Woman's Hour - Dido Harding, Friendship between gay men and straight women, Foreign aid cuts

Episode Date: June 7, 2021

It’s just over a year since the businesswoman and conservative peer Dido Harding was brought in to set up a test and trace system to help stop the Covid-19 pandemic. The system was going to be “world beating” and help get the UK out of lockdown according to the Prime minister but the incredible costs involved – around £37 billion – have been criticised for failing to make an impact. The system has improved but what will its legacy be? Dido Harding talks to Emma Barnett on Woman’s Hour today in her first interview since leaving the role last month and reflects on the ups and downs of the last year.As we celebrate Pride Month throughout June we thought we'd spend a moment celebrating the relationship between gay men and their female BFF. From reality stars like Jenny and Lee on Googlebox and Olivia Bentley's relationship with Ollie and Gareth in Made in Chelsea to Will and Grace to the designer Halston and Liza Minelli. What is it about the relationship that makes them so special?A group of MPs, Including the former Prime Minister Theresa May, are trying to push through a vote in parliament which they hope will reverse controversial cuts to the international aid budget. It's likely that an amendment to the Advanced Research and Invention Agency bill will happen, and that technical change will result in aid spending going back to what it was. It was recently cut from 0.7% to 0.5. Preet Gill MP is Shadow International Development Secretary and Ella Whelan is a journalist and commentator who doesn't believe in foreign aid.Presenter: Emma Barnett Producer: Lucinda Montefiore

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. I'm Natalia Melman-Petrozzella, and from the BBC, this is Extreme Peak Danger. The most beautiful mountain in the world. If you die on the mountain, you stay on the mountain. This is the story of what happened when 11 climbers died on one of the world's deadliest mountains, K2, and of the risks we'll take to feel truly alive. If I tell all the details, you won't believe it anymore. Extreme, peak danger. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

BBC Sounds. Music, radio, podcasts. Hello, I'm Emma Barnett and welcome to Woman's Hour from BBC Radio 4. Hello and welcome to the programme. Today we hear from one of the women at the heart of the government's COVID response. Baroness Dido Harding stepped down last month from running England's much-commented-upon test and trace system. The Prime Minister said it would be world-beating. Today, she gives her first interview since leaving the Post. There's a theme running through today's programme.

Money. Our money. And how it's spent. To give you some figures which we'll go into more detail shortly, £37 billion has been earmarked for test and trace in England. £4 billion is the approximate amount being saved by cuts to international aid, which the government may face a major rebellion on today, something we'll also come to, and the potential effects on women and girls around the world. Your take, though, as always, is welcome. You're already getting in touch and any questions you may have, 84844 is the number you need to text on social media. We're at BBC Women's Hour. Or you can email us through our website.

Also on today's programme, as BAFTA winner Michaela Cole, the creator and star of the BBC's I May Destroy You, pays tribute to intimacy coaches making actors feel safer on set, we talk to a leading one. What do they do and how do they help? But first, it is just over a year since the businesswoman and Conservative peer Dido Harding was brought in to set up a test and trace system in England to help stop the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the Prime Minister, it was going to be world beating and help get the UK out

of lockdown. And yet more lockdowns followed that statement. Critics also quote the incredible costs involved around, as I say, £37 billion being earmarked and questioned its capacity to deliver. Things have improved on certain fronts, but is the system robust enough to deal with more waves and variants of the virus? And is it a legacy she's proud of? Let's talk to Dido Harding now, who joins me in the studio. Good morning.

Morning, Emma. I have to start with the fact that you've been in the papers only yesterday. And it was reported that you've sounded out health leaders about going for the top NHS job in England when Sir Simon Stevens steps down. Have you? Well, look, today is my first day back as chair of NHS Improvement. And I've just had a few weeks holiday with my family. So I haven't applied for the NHS job yet. And I'm thinking about what I want to do with my life and looking forward actually this morning to rejoining my NHS colleagues and picking up where

I left off over a year ago. You talk about NHS improvement responsible for overseeing all NHS hospitals and other areas there, which we can perhaps come to a bit later. But you say you haven't applied yet. Does that mean you might? It means I'm thinking about it. I have loved working in the NHS for the last three and a half years. It's been the privilege of my life to work alongside our NHS people. And as I say, it's literally first day back at school for me. So I'm thinking, I think, well, your intro, many people around the country are thinking about what they've learned, what they've experienced over the course of the last 18 months, I'm no different. So you may go for it. And yet, if you look at some of the headlines about this, there have been some noises of concern, to put it mildly, and also some opposition of the idea of

you even going for this NHS job. For instance, the Daily Mail, often a supporter of Conservatives in the government, had the headline, bungling former test and trace boss wants to run the NHS despite failures in running the £37 billion COVID system branded the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time. Are you taken aback by some of the response that has been to even the idea of you going for this job?

To be honest, there's been so much media coverage of everything I've done in the last year. I haven't had time to read any of it. I've been focusing on doing... Oh, you've just been off for a couple of weeks. You may have seen that one. And I certainly haven't been reading media coverage while I've been relaxing with my family over half term. So, you know, like I said, I'm really pleased to be back in my NHS role today and reflecting on what I've learnt. That's it. I bring it up because, and also perhaps we'll come to the coverage and the way that what you've been doing has been received.

