Zimbabwe
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I cannot provide details of ministerial meetings; that is not to say that they have not happened—I just do not have the details of specific meetings. However, I know that at numerous international fora the then Africa Minister, as well as other Ministers including myself, have had discussions with neighbouring countries in the region where this and other issues have been raised. However, I will provide details on specific meetings with SADC after this Question.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has outlined the shocking violence perpetrated by ZANU-PF and Mnangagwa on anyone, really, who opposes the regime. The economic situation is dire, and hunger is being used against anyone who opposes the regime. Does not the visit of the South African President—the first state visit under His Majesty the King—give the Government a wonderful opportunity to work with the South African Government and talk to them about how they, and other countries in Africa, can influence together to ensure that there really will be free and fair elections next year in Zimbabwe?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Baroness has been a champion of Zimbabwe for many years, and I pay tribute to her for that. She is right to identify this upcoming visit as an opportunity. There is no doubt that South Africa, and indeed southern African countries, not least through SADC, have a particular ability to influence Zimbabwe, far more so than we can. I am sure that the topic we are discussing today will be on the agenda when the visit happens.
UN Sustainable Development Goals
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(2 years, 2 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
That is an extremely important point. It is a core part of the work we are doing, particularly in the Horn of Africa, which we discussed in the previous Question. I will not repeat all the numbers because the House will have heard them, but the right reverend Prelate makes an important point. Total annual global aid is around $170 billion, but it is estimated that the funding gap, if we are to achieve the sustainable development goals, is nearer $3.7 trillion. Even if we were all to double our aid commitments globally it would still not touch the sides. The answer therefore has to be to use other tools that Governments have access to. I mentioned trade earlier. The UK, as the fifth- or sixth-biggest economy in the world and a big, attractive market for those poorer countries, is committed to making itself more available and more accessible to those countries in a way that perhaps we should have done in the past.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, many of the people facing extreme poverty live in certain countries in Africa and many of those countries are run by corrupt neo-dictatorships, particularly Zimbabwe at the moment. What more can His Majesty’s Government do to expose the corruption in these countries, which is costing the lives of so many ordinary African people?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
The noble Baroness is right. Unfortunately, it is not just a handful of countries; a lot of countries could fit the description that she put forward. From the perspective of our international development assistance, we are very careful not to provide funding directly to Governments because we know that, where we do, a lot of that money ends up fuelling corruption and rarely reaches the projects on the ground. Our job is to try to find examples of projects that we can support outside national Governments where we can attempt to enable those communities where we are investing to prosper in a way that does not foster corruption in those countries.
EU-UK Partnership Council
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My noble friend makes a hugely important point. I reiterate that our overall aim is to renegotiate the Northern Ireland protocol to resolve the undoubtedly significant issues that people in businesses in Northern Ireland face daily. The EU has recognised that the current arrangements do not work. Any solution must be underpinned by the commitments made in the Good Friday agreement.
Smuggling: Kittens and Puppies
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(3 years ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My noble friend might well be right. If he is, I hope that that will come clear as we go through all the responses that we have had to the consultation, but based on what we know now it does not seem to be right. We are not seeing the same issues with young kittens and pregnant cats being imported. In 2020, only 17 kittens under 15 weeks and zero pregnant cats were seized and detained. Overall, the number of movements of cats into Great Britain is far lower than for dogs, making up about 9% of the total commercial movements and around 12% of the total non-commercial movements into this country.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
Is it not time that we relooked at the idea of bringing back dog licence fees, as happens in other parts of the United Kingdom, which work very successfully, with some exceptions, of course, for some people?
