Official Development Assistance

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Thursday 26th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, my right honourable friends the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary have both been in touch with incoming Biden Administration on these important priorities.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, I, too, add my dismay about the resignation of the noble Baroness, Lady Sugg. Does the Minister agree with the World Bank that the provision of sexual and reproductive health and family planning services alongside girls’ education is the most effective intervention we can make in developing countries? Will he, therefore, ensure that, despite the reduction in overseas aid, the money currently donated for those services will remain unchanged and will not be reduced proportionately?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, on that very issue, as the noble Baroness will know, I articulated very strongly for us to sustain our support for this important priority. As the noble Baroness may be aware, between April 2015 and March 2020, we reached an average of 25.3 million women and girls accessing modern methods of family planning per year. This remains an important priority, and, as the lead on PSVI in particular, I say that this remains very much in my policy and planning.

Sustainable Development Goals

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Thursday 12th November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]]

My Lords, I agree with my noble friend that culture is an important export, of which the UK is very proud, and we will continue to support culture wherever we are able to.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister said yesterday that girls’ education is the top priority for our overseas aid but girls cannot stay in education if they are married off early with no access to contraception because they then spend the rest of their lives having more and more babies. Surely strengthening the availability of family planning and sexual and reproductive health services must be the top priority for overseas aid to achieve the sustainable development goals, especially during the pandemic.

[Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]]

Girls’ education is indeed a key priority for the FCDO but so is continuing our support for sexual and reproductive health and rights. We are the world’s second-largest global bilateral donor on family planning. I agree with the noble Baroness that we must ensure that girls and women have access to family planning so that they can continue their education, contribute to the economy and decide how and when to have children and how many to have.

Jammu and Kashmir: Human Rights

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Monday 2nd November 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the United Kingdom Government are clear. We have a constructive and strong relationship with India which allows us to raise candidly and privately issues of human rights abuses, wherever they may occur, or human rights concerns we may have. As I have said, any allegation of human rights abuses must be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently. We make that point to the Indian authorities.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, will the Minister explain why we immediately supported sanctions against Russia when it annexed the Crimea, even though 97% of the people of Crimea regarded themselves as Russian and had supported Russia in its annexation, yet no action has been taken since India’s revocation of Jammu and Kashmir’s special status? It has imposed total lockdown on the majority Muslim population and thousands, as we have heard, have been taken prisoner and many tortured. Can the Minister please explain why we behaved differently?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The issue was raised by the noble Baroness herself; one is a revocation of a constitutional item and the other is an annexation of a territory. They are two very different legal positions. We continue to raise the situation in Indian-administered Kashmir with the Indian authorities.

Afghanistan

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Thursday 15th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The noble Baroness raises two important points. We of course lead on anti-corruption in the context of humanitarian support around the world, and Afghanistan is no exception. Particular mechanisms in the programmes ensure that corruption is tackled, and those who seek to cause disruption to those processes are fully held to account. The UK National Crime Agency, for example, works very closely to build Afghani capacity. On the pledging conference, which takes place in November, we recognise the need to continue to support programmes in Afghanistan, but to do so for every agency and every person in a secure manner which also ensures that every pound that is pledged and delivered goes to the purpose for which it is intended.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister will know that in Afghanistan there is a high prevalence of child marriage. A third of girls marry before the age of 18, some as young as 12, which brings physical and mental consequences and loss of education. What support can the Government realistically give the Government of Afghanistan to help eliminate that problem?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

The noble Baroness is quite right to raise these issues. As Minister for Afghanistan, this is a central concern for me, particularly with the Afghan peace talks under way—although they have stalled. I assure her that these issues remain the key priority in the support and the training we give through the schools and education programme, and the Girls’ Education Challenge fund. We continue to prioritise this as we move through the current talks and for future programmes. Child marriage is of course not unique to Afghanistan, but is found in other parts of the world. Education and education for girls remain essential to tackling it.

