Terezin Declaration

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 27th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, we will continue to work with our EU friends on a number of important issues, as we will do on this and on wider issues of freedom of religion or belief.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]]

The late Lord Janner, along with our embassy in Lithuania, carried out a huge project to mark every site of a mass atrocity across Lithuania. What has been done under Terezin to ensure that those plaques are still in place and are being properly maintained?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I will write to the noble Lord on that important issue. However, I am sure I speak for all noble Lords when I say that wherever such atrocities took place—I have visited Auschwitz-Birkenau in Poland—we should always commemorate and remember, and commit ourselves to ensuring that this kind of genocide does not happen again.

Environmental Protection (Plastic Straws, Cotton Buds and Stirrers) (England) Regulations 2020

Lord Mann Excerpts

Friday 10th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]]

I welcome this modest change and note that the charge on plastic bags has been pretty much universally accepted across the country and with virtually no complaints. But we need to go significantly further. The whole takeaway, throwaway culture has to be challenged. It is not long-standing in this country, but very modern. Be it in our canteens across the Palace of Westminster, where people seem to feel that taking food and plastic utensils back to their offices is normal, or the absurdity of people buying takeaway hot drinks and wandering the streets or cycling with them, this culture needs to be challenged and changed, and government action is crucial to assist that.

Global Human Rights Sanctions Regime

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 9th July 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, on the wider European sanctions, we continue to work with our European partners. Indeed, during the transition period whatever has been agreed with them continues to apply. There is also a rollover of many of the sanctions that have been applied through the European scheme. But as the noble Baroness knows, the European Union does not have a specific human rights sanctions regime. We will work constructively as it seeks to develop that. As I said yesterday and have said before, sanctions work effectively only when we work with like-minded partners and, after our departure from the European Union, we should reflect that important partnership.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl) [V]]

Well done, Minister, but how many more people are under active consideration of being sanctioned? Is it a handful, tens or hundreds?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, I thank the noble Lord for his initial statement and welcome it because it is always nice to be told “Well done”, wherever it comes from. On his second point, I am sure he will appreciate that there is a lot of sensitivity around designations, so I do not want to speculate on numbers of future designations at this time.

Water Industry (Specified Infrastructure Projects) (English Undertakers) (Amendment) Regulations 2020

Lord Mann Excerpts

Monday 8th June 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I too welcome the noble Lord, Lord Goldsmith, to his position. Having been in another place for the last seven years, he cannot be held to account for anything that has gone wrong. But I am surprised that there appear to be no value for money reports on the one project that has come forward to demonstrate that these regulations have been successful. That appears rather lacking, or certainly not visible. I trust that there is one, and that it could be made more publicly available.

The consultation and debate around the 2013 regulations seem to concentrate an awful lot on the powers and the potential for Ofwat to refer disputes over price determinations to the Competition and Markets Authority. The Minister did not mention any such referrals—have there been any? That appeared a key facet of the argument for bringing in these regulations. My biggest concern is whether they are doing the job they are meant to be doing.

The Palace of Westminster is a good example of a building underneath which sits a sewerage system that is defunct, not fit for purpose and extraordinarily expensive to put right. One could take London, Manchester and many other big cities, particularly those that expanded rapidly in the Victorian era, underneath which we have sewerage systems not fit for purpose. Yet no proposals at all have come forward for projects impacting this critical issue. That is not a reason to reject the Minister’s proposals, but it seems to me that it is not succeeding in terms of those major projects. The finance is not coming forward, so a rethink about where it will come from is a top priority. Does the Minister not agree with me, that he should tease this out from officials, from industry and from wherever else he is capable of doing so?

Every time it floods, one sees how the seepage of the system implodes into devastation for communities. Old systems, built 100 or 150 years ago, were added to by new developments—major tower blocks and new estates—all over the country. These were tacked on because nobody at any level, not least in local government, was at all concerned about what was underground and could not be seen—until it flooded and until the sewage, rainwater and surface water combined, causing devastating damage. This has to be a top priority.

These regulations relate to major projects—for example, in Manchester and London, where underground work will be extensive—and to more modest projects in towns or villages, where expansion has taken place. In some places, the underground sewerage systems are not fit for purpose but more consumers have been tapped into them, often willy-nilly. I hope that, in responding, the Minister can say a word about his wider vision of his remit, perhaps going beyond this measure. On that basis, I have no objection to his proposal.

