Covid-19: Repatriation of UK Nationals
Anthony Mangnall Excerpts(4 years, 7 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
I am at high risk of repeating myself on this point. I understand why the Opposition might want to probe this matter politically, but the fact is that the permanent secretary issued his correction to the Foreign Affairs Committee. He set out his position very clearly, and that was that a political decision was not taken—I repeat “not taken”—on whether to participate. We will be joining the EU procurement scheme on therapeutics, and any other scheme will be considered by the Government according to the public health requirements of the UK.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
I thank the Minister and his Foreign Office team for all the help that they have given me and my team in returning my constituents from across Totnes in south Devon to their rightful place at home. None the less, there are some lessons to be learned from this situation, and I ask the Minister to consider that the Foreign Office might provide a retrospective analysis of how we have repatriated British citizens and present that report to this House so that we can scrutinise it in future, because I think those shortcomings will need to be addressed. Added to that, should we not also be looking at the co-operation that could be had between public and private sector when it comes to commercial flights?
Nigel Adams
My hon. Friend makes a very sensible point. Every day, we learn the lessons from such a huge operation. This is something that we have never faced before. The nearest that we have come to it is the Thomas Cook repatriation, which was not too long ago—this is a point that a previous questioner asked that I did not get round to answering—so we will learn lessons from that. However, this is on an unimaginable scale. Never before have we had to repatriate this many people. More than 1.3 million people have been brought home on a commercial route. We have been working very closely with the commercial sector. A number of airlines have signed a memorandum of understanding with Government so that we can ask them to bid for charter flights. My hon. Friend raises a very good point and, no doubt, this will be something that we look at in the cold light of day.
Oral Answers to Questions
Anthony Mangnall Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Dominic Raab
I thank the hon. Gentleman. Let me say at the outset that I totally agree with him about the need to stem the flow of refugees. He mentions Lebanon; of course, Turkey has also taken 4 million refugees. The first thing to say is that we must hold the Syrian regime and the Russian Government to account for the brutality of the fighting, which is causing the refugee flows. We must do everything within our power to firm up the ceasefire and make it nationwide, and then also, of course, provide humanitarian support. The Department for International Development announced £89 million in new aid for Idlib this month. On 11 March, the RAF delivered 37 tonnes of UK aid. I was recently in Turkey talking with the Foreign Minister and President Erdoğan about the measures that we need to take to bring that terrible conflict to an end.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
The preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative remains a top Government priority. The UK is recognised as a global leader on the issue. We have committed over £46 million across 29 countries since 2012 and deployed the UK PSVI team of experts over 90 times. We are currently reassessing potential dates for the PSVI international conference in the light of developments on coronavirus, but we are committed to progressing conference ambitions of strengthening justice for survivors and holding the perpetrators of these horrific crimes to account.
Anthony Mangnall
I thank the Minister for his response. In 2019, 14 million women were subject to gender-based violence. We know that this figure rises during conflicts and crises. Will the ministerial team work with international groups and make representations at the UN later this year—presuming that the conference goes ahead—on preventing sexual violence in conflict and ensuring that we keep a firm eye on gender-based violence?
Nigel Adams
I thank my hon. Friend for his question. I know that he takes a keen interest in this area, given his previous work for Lord Hague, the former Foreign Secretary.
This is a big year for gender equality, as it includes the 25th anniversary of the Beijing declaration and platform for action, and the 20th anniversary of UN Security Council resolution 1325 on women, peace and security. The UK is proud to be a global leader in efforts to eradicate gender-based violence, and this year we will launch a new £67.5 million multi-country programme to prevent gender-based violence. We have expressed a strong interest in leading the Generation Equality action coalition on ending gender-based violence, and we will announce plans for the proposed UN General Assembly summit in due course.
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.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)
I know that my hon. Friend has been working very hard, because I have been in contact with him over the weekend on behalf of his constituents who have been affected by the outbreak. I can assure him that our consular staff in London and worldwide are working around the clock to ensure that British nationals affected by the epidemic, including those in hospital, quarantine or isolation, are safe and have access to healthcare whenever necessary. As Members know, in some cases that has included repatriation, although it remains a last resort.