Because, of course, one of the big criticisms of the system, which I'd like to talk to you about now in more detail, is the cost. So people have called it eye-watering, as it seems to be broken out. £22 billion in the first year and another £15 billion since. Can you say it's real value for money? Well, let's break down the costs a bit first and then I'll tackle that question head on. So 80% of the costs of Test and Trace are in testing. And 80% of the testing costs are variable based on the number of tests that are conducted. So as you said in your introduction, Amber, the 37 billion is what's been earmarked. It's not what's actually been spent yet. It is a function of how many tests that we do. And we've done a

huge number of tests in the last year, over 100 million tests. So the value from test and trace is in making sure that anyone who's got symptoms is able to get a a PCR test and anyone now in in the whole of the country is able to get twice weekly lateral flow asymptomatic tests we're you know one of the very few countries in the world that makes that possible is that value for money well I'd argue that if you look at the the challenges of the disease making sure that we do it, that we know what's happening with the course of the disease, we're able to surge testing, tracing and vaccination where we see dangerous or potentially dangerous variants occur. That's absolutely essential to get us all back to normal. So, yes, I think it is important that we spend the money on it. I suppose it's just big numbers are often helped by a bit of context. And I recognise what you say about earmarking. To put it in context, some have said, you know, 5% pay rise for all NHS England staff, a lot more than the 1% on offer would cost around £2.3 billion. You talk about, you know,

what we've had to do during the last year, we think about the NHS that you're so proud of, you say you're so proud of and the frontline you're so proud of, and the frontline. Or money needed for education, the catch-up money after COVID. The man formerly in charge of that last week resigned. He wanted £15 billion. Or even we're talking about £4 billion cuts from foreign aid. I suppose when you put it next to those figures, not least with some of the issues that there have been, people have said things like, you know, it's eye-watering.

Former head of the Treasury said it's the most wasteful and inept public spending programme of all time. Well, you've just listed two of the most important customers for NHS Test and Trace, our health and social care system and our education system. So the tests that we have been spending money on have been, firstly, for patients and staff in the NHS, residents and staff in social care, and then all of our secondary school pupils who are testing themselves twice a week. I don't think we should use testing in order to enable them to come back to school or go to work or safely protect their patients and residents as a trade-off with funding in health and social care education.

In the last year, every developed country in the world has been spending, yes, very large sums of money on testing and on tracing in order to combat COVID. And we all want the world to get back to a more normal way of life. And this is an essential ingredient in that. Is it fair to say that perhaps the testing bit, albeit wasn't where it needed to be for a long time, as some would say, but the testing bit has broadly worked, in inverted commas, as you would put it, but the tracing bit hasn't? No, I disagree with that. Could I give a couple of examples which have shaken people's confidence? An example this year, in March, NHS Track and Trace took a week to find someone infected with the Brazilian variant.

I know you'll remember this. It was proving so difficult the health secretary had to go onto television to appeal. For three weeks in April and May, eight local authorities in England didn't have access to positive tests in their area. And the highest number of missing cases was Blackburn with Darwin in Lancashire, which had a surge linked to the Delta variant, as we now describe it, put down to a software issue. So there's a danger that you and I trade statistics, but let me just give you a few back. So in the busiest week through the pandemic, which was the first week in January for NHS Test and Trace, the service reached over a million people. And over 90% of those million people, the service reached within 24 hours. That's an extraordinary performance for a service that had only existed for eight months at that point. We could go through each of your specific examples, but the reality is what we've built is an end-to-end service that involves some 55,000 people providing services in it and actually millions of us participating in it.

But we've just had a text saying tracing is absolutely hopeless. It doesn't work at all. That is the view coming in from someone just listening. Why do they have that view then if what you've just said is the case? I think one of the reasons why this is so challenging, well maybe two reasons. The first is that again as you said in your intro, when test and trace was set up everyone had incredibly high hopes that testing and tracing and isolating on its own would stop the course of the disease and if there's one regret I have is that those expectations were set too high. So was it problematic that the Prime Minister, if I may just break in, said it's going to be world beating? Well, as you said, that was the Prime Minister's words, but I don't think it was just him. I think all of us remember this time last year, no one thought that a vaccine was on the horizon. But do you wish he hadn't said that? It doesn't matter to lots of other people. He's

the Prime Minister. It's the phrase a lot of people remember. Yeah, of course. And I, you know, I think all of us had a lot of hope invested in test and trace a year ago. And what we've learned, and the world has learned this, every country has learned this, is that testing and tracing and isolating is a part of the response. It's not the silver bullet. It's not the only thing that means life can get back to normal. so I have considerable empathy and understanding of why people feel like quote it didn't work because it didn't do that on its own and no one in the world has been able to achieve that just through testing and tracing. Do you think you should apologise like Dominic Cummings did the senior advisor to the prime minister a couple of weeks ago for falling short that's I mean I'm not saying

about anything he said but do you think that would be a good use of your time coming on air this morning to say, we didn't do it, we over-promised and we under-delivered? Like I said, I think everyone, everyone, not just me, not just the Prime Minister, but everyone in the country wanted to believe that testing, tracing and isolating on its own would mean that we didn't have to do some of the sort of incredibly horrible and unnatural things that we've had to do to contain COVID. And so I think it's more that I think we've all learnt a lot in the course of the last year. We've learnt that the way that you fight this really difficult infectious disease is through a combination of things. It's not through one single thing.

So when people say it didn't stop successive lockdowns, you say what? I say that it played a huge role in saving lives every single day through the course of the last year. But no, it didn't single handedly stop lockdowns. And I think the single biggest learning is that it was never going to. And there isn't a country... So on that basis, do you think you need to say sorry on that? In the sense that I'm apologising for the science, that the disease is such that it looks to be impossible to be able to contain it only with testing and tracing. Seriously, that's not why I'm asking. Hang on, just for a moment. In October 2020, another major breach of data, this is not trading statistics.

Everyone will remember this described as an Excel blunder led to 48,000 people not being told that they'd been in close contact with someone who tested positive. That wasn't a few weeks after this began. That was in October last year. You also in March this year talked about 20,000 people not isolating, something I do want to ask you about in more specific detail. Maybe it was never going to do exactly as you say what people had hoped, but it just wasn't good enough, and it hasn't been good enough for the money, has it? And that's where I really do disagree, Emma. We have a testing infrastructure today that is the envy of the world.

