Pakistan: Aid Programmes and Human Rights

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd July 2019 Grand Committee

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, like the noble Lord, Lord Alton, to whom I pay great tribute for securing this debate, I believe that there was a strong case for Asia Bibi and her household to have been offered asylum by Her Majesty's Government. In my contact with the family spokesperson, he was clear that the UK was their preferred destination.

I am troubled by how parliamentarians can hold the Government to account in cases such as this when we are told that live cases are not open to discussion. That sense of dis-ease is reinforced by the absence of evidence of diplomatic activity in the Asia Bibi case before it became an international news story.

Last week, I was speaking to a bishop from south Punjab, who said, “There are many Asia Bibis here”. There are many, too, in interior Sindh who suffer similar plights but do so hidden from the world’s media and Governments, their cases not reported. He described the spectre of blasphemy charges hanging over Hindu and Christian families who speak out against injustice or crime. He spoke of Christian girls being abducted into sexual slavery—in a way which we have already heard about—and then forced to convert, their families powerless to defend them because of the threat of the abuse of blasphemy laws.

The bishop’s deepest concerns—and it is an honour to follow the noble Lord, Lord McInnes—were about the effective denial of education for many children from religious minorities, causing them to descend deeper into permanent spirals of poverty and depression. His account was a graphic illustration of the findings of the 2018 CSW report, which tells of bias, discrimination and abuse undermining the constitutional commitments of the Pakistani Government regardless of religion or caste.

DfID is doing much good work in supporting the general aspirations of the Pakistani Government, but I am not yet persuaded that mechanisms are in place to ensure that our aid is addressing the concerns of the bishop and his people and the noble Lord, Lord McInnes, and the needs of other minority people in south Punjab. The ePact evaluation of phase 2 of the Punjab education sector programme deems:

“Inequities in educational access and attainment are persisting”.


It recommends both that equity of access, including socioeconomic status, disability and gender, are mainstreamed and that systems are devised for assessing the success in doing so. Will this advice be applied to future DfID programmes? Does the Minister agree that that task cannot be done without building in some element of minority community criteria? Is the current programme hitting the spot?

Hate Crime: Homophobic and Misogynistic Attacks

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Tuesday 11th June 2019 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

The noble and learned Baroness is quite right. Sentencing can be uplifted for a number of different strands of hate crime and aggravating factors can enable that sentencing uplift.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I am sure that Members of your Lordships’ House would expect these Benches to join in the outrage at these attacks. We do so fully, condemning them on behalf of the Church of England and of other churches and faith communities. The Minister will know—and I admit—that the churches and other faith communities have their own debates over sexual relationships and practices, including same-sex ones. However, does she know that the Church of England has developed a set of pastoral principles aimed at eradicating the seeds of prejudice, fear and ignorance? Does she also know that that builds on the initiative of our four-year programme in schools, stopping the seeds of hate that she described germinating at a very early age?

[Baroness Williams of Trafford]

I acknowledge the work done by the Church of England in this area. I thank the right reverend Prelate for reminding me of the pastoral principles. The Church of England has been quite effective in its support for our trans community by actively dispelling some of the prejudices towards its members. He is right that the seeds are sown at a very young age. Relationship education is, therefore, very important to dispel those notions early on.

Syria

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Wednesday 5th December 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

As I was saying, that is kept under review by DfID, by the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and by the National Audit Office. ICAI produced its report in May this year. It found that we were doing what we could in very difficult circumstances. The reality on the ground is that the checks that have to be made are being made in a context that is not Switzerland but Syria in the middle of a conflict situation. It is very difficult to get a 100% level of assurance while still helping people in need.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, given the powerful words of the most reverend Primate the Archbishop of Canterbury and His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales at yesterday’s service in Westminster Abbey to mark the contribution of Christians to the Middle East, and in particular His Royal Highness’s moving account of Christians returning to Syria to rebuild not only their homes and schools but their gifts to society—schools, orphanages and hospitals—can the Minister give an assurance that responsible organisations that provide support for returning Christians and other minorities also have the support of the Government? Will the Minister join me in commending the Muslim children who will be joining Christian children to light 1 million candles on New Year’s Day as a sign of their hope for their country and for a shared future together?

[Lord Bates]

I am very happy to do that. It is indeed a message of hope in this situation. I had the opportunity yesterday to meet some of the clergy and patriarchal representatives who were visiting that initiative. I pay tribute to all involved in organising it. Their stories of what was going on on the ground and what they had gone through were quite horrific and a testament to their ability to keep their light flickering in the darkness that surrounds them.

