Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[David Rutley]

The hon. Member makes a very important point. We call out the brutal repression of the protests that have taken place, and we continue to hold Iran to account for its human rights record, including the repression of women, girls and children, as he highlights. We will, as I said, bring to bear a new sanctions regime to assist in those efforts.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

12. Whether his Department is taking diplomatic steps to help ensure that perpetrators of alleged human rights violations against the Tamil community in Sri Lanka are held to account.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

The UK is working closely with international partners on this long-standing priority, including at the UN Human Rights Council, where the UK led resolution 51/1 on Sri Lanka.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Many prominent Sri Lankans were credibly accused of war crimes against the Tamil minority, particularly towards the end of the 30-year civil war in Sri Lanka. But all these years on, they are still at large, unlike the nearly 18,000 Tamils who went missing and are still unaccounted for. In response to the SNP spokesperson, my hon. Friend the Member for Stirling (Alyn Smith), we were told earlier that evidence of war crimes would be taken seriously. How can the people of Palestine have any faith in that if the Tamil people of Sri Lanka have had the evidence sitting there for all these years and the Government are doing nothing, other than wringing their hands?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

We all take these issues very seriously. I was in Sri Lanka just a few weeks ago, and I was able to raise the need for progress on human rights, on reconciliation and, indeed, on accountability with the President of Sri Lanka during my visit.

Israel-Hamas War: Diplomacy

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 11th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

Humanitarian aid agencies are now repeatedly warning in strong and unmistakable terms that they simply cannot fulfil their mandate in Gaza. The United Nations Relief and Works Agency has said that Gaza is “hell on earth”. Over 2 million Palestinians now need food assistance. What the hell are the UK Government doing allowing people to starve to death when they could do something about it? What in God’s name makes them think it is acceptable to stand by as more than 49,000 people are injured and the hospitals that would have treated them are being bombed and starved of supplies, when they could have an influence over that? How on earth have we reached a time when 18,000 people have been slaughtered in Gaza by Government say-so and still they are not calling for a ceasefire? Do they know that thousands of people in the UK are now screaming in horror at their TV screens because they just cannot believe what they are witnessing in Gaza, and that they are stunned by the UK’s response, which is to say that Israel has the right to defend itself? All countries have the right to defend themselves, but how can killing the former Glasgow University student Dima Alhaj and her six-month-old baby ever be described as self-defence? Why did the UK abstain on the UN resolution calling for a ceasefire? The former Home Secretary called that disappointing. I call it shameful.

[Mr Mitchell]

I recognise the passion with which the hon. Lady speaks, but I have explained in some detail why the Government felt it was not possible to support the resolution. We did not oppose it; we abstained.

I urge the hon. Lady to think again, as a ceasefire is wholly implausible. It is much more sensible to try to get these humanitarian pauses, where we have seen some success. We urgently need to see more, for the reasons she set out so eloquently.

Sri Lankan Tamils and Human Rights

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), and I thank him on behalf of all my Tamil friends and colleagues for bringing this debate back here. It matters a lot to people, and I think he knows that. It would be easy to say that Sri Lanka has been debated and to move on, so I am pleased that this place will clearly be talking about this until something changes. I also pay tribute to all the familiar faces in here today. I know that their consistent commitment makes a big difference to people.

I will start by saying this:

“It is a crime against humanity that nobody has been found accountable since the war ended 12 years ago. There has been a sleight of hand performance between then and now, with successive Governments promising the international community and their own people that they will do X, Y and Z, then drawing back, then promising again, but at the end of the day progress is never made, accountability never happens, reconciliation is never credibly attempted, and peace never really comes to this beautiful island.”—[Official Report, 18 March 2021; Vol. 691, c. 563.]

I have just repeated the words that I used in a speech on this issue in March 2021. I was not being lazy; I just wanted to show that it is incredible that I can do that because, two and a half years on, the situation remains almost exactly the same. Perhaps we should not be surprised; the civil war started 40 years ago, and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk told us, the issues that led to the war date back many more years, so, in the scheme of things, the two and a half years since I last stood here and spoke in a debate about this issue is minuscule compared with the length of time the Tamil people have been waiting for justice.