We do more tests per head of population than any other developed country in the world. Our contact tracing service reaches more people faster than anything else that is reported. Most testing and tracing services in the world don't even report their performance in the way that we do. So I really disagree. Within the course of the last year, we launched and developed the NHS COVID-19 app that was the second largest downloaded app in the country last year. After 14 million was wasted on the first version.

It was the second largest, most downloaded app after Zoom and ahead of TikTok. And the research that's been published in Nature magazine by Oxford University and the Turing Institute shows that the app on its own between October and December last year prevented up to 600,000 infections, which would equate to roughly preventing 6,000 deaths. That's the app on its own over three months of its life. So no, I don't agree that it hasn't worked. It has definitely saved lives. And today plays a really important part in our defence against COVID. A message here. We knew that an effective test and trace would be the most effective factor to curtail the virus

and not stop lockdowns alone. New Zealand, Singapore, Taiwan, South Korea, effective test and trace have enabled them to keep COVID at bay. Another one here. I worked during last year at the Guildford Test and Trace Centre. It was so overstaffed.

We were never at full capacity. The spend was outrageous. That's from Charlie who's working. I think what I'm trying to say to you is there is a mismatch between your view of the system you've just been working across and people who've either worked in it or have got that app and turned the tracking off. Well, as I say, I was just describing how we can prove

how many lives that the app itself has saved. And in the examples, the reality is we all hoped that test and trace would mean you didn't have to have lockdowns. One of the countries that your listeners just quoted, Taiwan, has just extended their lockdown. Sadly, no test and trace system on its own in the world has been sufficient to avoid lockdowns to prevent the exponential growth of COVID. Do you know how many people, I said in March, you said 20,000 people at least were not isolating,

looking at the data you had then. Actually, I think those were Jeremy Hunt's words, not mine. I'm sorry, I believe you confirmed it, but you can clarify. Do you know when you left the role, how many people were not isolating, who were meant to be isolating? I'm thinking of this as holidays, people come back from holidays and we ask people to isolate. So since March, NHS Test and Trace has been publishing an ONS Office for National Statistics survey

asking people who've been asked to isolate how they've behaved. And what that shows is that 85% of people follow the rules and if they're asked to isolate, they do. We have a much more challenging problem, which is not about whether or not you isolate, if you're told to, it's whether you come forward in the first place. And I've been very clear through the course of the last year that I think it's hugely important that we provide enough support for people to make isolation possible. Isolating isn't an easy thing to do. I've done it myself. You know, it's emotionally difficult. It's financially challenging for many people

and practically and physically really challenging. So do you think the government let you do this role with one hand tied behind your back? Because £500 is what you're meant to be eligible for, for test and trace support payment. Three quarters of people apparently don't qualify. Or you get statutory sick pay, which is £96 a week and only a quarter of average, that's a quarter of average pay is at people's earnings. Do you think that hasn't worked, what the government has offered? This time last year, we didn't have a test and trace support payment at all. And it's one of the things that I championed and argued for throughout the year. And it's not just about money. As I've said a number of times. I think it's also about the physical, practical support that we funded through NHS Test and Trace support

for local authorities to provide support locally. Should we be doing more, both financially and practically? I suspect yes. And I think going forward... Is that a regret? Is that a regret for you? Because you had to try and get people to come forward in the first place? It's, I think with the benefit of hindsight, you know, if we look back and say knowing what we know about both the disease and how people behave and how we have to cope with the restrictions of self-isolation, this time last year I would have shouted even louder and campaigned even more strongly for more support for people to self-isolate. Not actually so that people didn't break the rules, because actually everyone's been very good, as I say, 80 to 85 percent of people following the rules. But so that people who felt slightly ill but were a bit nervous about coming forward in case it meant they'd got Covid felt safer and felt that they could do.

Did that make you feel like you were doing this, as I say, with your hand tied behind your back? I think that there were a huge number of restrictions that were in place for all of us trying to start something from scratch. I don't think I had time to think about whether one hand was tied by my back or not. If you can't get people to do it, to come forward because they're scared or they can't afford it, we're still in that position with a lot of people at the moment. That's exactly what you've just said.

It's not gone far enough. No, I think that it's the single biggest challenge for all testing, tracing and isolation systems is to build trust. So shouldn't some of that money that's been earmarked, as you say, it's not all been spent, that 37 billion, I get that testing is a variable in how many you need to do.

And I get that, you know, it's got to have that slack in the system. But shouldn't some of that money be diverted now to supporting those who are the poorest who might need to isolate? Well, and that's exactly what the Test and Trace support payment does. And as that has grown, and local authority funding that Test and Trace provides for local authority funding schemes has also grown. So you've seen over the course of the last year, more money of more, a greater proportion of the Test and Trace budget. I'm saying even more of that money. Like I said, if you look forward, and it's not my responsibility now, but I think in a world where, you know, thank goodness, such a large proportion of the adult population is double vaccinated, the incentives to isolate go down and down for all of us. And so it is more important that those

who might be at risk or might be at risk of infecting their friends and family do feel like that they can afford both practically and financially to isolate. Do you accept that some of those breaches that I talked about, even if you don't follow the news in a lot of detail, you will remember certain moments of this along the way, have, and also the fact that you confirmed this in a couple of your select committee appearances, that a lot of this was outsourced and consultants were earning £1,000 a day, some earning £6,000 a day, that a lot of people didn't have trust in the system, that you would have damaged trust with those breaches and the outsourcing? Well, firstly, I challenge the language of breaches. That's a very pejorative term.

