Speeches by Rushworth.

“I have a question about resourcing. With regard to the women in DRC lying and waiting to be raped, it is not a passive act. It is most likely a protective act.”

“I have some questions about the meaningful participation of women in processes. The UK’s national action plan commits to supporting women’s “full, equal, meaningful and safe participation” in peace processes. Is that because the Government feel that women should have equal rights to access in the way that men would in …”

“It protects the village. That, more than anything, highlights this point that I think we are all in agreement on about the vital role that women play, and particularly women at grassroots, where there is inter-communal conflict. I have sat with women in the Central African Republic who said to me, to paraphrase, “I was…”

“You have talked about the role the UK has played in further resolutions, treaties and so on, at that level, but would you be able to say more about the tangible aspects of 1325? What is the UK doing to make a difference on the ground on resolution 1325? If you were to put resolution 1325 into layman’s terms, and explai…”

“What we know from looking at the budgets is that while certain country contexts have been ringfenced, there is a shift in funding away from bilateral and civil society funding towards the larger multilateral organisations. I suspect the answer would be that we would see contexts where funding for work that we all agree…”

“We will change the subject, if that is okay, to talk about the FCDO restructure. Sir Oliver, can you tell us about the timetable for the restructure?”

“You mentioned two shifts. One is that we were too UK-heavy, so there was a shift more towards the field; secondly, we were too top-heavy—so there was a shift towards more doers. But obviously about a quarter of the workforce are being cut under these plans, so are we also going to see an increase in overseas staff or i…”

“On a point of clarification, I was not sure whether you were saying that the 28% increase was pre or post-merger. I think you were saying that it was even pre-merger, so that there are 28% more staff now than even before the two organisations merged.”

“What period is that?”

“May I ask what the rationale behind those changes is?”

“I thank the Secretary of State for this strategy, which is what I came into politics for. I also thank her for the roll-out of Best Start family hubs. I appreciate that it is impossible to do everything all at once, given the state of our inheritance, but even with the measures announced, children in Shildon and Crook—…”

“Will the hon. Gentleman give way?”

“I would be surprised if that is the case, because I know how keen the Government are to solve the asylum crisis, and I am sure they would want to look at push factors as well as pull factors within the strategy.”

“You just mentioned that you have seen organograms—we haven’t. How were you able to acquire those, and would you share them with us? You probably heard the previous session, and we are confused as to what the strategy is.”

“Presumably there is an internal document that they could share with us that explains the logic of what they are doing and how they feel that they can still deliver?”

“Could we ask the Minister?”

“The organogram that you have seen gets rid of atrocity prevention?”

“Has anything been said around the strategy and where they see possible waste or efficiency savings?”

“The missing thing for the Committee is understanding the business case. Is this simply driven by a need to get headcount down—essentially the bottom line is that we need to save money, come what may, and get rid of staff in the most painless way possible—or has there been at least some analysis of where they think ther…”

“Will they?”