ALL PARTY PARLIAMENTARY GROUP ON POPULATION, DEVELOPMENT AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH ANNUAL REVIEW OF ACTIVITIES 2005/2006 1 2 All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health Annual Review 2005/2006 CONTENTS Page FOREWORD 5 COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND STAFF 7 NEW GROUP MEMBERS APRIL 2005 - MARCH 2006 8 APPG PD&RH AIMS AND OBJECTIVES 10 PARLIAMENTARY ACTIVITIES 11 APPG on PD&RH Committee Meetings 11 APPG on PD&RH Parliamentary Briefing Meetings 11 Other Briefing Meetings 13 European Meetings 17 Inter-European Parliamentary Forum on Population and Development 17 EuroNGO 18 Council of Europe 18 Study Tours 19 Bangladesh 19 China 19 General Written Briefings 19 General Correspondence 22 Parliamentary Statements, Debates, Questions and 22 Early Day Motions House of Commons 22 Statements Debates Early Day Motions Oral and written questions House of Lords 32 Statements Debates Oral and written questions 3 CONTENTS (cont.) Meetings and Correspondence with DfID and 35 DfID Select Committee Meetings 35 Correspondence 36 Consultations 37 Workshops 37 DfID Departmental Report 2005 38 International Funding to Sexual and 39 Reproductive Health and Rights, Population and HIV/AIDS International Conferences 41 G8 International Parliamentarians Conference on 41 Development in Africa, Edinburgh, Scotland World Summit, New York, USA 41 Inter Parliamentary Union Conference on 42 Violence against Women, Dakar, Senegal Demography, Reproductive Health and 42 Sustainable Economic Growth in Africa, Paris, France Support to other Countries’ APPGs on PD&RH 43 APPG on PD&RH Hearings 43 2000 - Follow up to Hearings on FGM 43 2004 - Follow up to Hearings on Linking Sexual and 43 Reproductive Health and HIV/AIDS 2006 Hearings on Population Growth – 44 its impact on the Millennium Development Goals APPG PD&RH PUBLICATIONS 45 Activity Reports 45 Hearings/Survey/Reports 45 ACCOUNTS 46 ACRONYMS 47 APPENDICES 49 4 FOREWORD As the Chair of the UK All-Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health (APPG on PD&RH), I am pleased to inform you, that we have had another active and successful year. Following the General Elections in May 2005, we recruited six new members to the group; Celia Barlow MP, Lyn Brown MP, Paul Flynn MP, Jo Swinson MP, Dr Rudi Vis MP and Lord Goodlad. Lyn Brown MP has since become an executive committee member. A very important highlight this year, has been the Department for International Development’s (DfID) strong support to Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), including support to controversial SRHR issues, such as, unsafe abortion and the specific needs of vulnerable groups. DfID has also been extremely supportive and active, in ensuring the inclusion of a United Nations (UN) target on reproductive health, within the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) framework. Another important development was DfID’s agreement to invite back bench MPs, with specific expertise, onto Government delegations at UN conferences. Recommendations from the group’s 2004 Hearing Report on Linking SRHR and HIV/AIDS, have gained momentum. UK Parliamentary debates, Parliamentary Questions and Early Day Motions on Poverty, International Development, Health Services in Developing Countries, HIV/AIDS and SRHR all made strong reference to HIV/AIDS prevention and linked SRHR and HIV/AIDS policies, programmes and services. DfID’s Annual Report 2005 and White Paper published this year, as well as the European Union (EU) Statement on HIV Prevention for an AIDS Free Generation, also make reference to prioritising and improving SRHR services and linking SRHR and HIV/AIDS services. The Health Secretary of State’s announcement that sexual health, including access to Genital Urinary Medicine (GUM) clinics, will be one of the Top 6 NHS priorities for 2006/07, was also welcome. 5 Throughout the year members have been updated regularly on SRHR issues via committee meetings, written briefings, parliamentary and general briefings, meetings and receptions. Selected members have participated in study tours and national, European and international conferences. The group continues to encourage initiatives to increase individuals’ and couples’ access to comprehensive Sexual and Reproductive Health (SRH) services, in order to achieve social and economical progress, environmental sustainability and poverty reduction. The group will continue to engage, recruit and brief new MPs and Peers on SRHR issues. The group will also continue to foster the establishment of other country APPG’s on PD&RH and most importantly keep SRHR central to the global development agenda. Hearings on Population Growth – its impact on the MDGs, will run throughout the spring and summer and the final report will be published in Winter 2006, with a launch in the UK Parliament. I hope that over the next decade, we will find a way to speak from a human rights perspective about, both the importance of population