Supplementary written evidence from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (WMA0002)

                                                                      Harriett Baldwin MP                            Minister of State

29 March 2019

Tom Tugendhat MP

Chair, Foreign Affairs Committee

House of Commons

London

SW1A 0AA

During my evidence session on 12 March, I pledged to write with further detail on three issues of interest to the Committee: metrics on the UK’s Female Genital Mutilation (FGM) eradication programmes in Africa, the ability of BBC staff to reach Ascension Island and a copy of the DFID Governance Strategy.

Ending FGM in Africa

The UK leads the world in our support to the Africa-led movement to end FGM. In 2018 we announced a further £50m UK aid package - the biggest single investment worldwide to date by any international donor – to tackle this issue across the most-affected countries in Africa. The funding will help:

• Change attitudes about FGM through direct work with communities;
• Support grassroots activists to lead change in their own countries;
• Get laws, policies and actions in place banning FGM; and
• Support doctors, nurses and midwives to end FGM and care for survivors.

This builds on the significant action we have already taken to help end FGM, which includes:

• A £35m UK aid package to help end FGM across 17 countries in Africa;
• A dedicated £12m UK aid programme in Sudan: the largest ever single-country investment in ending FGM anywhere in the world; 
• A £7.5m UK aid / Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation (Norad) programme to prevent harmful practices in Somalia;
• £3m of UK aid to support to grassroots organisations ending FGM across Africa;
• Co-hosting the 2014 Girl Summit, which helped to galvanise global commitment to end FGM and child marriage in a generation.

Since 2013, DFID-supported programmes have helped:

• Over 8000 communities, representing 24.5 million people, pledge to abandon FGM;
• The Gambia, Nigeria and Mauritania to make the practice illegal, and Burkina Faso, Egypt, and Uganda strengthen their laws;
• Six countries introduce their own national budget line for tackling FGM[1];
• Over 3 million girls and women receive FGM protection and care services;
• Build “The Girl Generation”: the largest-ever global movement of over 900 grassroots organisations working together to end FGM, which has reached over 200 million people across Africa with end FGM messages and positive stories of change and leveraged an additional £4m of funding for grassroots organisations. 

Ascension Island and the BBC World Service

Ascension Island's runway requires a full resurfacing and as a safety precaution large aircraft can no longer routinely land on Ascension. As a result, the twice weekly South Atlantic Airbridge to the Falklands doesn’t land on Ascension, although this is expected to return to Ascension upon completion of the resurfacing works.

BBC World Service (WS) contractors and other civilians currently have two routes to access the island. The first is to take the monthly civilian flight from St Helena, which links up with regular flights between St Helena and South Africa.

The second is to request permission from the Ministry of Defence to travel on the RAF military flight. Civilians are permitted to access these flights where they are essential to operations on Ascension Island. These flights are irregular and not guaranteed as their availability is balanced against wider defence commitments.

At a bilateral meeting in December 2018 with my colleague Lord Tariq Ahmad of Wimbledon, the Ascension Island Council raised a request for increased civilian access on the UK military flights.

Councillors stated that contractors were unwilling to travel to Ascension to carry out vital maintenance and training as they would have to remain on Ascension for a month, if travelling on the monthly civilian flight. Lord Ahmad agreed to work with colleagues in the Ministry of Defence to explore whether civilians could have increased access to the military flights.

This work is ongoing in collaboration with the Ministry of Defence and we will shortly be updating stakeholders, including the Ascension Island Council and BBC WS.

BBC World Service Funding

The FCO strongly supports the BBC’s mission to bring high quality and impartial news to global audiences, including where free speech is limited. The World Service brings the UK to the world, providing a link to the UK for people and communities who would not otherwise have this opportunity. This is invaluable for the UK’s soft power and influence at an important time. The BBC brings light and insight to parts of the world in which truth can often lie hidden.

The BBC World Service has been licence fee funded since 2014 and its funding from the licence fee is ring fenced. Clause 33(5) of the BBC Framework agreement makes clear that the budget for the World Service must be at least £254 million for each of the financial years from 2017/18 to 2021/22. Clause 6 (b) also sets out that, taking account of the strategy and the budget it has set, the BBC will agree with the Foreign Secretary the languages in which the World Service is to be provided.

The government is investing an additional £291m during 2016-March 2020 to support the BBC World Service through the World 2020 Programme. The new language services are distinctive and tailored to the audience’s needs.  The World 2020 Programme expands the BBC World Service’s digital, TV and audio offering.  12 new language services have been launched since 2017 and are Yoruba, Pidgin, Igbo (Nigeria) Amharic, Oromo (Ethiopia), Tigrinya (Eritrea) Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Telugu (India), Korean and Serbian.

The FCO’s investment has also resulted in enhanced TV services for Africa; more regionalised content for BBC Arabic; enhanced services for Russian speakers in Russia and surrounding countries and the enhancement of World Service English. The BBC opened new and expanded bureaux in locations such as Dhaka, Mumbai, Nairobi, Delhi, Seoul, Bangkok, Yangon, Tunis, Cairo, Beirut and Belgrade. This is one of the largest expansions of the BBC World Service in over 70 years.

Governance Strategy

Open, inclusive, accountable governance is fundamental to delivering sustainable development and tackling global challenges. And it supports our national interest by contributing to international prosperity, security, and the rules-based international system.

On 18 March DFID published its new Governance Position Paper, which sets out our approach to governance in a changing world and can be found online at: https://tinyurl.com/y63k975v.

Harriett Baldwin MP