Well, it was how it was described, data breaches. Well, they weren't data breaches. They were errors in the system that meant that data didn't flow from one part of the system to another. That's a very different breach implies that we lost people's information in a dangerous way, which we didn't do. You know, what we if we go back to the. I believe there were data breaches as well, but do carry on. I really don't think there were. But if let's go back to the context of this time last year, a service that barely existed just at the end of May, we just hit the 200,000 tests a day target. We'd only just opened up symptomatic testing to the whole population and contact tracing had been live for one week. The speed at which we built this service meant that we had to

pull on all of the resources across the nation. So, you know, the army, the NHS, local authorities, public servants from all the government departments allocated in to test and trace to help build the system, and also private sector companies and contractors. None of us, including myself, knew how long we'd be working on the project. I think you over-relied on the private sector because I have many messages here about why didn't you use more of the local authority staff with existing expertise and tracing and they should have been involved from the off?

So at the beginning of May when I joined, there were 300 people in the whole country working on health protection as part of Public Health England's health protection teams. There weren't contact tracers in any of the local authorities. One of the very first things I did was appoint Tom Reardon, Chief Executive of Leeds City Council. Tom joined me on the first weekend to make sure that we brought local authorities in. And step by step over the course of the last year, as I say, we've provided now over £2 billion worth of funding for local authorities, testing, tracing and isolation support schemes.

So I absolutely agree it's been essential to have local authorities and the private sector and the national public sector all part of this. But we've had to build something at such speed. I'd be the first to say that there were mistakes made and things weren't... What do you think the biggest mistake has been? Because if you can't say sorry, which somebody's having an issue with here, what do you think the biggest error has been that we should learn from for another time? I think that there are two really big things that we've learned

over the course of the last year. The first thing is that we didn't have the surge capability to cope with an infectious disease like this. There was no group of people to immediately allocate to manage this problem. The army, I think, employs in total 80,000 people. And within six months of operation, Test and Trace was employing 55,000 people. So we didn't have the ability to surge as a country. We didn't have either the human capability or the digital systems to be able to surge it. And, you know, I think one of the important lessons as we come out of this crisis is to make sure that doesn't happen again. And what was the other one? The other one is that I think we underestimated in the early days quite how much COVID was going

to exacerbate existing health inequalities. It's been so clear through particularly the course of the last sort of six to nine months, how COVID has struck our communities that were already struggling on a number of fronts. The huge gap in health inequalities across the country has been made much, much worse. clear this time last year and something that if you're again starting from scratch, building a system that is designed to work best for the people who historically public services reach out least well to is one of the guiding principles I think we should take forward. Is it also a regret that Matt Hancock promised all of these number of tests, hitting deadlines, the Prime Minister saying it's going to be world beating. Do you wish those men hadn't overpromised on your behalf?

Well, I think that it's a bit more nuanced than that. Setting targets that seem impossible at the time is the way that we have the amazing vaccine programme that we have. It's the way that we've got lateral flow tests. But do you think you've been hung out to dry a bit? Because you mentioned you've not read a lot of the press. I have read most of your press over the last 12 months. And it's fair to say it's rough. Why do you think you've had such a rough shakedown? I don't know. You've read it and I haven't. I've been very focused on doing the job. I think that, like I said, it was everyone wanted Test and trace to solve all of our problems. My 15 year old daughter actually came up with the best way of describing this.

We had a pretty tough time in September when we had a TV news crew camped outside our house for three weekends in a row. And my two teenage daughters were finding it quite hard. And the younger one asked the 15 year old, what's going on? Why is everyone being so horrible to mummy? And Emma said, she said, look, the world's awful at the moment. Everyone's angry and frustrated and they want things to get back to normal. And they're looking for someone to blame. And right now they seem to be blaming mummy. And no, she's trying her best, but they're just angry. Don't worry about it. And I was really rather proud of her. So, you know, I think that some of this criticism goes with taking on a really difficult, challenging job in the public eye.

And it hasn't put you off applying to be the new head of the NHS? Look, I didn't do this for the credit. I did it because I was asked by the Prime Minister in a time of crisis to serve my country. And I don't regret that for a second. I've tried my utmost to do my very best. And that's all you can ask of yourself and of your children, isn't it? Just a final thought. Message here says, if Dido Harding can't say sorry, not capable of being a public servant, if you do want to take over the NHS, I'll give you a final opportunity. Is there anything you wish to apologise for, Dido Harding? Look, I think that the idea that I'm not a politician, and I'm not here to campaign for something.

I'm simply describing the work I've done. And I'm incredibly proud of the amazing people I've worked with over the course of the last year who've saved many thousands of lives. And that's how I'd like to end this. We are getting many messages to which I'll return.

Dido Harding, thank you for your time this morning and those insights. I'll come back to some of those messages shortly. Last night, Michaela Cole won Best Actress at the BAFTA TV Awards. You may have seen it after also winning BAFTAs for writing and directing her BBC drama, I May Destroy You. The 12-part drama about a woman attempting to remember and come to terms with a sexual assault was inspired by something that happened to Cole herself. Of course, this comes not long after BAFTA was criticised for giving the actor, writer and director Noel Clarke

an Outstanding Contribution Award in April despite being aware of sexual harassment claims against him, claims Noel Clarke denies. Back to Michaela Cole, who dedicated her acting prize to the show's intimacy coordinator, Eta O'Brien, and had this to say last night. Thank you for your existence in our industry, for making the space safe, for creating physical, emotional and professional boundaries so that we

can make work about exploitation, loss of respect, about abuse of power without being exploited or abused in the process. I know what it's like to shoot without an intimacy director, the messy, embarrassing feeling for the crew, the internal devastation for the actor. Your direction was essential to my show and I believe essential for every production company that wants to make work exploring themes of consent. Ita O'Brien joins me now.