Zimbabwe: Human Rights Abuses
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Hoey
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they have made (1) to the African Union, and (2) to the government of South Africa, about reports of human rights abuses in Zimbabwe.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con) [V]
My Lords, we remain concerned by the human rights situation in Zimbabwe, particularly the continued targeted arrests of, violence against and abductions of journalists, civil society activists and opposition politicians. We engage regularly with the African Union and South Africa on Zimbabwe, including on human rights issues. The Foreign Secretary discussed Zimbabwe with the South African Foreign Minister in November 2020, and the Minister for Africa discussed our approach with the former African Union Peace and Security Commissioner, Smaïl Chergui, in July 2020.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
I thank the Minister for that Answer. The human rights abuses and the breakdown of the rule of law in Zimbabwe over the past few years have been devastating for the people of Zimbabwe, but also for the neighbouring countries. It has very negative economic and social consequences for them. With the very welcome focus of Her Majesty’s Government on getting value for money from overseas development aid, what is the FCDO doing to ensure that development aid, along with diplomatic engagement, encourages all members of the Southern African Development Community—SADC—to take action themselves, which would bring respect for human rights and the possibility of free and fair elections in the wonderful country of Zimbabwe?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
I pay tribute to the noble Baroness’s work on supporting democracy for the Zimbabwean people, and I recognise that she has not only been present in Zimbabwe during previous elections but has a deep love for that country. We remain extremely concerned about the human rights situation in Zimbabwe. We provide significant ODA support, but not directly via the Zimbabwean Government. Our efforts are geared towards empowering people through education and via conservation, which provides significant opportunities for tourism and jobs. As we look towards elections in 2023, much needs to be done to ensure a fair playing field. That is what we will continue to push for; it is what the Zimbabwean people deserve.
Trees
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(3 years, 10 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
The noble Lord is right that the value of trees to carbon sequestration does not begin immediately. It can take up to seven years, depending on the tree variety and the quality of the land. But our commitment to planting at least 30,000 hectares a year, or allowing the natural regeneration of up to 30,000 hectares a year, across the UK by 2025 is based on advice from the committee on climate change, which recommended that figure as a minimum to help us to reach our net-zero emissions target by 2050.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl)
My Lords, the Woodland Trust has just cancelled an order for 22,000 trees from mainland GB for Northern Ireland, and it specifically said that it is because of the ban on British soil coming from GB to Northern Ireland—I repeat, the ban on British soil going from one part of the United Kingdom to another. Does the Minister understand just how devastating the protocol will be on the biodiversity of Northern Ireland woodlands?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
The situation described by the noble Baroness makes no sense whatever, and she makes the point very clearly and powerfully. I will take her comments away and convey them to colleagues in my department and across government to see what—if anything—can be done to restore common sense to the situation that she describes.
Animal Welfare and Wildlife Crime Offences
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(3 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
This was a manifesto commitment and we have taken a key step in delivering it by launching, just a few weeks ago, a consultation on ending live animal exports for slaughtering and fattening, as well as further improvements to animal welfare in transport. That consultation closes on 28 January. The Secretary of State has made clear that we want to end live animal exports for slaughtering and fattening by the end of this year. We are currently considering the best legislative vehicles through which to deliver that.
Baroness Hoey (Non-Afl) [V]
My Lords, I very much welcome the decision to have the consultation on the banning of live exports of animals, but I understand that this will not apply to Northern Ireland. Will the Minister do all that he can, as someone who genuinely cares about animal welfare, to get the protocol changed to allow this much-needed consultation to happen in Northern Ireland as well? Or do the Government think that animals in Northern Ireland do not deserve the same welfare treatment as animals in the rest of the United Kingdom?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
The noble Baroness makes an important point. As she says, Northern Ireland will continue to follow EU legislation on animal welfare and transport for as long as the Northern Ireland protocol is in place. But I very much take her point and I will convey it to colleagues in government.
Recall of MPs Bill
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Zac Goldsmith
Even if my right hon. Friend had received not a single letter in support of recall, that would not change my own commitment to trying to secure this very minor but nevertheless meaningful reform.
The key point that I plead with Members to consider is that people can be trusted. They are not a mob of fools who are easily driven to the polling booths by manipulative media barons; they are our friends, our neighbours and our family. They can tell the difference between the rare examples of misbehaviour or betrayal so egregious that justice demands recall and the much more frequent instances of legitimate disagreements on policy or of trivial, minor foolishness. Although he spoke against recall very well last week, I think that the right hon. Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) made that point himself, albeit inadvertently, when he said that his predecessor could easily have been recalled because of her views on abortion—she represented a largely Catholic seat—but she won seven elections, and in each one her majority grew. Voters are like us: they can respect and support someone without having to agree on every single issue. Very few people in this world are motivated purely by one concern over one issue.