Protecting Civilians in Armed Conflict

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Monday 12th October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My noble friend has raised an important point. As she will know from her own time as Minister of State at the Foreign Office, the annual report on Children and Armed Conflict from the UN Secretary-General has highlighted more than 25,000 UN-verified grave violations against children. I am therefore proud of the fact that the UK is the largest single financial contributor to the Office of the UN Special Representative, SRSG Virginia Gamba, who I have worked with very closely. I can assure my noble friend that we continue to work on this as a key priority in protecting civilians in armed conflict.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl) [V]]

My Lords, the report states that the United Kingdom will tackle the climate of impunity around conflict-related sexual violence. Can the Minister confirm that this will include the prosecution of perpetrators and the provision of safe abortion services for victims in conflict zones, whatever the national law in that country stipulates?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Baroness raises an important point. On her second point about sexual and reproductive health and support for women, particularly in conflict zones, the United Kingdom has been very clear indeed. When the latest PSVI resolution was passed, I made it very clear in support of the resolution that the absence of that element was a major omission from the resolution. Nevertheless, let me assure her that whether it is within the conflict zone itself or through the international courts, we shall ensure that the perpetrators of sexual violence are held to account.

Israel and Palestine: United States’ Proposals for Peace

Baroness Tonge Excerpts

Thursday 27th February 2020 Lords Chamber

Moved by

[Baroness Tonge]

To move that this House takes note of the United States’ proposals for peace between Israelis and Palestinians, announced on 28 January.

[Baroness Tonge (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I am very pleased that we have the opportunity to air our views on this matter. I am sorry that it is in what I call the graveyard slot of the week but there it is. That is not my fault; I suspect it is down to the Government Whips but, anyway, I am very grateful that we are having this debate.

Many have dismissed the proposals as yet another plan in the decades-old series of talks which have never produced any benefit for the indigenous people of Palestine but have served as a smokescreen for the relentless expansion of Israel into Palestinian lands, against international law and against United Nations Security Council resolutions. But we have to take the plan seriously so let us look at it, while remembering that years ago, the PLO had already accepted a state on only 22% of the land designated by the original United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine.

This plan consolidates a string of land islands, with more to come—many call them Bantustans—which have been created by the relentless expansion of Israeli settlements into the West Bank, cutting off Palestinian communities from each other. As compensation for the land taken, Israel proposes that the Palestinians should have a patch of desert land near the Egyptian border—a hugely generous gesture. They are promised that roads and bridges, underground and overground, will link these Bantustans and make sure that Israelis do not ever have to come into contact with Palestinians. Many people have described that as apartheid.

I do not apologise for mentioning the two words Bantustans and apartheid because today, as anyone who is a Guardian reader may have seen, there is a letter in it from 50 ex-Ministers and leaders in Europe and across the world, describing the plan as similar to South African apartheid. It is not just me but those people, who include Douglas Alexander, who used to be the Secretary of State for International Development, Ben Bradshaw and Alan Duncan, who are both still in Parliament, the noble Lords, Lord Hain and Lord Patten, who are in this House. I recommend that your Lordships all look at this letter because they have more authority than I will ever have. Who else? There is Jack Straw, our former Foreign Secretary, and the noble Baroness, Lady Warsi, another Member of this House. They are all past Ministers; looking now at the Minister sitting in his place, I hope that he will have similar sentiments when he is a past Minister, even if he cannot have them now. I am only teasing.

East Jerusalem will stay in the hands of Israel, and the Palestinians are told to make their capital in Abu Dis. That is a village just outside the barrier wall, of course, with no access whatever to East Jerusalem or the mosque. Nothing really has changed from the present situation and in case some of your Lordships are happy for the Palestinians to have their own defined borders at last—never mind it looking like a Swiss cheese, as someone once described it—we must add that the most important part of this derogatory offer is that Israel will control all security, all Palestinian territorial waters, all airspace and all the crossings between Palestine and Israel. Palestinians will have no sovereignty.

Hamas, of course, is blamed for almost everything. Last night it was pointed out to me by a colleague that in the 181 pages of the so-called plan for peace and prosperity, Hamas is mentioned 181 times. There is an obsession with Hamas. Nothing is suggested to stop the suffering of the people of Gaza—the slow starvation, deaths, mutilations and misery of the people there, who are mostly refugees themselves—until Gaza is, in the plan’s words, “demilitarised” of the few weapons it manages to smuggle in or make. We know that cannot happen until the blockade is lifted, and the Israeli Government know that.