stabilisation and the need to support the rights of individuals to reproductive freedom and reproductive choice. Christine McCafferty MP Chair 6 COMMITTEE MEMBERS AND STAFF The APPG on PD&RH committee is active in planning and running the group's business. Chair Christine McCafferty MP (L) Vice Chairmen Viscount Craigavon (XB) Richard Ottaway MP (C) Secretaries Martyn Jones MP (L) Baroness Flather (C) Treasurer Baroness Tonge (LD) Officers Lyn Brown MP (L) Robert Key MP (C) Baroness Gould (L) Baroness Lockwood (L) Baroness Massey (L) Lord Rea (L) Parliamentary and Ann Mette Kjaerby Policy Advisor Parliamentary Kari Mawhood Assistant Address Room 563 Portcullis House House of Commons Westminster SW1A 2LW Tel: 020 7219 2492 Fax: 020 7219 2641 e-mail: [email protected] Website: www.appg-popdevrh.org.uk 7 NEW GROUP MEMBERS APRIL 2005 - MARCH 2006 Immediately after the general election in May 2005, a letter was sent to all new MPs enquiring about their interest in becoming a member of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Population, Development and Reproductive Health. Celia Barlow MP, Jo Swinson MP and Lyn Brown MP wrote back, requesting to become members of the group. Please find enclosed letter sent as appendix 1. Other MPs/Peers with an interest in Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights or appointed to positions which warrant their potential interest in SRHR issues have been contacted during the year. Please find enclosed sample communication with Shadow Minister for the Environment’s office as appendix 2. New group members Celia Barlow MP (L) Celia Barlow MP is a former BBC journalist and lecturer who entered Parliament in 2005. She is a member of the Environmental Audit Select Committee and is also Parliamentary Private Secretary to Ian Pearson, Minister of State at DEFRA. In Parliament she has spoken on Africa, debt cancellation and a wide range of environmental issues. Lyn Brown MP (L) Lyn Brown MP was a long serving Newham councillor, former CND activist and equalities officer before succeeding Tony Banks as MP for West Ham in 2005. She was born in Newham and went to local schools. She then stayed on at university as sabbatical president of the student union, and was active in CND and the Greenham Common protest movements. She worked briefly as a residential social worker in a children’s home in Ealing, and more recently as equalities officer for the London Borough of Waltham Forest. She was a keen campaigner for the London Olympic Bid for 2012 and suggested Newham as a potential Olympic site as long ago as the mid-1990s. Paul Flynn MP (L) Paul Flynn MP was educated at St Illtyd's Roman Catholic College and University College, Cardiff, and was a chemist in the steel industry for twenty-one years. He was briefly a community radio broadcaster before becoming a researcher for Llew Smith, then MEP for South East Wales. He was elected to Parliament in 1987. Once an opposition Spokesman on Health and Social Security under Neil Kinnock MP, then a committee man, he has opted to become a professional backbencher, a one- man campaigning group for a variety of causes. He is a member of the Social, Health and Family Affairs, and the Environmental, Agriculture, Local and Regional Committees of the Council of Europe and of the Western European Union's Defence Committee. 8 He served on the Transport Committee in the 1992 Parliament and briefly on the Welsh Affairs Committee from 1997-98. He spent two years on the Environmental Audit Committee until 2005, when he was appointed to the Public Administration Committee Jo Swinson MP (LD) Jo Swinson MP is a former marketing manager who was elected to Parliament in 2005 and is the Commons’ youngest MP. She is currently the Liberal Democrat Shadow Secretary of State for Scotland. Her policy interests include the environment, mental health, corporate social responsibility and gender. She has been active in the Chamber, speaking on a variety of subjects from the Child Support Agency, carers and breast cancer to licensing hours, domestic violence and breastfeeding in public. She has also introduced a debate on trade with developing countries. Dr Rudi Vis MP (L) Dr Rudi Vis MP was born in Alkmaar in the Netherlands and educated at his local high school, then the University of Maryland, the London School of Economics and Brunel University, ending up with an MSc and PhD in economics. At the time of his election to Parliament in 1997, he was a Barnet councillor and principal economics lecturer at the University of East London, formerly North-East London Polytechnic. He is vice-chairman of All-Party Groups on Cyprus and war graves; secretary of the group on the Irish in Britain; treasurer of the Netherlands group and vice- chairman of the group on Israel. Lord Goodlad (C) Lord Goodlad entered the House of Lords in July 2005. He was educated at Marlborough College and studied law at King’s College, London. He was formerly a Conservative MP for Northwich, then Eddisbury, for 25 years.