Kate Hoey (Vauxhall) (Lab)
The hon. Gentleman referred to what my right hon. Friend the Member for Holborn and St Pancras (Frank Dobson) said last week. Will he also consider the example of my constituency, as I was one of only two Labour MPs who voted not to ban hunting? That was an issue that could have prompted calls for a recall, but it would not have happened, because people accept that individual MPs have very strong views on individual issues.
Zac Goldsmith
The hon. Lady makes a brilliant point. She represents an urban seat where there are not many fox hunts, as far as I am aware, and the fact that she faced so little comeback from her constituents reflects the high esteem in which they hold her and it is testament to how rarely recall would be used in reality.
I want to answer the point made in an earlier intervention about conscience voting. There are times, I believe, when a betrayal might be so extreme as to merit a recall. I know that I was elected in Richmond Park and north Kingston largely because my constituents felt that I would be able to bat for them on the issue of Heathrow expansion and put up a serious fight. I made promises at the time that I would disown my own party and, if necessary, trigger a by-election to combat that enormous threat to my constituents. If I had U-turned straight after the election, having made those solemn vows to my constituents, and helped to facilitate a third runway, should I have been able to do so with impunity? I do not think so. Perhaps that is the line in the sand in the debate we are having today.
Recall of MPs Bill
Debate between Baroness Hoey and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park(10 years, 2 months ago)
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Zac Goldsmith (Richmond Park) (Con)
Of all the promises made in the heat of the expenses scandal, recall was the only one that resonated properly with voters. It was a promise that they could hold their MPs to account at all times, with a mechanism for removing an MP who had lost the confidence of a majority of their constituents. I know that some colleagues thought it was a foolish promise for the party leaders to make and that anger levels would eventually die down and people would eventually re-engage with the political process, but that misses the point. Voter turnout has been decreasing for years and years, and party membership has been plummeting to miserable levels over a very long period. Five years on from that scandal, the general confidence levels in MPs are at an all-time low—26% according to a recent survey. The expenses scandal did not start that trend; it cemented it and confirmed a prejudice that people, rightly or wrongly, already had.
I think that most hon. Members recognise that change is not just necessary but inevitable, just as it was at other times in our history when events required politics to adapt and move on. When the industrial revolution changed society beyond all recognition, the first Reform Act became inevitable. It was inevitable that women would eventually be given the right to vote, despite the resistance to it. Well, the world has changed again.
When the last big step was taken in 1969—the voting age was lowered to 18 for all men and women—the only information that people had about their MP, other than the odd scandal in the newspapers, was via very selectively crafted newsletters. Today, people will know how their Members have spoken in this debate and how they have voted at the end of it within seconds of their doing so. With 24-hour news, the internet and social media, we are in a world that is completely different, and that has happened very quickly. People have simply never had more or better information, but politics has not even begun to adjust.
People know so much more about what we are up to in this place, but that has merely compounded the sense that once they have voted there is nothing they can do to hold their MP to account. We have a system in which once an MP is selected they are inviolable until the next election. An MP could switch parties, refuse to attend Parliament at all, refuse to meet constituents in any context, systematically break each and every promise they had ever made to get voted in or even disappear off on holiday for five years, and their constituents could do absolutely nothing about it. Such a formula is no longer sustainable.
Zac Goldsmith
The very basis of the version of recall that I and, I am pleased to say, a great many colleagues will seek to bring forward next week—I will explain it in a few moments—is that it is down to the voters. If the conduct of Sinn Fein representatives is below what people expect, for that reason or perhaps others people should have the power to make such a decision for themselves; they should not require the permission of the House. I do not pretend that recall is the answer to the problems that I have identified, but it is an answer.