Tell us your reaction, first of all, to that. Oh, hello, Emma. I was absolutely blown away. Michaela is such an incredible artist, you know, as writer, producer, actor, director. I'm so grateful for her generosity in dedicating the BAFTA to the work of the intimacy coordination and the role of the intimacy coordinator. It was a privilege to bring her writing to life in all the beautiful nuance of all the intimate content, you know, the period sex scene, the challenging intimate content, as well as the loving moments. She is truly phenomenal. I am utterly, you know, full, full heartedly grateful to her. I bet. I bet it was quite an emotional moment. But what do you actually do on set? So the role of the intimacy coordinator, if you think of the role perhaps of a stunt coordinator,

you're going to listen to the producer and the director. What do they want? What's their image for this moment? And then putting in place a risk assessment, open communication. So you're listening to the director's vision. What do you want? What's your inspiration for this scene speaking to the actor saying right you know what the act what the director wants what are your boundaries what are your requirements regarding nudity simulated sex and touch and then we put that in place so we keep the actor personally safe so they can be artistically giving all of their skills to the acting. We choreograph the intimate content really clearly.

It is a body dance and that wasn't realised or considered. We choreograph really clearly so that means the director's vision is honoured, the writing is honoured, the actors are listened to and it allows the actor freedom to really serve that moment of intimacy and bring the best of their work. Also, a massive lockdown hit was Normal People, which I know you worked on. A lot of people talked about the best of their work. Also, a massive lockdown hit was Normal People, which I know you worked on. And a lot of people talked about watching that with their families.

It had a lot of sex in it. And I'm just now thinking about, as you say, that dance. And it is kind of amazing that that part was never thought of as being choreographed, leaving people open to all sorts of situations. That's right. I think it's obvious, someone's going to do a tango. Of course, you need a choreographer. If someone's going to throw a punch, of course, you're going to have a stunt coordinator to teach techniques.

And I think the inference was everybody is a sexual being. We're human beings. It is part of the fundamentals of who we are. And so it doesn't need someone to bring a skill. But of course, that meant that it was overlooking the fact that, one, people were embarrassed to talk about the intimate content without the professional structure. Two, there is a risk when your personal and private intimate body is at play. There's a risk of feeling anything from being awkward to harassed to feeling downright abused. And then the next thing is, of course, you know, very often people haven't even met, you know, and and, you know, how to negotiate that body dance, that rhythm. You know, you know what that the detail of this particular intimate moment is for these characters.

We don't want to see that person's personal intimate expression. We want to see them serving character. So the intimacy coordination allows all of that to be considered skills brought in and again as you can see you know really good work made and I think being so privileged and equally as with I May Destroy You normal people Lenny Abrahamson was incredible the beautiful Paul and Daisy and congratulations to Paul for his um best actor yes and also completely agree with him that that you know his dedication to Daisy because they were were both utterly, utterly incredible. But you must get moments where they can't bear each other. I mean, they're about to take their their kit off, have a snog, whatever it is.

And you must have gone home and had a laugh. You probably can't do it quite in front of people. Maybe you can. That's what's so well, you can. That's what's so lovely. Once you put everything in place,, actually it means that everybody's relaxed and that's not just the director and the actors, but also the crew. Everybody understands the process, the respect of what the actors are bringing is now really considered.

The clothes set, which is so important so that once you've choreographed, once all the lightings have been put in place, when we film the scene, there's only the absolute essential crew. And that means that everybody can go, whew, this is being dealt with openly, professionally. And it means everybody can be relaxed and have a laugh

and enjoy creating the work in the best way possible. I mean, you don't have to say it all. You're on national radio and this is slightly naughty of me, but I was just thinking if I was dating and I don't know if you are. And I said what my job was and it was an intimacy coordinator. What's it like for you telling people about your job? How do people respond? Because, you know, if I was dating you, I might be a bit like, oh, my gosh, how's this going to work? They do. They do. They do reply with interest um um but but that's what's so lovely is like through this i've been i had the opportunity to bring all of this my skills um in this profession i started off as

a musical theater dancer um which i worked with for 10 years then i trained as an actor at bristol oldwick worked as an actor for two for eight years trained as a movement director at central school of speech and drama and what's joyous to me is I'm being able to bring my 38 years of professional experience to the awareness of, you know, the actor's process, the director's process, serving the writing, you know, and then the clear choreography. And it's just an absolute joy. And to hear Michaela Cole, yeah. Paying tribute, it must be such an amazing thing for a role

that is still quite new in many ways, as you're describing. I was only thinking of also because of dating profiles today now apparently going to be including whether you've been vaccinated or not so you know how we're sort of selling ourselves is an interesting thing just another thought I finally caught up with the friends reunion over the weekend I don't know if you've seen it and I mean I loved it was so nostalgic in many ways and and I thought it was so interesting to hear that Jennifer Aniston and David Schwimmer, Ross and Rachel, were attracted to each other.

They nearly had a thing off set. And they never could, apparently, because they were with other people. And you know where I'm going with this, that they channeled it when kissing each other, when doing their scenes together. Does that ever happen? What do you make of that? It must happen. Well, again, that's what's so lovely about the role that really lifts the intimate content to a professional process. So it means that we're taking care of who you are personally so that we can check out what's OK for you and then you can really step into character.

Again, a really important part of the role is interrogating the scene with the director with the actors and then going who are these characters what's the purpose of this scene how does it push the storytelling forward what does it tell us about both those characters and both those characters in relationship so when you have that focus it helps so you can really set that out and it doesn't mean that people can't fancy each other in real life but it does help you to keep that separate or as just as you said if if someone doesn't like their co-star, then it's the same.

It means that it gives a professional structure so that everybody can get on and do their best professional job and they can then deal with their personal feelings outside of the work. Leave that far away, please. Eater's here. It's got to be professional. Just a final thought from you. It's a very serious context within which Michaela was making her statement. And I know and I can tell from how you're speaking how seriously you take this responsibility to make sure everybody feels like they are being treated with respect. with reference to women and perhaps even to younger women. Do you feel a sense of responsibility there because this hasn't been there in the past

and the stories that we're hearing? Absolutely. But I really would like to flag that I feel the last unsung or part of the industry that's not been given a voice, of course, is taking care of our young women, but it's actually taking care of both young women and young men across the industry because you know this work is about bringing a level so that once we get on set that

everybody is able to work to the best of their ability and that means being giving everybody a voice to be able to say actually I feel uncomfortable and the interesting thing is as I've been you know working on set is that it's actually it's as much the men and you know our young men our older actors as well who are get everybody is given a voice to say what they're comfortable with so I feel that's really important that it is it's just across the board bringing parity that everybody is being able to work to the top of their game be it the director the producer the DOP the first AD and the actors so that we could all create really good work. Yes. And sort of navigate what was a no man's land.