That day, I went on to talk about my time in Sri Lanka, and I would like to spend a little bit of time doing that now because it is an incredible island, and it is an island that never seems to get a break. From the 30-year civil war that we are talking about today to the tsunami of 2004 that saw the deaths of an estimated 227,898 people, the flooding in 2017 that saw hundreds dead and thousands displaced, and the Easter Sunday attack in 2019 that others have spoken of, the people of Sri Lanka, as I say, never seem to get a break, yet they just get on with it.

Whether they are Tamil or Sinhala, there is a fortitude in the people of Sri Lanka; they accept the situation and make what they can of it. “Best not to look back,” one woman told me as we chatted about her new life in the US, years after her entire family were wiped out by that tsunami. I admired her greatly, and everyone must do what feels right for them, but I cannot say that I agreed with her philosophy. It is healthy to look back; it is necessary to look back, as long as there is a purpose to that, and, in the case of what we are talking about today, there is most definitely a purpose. Accountability and truth are essential to reconciliation.

I spent a very short three months in Sri Lanka during the civil war. It was 2008, and I was part of the Scottish Government-funded post-tsunami economic redevelopment programme. I have returned on several occasions, and I am in touch today with Sinhala and Tamil friends in Sri Lanka and here. In addition, I was elected to the Scottish Parliament in 2009. Because I had talked about being in Sri Lanka, many Tamil constituents got in touch with me about being unable to contact their family trapped in IDP camps.

It was around then that I realised how powerless many of us are, even when elected, when powerful people are determined to have their way. At one point, I stood at a buffet table, of all things, with the then President Mahinda Rajapaksa at his home. I told him that I was a Member of the Scottish Parliament and asked him to help me find my constituents’ loved ones in his IDP camps. I was dismissed and swept away by his people, and off he went to look for those who were happy to make small talk. I spent time in Trincomalee, with a man so afraid of what might happen to me, should I be caught reading his book about human rights abuses meted out to Tamils, that he removed the cover and replaced it with another to keep me safe.

My constituents who had sought asylum here told me more about the IDP camps: the missing people, those taken hostage—they were arrested but never tried, so in my book they are hostages—the torture, the sexual violence, the enforced disappearances and the shelling of the so-called no-fire zones. All of that was very well documented by the two-part Channel 4 documentary “Sri Lanka’s Killing Fields” in 2011.

The Tamil people cannot be expected simply to move on from that, particularly as we still do not know where all those who went missing are. I note what my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk said about the number of people who have been found, according to the high commissioner. Sixteen people have been traced alive, and three are dead—that is 19 people of the 18,000 he mentioned. All these years later, we have to find just the 17,981 who are still missing.

Those are shocking statistics, but each one represents a human being, part of a family, desperately being looked for by their loved ones, including the Mothers of the Disappeared. They cannot just move on because, as we have heard today, the worsening economic crisis in the country is leading to worsening human rights abuses. They do not have to look back to injustices, because they are still not getting justice today.

All of this is the fault of the Sri Lankan Government, although I acknowledge and agree with what has been said about our takeover of Sri Lanka. I also acknowledge that the UK Government have played a vital role as leaders of the core group on Sri Lanka in the Human Rights Council, but we cannot just pick and choose where we use our influence when it comes to human rights abuses.

I have listened in this place to Foreign Office Ministers telling us, on the one hand, “Don’t worry. It is all going to be okay. We will use our influence”—I am sure that is what we will be told today—and on the other hand, telling us, as they did in a Westminster Hall debate in 2015, that it was good news that Sirisena had become President because he was not Rajapaksa. However, Sirisena had been part of the Sri Lankan Government when the Tamils had been ruthlessly bombarded, and he subsequently made Rajapaksa Prime Minister, before handing over the presidency to the other Rajapaksa. The Rajapaksa brothers are credibly accused of a host of war crimes committed during the war and of violating international humanitarian and human rights laws. It could be said that the UK Government have been too trusting or that they are doing nowhere near enough to use that influence to safeguard the rights of Tamil people in Sri Lanka.

A couple of years ago, the then President pardoned a soldier—one of the few ever to be tried, never mind found guilty. That soldier was found guilty of killing eight Tamil civilians, including a five-year-old child and two teenagers. I can only assume that it was all part of his promise at the time to end what he called the “era of betraying war heroes”—disgraceful.

