Children: Impact of International Conflict

Debate between Baroness Taylor of Stevenage and Lord Callanan

Thursday 12th September 2024 Grand Committee

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

My Lords, I start by welcoming the noble Lord, Lord Collins, to his new role. We faced each other across the Chamber on a lot of important pieces of legislation in previous Parliaments; I was personally delightedly to see his hard work in the opposition trenches rewarded with such a vital role. Hopefully, in these jobs, we will agree with each other a lot more than we did on some of the more contentious pieces of legislation.

I pay tribute both to my noble friend Lady Anelay of St Johns, for securing this vital debate, and, of course, to my noble friend Lord Ahmad, who did such a fantastic job of championing these issues while a Minister at the FCDO. It is appropriate that I am following them in this debate because I also followed them in ministerial jobs. When I first joined the Government, I followed my noble friend Lord Ahmad into transport, while my time in the Brexit trenches at DExEU were entirely the fault of my noble friend Lady Anelay, who had stepped down from the role; I followed her as a Minister of State in that department. Continuing that theme, my noble friend Lady Sugg followed me into transport as well. It underlines the importance of the issues that have been highlighted that so many ex-Ministers have chosen to come along to today’s debate and contribute.

There is not really a great deal that I can add to some of the excellent contribution we have heard today. I, too, read this Save the Children report with great interest—and not a small amount of despair as well. Many great contributions have been made today. I could have quoted everybody who spoke, I think; let me just say that I agreed with them. I highlight a few points. My noble friend Lady Anelay made an important point about the importance of holding perpetrators to account. My noble friend Lord Ahmad and the noble Baroness, Lady Goudie, spoke movingly about the devastating effects of conflict, in particular sexual violence against women and girls. The noble Lord, Lord Alton, highlighted some important points, as he so often does. He mentioned in particular the appalling abuses taking place in Ukraine at the moment; we all, I think, pray for the day when President Putin is hauled before the International Criminal Court to account for his appalling treatment of children in Ukraine.

As the report says, the numbers are massive: 468 million children were living in conflict zones in 2022 and that number, sadly, is growing steadily. I suspect that, two years later, those numbers are even higher. It comes as no surprise that Africa is the continent with the highest number of children affected by conflict—in DRC, Mali, Burkina Faso, Nigeria and Somalia—but they are also affected, of course, in other parts of the world, such as Syria, Ukraine and Yemen. We can now add Gaza and Sudan, which is the subject of a debate we will have tomorrow.

I was pleased to hear a number of noble Lords highlight in the debate on the King’s Speech that the new Government are taking forward some of the excellent work done in the FCDO previously by my noble friend Lord Ahmad and his ministerial colleagues. In the November 2023 White Paper, the previous Government committed to developing a new strategy on children in conflict. Andrew Mitchell, the then FCDO Minister of State, highlighted its importance and how this marked a step change in our commitment to the protection of children affected by conflict. In January this year, he said that officials had indeed begun work on that strategy. I look forward to hearing from the Minister about how that work is progressing. I am sure he will be looking forward to progressing it, particularly the commitment to deliver annual ministerial-level round tables with children who have been affected by armed conflicts.

[Baroness Taylor of Stevenage (Lab)]

I remind the noble Lord that the time limit is three minutes.

[Lord Callanan (Con)]

There are of course no easy solutions to this enduring tragic issue, but we, as an Opposition, certainly want to do all we can to assist the Minister and the Government to take forward this important work.