the opportunity to do more.

Last year, with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, I went to India again. That was the final trigger. We visited a hostel in Hyderabad for women who had been subjected to the most appalling abuse and violation. The circumstances were very difficult: I understand that the woman who ran the hostel had been beaten near to death on many occasions because she was protecting those women. I concluded, as I had the previous year when I worked with the rag pickers and saw the work that those women did, that we should do something about that.

I received an enormous amount of help from the GREAT Initiative, Plan UK, Water Aid, Voluntary Service Overseas and Results UK, among other organisations, who came together to give practical assistance and advice for the Bill. I must say that the balloting of Bills in this House is a bit of a strange business. I think we were at number 18. Had it not been for the Chairman of Ways and Means using his discretion to reverse the order—for the first time in history, I believe—my Bill would have been third, not eighteenth. Having come so low in the ballot, I was told I had no chance, but—this is the important thing—I had the most enormous support from the Secretary of State. I pay tribute to my right hon. Friend for her tenacity, interest and support, and to all her team in the Department, who have been absolutely marvellous throughout the whole process.

I also pay tribute to the other members of this Committee for their interest and engagement, and to one in particular: the right hon. Member for Gordon, Chair of the Select Committee on International Development. I thank him for being here and for the distinguished role he has played as Chair of that Committee.  This is perhaps a somewhat unusual way of putting it, but I also I congratulate those sitting on the other side of the Committee and all those who have given support across the Floor of the House. I also wish to mention Baroness Royell, who was with me in India and played a very active part in doing everything she could to help the women in the hostel, together with the Bishop of Oxford, as he was, the Reverend Richard Harries. So we have had an enormous amount of support, and I am extremely grateful to all those who have participated in bringing the Bill to its present state.

I will go through the proposals in the Bill briefly, to identify for the record exactly what we are proposing to do. The purpose of the Bill is to place duties concerning gender on the Secretary of State before providing development assistance and humanitarian assistance under the International Development Act 2002. The Bill introduces a requirement for the Secretary of State to consider reducing gender inequality as part of the provision of development assistance, and to consider other gender needs when providing humanitarian assistance overseas. In the case of humanitarian assistance, it is important to ensure that the response to an emergency or other disaster meets the specific and different needs of all persons affected, and the Bill will also introduce an additional reporting duty on gender in the International Development (Reporting and Transparency) Act 2006. The Bill does not create any additional conditionality or limitation on reducing poverty or providing humanitarian assistance; instead, the Secretary of State will be obliged to have regard to gender when making decisions about such assistance. I am glad to say that the Government—I repeat my thanks to the Secretary of State—supported the Bill, subject to any necessary amendment, on Second Reading on 13 September.

One of the chief amendments proposed is to incorporate clauses 1 and 2 as new subsections in sections 1 and 3 of the 2002 Act. There are various matters that I do not think it is necessary for me to go into because they are there in the Bill and in the explanatory notes that will be made available to Members and members of the public, and because when one is drafting a Bill and incorporating it into the framework of existing legislation, some of the wording can become a little confusing—not confusing in practice, but confusing in explanation. So what we have done is recommend, through the explanatory notes, a method whereby people can understand exactly what the Bill is intended to achieve and how it will achieve that objective.

I think that I have covered the basic points I wanted to make. Finally, I will stress just one point: that women represent approximately half the people in the world, they are vital to the relief of poverty, and they deserve our protection and to be given greater opportunities to contribute throughout the world. The Department for International Development has a remarkable capacity to deliver on a worldwide scale. I am delighted that the Bill will further millennium development goal 3, which is to promote gender equality and to empower women. I hope the Bill will be seen to be a prototype for other legislation elsewhere in the world, so that we can have harmonious legislative arrangements wherever DFID is working. I hope it will be a beacon to other people throughout the world that shows the importance of the  role of women, of empowering them and of providing them with a means to help other people, but also to help the women themselves. Women have been so badly treated in certain parts of the world and it is important that they receive the protection they need.

With those few words, I am glad to introduce the debate and give other hon. Members the opportunity to make their contribution.