Syria

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Thursday 29th March 2018 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, for securing this debate and for keeping the focus of this House on the suffering of Syria. I also thank him for the deep compassion of his words.

On this holy day in the Christian year, my mind is full of memories of spending Maundy Thursday 2006 in Hasakah, in north-east Syria, and sitting in the archbishop’s residence as community and religious leaders, mainly Muslims, came to give their greetings to the Syrian Orthodox Christian community in a custom of civic conviviality that was entirely normal and was reciprocated by Christians during Muslim festivals. It was a sign, among many, of the diversity of Syrian society and the deep bonds of mutual affection between the peoples.

Later in the day we travelled to Qamishli on the Turkish border for a foot-washing service and Holy Eucharist. The large church was heaving with people of all ages rehearsing the foundational events of their faith with a devotion and joy that you could almost touch. It was a sign, among many, of the vitality of the Syrian Orthodox Church in those not too far distant days, and of the great contribution of Christians to the social fabric of the land, as well as of their critical role in Syria’s professions and businesses and of the great work of their hospitals, schools and projects of care serving the whole of Syrian society.

So much of that lies—literally, as we know—in ruins, and will take great efforts to rebuild. I am confident that the Minister will want to join me and the noble Baroness, Lady Cox—and, I am sure, others in this House—in saying to the now-beleaguered Christian community, who, with their fellow Syrian citizens, have suffered so much, that their future in their own land matters to your Lordships’ House and that we respect the churches’ commitment, even now, to reconciling communities that have become divided by the violence of civil war.

As the Church in the west this night enters more deeply into the suffering of a Middle Eastern person 20 centuries ago, and as the Church of the east prepares for its own commemorations next week, I hope that your Lordships will allow me to frame my own comments today around Jesus’s own plea to the city of Jerusalem only a few days before it became his place of execution:

“Would that you knew the things that make for peace”.


That question has an urgency when it is voiced by the victim.

The number of victims—living and now dead, those still in Syria, those exiled abroad, young and old, Muslim and Christian of all shades—is beyond our imagining. I have tried to spend my Holy Week this year—some of it, at least—listening to Syrian victims in my own city of Coventry and beyond. Very many to whom I have spoken had terrible and terrifying stories to tell about the persecution they had suffered at the hands of the Assad regime. They told me of the ever-present danger faced by their friends and family in Syria, whether in rebel areas or not. Others spoke of the protection that they had experienced from the regime and their gratitude that their family and friends had been saved from the chaos and carnage that have come in the wake of the forces of the opposition. They were the sort of testimonies brought to our attention by the noble Baroness, Lady Cox.

Whatever their personal experience and political perspective, however, every Syrian I meet tells me that what they want most is peace—“Let it be over”, as we heard. Beautiful words. They are deeply grateful, of course, for the humanitarian assistance that they receive, but what they desire above all else is peace, and the safety that comes from peace: a safety that they long to see so that they can return to their own land. That is what they desire. “It is our land”, they say, and that is their greatest humanitarian need. They know that peace and safety will come only when foreign fighters leave and when foreign powers use their power to broker peace.

Today, I left a service in Coventry Cathedral early to take part in this debate—but not before we had blessed the oils of Christian ministry to be used throughout the year. The oil of healing was brought to me—uniquely in Coventry—from the ruins of the old cathedral that now stand as permanent memorial to the suffering of humanity, especially innocent civilians, through violence and war. We call it the Cathedral of Crucifixion.

Some years ago, Pope Francis said:

“Pray for peace … there is no military solution for Syria”.


I printed out his words in large type and they have hung in my house ever since, waiting for the world to recognize their wisdom. What have the bombs and bullets of all sides in Syria accomplished and what has the fuel of the nations’ weaponry, thrown on to the fires of civil war, brought to this beautiful land? Have they brought its people any closer to peace or nearer to justice?

The call of Coventry from the devastation of its cathedral in 1940, from the civil war that raged across Europe, was to have hope in humanity: hope even in the darkest time, hope that said, “We will build a new cathedral and we will call it the Cathedral of Resurrection, because we will not give up on hope for humanity and its capacity to break out of the cycle of violence and find peace”. Now, as a Coventrian, I was much moved by the personal stories of the noble Lord, Lord Roberts, about the war and the peace that came out of it.