There is no return for refugees—ever—and no compensation. Many of them have been living in camps on the West Bank, in Gaza and all over the Middle East, including in Syria, where I visited them on one occasion, and Lebanon. All over the Middle East, there are millions of people who have been living in camps for decades, waiting to go home. The plan, in effect, dissolves refugees as a problem; they are not to be considered. UNRWA is to be abolished—it is already starved of funds by the USA—and the Palestinian state, such as it is, and surrounding Arab states will have to find a solution for refugees and their camps. Over 7 million people are, in effect, being ignored; they do not exist, they do not matter. If this plan were ever implemented, there would still be—and the Israeli people need to realise this—a majority of Palestinian people living between the River Jordan and the sea. I shudder to think what will follow. I wonder what other plans Netanyahu has for the future.

The heralded economic plan, which is given much space in the document—I think more than half the document is devoted to it—and its assumed investment from other countries cannot work while Palestine is under occupation. This plan is for continuing occupation; whatever else can be said about it, the people will not have any freedom of movement or freedom for goods. However its promoters try to dress it up, an economic plan cannot work in this situation.

Is it yet another plan that will gather dust, with its failure no doubt blamed on the Palestinians? I am sure that someone in this Chamber—I am not looking at anyone in particular—is planning to say that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity but neither does Israel miss an opportunity to betray an agreement. It has done it many times. It simply cannot be trusted. The Palestinian leaders were not consulted about this before its publication, and neither was anyone else for that matter—we were not consulted in this country. It is just like the Balfour Declaration, in fact: we did that 100 years ago without consulting anybody. No doubt the Palestinians were rather put off by the eviction of the Palestinian delegation from Washington a couple of years ago and the relocation of the US embassy to East Jerusalem. It is not a very encouraging start to a peace and prosperity plan for the country.

There is still no recognition of Palestine as a sovereign state, and yet we are all expected to recognise Israel as a state even though we do not know what that country’s borders are. Let me be clear: I recognise the statehood and the right to exist of Israel and Palestine within agreed borders for both countries—as I have always hoped, on the 1967 peace line. When will our Government recognise the state of Palestine? It is such an important thing for them to do. What is their reaction to the publicised letter from some noble Lords that Palestine cannot refer Israel to the International Criminal Court because it is not a state? Where are the noble Lords, Lord Pickles and Lord Polak, by the way? They are not present, which is a bit disappointing because I was hoping to hear from them. Are they not interested? Do the Government subscribe to this view? Is the Minister acquainted with the Montevideo Convention on the Rights and Duties of States, which has long been accepted in international law and under which Palestine certainly qualifies as a state?

Whenever I am asked to talk about Palestine—it happens an awful lot—the word “humiliation” always comes to mind. For decades, the Palestinian people have been humiliated by the actions of Israel and its forces occupying their land. They have been humiliated by the inaction of the international community and the total disregard of UN resolutions. The Balfour Declaration, which was our country’s responsibility, said that

“nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”.

This whole terrible injustice is the responsibility of this country. We started it; we are responsible; they are our people and we should be looking after them. We have denied them any protection and we have also humiliated them by our neglect.

I am told every week by Ministers in answer to my Questions that the Government do not approve of this or that atrocity, they have made representations and had discussions with representatives of the Israeli Government and they thoroughly decry what is going on, et cetera. So why can we not set right a wrong that has caused such misery for over 100 years? The people of Palestine are not going to surrender. They are still there, waiting for justice, and there are very many of them.

On a brighter note, does the Minister agree that now we have our freedom, our country can resume its historic place in the world? We have heard it often enough in the last few weeks: we are free; we can implement our history again; Great Britain can be great again. We hear so much about it from the Prime Minister. If we are set free, we can now have our very own foreign policy, independent of anyone else, and with that we can bring justice to Palestine. Can the Minister assure us that we will do just that and not allow our country to fall under the shadow of the United States of America and its puppet master, Israel?

--- Later in debate ---

[Baroness Tonge]

My Lords, I would like to comment on every speech that has been made in this fascinating debate, but noble Lords will be relieved to hear that I shall not. I shall just thank all noble Lords. I still think that the British Government have an overwhelming responsibility in this peace process. We really must accept that, do something about it and give it some muscle this time, before more decades of suffering pass for both the Palestinians and the Israelis. I thank all noble Lords for the debate. I hope that the noble Lord, Lord Young, gets home while there is still some birthday cake left and that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, will through his front door without having it hurled at him. I hope he will wish his daughter a happy birthday from all of us.

Motion agreed.