That's right. Eater O'Brien, congratulations on your recognition there, if I could put it like that, and the work. And thank you for explaining it to us today. An intimacy coordinator in light of the tribute that was paid last night at the BAFTAs. Now, we have been talking about money, your money, our money, and how it's spent. And one of the strongest arguments in support of international aid from this country are the benefits it hopes to bring to women

and children around the world. Funds are targeted at girls' education, for instance, family planning, violence prevention programmes, to name a few. But as you've been hearing on the news, there were controversial cuts to international aid announced last year in light of the pandemic, as the government put it. And today, a group of MPs, including two former Conservative Prime Ministers, Theresa May and Sir John Major, are trying to push through a vote in Parliament, which they hope will reverse the cuts. If successful, if it comes to pass, it would represent a major defeat for the government,

as dozens of Conservative MPs are apparently primed to rebel. Over the weekend, charities clubbed together to write a letter to Boris Johnson saying that the cut to foreign aid from 0.7% to 0.5% is wrong and has already caused devastation. It's estimated that temporary cuts could save close to £4 billion. I can talk now to Rose Caldwell, Chief Executive of Plan International UK, which helps women and girls specifically around the world. She, of course, wants the government to reinstate things how they were. And Ella Whelan, a journalist and commentator who has a very different view of foreign aid.

Ella, I'll come to you in just a moment. Rose, good morning to you. What would you say, if asked, about how these cuts could specifically impact women and girls? Good morning, Emma. We are very clear that the impact of the cuts disproportionately affects women and girls all around the world. You know, the government said in its own strategic vision for gender equality that will not help lift people out of poverty without gender equality.

And the impact of these cuts is likely to result in an estimated 20 million women and girls who won't be reached by programming, which includes 700,000 not receiving girls' education, even though that's a government priority, 2 million fewer women supported by humanitarian assistance, eight million women and girls supported by nutrition interventions. And we know in humanitarian settings, it's always women and girls who suffer

the most and have impacted very negatively. But sadly, and I think we're hearing through Twitter that actually it looks like the bill is not going to proceed today in Parliament, very sadly. I think there's news coming through that it might not go through. So the impact of these cuts on women and girls is really devastating. Well, we will see what happens with that. You're right to flag it may not even come to pass. But if I just look at the statement we've been given from the Foreign Office, Foreign Commonwealth and Development Office, to give its full title, the UK is fully committed to advancing gender equality, including leading globally on tackling gender based violence,

using our G7 presidency, of course, just ahead of the G7 to get world leaders to adopt our ambitious target to get 40 million girls into education. While the seismic impact of the pandemic on our economy has forced us to take tough but necessary decisions, the UK aid budget this year will still be more than £10 billion. Does that not have any truck with you? Because of course, this is also consistently, it's consistently unpopular, I should say, international aid. If you look at polls, 66% of people in 2020 support a cut. So I think there's a number of things in there, Emma. First of all, you know, the UK has been a leading donor. But it's important to say that a lot of the other countries,

the donor countries that have been affected by COVID are not cutting their aid budgets. And indeed, we're seeing Germany moving towards 0.7. At the time of a global pandemic, we can see that the pandemic itself has got a very gender-based impact. The shadow pandemic has been what's referred to particularly around violence against women and girls. We're seeing that in our own country but we're also seeing it around the world.

And now we live in a very interconnected world and now is not the time to be turning our back on people who really need our help at this time and for whom we can make a huge and significant difference. in Malawi cut, and it's exactly what you referred to as protecting, is helping against violence against women and girls. And that programme is being dramatically cut. And so girls who would have been, you know, sort of impacted by violence are not going to have anywhere to go to to seek support. OK, well, let's bring... You also talked a bit... Could I just bring in Ella at that point? Ella Whelan, good morning to you. When you hear a specific example like that, a service being cut, support system being cut, does that make

you think about the fact that this is something that needs to be overturned? I think it's very important to differentiate between the very noble and very beneficial desire for people to help others in situations of need. So, for example, you don't need a kind of PhD in international relations to know that there is lots of programmes that do good work across the world for people in need in developing nations. And in particular, humanitarian aid in a time of crisis like this pandemic, who would cut it you think you'd have to be a monster but what i have a problem with is the conflation between uh international cooperation or even sort of philanthropy you know a desire to be charitable and the system of foreign

aid you know in the uk and in other countries the way in which i think foreign aid as an into as an industry gets uh gets kind of glossed over as a kind of just us being nice to people in different countries rather than what it really is. As you look, you know, a number of years ago when Theresa May was given a speech in Cape Town when she was prime minister. But the fact that very clearly she said that foreign aid in the UK is tied to UK national interest, is tied to trade, is a political tool, a weapon, actually, that governments use when it's in relation to soft power or gaining kudos domestically, and has more to do with that, more to do with the shine it gives the armour of white Westerners than it does to actually benefit the lives of people living in, for example, Mozambique or Zimbabwe. Can't it do both?