I know that the cause of Syria’s peace and the needs of its victims weigh heavily on Her Majesty’s Government, and I would not be surprised if the complexity of Syria’s situation and the lack of levers that we have on this international stage of war, with powers fighting their proxy wars, do not, at times, become a counsel of despair for our Government. That despair haunts my own heart also. But on this Maundy Thursday, the day of the Mandatum—the commandment to love one another—let this House and Her Majesty’s Government not give up hope. Let us rather call the nations to a new form of international conversation that, away from the glare of publicity and the lure of political grandstanding, creates a common, ethically driven narrative that appeals to the deepest humanitarian instincts of every person and nation and makes the Syrian people no longer victims of struggles for power, internal or external, but victors in a new war of words that will not cease until peace has come. In the interests of creating that common cause, perhaps I may ask the Minister whether he will assure your Lordships’ House that the Syrian people will not become victims again of the current disruptions in UK-Russian relations.

If it be said that my calls for a determined renewal of hope that peace is possible and need not be far off are the pious naiveties of a churchman beguiled by ancient stories of a dead man rising that belong to a very different world from the realities of 21st-century international politics, I say that history is on the side of hope, and that the things that make for peace prevail over the things that make for war. To act on the deepest humanitarian instincts to save the suffering, and to see that it is the common interest of nations, is the standard by which the greatness of the world’s leaders will be judged.

Rohingya: Refugees

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Thursday 23rd November 2017 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bates]

The noble Lord’s point on the loss of citizenship is absolutely at the core of this. One of the recommendations made by Kofi Annan’s Rakhine advisory commission is that the 1982 law, which stripped them of their citizenship and underlies this ongoing injustice, needs to be tackled. We recognise that that is an important part of it and we want to see that situation resolved, along with the others.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords—

[Baroness Kinnock of Holyhead (Lab)]

My Lords—

Burma: Rohingya

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, I join others in thanking the noble Baroness, Lady Helic, for securing this debate and for her most profound speech. I acknowledge, too, the others in this House who have led on this deep human tragedy. I also acknowledge the humanitarian help provided by the UK thus far.

Over recent days, I have been in contact with Bishop Paul Sarker, who leads the small but vibrant Anglican Church of Bangladesh. He describes the situation as an extreme violation of humanity and talks of the extreme pressure that Bangladesh is experiencing at the moment, as well as its readiness to do all that it can. He pleads for greater action by the international community to support agents of compassion, such as his church, and to address the underlying causes of the crisis. In that spirit, I raise three practical issues and a longer-term one.

First, NGOs working on the front line need urgent help. At least one heroic NGO working on the ground has told me of the urgent need for international humanitarian agencies to be able to register their organisations in Bangladesh as quickly as possible and to have long-term permission to operate. Caritas and Christian Aid currently have, I believe, only two months in which to operate. Speedy and efficient registration processes are self-evidently vital. Without them, they cannot deliver food and medical supplies, let alone establish safe places to protect the children. I have heard terrible reports of children being trafficked and women being raped. Help is needed to stop starving Rohingyas being lured into drug trafficking as carriers. Therefore, I ask the Minister what Her Majesty’s Government are doing to help expedite the necessary registration.

Secondly, as important and necessary as long-term return is for the Rohingya people, what can be done to ensure that reported plans for the repatriation of those forcibly driven out do not involve them in being forcibly driven back against their will and exposed to further danger?

Thirdly, following other points that have already been made, what are Her Majesty’s Government doing to ensure that the witness testimonies of those who have been harmed are recorded so that those responsible for the atrocities can be held to account, as they must be?

Looking at long-term solutions, I am conscious of the analysis of the underlying issues in the Kofi Annan report, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord Alton. The report refers to the entrenched poverty of the Rakhine, as well as the Rohingya, and to the nutritional status of all the children in the state being,

“the worst in the country”,

It calls for communal participation and representation, intercommunal cohesion on border issues, and for the bilateral relationship with Bangladesh to be addressed, along with the need to abolish the distinction between different kinds of citizens and clarify the rights of those who reside in Myanmar without citizenship.

Given that, the report tells us, the Myanmar Government expressed willingness to implement “the large majority” of the commission’s recommendations, and in the light of a reply from the noble Lord, Lord Ahmed, that I had to a Question very recently stating that the Government,

“assess that the Commission’s recommendations provide the most realistic solution to address the longstanding and underlying issues in Rakhine”,

I ask the Minister what efforts the Government are making now to provide diplomatic, legal and other expertise to assist the State Counsellor and the Government of Myanmar to deliver on that promise.

I end with the call of Pope Francis, who, as we have been reminded, will be visiting the country soon, on men of good will to work for those who are persecuted so that the people of that country,

“may be given their full rights”.

Those words echo Cardinal Bo of Yangon, who visited Parliament last year. He said in a recent interview that,

“the Church reaffirms the rights of every person in the country”.