Commonwealth in 2020
Anthony Mangnall Excerpts(4 years, 8 months ago)
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Lloyd Russell-Moyle (Brighton, Kemptown) (Lab/Co-op)
I thank the Minister and wish everyone a happy Commonwealth Day. I know his passion for Africa and the Commonwealth from the inquiries and trips we did together on the IDC.
As the shadow Foreign Minister covering the overseas territories, I want to mention their important role in the Commonwealth while highlighting that five of them—these are not even Commonwealth nations—do not recognise same-sex marriage, and it was this Government who, last year, rejected the recommendation of the Foreign Affairs Committee to make Orders in Council to require them to recognise same-sex marriage. If we cannot get it right for even our overseas territories, one wonders if we have any hope of persuading our Commonwealth friends. I will come on to that in a bit.
The Commonwealth is more important than ever as we leave the European Union in a world in which there is currently a grave lack of global leadership, in which the credibility and relevance of our great international institutions are under daily threat and in which human rights and the rule of law are being disregarded by dozens of Governments and deprioritised by dozens of others. In a world like that, we desperately need global leadership and co-ordinated international action, and that is what the Commonwealth should and can offer.
We desperately need a strong and united Commonwealth to demonstrate to the rest of the world why such institutions are so important. We desperately need a Commonwealth that will defend and promote respect for human rights and the rule of law. If the Commonwealth can do all those things, it will remain a vital force for good in our world and a centre point of Britain’s multilateral relationships, because we see the Commonwealth countries not simply as trading partners but as essential partners in the challenges faced by the world and by each of our nations.
With our common history and common future, the Commonwealth should be about sharing our wealth and knowledge, but we cannot deny that much of that history was not of a common wealth but of the UK taking, stealing and mistreating the countries that form most, but not all, of the current Commonwealth. Although we have impoverished those countries, we cannot change history or rewrite the past, but we can do the brave thing and apologise when we need to apologise and, where necessary, make concerted efforts to improve the lives of those who, by our colonial laws, are still discriminated against or who, by our discriminatory payments, lost out when serving to keep our country safe.
Anthony Mangnall (Totnes) (Con)
Rather than focusing on the far history, perhaps the hon. Gentleman might do better to focus on the recent history in which Commonwealth members joined together to sign up to the preventing sexual violence in conflict initiative, showing that, actually, this is an organisation that is alive and well and working together on matters of great concern.
Lloyd Russell-Moyle
I am glad the hon. Gentleman has raised recent things because, even as we promote the Commonwealth now, we must be honest about places that have gone backwards, not forwards, over the past year and more in promoting peace, democracy and human rights—places where the Commonwealth is needed even more.
We think, of course, of the current tension in India and Pakistan and the violence in Delhi over the Citizenship (Amendment) Act, but we also think of the democratic instability we have seen in Sri Lanka, a country I must have visited more than a dozen times, and in Nigeria and Kenya in recent months and years. We think of the deteriorating human rights situation in Uganda, Singapore and elsewhere, and the dreadful impunity of the regime in Cameroon. We think of the discrimination that continues against the LGBT community in far too many Commonwealth countries. That is the recent history of our Commonwealth. Of course we must celebrate some of the progress that is made, but we must not have rose-tinted glasses when Commonwealth citizens are being discriminated against around the world, their human rights are being denied them and their democratic participation is being taken away. Therefore, it was a missed opportunity when this Government failed to put the issue of LGBT rights formally on the agenda at the CHOGM in April in London. It was not only a missed opportunity, but a dereliction of our historic duty to right our wrong.
To avoid wasting another opportunity, may I ask the Minister what he has done since Britain became co-chair of the Equal Rights Coalition in June to make it a priority to persuade members of the Commonwealth to join that coalition? After all, it cannot be right that the ERC, which exists to promote human rights of the LGBT community, currently has just six of the 53 members of the Commonwealth as signatories to its principles—none of the African, Asian or Caribbean Commonwealth countries have signed. If we are not putting pressure on those other countries to join, is it any wonder that they are doing the exact opposite and seeing how far they can roll back LGBT rights in their countries, including via grotesque proposals to punish same-sex relationships with the death penalty, as in Uganda? I have visited that country a number of times and met LGBT activists there, as many Members have done. Even in countries where the laws are not so draconian, the social situation is dire. In Jamaica last year, the global LGBT+ rights all-party group met many activists. How are those activists getting the support they deserve from this Government to overturn our imposed homophobia?