Nagorno-Karabakh: Genocide Emergency Alert
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]
My Lords, we will continue to support the work of the International Criminal Court and international tribunals to tackle any war crimes that have been committed. We are looking carefully at Genocide Watch’s report and will continue to work with all our international partners to ensure that anybody who commits war crimes or other atrocities is properly investigated and prosecuted and, if appropriate, punished.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have now been asked.
Guantanamo Bay Detainees
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg (Con) [V]
My Lords, I thank the noble Baroness for her words on Hong Kong and I welcome her commendation of our activity there. The UK takes great pride in standing up for universal human rights and freedoms. We will continue to do so with all our partners. We will continue to monitor this event and all cases closely and will continue to regularly raise human rights concerns with the Government of the UAE at senior levels, both in public and in private.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have now been asked.
LGBT International Rights
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, we oppose the death penalty in all circumstances and oppose any discrimination on the grounds of sexual orientation. We will continue to work with countries to remove the death penalty.
Lord Lexden (Con)
My Lords, should we not pay tribute to organisations such as the Human Dignity Trust and the Commonwealth Lawyers Association, whose work helps LGBT people in Commonwealth countries to gain their basic rights through their courts, most recently in Belize and Botswana? At the same time, should we not continue to deplore the oppression and suffering that remain the lot of gay friends and colleagues in most parts of the Commonwealth, in open defiance of that organisation’s charter?
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, of course we fully support the Commonwealth charter and we are working closely to make sure that we are seeing progress in this area. I join my noble friend in paying tribute to the brave organisations that are working across the world. These are exactly the kind of organisations that we are supporting through the Commonwealth Equality Network. They work tirelessly to protect the rights of fellow citizens and ensure that LGBT people can live free from discrimination and violence.
Belarus: Presidential Elections
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(3 years, 7 months ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Sugg) (Con)
My Lords, I am grateful for the full support of the noble Lord and the noble Baroness. It is a powerful statement of solidarity for the people of Belarus. Like both of them, I am appalled at the arbitrary detention and abuse of protesters that we have seen.
The noble Lord highlights the importance of international co-operation. The UK is working very closely in the OSCE and the UN Security Council and with our Five Eyes partners and our European allies to make sure that we have a common approach. He also asked about sanctions. As the Foreign Secretary said yesterday in the other place, we will join the EU in adopting targeted sanctions against those responsible for violence, repression and vote-rigging in Belarus—although, as the noble Lord highlighted, the EU process has been delayed. Given that delay and Lukashenko’s fraudulent inauguration, the Foreign Secretary has directed the FCDO sanction team to prepare Magnitsky sanctions for those responsible, and we are co-ordinating very closely with the US and Canada to prepare appropriate listings as a matter of urgency.
The noble Lord and the noble Baroness asked about corruption. As they highlighted, corruption is not currently covered by the Magnitsky sanctions; they deal with a slew of the most serious human rights violations and cover those who profit from human rights abuses, but the Foreign Secretary is looking very carefully at how we can extend the next step of the Magnitsky sanctions to corruption and similar types of offences. He will say more on that in due course, but I am afraid I do not have a date at the moment.
The noble Lord highlighted our close working with the French and the Germans. The UK hosted an E3 meeting recently where we discussed this important matter and the imposition of sanctions. When the Foreign Secretary was in the US last week, he discussed the matter with Secretary of State Pompeo.
The noble Lord spoke about the trade unions and highlighted the Foreign Secretary’s words about them yesterday in the other place. The trade union movement has been closely aligned with the human rights movement and the cause of liberty for many years. We have doubled our support for civil society organisations and are working closely in Belarus with people on the ground to decide exactly how best to distribute that money, including with academics, trade unions and civil society.
Like the noble Baroness, I pay tribute to the brave women who have played such a prominent role in the opposition to Lukashenko’s fraudulent election. They have led an incredibly effective and unified opposition campaign in really trying circumstances. There have been first-hand accounts, witness reports and statements by the UN OHCHR stating that women have been detained and subject to beatings and the threat of rape. That is never acceptable. Of course we will recognise the abuse of women as we prepare our sanctions and will continue to lead the way with our work on preventing sexual violence in conflict. We are very pleased to be co-hosting the action coalition on gender-based violence for the following year, where we will do more work on this.
The noble Baroness also highlighted the importance of cracking down on illegal finance activities. Of course, criminals, from Belarus and elsewhere, should not be able to profit from their illegal activities in any circumstances. Banks should be, and have been, taking steps to ensure that this is not happening on their watch. The UK is internationally recognised as having one of the strongest systems to tackle money laundering and terrorist financing and to bring justice to those who seek to use or hide the proceeds of crime, as found by the Financial Action Task Force. We will continue to crack down hard on dirty money through our world-leading legislation, unexplained wealth orders and the measures in our economic crime and asset recovery plans.
The noble Baroness also asked about exports to Belarus. The UK currently implements EU sanctions on Belarus, which include an arms embargo and the ban on exporting equipment which might be used for internal repression. We will continue to observe those restrictions through our autonomous Belarus sanctions regime after the transition period has ended. The noble Baroness also highlighted the importance of media freedom; as she will know, the FCDO supports the BBC World Service. I agree with her that it does incredibly important work, both to ensure fair reporting and to support other independent journalists who are having such a difficult time in Belarus at the moment.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, we now come to the 20 minutes allocated for Back-Bench questions. I ask that questions and answers be brief so that I can call the maximum number of speakers.
Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, we do not yet know whether the OSCE investigation will be able to access Belarus. We very much hope that it will, in order to be able to fulfil its independent investigation. The UN rapporteur has not been allowed access to the country, but we hope that they will be allowed access and will report back soon. My noble friend highlights the importance of parliamentary support, and I pay tribute to his and others’ work, which shows such good solidarity with the people of Belarus. I share his desire to see a binding and meaningful dialogue, and we will do all we can to help bring that about.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, all questions have now been asked and answered.
Aid Spending
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(3 years, 8 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg (Con)
My Lords, the Foreign Secretary explained in letters to the Select Committees and placed in the Libraries of both Houses the priorities on how these decisions were made. We remain firmly committed to transparency in our aid spending. I hope noble Lords will welcome the announcement that we will continue in the Independent Commission for Aid Impact.
On the prioritisation decisions, at a minimum our DevTracker website is being updated at the end of every month. If, by the end of August, amended programmes and projects have been uploaded on to that, provisional international development statistics will be published in the usual way. Then, of course, the final international development statistics in autumn next year will include country-level data.
We do not know what the current GNI figure is, so this is an iterative process as we go, but we are absolutely determined to ensure that we are using the aid money that we have to deal with the many issues that the world faces.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, the time allowed for this Private Notice Question has now elapsed.
Covid-19: Vaccine Availability
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(3 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
My Lords, our record shows that we are taking a leading role in this. The Prime Minister has consistently called on world leaders to work together to rapidly develop a vaccine and make it available to all, including at the Coronavirus Global Response pledging conference, which the UK co-led, and at the recent Global Citizen summit. The UK also hosted the Gavi summit, which raised over £6.9 billion for Gavi to sustain its immunisation coverage and bolster the primary healthcare systems needed to tackle Covid-19. We will continue to play this leading international role.
The Deputy Speaker (Lord Lexden) (Con)
My Lords, all supplementary questions have been asked and we now move to the next Question.
Railway Services: The Pennines
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(5 years, 3 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
We have extensive investment planned for the north. Northern Powerhouse Rail is currently in the development stage, and options are being considered which include serving Bradford. We will be working closely with cities across the north to deliver those improvements and services.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Does my noble friend have any news on the improvements that are needed on the line between London and Lincoln? Does she realise the acute disappointment that was manifest throughout the House when the special House of Lords awayday had to be postponed, particularly since my noble friend Lord Cormack was looking forward to entertaining us all in sumptuous style in the city of Lincoln?
Baroness Sugg
I thought that a different noble friend would ask that question, but I thank my noble friend for his continued interest in this subject. I have met LNER and the noble Lord, Lord Cormack, in an attempt to make progress on this. LNER is hoping to introduce new services to Lincoln from September this year. This is dependent on Network Rail approving its timetable bid, but its services will operate from Monday to Saturday and will include services suitable for day trips from London to Lincoln, so perhaps the awayday could still go ahead.
Railways: CrossCountry
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(5 years, 9 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
My Lords, as I said before, one of the things we will be expecting the new franchise operator to deliver is more rolling stock, to deal with overcrowding. I say from recent experience that we will be looking closely at the train drivers that it has available.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Will my noble friend do her best to ensure that rail services to Lincoln remain as good as possible, so that we can all take up the invitation given to us recently to visit my noble friend Lord Cormack and take up the lavish hospitality I know he wants to give us?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, it is unexpected to get a question about Lincoln from other noble Lords. I reiterate that the Government are looking forward to the new service to Lincoln and I welcome my noble friend to join my other noble friend on its maiden voyage.
Road Maintenance
Debate between Lord Lexden and Baroness Sugg(5 years, 10 months ago)
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Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we must certainly do all we can to reduce deaths and injuries on our roads. According to Cycling UK, over half of people say that they would cycle more if they were not so worried about the state of our roads. Potholes and poorly maintained roads are a menace for all road users—including noble Lords—which is why we are taking action to improve the condition of the local road network. In particular, the Department for Transport has allocated £296 million to the Pothole Action Fund, on top of existing funding. Noble Lords will know that fuel duty is most definitely a matter for the Chancellor, but I will certainly pass on the noble Lord’s suggestion.
Lord Lexden (Con)
Potholes or not, how can pedestrians on the pavements alongside these roads maintain themselves in a safe condition when cyclists refuse to equip their machine with a bell and curse those, like me, who politely ask them to mend their ways? Could they possibly be in league with those who will stop at absolutely nothing to reduce the size of this House?
Baroness Sugg
My Lords, we absolutely want to improve the safety of cyclists and all other road users, including pedestrians. Obviously, we are in favour of cycling. It improves people’s health, cuts congestion and is good for the environment. Among employers, it has been associated with fewer sick days and improved productivity. We are keen to support cyclists, as I said. Last year, we published our cycling and walking investment strategy, which included £1.2 billion of funding to encourage more people to travel by foot or by bike—but I will certainly see whether there is anything we can do to ensure that cyclists put a bell on their bicycle.