As the SNP spokesperson on international development, I support the calls from my hon. Friend the Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk and other hon. Members, and I am interested to hear the Minister’s answers to the following questions. Will he refer the issue to the UN general council with the object of the International Criminal Court or another mechanism bringing perpetrators to justice? On trade, does he agree that Sri Lanka should be removed from the enhanced framework until it meets the already agreed conditions to replace the Prevention of Terrorism Act with one that meets international standards—which is not what is happening? Will the Minister finally establish a screening policy for diplomatic meetings so that the UK is no longer giving legitimacy to individuals credibly accused of war crimes? Finally, as just about everyone has asked, will he engage the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 to apply sanctions against individuals credibly accused of involvement in mass atrocity crimes and human rights violations, as the US and Canada have done? It is the very least that the victims of this war, both living and dead, both here and there, can expect from us.

International Development White Paper

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)]

I call the Scottish National party spokesperson.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

The Minister has consulted widely, and he truly has a refreshingly collaborative cross-party approach. We in the SNP broadly welcome the tone of it and some of the detail around mutual respect, listening to local partners, the recognition of civil society and the potential role of diaspora communities. However, the Minister will not be surprised that we want him to go further, and I will list a few of the things I would like to hear more about. SNP colleagues will have more to add on that.

The first and probably the most important thing is the fact that there is no concrete recommitment to 0.7%, as recommended by the International Development Committee. In the entire document of 154 pages, there is one mention of 0.7%, where the White Paper states that the Government will recommit to it

“once the fiscal situation allows.”

If the fiscal situation currently allows for tax cuts, I would say that that moment has arrived. The new Foreign Secretary was instrumental in getting us to 0.7% in the first place, so I hope that he and the Minister will expedite that intention.

Secondly, there is no recommitment to the restoration of programmes that have been cut since 2021, including in Yemen, Syria, Somalia and South Sudan, all of which had cuts of more than 50%, taking several million pounds of their support away. Those nations are all suffering significant repercussions from the climate crisis and the fallout from conflict.

Although I am pleased that women and girls and gender equality are to be put at the centre of bilateral funding, stakeholders have said to me this morning that it is short of the transformative approach espoused by others, including the Scottish Government. Let us not forget that the cuts I just mentioned extended to girls’ education programmes, which is estimated to have resulted in 700,000 fewer girls receiving an education. That is one of the greatest scandals of our lifetime.

Finally, I was surprised that there was nothing in the White Paper about public perception of international aid and how we can challenge and change it. I have my own thoughts on that, but if most right-thinking people understood the role that their Government and their predecessors had played in some of these countries over centuries, and the ongoing legacy of that, they would understand that we have moral obligations. I know the Minister agrees, so I would appreciate his assurance that the omission of that point was simply an oversight. I look forward to continuing with the collaborative approach that he has brought to the role.

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her party’s collaboration and for the tone and content of what she said. She mentioned that the 0.7% figure does not feature extensively in the White Paper, but the White Paper is about doing development in a different way. We are ratcheting in, through these new mechanisms, billions and billions of pounds, which makes a huge difference. In many ways, it dwarfs the difference between the 0.51% or 0.52% that we are spending at the moment, and the 0.7%. She will have seen at the time of the autumn statement last year that the Treasury estimate of when the two fiscal tests would be satisfied was 2028-29—in March, it was 2027-28. All of us hope that the two tests will be satisfied as soon as possible. As far as I am aware, there is no difference between the policy of the Government and that of the official Opposition on the restoration of the 0.7% target. She talked about cuts in programmes, but the White Paper explains how many of the programmes will be increased. She specifically mentions South Sudan. As the budget is now in much better shape, next year the bilateral programme spending in South Sudan will increase from £47.9 million to £110 million, which is an increase of 130%. The Kenyan bilateral programme spending will increase by 225% and the Jordanian one will increase by 130%. So we are now able to do more through our bilateral programmes. She asked in which areas we would be specifically restoring funding where cuts had been made; she will see in the White Paper that the International Citizen Service is set to return and our aid match will increase. As for the humanitarian work we will do next year, we expect to spend £1 billion on humanitarian relief, plus we have the new resilience and adaptation fund, which will produce an extra 15% on that. The White Paper is long and to many of us it is a most exciting read. A short form is available—I have a copy here—as I mentioned. Thanks to the Richard Curtis team, it is also an excellent read. She chides me for not having made the point about civil society and the platform, but I am delighted to tell her that although I did not mention it in the statement, it is in there; UKDev—UK International Development—is a platform to achieve precisely what she said needs to be achieved in that bridge between civil society and Government and state work.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Leo Docherty]