Or the places that are the poorest. Can't it do both, Ella? Because, you know, yes, you can talk about soft and hard power and people don't have to have a master's in international relations to know what you're saying here. But isn't it the point that it can help and also give that sense of Britain being a big player in the world and doing what it needs to do? Well, I think there's a fundamental problem with the kind of

paternalistic, or some people call it the white saviour complex of Britain, needing to assert either its helping hand or its, you know, all kind of policy measures in these countries. But if you take, for example, there was a fascinating interview on Desert Island Discs last week, actually, with a woman who was the CEO of Christian Aid, her name's Amanda Kozy-Mukwashi. And she was talking, you know, the CEO of Christian Aid, someone who's not perhaps even as sceptical as me when it comes to international aid, but she was talking about the fact that there is this issue that the kind of continuation of aid as it is means that you are sort of like a carrot and a stick approach to to development and actually she used the word dignity and resilience and she said that what we need to

be doing more is thinking about how we can build or how actually not we how people who live in these countries can build resilience to not just go through another seminar on you know how to put condoms on cucumbers or you know a sex education or stuff like this but has anyone ever asked these these women, for example, what they want, what they would like to use the money for, what it is that they need to develop? And I think that that's differentiating between the kind of the people who live in these countries always being the beneficiaries of Western aid and actually them being agents of their own future. That's a very different political scope. Let me bring in Rose on that point, because I also need to mention at this point that not just what Ella is pointing out there about how aid is given out and the conversation around that, but there have been scandals that have affected development charities in recent times. Your charity, Plan International, had six cases, for instance, of sexual abuse and child exploitation by staff or associates between July 2016 and June 2017.

Other big name charities have also found themselves reacting to allegations and reports, proven reports being in the same situation. With what Ella is saying there, but also with that backdrop, has that done more harm? And actually, do you need to spend more time on fixing how you're giving aid and proving to the public that it's doing what it's meant to do in the right way. So let me pick up on a few of those things. First of all Ella talks about aid being used as a weapon and you know I think NGOs and aid agencies for many years have been very much advocating against tied aid and aid that is used for the benefit entirely of the country. I think there it can be win-win situations where it benefits, it's very beneficial for the affected populations as well as the UK. But it should be, the basis of aid should be based on where there is the need, not as a weapon or as a tool for the UK government,

but where there is a need. And much of UK aid has been delivered based on need. You talk about the system of aid, and I think everyone who works within the sector would recognise that the system of aid needs to be addressed and changed. It is evolving. This is an evolutionary process, and it is something that is really being

taken very, very seriously by the whole aid sector at the moment, how we look at, you know, the power of the Western donors and what that means and what it means for those people on the ground. But I would challenge you, Ella, in terms of this idea that we don't involve the communities at all. Plan International works very closely with the communities and has been with many of these communities for a long time and part of our program design starts with talking to the communities and speaking to them about what they need and so I think that we can paint this as a very black and white picture that communities are not involved at all, which is not true. But on the other hand, we do have to work very hard to evolve the aid system and change the aid system.

And there is recognition and, you know, all NGOs, Christian Aid, Plan International, international would be the first to sort of identify that we do need to work very closely together with donors to change the aid system. You talk about the decolonialisation or the white gaze of aid and it is something that we certainly are working very hard to make sure that we address this. Do you think, just finally in in terms of our time being, drawing to a close, do you think, the government said this was temporary, do you believe that when you say it will come back, the money will be restored?

One of the things you mentioned earlier, Emma, was having girls' education as a priority, and the government are saying girls' education is a priority, at the same time they're reducing funding to girls' education. So do I believe temporary? I'm not sure I believe temporary.

You know, when we're saying that we want girls' education, but we're reducing funding. Not a lot of belief there. Ella, do you think that this time could be used? Do you think it might be used? Do you have faith it will be used

to reflect on the way that aid is given to boost the public's support, perhaps, of it? A lot of people, of course, also in support of it, I should say. I'm actually quite pessimistic in terms of politically the way in which the aid industry is going. If you could take a specific example, for example, the UK government's committing

£225 million a year to something, an organisation called Family Planning 2020, which is linked to the UN campaign Thriving Together, which explicitly ties, talk about tying aid, ties women's reproductive health and their access to abortions and contraception and things like that to climate change activism. And it's about overpopulation. And so what it boils down to is saying we'll only give women access to these resources if they agree not to have any more babies, because, you know, we should have more Beatles and less black babies on this planet. There's a real racist undertone to a huge amount of the way in which politically foreign aid is moving. It's actually moving not towards, not further away from the white gaze, but towards this

kind of weird melding of sort of liberal desire to do something around climate change and using women as a stage army as well. So I think a lot more criticism about this as well. I think we should return to that as a whole other topic and a specific example. Thank you very much for talking to us. Hopefully we can do that. And we have been talking a great deal about what the plans are

in this country with regards to the environment ahead of COP26 later this year. Thank you to both of you. Rose Caldwell there, Chief Executive of Plan International UK, and Ella Whelan, the journalist. Thank you to you. A message here saying, Emma Barnett telling a guest that cuts to the foreign aid budget are popular

with the public. If true, why did the Conservatives make maintaining the foreign aid budget 0.7% a manifesto commitment they, brackets, obviously must believe it's popular with the electorate? Reads that question there. I'm citing polling data also to show that the difference of opinion around that.

But, again, we'll come back to it and we'll also keep you updated with what happens with that potential rebellion. Now we are in the month of June, it is Pride Month, and I'm joined now by an ambassador for Manchester Pride, the author Matt Cain, who wants to reflect on the relationship between gay men and straight female best friends. Of course, on our screens, whether it's in reality TV, Jenny and Lee on Gogglebox or Will and Grace or the designer Halston and Liza Minnelli. What is it about the dynamic of these relationships that often makes them so special?

Matt's latest book, The Secret Life of Albert Entwistle, explores the theme of a gay man looking for love who along the way establishes a number of new friendships, the majority of them with women. And we're also joined by Jill Nalda, best friend of Russell T Davies and inspiration for Jill Baxter in the Channel 4 drama It's a Sin. Welcome back to you, Jill. Good to have you back on the programme.