He said that,

“Peace is possible and peace is the only way”,


and rightly so, but as he warned us in this place and the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, the “intolerable situation” in Rakhine state and the injustices suffered by the Rohingya, are,

“not a basis for a stable, peaceful future for my country”.

Iraq: Displaced Minority Communities

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Thursday 9th March 2017 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

To ask Her Majesty’s Government what steps they are taking to help displaced minority communities in Iraq to return to their homes in areas liberated from Daesh.

[The Minister of State, Department for International Development (Lord Bates) (Con)]

My Lords, UK aid is supporting vulnerable people, including minorities, to return to their homes in areas liberated from Daesh in Iraq. With UK funding, the UN is helping people to return home by restoring light infrastructure, reopening hospitals and schools, and providing cash assistance to people who need to re-establish their livelihoods.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

I thank the Minister for his reply and pay tribute to the Government’s work thus far. The Minister may like to know that I was in Iraq in January and was gladdened by personal assurances from the President, the Prime Minister and the Iraqi authorities about their desire to rebuild the diverse fabric of the society.

Does the Minister acknowledge that the return of minority communities to their homes and villages is still very limited, and does he agree that herculean efforts are now needed by the international community, including our own Government, to help the Iraqi authorities? In particular, is he willing to commit to the need to rebuild houses—100% of Christian houses were destroyed or damaged—and to rebuild trust between neighbours as well as security? Does he agree that that would be the most fitting tribute to our service people who have given their lives for a better future in Iraq?

[Lord Bates]

Absolutely, and I pay tribute to the work of the right reverend Prelate over many years, and to his compassion for Iraq in seeking how faith communities can play an important part in building reconciliation in that country. He will be aware that the UN Plan was published to help the effort in Mosul in particular, involving some $930 million, and $570 million for Mosul.

The UK has a reputation for taking the lead in providing humanitarian assistance and helping people to rebuild their communities. It is worth noting that in the fierce battle to liberate the remaining part of Mosul, 60% of Daesh territory has been lost—it is losing the battle—and over 1 million people have returned to their homes. That is a sign of progress.

United Nations World Humanitarian Summit

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Tuesday 12th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Verma]

I am extremely grateful to my noble friend for the points he has raised, particularly on the 0.7% commitment that we have managed to embed and deliver. He is also right that we need to prepare ourselves for future crises but also help build resilience in infrastructure in countries that really need it, particularly in their health systems. My noble friend is absolutely right that we need to make sure that we not only support people with the skills but prepare people locally to have those skills.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, in his pre-summit report, referred to by the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, the United Nations Secretary-General urges world leaders not to underestimate or, worse, override the work of local organisations in dealing with humanitarian crises, because they are the best placed to shape programmes in culturally sensitive ways, as we saw in the Ebola crisis. Yet currently only 0.02% of humanitarian aid is passed through local organisations. Can the Minister reassure us that at the summit—whoever represents us—the Government will support the call made by leading NGOs to raise this to 20%? Will that be part of the new approach of which she speaks?

[Baroness Verma]

My Lords, the right reverend Prelate is right that we need to ensure that we do not miss out on the local support groups on the ground. We have a mixture of packages. There is some work that the multilaterals are better placed to do. Of course, as the right reverend Prelate said, it is also important that local-led community groups are properly supported. DfID support will be there to ensure that not only are we urging others to step up to the mark to support these local groups but we are doing that ourselves.

Women: Public Life

Lord Bishop of Coventry Excerpts

Tuesday 21st October 2014 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Northover]

The noble Baroness is right to highlight the legal challenge involved in that process. The Equality Act allows it in certain areas, for example in politics, but we have recently concluded that it is not legal in a number of other areas. It is very important to see women and girls coming through schools and universities, succeeding and being supported so that any caring responsibilities do not fall just on them. Making sure that they remain in work is important so that we do not end up with women at the bottom of the triangle but not at the top—the noble Baroness is quite right about that.

[The Lord Bishop of Coventry]

My Lords, in the light of those and other comments and last night’s debate in the other place, is the Minister ready to accept the thanks of the Church of England to both Houses for dealing so expeditiously with this matter? If Her Majesty graciously grants Royal Assent to the Measure, will the Minister convey in a suitably constitutional way the good wishes of this House to the General Synod when it meets to enact the necessary canon on 17 November, which will make way for the admittance of women to the episcopate in the Church of England?

[Baroness Northover]

I was delighted with the debate in this and the other House. We congratulate the church on this historic event.