We take this extremely seriously. We have urged all parties to return to the negotiating table and to reopen the Lachin corridor. I have spoken directly to the Foreign Ministers of both nations about this. Of course, we are very pleased that we have provided £1 million of humanitarian assistance to the International Committee of the Red Cross following the 2020 conflict.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

13. What steps his Department is taking in response to the emergency situation in Sudan.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (James Cleverly)]

The long-term viability of Sudan relies of course on a permanent end to the conflict. In addition to undertaking the longest, largest evacuation mission of any western nation—bringing more than 2,300 people out of Sudan—we continue to push for a permanent end to the conflict and a resumption of civilian rule, and we will continue to work with the countries in the region and beyond to pursue that. The Minister of State with responsibility for Africa, my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell), will make a fuller statement to the House later today.

[Anne McLaughlin]

Earlier today, I spoke to someone from the Sudanese community in Scotland, who are all desperately worried. She was one of the organisers of an event at the weekend raising money for the Sudan Doctors Union in the UK. They will use that money to funnel much-needed medical supplies directly to the doctors union in Sudan, where, amid the violence, an alarming 75% of hospitals are currently closed. She wanted me to ask this: what will the Government do, and when, to get food, water and medicine to Sudan, and how can we ensure that it actually gets to people given that supply chains from Khartoum have all but broken down?

[James Cleverly]

I commend, through the hon. Lady, the actions of her constituent. She makes an important point about the difficulties in getting humanitarian aid to people in the midst of conflict. That is why we have called—both directly with military leaders in Sudan and via organisations and neighbouring countries in the region—for a permanent cessation of violence. We will, of course, add to the humanitarian support that we already give Sudan, and we will do so in close co-ordination with organisations such as the United Nations World Food Programme and with other donations from around the world.

Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response: International Agreement

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

There is a need for reflection and scrutiny of the covid-19 pandemic, and we need to understand the plans for any future pandemics, but we need an international approach, and the SNP fully supports this WHO agreement.

The SNP has supported global co-operation and co-ordination throughout the coronavirus pandemic. It is only when the world is safe from covid-19 that any of us are truly safe. Only by working together and embracing global co-operation, not competition, can we tackle global crises such as climate change and pandemics. The covid-19 pandemic has laid bare the importance of strong, global public health infrastructure and how quickly healthcare provision can break down if the basics of medicines, tracking, treatment and other resources are not available. As others have said, international collaboration is the best way to avert and handle future pandemics. The world is not safe until all populations are safeguarded, wherever they are in the world.

I understand the principle behind the petition. I appreciate that people want to be able to hold their Government to account, and we must be able to scrutinise Governments. But there appears to be some misunder-standing around the WHO’s work and how it interacts with Governments. I have done a bit of reading and have listened to the reasons given by those who oppose this potential treaty, and they often have concerns that the WHO would be running health policy for all countries who sign up to it. But those working on drafting the treaty have already included sovereignty as one of its guiding principles and rights. The latest draft of the treaty from 1 February 2023 starts by:

“Reaffirming the principle of sovereignty of States Parties in addressing public health matters, notably pandemic prevention, preparedness, response and health systems recovery”.

There are no proposals to change that, and the healthcare policy, even in a pandemic, would remain entirely a matter for sovereign nations to decide. The World Health Organisation would be able to make recommendations once a global emergency is declared, but they would just be recommendations. Contrary to what others have said, they would be non-binding. The treaty would not require Governments to act on WHO instructions, nor would it require anyone to sacrifice sovereignty. Rather, it would enable Governments to plan together, detect pathogens more quickly, share data more broadly and respond more effectively to the next pandemic.

Those concerned about the impact of the WHO’s involvement are perhaps unaware, or have forgotten, that the UK already implements the WHO’s international health regulations, or IHR. Those regulations provide a framework that defines countries’ rights and obligations in handling public health events and emergencies that have the potential to cross borders. The regulations have been in place in some form since 1969, and the latest regulations have been in operation since 2007, but this has not meant a loss of individual nations’ control over health policy.

On the international stage, the SNP will always support measures to improve global public health. Those include reversing the damaging aid cuts by the UK Government—specifically, in this context, those inflicted on health and wellbeing projects.

[Sir Christopher Chope]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Anne McLaughlin]

No, I will not.