You were with us a few months ago with the person playing you on screen. So that was a bit of a meta moment. But Matt, why did you want to celebrate what you call this special relationship? Well, it's interesting because I actually started off, I wanted to open up a period of gay history. I had this older gay man looking for the love of his life who he hadn't seen for 50 years. And I wanted to contrast how awful things were for gay men then and how wonderful they are now. And as he was going on his journey and making all these friendships, I realised there had to be with straight women. For me, in my life, the people who stood up for me the earliest and the

longest and, you know, with the most fearsomeness were my straight female allies. And if I wanted to celebrate how far we've come as a society, then what I had to do was pay tribute to these women who'd done that and make them feel proud of their role in making my world a better place and making the world a better place for gay men in general. Jill, do you think about that in terms of the relationships you formed and the role you played? Well, I love that he says that it's, you know, us making the lives of gay men better.

And I think I would say from my own point of view that gay men have definitely made my life better i've had some fantastic relations i think it's a very special bond between us you know and i think it it works both ways it's it's a very close friendship based on a lot of different things you know i i've gay friends that are literally i consider my family so it's it's a two way thing for me, definitely. I mean, I will say here at this point, you know, massively generalising for a lot of people. But equally, you're basing this on your own experiences, aren't you as well? And Jill's also talking from her experience.

And what do you think it is about? Is there a freedom in that relationship? I think there's two things. From my point of view, when I was growing up at school and straight boys, there was this kind of fermenting of toxic masculinity and how boys should behave and play and explore who they were going to be as men. I didn't fit into that. They didn't want me. The girls didn't mind if I was femme or girly. They didn't see that as a bad thing or an insult. And they were the ones who stood up for me in the playground, the first ones I came out to, the ones I felt I could trust before I felt I could open up to other gay men because I'd been conditioned to be frightened of them. And what I found in adulthood is straight women often say to me that they feel if they're talking about more transgressive sexual desires or more adventurous sexual experiences, if they're with their straight partner or their straight female friends or their mum or their sisters,

they have to temper what they're saying. A lot of women who are sexually expressive and forthright, who've been slot shamed, what they find generally, again, we are talking in generalisations, amongst gay men is a lack of judgement. We've been ostracised for our sexuality and sexual practices. We've been made outsiders. We're much, much less likely to judge them. And I think there is a freeing thing there. Sometimes female friends have said to me when we're talking about this kind of issue,

they've said, oh, I'm with the gays now. I can relax do you know what I mean? Jill is that is that how you felt that you wasn't just unsure about that but go on no I'm just I'd love to say I was sexually progressive but I think for me it's been more like a deep sort of friendships really some somebody you can you can relate to who does who as as has already been said, I'm not judged. We don't judge gay boys. And it's a non-judgmental relationship, definitely. Although, you know, if you're going out with your gay friends for a night out, you're going to be judged on whether you've dressed up and you're looking good.

Well, I do want to get to that because I wonder what you make of that, Matt, around, you know, obviously men, gay men, straight men, whatever, can be capable of misogyny as well and holding women to some of the standards, Jill, that women don't want to be held to. And I wonder what you had to say about that, because that's the not so special part potentially of this. Yep, absolutely. I totally agree with that. We are not immune to conditioning. And I certainly think that when we are made to feel ashamed of our own effeminacy or feminine traits, that lots of gay men go through a phase of wanting to be hyper-masculine and react against that. And sometimes that can result in misogyny.

But I do think that the special relationship, the special bond always, always wins out. You know, when I was, when I started writing, I was constantly getting my work rejected from publishers saying women won't be interested in stories about gay characters. And I kept thinking, yes, they will. Don't patronise those women who've been so important in my life, you know, and I feel like, I feel like now, you know, the publishing industry finally, although interestingly, in my publisher, it's a team of women who backed my book and want to get it out there to a big audience. And they are waking up to this special bond.

To that bond. You say that's a special relationship we should focus on, not the Anglo-American one. Yes, absolutely. Lila has just texted in on that point I was just making, Jill. Nothing about the misogyny and exploitation of female friendship that prevailed on the gay scene at that time. Then writing from her own experience there, Lila, and others will be able to relate to that. What do you make of that, Jill?

What do I make of the misogyny? Yeah, it's not all rosy. No, I guess it's not all rosy. I mean, there's always going to be very, there's going to be, again, a generalisation, you know, because sometimes I think gay men have women sort of as iconic figures in the world and everything like that. So obviously, I've not come across a huge amount of misogyny in my circle, but that's not to say that it's not out there. And women are always going to be judged. I mean, you know, and I guess, you know, that's something that is improving as the years go by.

But I think that gay men have expectations of women as well, have expectations of their women friends. Matt, a final word from you about how these friendships endure, or perhaps how they've changed over the years. Does it become more difficult as life gets on? I know Jill's found them lifelong companions. How's it been for you? I do know some gay men who, when their female friends settle down, babies did feel excluded from that and sometimes the special bond would weaken around that period it didn't for me I'm very lucky but I do think actually that as gay men are allowed and we're legally allowed to get married and we're now having our own children in greater numbers we feel less excluded and look I'm getting married

in December and I couldn't imagine doing that without walking down the aisle with my best three female friends as my maids of honour. Well, congratulations in advance for that. Hopefully all of that will go ahead after the year that we have. Matt Cade, thank you to you. Jill Nalda, huge thanks to you. And thank you to all of you for your company today. We'll be back tomorrow at 10. That's all for today's Woman's Hour. Thank you so much for your time. Join us again for the next one. I'm Sarah Trelevan, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered. There was somebody out there who's faking pregnancies. I started like warning everybody. Every doula that I know.

It was fake. No pregnancy. And the deeper I dig, the more questions I unearth. How long has she been doing this? What does she have to gain from this? From CBC and the BBC World Service, The Con, Caitlin's Baby. It's a long story, settle in. Available now.