Overseas Territories: Illegal Immigration

Debate between Lord Boateng and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Thursday 27th April 2023 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

There are actually quite a few arrangements of the sort that the noble Lord describes—on education, policing and a wide range of issues. There are too many for me to regale now in the short time that we have, but I am happy to write to him and detail some of the most effective arrangements in place. I would emphasise the point made in the original Question. Different government departments need to recognise that we have a constitutional responsibility to the overseas territories. While the FCDO is a key central organisation in ensuring that that delivery happens, different government departments need to recognise that the inhabitants of the overseas territories are no less His Majesty’s subjects than we are in this place.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, HMS “Medway” was deployed to very considerable and very good effect in the Caribbean in 2022. Why cannot it or a vehicle of a similar class be deployed in the Caribbean in support of the overseas dependencies in 2023? If it cannot, is that not a good argument for having a permanent naval presence in the Caribbean?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes a good point and I agree with him that HMS “Medway” and the auxiliary ship RFA “Tideforce” were of huge assistance in the Turks and Caicos Islands in the wake of Hurricane Fiona. “Medway” then supported the Cayman Islands in response to Hurricane Ian. HMS “Dauntless” will be in the region from 1 June this year to provide a consistent maritime presence in the Caribbean, including humanitarian assistance and disaster response support. It is our intention and duty to ensure we have that presence when needed, particularly during the hurricane season.

Nigeria

Debate between Lord Boateng and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Wednesday 7th December 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The FCDO base in Nigeria works frequently through religious organisations there, but also through civil society, on a wide range of issues, such as countering violence against women and girls, promoting media freedom and doing what we can to undermine the organisations behind some of the atrocities we have been talking about today. This is very much a focus of our work.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, how are we measuring the impact of this £425 million spent on humanitarian assistance alone? Listening to noble Lords on all sides of the House this afternoon, and drawing on one’s own experience, it seems that very little benefit is accruing to the people of Nigeria.

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

There is no doubt that Nigeria is a deeply troubled country, for all the reasons we have talked about today. It has also been a big recipient of ODA. However, it is possible to measure the impact of the investments we have made. Our assessment, which has already been cited, is that we have provided £140 million in bilateral ODA to Nigeria since 2021, and since 2015 we have supported more than 2 million Nigerians to improve their incomes and jobs sustainably. Since 2009, education has been reaching more than 8 million children in 11 states, and since 2012 more than 1.5 million additional girls have been accessing schooling in six states as a result of our funding. In fact, there are many other areas in which we have measurable success as a consequence of our support.

Bilateral Relations with Caribbean Countries

Debate between Lord Boateng and Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park

Thursday 28th April 2022 Lords Chamber

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

Obviously, the UK has a particularly strong and valued relationship with those English-speaking countries with which we share a very close history, but our involvement and interest in the region goes beyond them. For example, the Prime Minister had meetings yesterday with a number of leaders of Caribbean countries, not all of them English-speaking. We have many issues in common, not least the question of China but also climate change, which is regarded by most Caribbean countries as literally existential.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, small island states of the Caribbean do not qualify for ODA, yet they have real needs. Might not the Government’s policy carry more conviction if it addressed more realistically the understandable demands of the Caribbean for reparations for slavery?

[Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)]

The noble Lord makes an important point about ODA. In the current system, the unique vulnerability of small island developing states to issues such as climate change and shocks such as Covid is not recognised. It was made very clear over the last couple of years that they are uniquely vulnerable, and consequently their economic ranking can change very quickly. That is not reflected in the system of recognition, which means that you have countries which, for all intents and purposes, should be ODA-eligible but are not according to the current rules. This is an issue which we are raising robustly in the OECD. I hope that we can see some changes there. Additionally, the UK is working with Fiji and other countries on a global taskforce on access to finance. One of the problems is that it is incredibly complicated accessing finance from the multilateral institutions. They are bureaucratic, time-consuming and so on. We are working very hard on that too, and that is recognised by the small island developing states in question.