Official development assistance has been cut from 0.7% to 0.5% of gross national income, creating a £4.6 billion funding black hole compared with 2019 levels, and health and wellbeing programme funding has been absolutely slashed. As part of their wider international development pattern, the UK Government are cutting funding for conflict resolution projects at a time of renewed war, cutting health and medical funding in the aftermath of a global pandemic, and cutting food programmes during a time of global food insecurity. All of this is morally reprehensible.

It is positive, of course, that the UK Government are supporting the treaty, but it is important to remember that despite the pressing need for a global, collective response to health crises, the UK Government are repeatedly falling short of the mark and reneging on their pledges. It is morally and pragmatically indefensible that the UK Government should continue to actively jeopardise the lives and wellbeing of the world’s poorest and most vulnerable. With the Government maintaining the ODA budget at below 0.7% of GNI, there is no other way to describe what they are doing.

Along with supporting the treaty, the SNP is calling on the UK Government to reinstate the aid budget to 0.7% of GNI as an urgent priority, ensure that aid spending on health programmes and projects around the world is increased to pre-covid-19 pandemic and pre-UK aid cut levels, and ringfence the overseas aid budget for spending abroad, to ensure that the aid budget is not being spent here in the UK on refugee and asylum support. The Government must also establish a much-improved, stand-alone Home Office model that better supports refugees and asylum seekers.

The SNP believes that referenda are essential to establish public consent on issues concerning constitutional make-up and sovereignty, not on every issue that someone might disagree with. The treaty would have absolutely no effect whatever on the UK’s constitutional function and sovereignty, and we are therefore of the firm belief that it does not warrant a referendum.

[Andrew Bridgen]

Will the hon. Lady give way?

[Anne McLaughlin]

No.

I was certainly sympathetic when the hon. Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) lamented the terrible situation whereby the UK might be unable to make its own decisions if it is outvoted by other countries. Imagine! However, as the hon. Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) said, the UK is a leading member of the WHO and a primary architect of the treaty, so that is not what is happening here. If it were, however, what level of hypocrisy would it take to think that this one issue deserves a referendum, but the unresolved issue of Scotland’s independence does not?

The final outcome for consideration on this prospective treaty is expected to be presented to the 77th World Health Assembly in May 2024. Scotland stands ready to play our part in international efforts to collaborate and co-operate—not compete—on pandemic preparedness, awareness responses and collective prevention, so we do not support the petition.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 21st June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I utterly condemn the appalling actions of the Taliban in reversing women’s and girls’ rights. We are doing all we can together with our international counterparts, including hosting a pledging conference to secure more support for the people of Afghanistan. As I have said, we are restoring the women’s and girls’ budget back to £745 million a year, and we are also ensuring that the humanitarian budget is greater so that we can tackle these issues around the world.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

T1. If she will make a statement on her departmental responsibilities.

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

This Thursday I will be heading to Kigali for the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. In a world where freedom and sovereignty are being threatened by aggressors, the Commonwealth is more important than ever. It represents a third of the world’s population and about 30% of the votes at the United Nations. The British Government will be backing Kamina Johnson Smith, the Jamaican Foreign Minister, as the new Secretary-General to ensure that the Commonwealth delivers for all its members in areas such as trade, investment and defending democracy.

[Anne McLaughlin]

In answer to an earlier question about Sri Lanka, the Under-Secretary, the hon. Member for Chelmsford (Vicky Ford), said that she would continue to lobby the Sri Lankan Government, but that Government, and their military, are populated in part by people who are credibly accused of war crimes in a civil war that ended more than 10 years ago. The Americans thought that there was enough evidence to impose economic sanctions on some of those individuals. Is lobbying really the best that she can do?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Vicky Ford)]

On Sri Lanka, let me start by absolutely emphasising again that violence against peaceful protesters is unacceptable. We absolutely condemn the violence we see happening at the moment and we are urging everybody towards calm. We will continue to work to make sure that we support the country through funding from our conflict, stability and security fund, which has supported peacebuilding, and we continue to respect the independence of the prosecutor when it comes to investigating war crimes of the past.

Westminster Foundation for Democracy: Funding

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairwomanship, Dr Huq. Many believe that Putin felt emboldened to act in Ukraine after the Taliban took over Afghanistan last August. That is why now is not the time to cut the support that we give to developing democracies. When one collapses, it emboldens those who have no interest in democracy, and there is a domino effect. We need to double down and reinforce the incredible work that the Westminster Foundation for Democracy has done in the last 30 years, not turn our backs on it, making the last three decades meaningless.

