Maternal Mortality (Hansard, 12 November 2003)

§ 4. Ms Christine Russell (City of Chester)
What recent progress has been made in meeting millennium development goal targets for reducing maternal mortality. [137786]

§ The Secretary of State for International Development (Hilary Benn)
The proportion of women worldwide who gave birth with the assistance of a skilled health worker increased from 42 per cent. in 1990 to 52 per cent. by 2000. However, progress toward the millennium development goal target of reducing maternal mortality by two thirds by 2015 is too slow and unevenly spread across regions. We need faster progress, particularly in sub-Saharan Africa, and that will only be achieved through commitment, international leadership and action where it matters, which is in the countries themselves.

§ Ms Russell
May I thank my right hon. Friend for his reply? I am delighted to hear that he acknowledges the scale of the problem. I do not know whether the Ho use—[Interruption.]

§ Mr. Speaker
Order. Please allow the hon. Lady to be heard or it is unfair. [HON. MEMBERS: "Hear, hear."] Perhaps those who are cheering will agree with me.

§ Ms Russell
Thank you, Mr. Speaker. The greatest health divide in the world today is on maternal health. More than 500,000 women die every year as a result of complications during pregnancy or childbirth. I am delighted to hear that the Secretary of State wants to give greater priority to safe motherhood programmes. What are his views on providing more resources for traditional birth attendants simply to help with basic hygiene and reproductive health in the countries of sub-Saharan Africa?

§ Hilary Benn
There is a place for both within the system, although evidence from recent studies suggests that the biggest gain comes from enabling women who have complications in pregnancy to have access to a skilled birth attendant. So it is about training the traditional birth attendants to identify the signs and then to refer people. One of the programmes that we are supporting in Malawi, which I visited the year before last and where maternal mortality is a big problem, works with the ambulance service so that it understands that when it receives a call reporting complications in pregnancy, it prioritises the transport of the mother to hospital where she gets access to skilled advice and care.

§ Dr. Jenny Tonge (Richmond Park)
Will the Secretary of State assure the House that despite the reorganisation of his Department, the emphasis on reproductive health in the developing world will not change, because reproductive health clinics are very important in reducing maternal mortality? Will he take the opportunity next week during the visit of the US 275 President to persuade him to restore the funding he has cruelly withdrawn from United Nations Population Fund programmes all over the world?

§ Hilary Benn
I am happy to give the hon. Lady the assurance she seeks on the Department's commitment to reproductive health. Although the Secretary of State has changed, that commitment will not. We give strong support, as she knows, to the UNFPA as an organisation. We take a different view of the UNFPA from the Americans precisely because—she will understand this only too well because of her experience—it is a way of making an important contribution to reproductive health and all the benefits that flow from that for women and their children.

§ Tony Baldry (Banbury)
It is important to meet all the millennium development goals as much in middle-income countries as in least-developed countries. The Secretary of State may have missed the point. When extra money was needed in the past for Iraq or somewhere, the money would come from the Treasury's contingency reserve. One would expect the Secretary of State to get an extra £100 million out of the Chancellor specifically for that purpose rather than reducing mainstream budgets by £100 million. The concern is not just the £100 million, but the precedent that it sets for future spending on humanitarian and other crises. All that will happen is that DFID mainstream budgets will get screwed instead of the Secretary of State getting extra money from the Chancellor's contingency reserve.

§ Hilary Benn
The hon. Gentleman will know from his experience that part of DFID's job has always been to respond to humanitarian crises that arise. That is not new. He will be aware that most of the funding has come from other sources, including the central contingency reserve and our own contingency reserve. That has not affected our funding for humanitarian work or emergencies elsewhere. For example, since the conflict in Iraq, we have given extra funding to the Palestinian territories, to Liberia and to deal with the food crisis in southern Africa.
The hon. Gentleman also has to acknowledge that we have made a commitment to increase the proportion of the aid that we give to the poorest countries of the world. I am not prepared to change that commitment because with a rising aid budget, which is what we have got, we can provide greater benefit and do more good. Over the next two years, DFID's development budget will rise by nearly £1 billion a year.