Lynne Featherstone: I am sorry to hear about my right hon. Friend’s constituent. We keep under constant review the way in which these matters are evolving and the way in which these substances are classified, and I undertake to look into the issue that she has raised.
Lynne Featherstone: I returned from South Sudan early this morning and have seen that the humanitarian situation there remains precarious: 1.8 million people have been displaced by the conflict, 1.3 million of them within the country. Although aid has helped to ameliorate the food security situation in some areas, there is still a high risk of famine in early 2015.
Lynne Featherstone: My right hon. Friend is right to be worried about the food security situation. There are 3.9 million people facing alarming levels of food insecurity, and the UN estimates that up to 50,000 children could die this year from malnutrition. Humanitarian access is impeded, but I can assure the House that the international community is together on this issue, and I press Ministers in South Sudan...
Lynne Featherstone: I flew up to Ganyiel myself to see the internally displaced people. They are being accommodated although there is an issue between the host community and the IDPs. We have given £12.5 million to those refugees who have gone to the region, and we work with international partners to ensure that food and assistance reach them.
Lynne Featherstone: I met Ministers, and it is quite clear that the Government of South Sudan is not functioning in a manner that we would recognise. They are closing down radio stations and inhibiting access to humanitarian agencies. As I said, the case is extremely depressing, but we urge them to observe the new 45-day deadline that they have to put in place a transitional Government because only peace can...
Lynne Featherstone: The UK has provided £23 million in humanitarian assistance to the Central African Republic crisis since mid-2013, as well as £2.5 million in development funding through central programmes. We are the second largest bilateral donor and some of that money goes to the region for refugees.
Lynne Featherstone: It is a pleasure, Mr Sanders, to serve under your chairmanship. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Pauline Latham) on securing this important debate and all hon. Members on their contributions. Hon. Members throughout the House are genuinely committed to the plight of refugees, wherever they are in the world. Meeting the needs of refugees and other forcibly...
Lynne Featherstone: My hon. Friend is right, but that is beginning to happen. Camps are at a variety of stages in their evolution. The newest and most modern camps most definitely have separate, safe toilets and all those things, but other camps that have been in existence longer do not necessarily have them. The issue has been raised and everyone is now aware of it. The Secretary of State’s call to action has...
Lynne Featherstone: I will try and get through the points that all the Members have raised, and if I have time, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman. Gaza was mentioned. Currently, only UNRWA, the International Committee of the Red Cross and the Palestinian Red Crescent Society have sufficient access even to respond. DFID is funding both UNRWA and the ICRC, and we have increased funding to both in response to...
Lynne Featherstone: I will, because the hon. Gentleman has not spoken.
Lynne Featherstone: If the hon. Gentleman will forgive me, I will write to him on that, because it adds a whole new area to the debate and I have only three minutes left. The gateway protection scheme was mentioned by the hon. Member for Hackney South and Shoreditch. We want to focus our assistance on the most vulnerable people, rather than subscribing to a quota scheme. We have a vulnerable persons relocation...
Lynne Featherstone: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dr McCrea. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Cynon Valley (Ann Clwyd) on securing this important debate, and I acknowledge her deep and long-serving experience and wisdom in the matter. It is quite something, and I learned several things from her speech. I will give a short introduction and then immediately answer some of the points...
Lynne Featherstone: It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Bone. I thank the hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North (Catherine McKinnell) and congratulate her on her persistence in getting a debate on this topic. I do not think I disagreed with a single word of what she said. Her speech was powerful and she put the case forcefully. The participation of women in political life is...
Lynne Featherstone: I thought my hon. Friend might come in at that point.
Lynne Featherstone: I thank my hon. Friend. The hon. Member for Newcastle upon Tyne North asked that we put women at the heart of international development, and we have lived up to that. I have not attended an occasion or met a Government anywhere in the world without raising that as a primary issue. The hon. Lady also asked about the post-2015 agenda. The high-level panel report was excellent and, amazingly, it...
Lynne Featherstone: Winning seats is the issue for my part of the coalition, because if we do not win seats, we cannot get women or men into them. I totally agree, however, and I think we are working in that direction. The hon. Lady’s party, with its all-women shortlists, and my coalition partners with their A list or B list—I am not sure which—have made advances, and the face of Parliament has definitely...
Lynne Featherstone: What a pleasure it is to serve under your unexpected chairmanship this afternoon, Mr Hollobone. You are a very welcome replacement. Thank you for enabling us to continue with the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) for securing such an important debate. In his opening remarks, he said he had just returned from Liberia and Sierra Leone, which listed...
Lynne Featherstone: My hon. Friend makes an excellent intervention. CDC has gone from strength to strength. Not that long ago there were some question marks over it, but it has moved well away from that. As he says, because it works in the most fragile, conflict-affected and poorest of countries, its success is all the more remarkable. It has created more than 68,000 new jobs.
Lynne Featherstone: I will respond to the hon. Lady in a moment on the issue of deadweight loss. Moving on from CDC, in the long term, the key to mass job creation is improving the environment for domestic and other businesses to invest and grow. DFID is focused on these long-term determinants of job growth.
Lynne Featherstone: The hon. Gentleman is obviously right. We work in that direction and we are working as fast as we can to enable job creation to happen. I have covered a number of things, but part of what DFID does is on the enabling environment for investment and therefore job creation, whether that means cutting the time it takes to get goods across a border from four weeks to one day, or help with filling...