As a WFD consultant when I was not an MP, I spent some time in the Gambia, working to strengthen accountability and democracy, and to increase the number of women, young people and people with disabilities in elected office. Ten of the 11 political parties had come together behind one presidential candidate to oust the human rights-abusing dictator of 22 years. That, in itself, was incredible, as was the fact that they were successful. Unfortunately, the new President got a taste for the lifestyle and decided to renege on the agreement to stand aside after three years. The Opposition parties and numerous human rights organisations are clear that they are not accepting that; they will fight the upcoming elections in the Gambia on that basis. The work that the Westminster Foundation for Democracy did with all those parties has contributed to their determination to ensure a fully-fledged democracy in the Gambia.

The WFD’s in-country rep, Madi Jobarteh, is a shining light in the Gambia, as are so many others who I have met in countries across the globe, including Dinesh Wagle, who is the in-country rep in Nepal. I did a piece of work in Nepal, and the thing about the WFD is that we continue those relationships. Dinesh has brought parliamentarians over here and he is bringing them again in two weeks’ time, not just to Westminster but to my constituency office in Glasgow. The WFD deserves our continuing support. As was said by the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), who I congratulate on securing this debate, they must be allowed to keep tending those gardens.

I pay tribute to Emma Armshaw, who is the SNP WFD’s head of office—she is with us today. She has certainly kept me busy over the years, but I am exhausted just watching her energy and commitment to the distinct programmes that the SNP office runs. I have been fortunate enough to work with Emma and Ra’edat—the Arab Women Parliamentarians Network for Equality. I was very privileged to engage with some formidable women as they came together in Beirut to talk about violence against women in politics. I wish I had time to say more, but for now I will express my continuing solidarity with them, and with the Women’s Parliamentary Caucus of Malawi, who I also spent some time with through the SNP WFD office.

Those are but two of our projects, and they both demonstrate the SNP’s manifesto commitment to pursuing a feminist foreign policy. The WFD has supported around 600 women parliamentarians across the world; I think I have met most of them. I am very proud of Emma, Madi and Dinesh. I am proud of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy—and, actually, of the UK Foreign Office for setting the foundation up and funding the work done. However, the SNP office alone has had cuts of nearly £100,000 in recent years and the WFD is now looking at further cuts of £1.4 million.

Regardless of the governing party, the WFD’s grants have always been a fraction of those provided to counterparts in other countries, representing perhaps 1% of US funding and 5% of Germany’s funding over the last 20 years. This £1.4 million represents 21% of core funding, so it is massive to the WFD but miniscule to the Government. If the Government had not written off £4.3 billion in fraudulent covid payments, they could have afforded to maintain this budget 3,071 times over.

There is no excuse. I implore the Government to think again. They cannot just keep talking about Britain being the bastion of democracy; they have to walk the walk—that does not mean finding the money, because it is already there, but parting with it. I implore the Minister not to let this wonderful organisation slip through our fingers. It is something we can all be proud of and unite behind.

Sri Lanka

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Thursday 18th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP) [V]]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh) on a speech that I know will have moved many of my friends here and in Sri Lanka, as it did me. She and others in this debate have been good and consistent friends to those campaigning for truth, justice and accountability in Sri Lanka.

I will not repeat all that we have heard about what happened during the 30 year-long war. Instead, I will focus on what has or has not happened since. It is a crime against humanity that nobody has been found accountable since the war ended 12 years ago. There has been a sleight of hand performance between then and now, with successive Governments promising the international community and their own people that they will do X, Y and Z, then drawing back, then promising again, but at the end of the day progress is never made, accountability never happens, reconciliation is never credibly attempted, and peace never really comes to this beautiful island.

I know exactly how beautiful Sri Lanka and its people are because I lived and worked in Galle on the south coast for a short time during the civil war. I cannot claim to have suffered because of it, but I certainly met many people who were suffering and heard stories and rumours of what was going on at the time. It was in the years afterwards, however, when I returned just after the war and was finally able to travel to the north and on two further visits, that I heard at first hand what had happened. People were still frightened. In fact, one man gave me a copy of the book that he had written about his account of abuses against the Tamil community. He was so afraid of what might happen to me, should I be caught reading it, that he removed the cover and replaced it with another.

