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Pregnant Employees

24. Dr. Cable: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what steps she is taking to ensure the equal treatment of pregnant women within the workplace. [6539]

Meg Munn: Employers who discriminate against pregnant women are breaking the law. We have taken the opportunity afforded by the amended Equal Treatment Directive to clarify the law and are amending the Sex Discrimination Act so that it explicitly outlaws pregnancy discrimination in the workplace.
 
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Return to Work

25. Miss McIntosh: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what steps the Government are taking to help women returning to work after (a) giving birth and (b) bringing up a family. [6540]

Meg Munn: We recently consulted on options to encourage communication between employers and employees and ease women's return to work after time away to give birth and care for children. Other work includes an RDA pilot providing women returners with career advice and training, and the Women and Work Commission, who will report to my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister in the autumn on ways of giving women a fairer deal in the workplace.

Trafficking

26. Richard Younger-Ross: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what discussions she has had with the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs concerning the Council of Europe convention on trafficking in relation to the trafficking of women. [6541]

Meg Munn: I fully support the work my hon. Friend the Member for Wythenshawe and Sale, East (Paul Goggins), the Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department, is doing in relation to the Council of Europe Convention on Trafficking. My hon. Friend chairs the Ministerial Group on Human Trafficking and I will be attending the next meeting of the Ministerial Group, the first such meeting since my appointment.

Pay Discrimination

John Bercow: To ask the Minister for Women and Equality what recent discussions she has had with contractors to Government Departments about pay discrimination on gender grounds. [6542]

Meg Munn: The Office of Government Commerce is currently producing guidance to cover "Social Issues in Purchasing". This includes how and where gender and other social considerations may be incorporated in public sector procurement. It is acknowledged that the current framework allows scope to take account of gender considerations, as long as they occur within the existing legal and policy framework.

INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Darfur

Mr. Hancock: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development how much has been spent on humanitarian aid for the Darfur region of Sudan in each of the last three years; and what his plans are for each of the next three years. [6334]

Hilary Benn: Since the start of the crisis in Darfur in April 2003, the Department for International Development (DFID) has committed £90 million of humanitarian aid to the Darfur crisis, including assistance to Sudanese refugees in eastern Chad. In the financial year 2003–04 DFID spent £7 million on humanitarian aid, of which £3 million went to the refugees in eastern Chad. In the financial year 2004–05 DFID spent £48.5 million on humanitarian aid for
 
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Darfur; of this £7 million went to eastern Chad. In the current financial year, 2005–06, DFID has set aside £75 million for humanitarian work across Sudan. Of this, DFID has so far spent £10 million on humanitarian aid to the Darfur region; of which £0.3 million has gone to eastern Chad.

A further £23.5 million is committed for humanitarian projects in Darfur this year, including £2 million for eastern Chad. A further £7.5 million is available for humanitarian assistance across Sudan including Darfur, but it has not yet been allocated to specific projects or locations. Given the evolving situation, DFID is not yet in a position to confirm how much humanitarian aid will go to the Darfur region in the next three years.

Education (Millennium Development Goal)

Mr. Martyn Jones: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what recent assessment he has made of progress towards the Millennium Development Goal to provide universal primary education in Africa. [5693]

Hilary Benn: The most recent assessment of progress towards all the Millennium Development Goals (MDG)s is a United Nations report published in June 2005. A 2004 UN chart colour codes whether regions are on track to meet key MDG targets or not.

As reported in the United Nations Millennium Development Goal Report (2005), sub-Saharan Africa has made progress, but still has a third of its children out of school; 62 per cent. of children in this region were enrolled in primary school in 2001 (the most recently available figures). Unsurprisingly, given this, the UN's 2004 chart shows that this region is not on track to meet the universal primary education Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015 without dramatically scaled up efforts. Northern Africa is however, on track to meet this target, with 92 per cent. of pupils enrolled in primary education in 2001.

The picture is not uniform. Appropriate policies and sufficient expenditure have enabled countries such as Tanzania, Rwanda and Uganda to make good progress. These countries are judged on track to meet the universal primary education Millennium Development Goal (MDG) by 2015.

DFID puts a high priority on expanding primary school enrolment and promoting girls education and plans to contribute £1.4 billion to education in Africa between 2005 and 2008.

G8 Summit (African Debt)

Mr. Andy Reed: To ask the Secretary of State for International Development what assessment he has made of the financial impact of the G8 Finance Ministers meeting in June on African countries in the highly indebted poor countries initiative; and if he will make a statement. [6300]

Hilary Benn: At their meeting on 10/11 June, the G8 Finance Ministers re-affirmed their commitment to the full implementation and financing of the heavily indebted poor countries (HIPC) initiative. They also agreed a new proposal to cancel 100 per cent. of
 
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qualifying HIPCs' debts to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank and the African Development Fund of the African Development Bank (AfDB).

The proposal, to be presented to the Boards of the World Bank, IMF and AfDB, would cancel up to $55 billion worth of debt for 38 countries. Eighteen countries, 14 of which are in Africa, would immediately be eligible for this relief, as they have completed the HIPC process. They would benefit from up to $40 billion worth of debt cancellation. The G8 proposal will therefore free up substantial additional resources for spending on health, education and infrastructure and to help countries meet the Millennium Development Goals. The mechanism by which qualifying HIPC countries would receive this new multilateral debt relief would be by adjusting these countries' gross assistance flows by the amounts forgiven. Details of the proposal are still being worked out, so it is not yet possible to give precise figures of the net benefits to individual countries.

An additional nine African HIPCs are expected to complete the HIPC process over the next year or two. They would then also qualify for assistance under the new proposal. A further nine African countries have been identified as eligible for HIPC. However, conflict and governance concerns are hampering their progress through the HIPC process. As and when they complete the HIPC initiative, they would also qualify for assistance under this new deal.

The G8 Finance Ministers have agreed that G8 countries will provide their share of the finances needed to cover the cost of this debt relief. Therefore in addition to the proposed debt stock cancellation, the additional resources donors provide as compensation to the World Bank and AfDB would be channelled through IDA and the African Development Fund to benefit all recipient countries.

CONSTITUTIONAL AFFAIRS

Family Resolutions Scheme

Tim Loughton: To ask the Minister of State, Department for Constitutional Affairs how much the Government have spent to date on the Family Resolutions Pilot Scheme; how many couples have completed full courses on the Scheme; and if he will make a statement on the future of the Scheme. [4467]

Maria Eagle: I have been asked to reply.

Total expenditure on the Family Resolutions Pilot Project as of 31 May 2005 is £190,628. 47 couples have been referred to the Pilot. Of these, 23 couples have completed the full programme. We expect to take decisions on the future of the Family Resolutions Project in April 2006, after evaluation is complete.

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