Andrew Miller, MP for Ellesmere Port and Neston is urging people across his constituency to go online and back a new campaign to turn a promise to tackle global poverty into a law.  The www.globalpovertypromise.com website is part of a campaign to put the Government’s promise to raise international development aid to 0.7% of national income by 2013 into legislation.

Andrew Miller said

“People across Ellesmere Port and Neston are proud of what the Government has achieved and the help we’ve given to people living lives of poverty in

developing countries.  We’ve campaigned to Make Poverty History and kept our promises through this global recession and I am urging people to go online and join me in backing ‘globalpovertypromise.com’.”

Picture shows Andrew Miller MP with International Development Secretary, Douglas Alexander MP, signing up to the “global poverty promise”

“I have been a long standing advocate of action to help people in the developing world.  Aid increases and debt cancellation have helped to get 40 million more children into school, while the number of people with access to AIDS treatment has increased from just 100,000 to over 4 million.  The proportion of the world’s population living in poverty has fallen from a third to a quarter thanks to a combination of both aid and trade.

“The Tories say they want a consensus on international development but when they were last in Government, they halved the British aid budget while Labour has trebled it. Now they refuse to back our plan to put our promise into law.”

Ends
15th December 2009

Further note:

Last year alone, the Department for International Development helped train over 100,000 teachers, vaccinate more than three million children against measles, provide a million people with clean water, protect seven million people with anti-malaria bed-nets and give more than 12 million people access to better sanitation.
• To back the campaign, go to: www.globalpovertypromise.com
• For more on international development policy, go to: www.labour.org.uk/international_development1