It was on those visits that I made in the years after the war that I got a clearer picture of what had happened, and it was from my constituents as a Member of the Scottish Parliament from 2009 to 2011, from friends who stayed on to help rebuild Sri Lanka and from the people in Sri Lanka I have kept in touch with for the last 13 years that I got to understand more about what happened—about the internally displaced people camps, the missing people, the torture, the sexual violence and the shelling of so-called no-fire zones.

The reason for today’s debate is to urge the UK Government to do more. The Sirisena Government of 2015, about whom I was somewhat cynical, did co-sponsor the UN Human Rights Council resolution, and it was hoped that this would encourage further investigations into civil war crimes. To an extent it did, in that it established institutions with the functions of addressing the impact of the war, but not much more happened and the operation of these institutions has been hampered by successive Governments.

I will also acknowledge that the UK Government have played a vital role as leaders of the core group on Sri Lanka within the Human Rights Council, but it is clear now in which direction the Sri Lankan Government are heading, and the UK Government must step up their commitment to reconciliation, accountability and human rights. Separation of powers and the independence of the judiciary have been grossly undermined by amendments to the constitution. I believe the 20th amendment, which removes almost every check on the executive powers of the President, to be the most significant signal that there is no respect for the rule of law. Donald Trump is an amateur compared with this guy.

The new Government are led by President Gotabaya Rajapaksa, who was the Defence Secretary in the final throes of the war. The President’s brother, Mahinda Rajapaksa, the President at the time of the civil war, has been appointed Prime Minister, and we have heard about the nine other family members holding senior positions in that Government. The Rajapaksa brothers are credibly accused of a host of crimes during the war, and of violating international humanitarian and human rights law, yet there they are, President and Prime Minister of Sri Lanka, with all the checks and balances removed. They have consistently blocked, undermined and obstructed investigations and court cases. The missing are still missing. As we have heard, the President recently pardoned a soldier—one of the few ever to be tried, let alone found guilty. The soldier was guilty of the killing of eight Tamil civilians, including a five-year-old child and two teenagers. I can only assume that was all part of his promise to end what he calls the

“era of betraying war heroes”.

As an MSP, I met two teenage girls living in Glasgow. They were Tamils who had sought asylum because, as children, they had watched their father shot to death in front of them by a Sri Lankan army soldier. He made them watch as he put a bullet through their dad’s brain. Should that soldier be tried, or should he be hailed as a war hero, while the world looks on, simply shrugging its shoulders?

I back the calls on the UK Government from previous speakers and the Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice, and I will reiterate just a few of those. In terms of trade, Sri Lanka should be removed from enhanced framework level until it meets the conditions set and agreed to repeal the Prevention of Terrorism Act—an Act that allows arbitrary detention and strips the rights to due process for those detained. Their armed forces need to stop training their army until they satisfy the conditions, set and agreed to, on human rights. The Minister needs to establish a screening policy for diplomatic meetings, so that the UK is no longer giving legitimacy to individuals critically accused of war crimes.

Finally, I would suggest that we engage the Global Human Rights Sanctions Regulations 2020 to apply sanctions against individuals credibly accused of involvement in mass atrocities. Shavendra Silva would be a start. It is the very least the victims of this war, both living and dead, both here and there, can expect from us.

Oral Answers to Questions

Anne McLaughlin Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

As my hon. Friend will know, Iran is already subject to a wide range of sanctions. She rightly raised the issue of systemic non-compliance with the JCPOA, and I have been working on that with my French and German counterparts. We triggered the dispute resolution mechanism, we will hold Iran to account, and, above all, we will make sure that it can never acquire a nuclear weapon. I made all those points very clearly to Foreign Minister Zarif yesterday.

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

T6. In 2016, President Adama Barrow gave hope to Gambians across the world when he was democratically elected, ending the dictatorship of President Jammeh and 22 years of human rights abuses. Now he himself is in danger of following suit. At the last questions session, the Minister told me that he was monitoring the situation. May I have an update, please?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (James Duddridge)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her interest in Gambia. We were very optimistic about it when it rejoined the Commonwealth. I have visited the country outside my ministerial roles, and I look forward to talking to our high commissioner within the week. I will raise these issues again and will update the hon. Lady, but we expect all Commonwealth members to uphold the best of standards.