[The Deputy Speaker (Lord Alderdice) (LD)]

I call the next speaker on the list, the noble Baroness, Lady McIntosh of Pickering. There is a problem with the noble Baroness unmuting her microphone. I am afraid that we are not hearing her, so we will have to move on to the next speaker on the list. I call the noble Baroness, Lady Altmann. We cannot hear her either, so I call the next speaker, the noble Baroness, Lady Bakewell. We are unable to hear her either.

Israel: West Bank

Lord Mann Excerpts

Wednesday 6th May 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

My Lords, the UK position is absolutely clear. Any unilateral moves towards annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel, as I have said, would be damaging to the restart of any peace negotiations and, as I say again, contrary to international law.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

Calling for harm to Jews, holding the British-Jewish community responsible for the actions of Israel, suggestions of disloyalty, conspiracy or undue financial power and Nazi comparators are all outwith the agreed IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. Does the Minister agree that robust criticism and debate, while vital for democracy, are undermined by those who demean and dehumanise through hateful and abusive language?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

I agree with the noble Lord. As he will know, the Government are a strong supporter of the IHRA definition; in that regard, I pay tribute to my noble friend Lord Pickles. The United Kingdom stands very much on the sentiments that the noble Lord has expressed. Any kind of bigotry or hate against any community is unacceptable.

Covid-19: Repatriation of UK Nationals

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 30th April 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

First, taking the noble Lord’s question on medical needs, we have asked all our missions to prioritise this. In response to the noble Lord, Lord Collins, I talked about vulnerable individuals. We have been collecting data on people returning home. When people have been waiting because the numbers have been high, particularly in places such as south Asia, they have been provided with support on places where they may be able to get prescription medicine.

We are also providing loan facilities for the most hard-up people. The noble Lord rightly pointed out that many have paid thousands of pounds for flights or were unable to finance the cost of their return flight. There is an interest-free loan facility available to Brits around the world. They need to approach the high commission or embassy which can process it. It gives them an interest-free loan and six months to pay upon their return. That is now operational.

We are looking to extend this support. We have a range of facilities, both pastoral and financial, that we are offering to people who remain in-country while they wait to return to the UK, to address specific needs. I once again emphasise that we have been prioritising the most vulnerable, to ensure they can return as soon as possible.

On the issue of flights and co-ordination, I have already made it clear that I think it was the right decision to stand by commercial operators, particularly when you look at the sheer numbers. To again use the Pakistan example, we returned 7,500 people. I fully accept the criticism that a couple of flights were cancelled and some were delayed, but I assure noble Lords that we were working very closely with the airlines and with Governments to ensure that flights remained operational. While there were challenges for people returning home, the fact that we were able to return over 7,500 people through that route demonstrates that it was the right decision. We stand by that. Pakistan is just one example; Australia is another.

We have operated charter flights when needed, as we did in India and Nepal. We are continuing to run an operation in India that we hope will return all the British nationals seeking to return. I add this, and I cannot emphasise it enough. A lot of noble Lords have been dealing directly with people coming to them individually. This message needs to get out there: if you are booked on a flight, get on the flight, because there are individuals who choose not to turn up at the airport. Unlike commercial operators, we cannot operate massive waiting lists. For those people who can come to the airport in quite a short time, we address that practical problem by facilitating and, in places such as India, ensuring their passage by picking them up directly so that they can get back as soon as possible.

There are issues with people now approaching us about airlines that have not refunded and are offering Air Miles, et cetera. Airlines need to look very hard at the people they serve. I share the noble Lord’s concern. People want compensation for the routes they did not use. Airlines need to step up to ensure that they can deliver on that. However, as we all know from the recent announcement from British Airways, airlines themselves are now extremely challenged because of the economic impact of Covid-19.

[Lord Mann (Non-Afl)]

Many British citizens have postings or short-term contracts abroad. Is there any possibility that British citizens returning this year to this country will be automatically quarantined? If so, will that include self-quarantining with families at family homes, rather than in hotels by airports?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon]

The noble Lord raises an important point about people who have returned from certain parts of the world. As we saw in the example of cruise ships, large numbers of British travellers who returned were held in facilities to ensure that the appropriate period of quarantine and isolation could be met. I assure him that we act accordingly, based on the scientific and medical advice that we get. We are looking at the situation. I add that there are many countries in the world where the situation has not been as challenging as we have found domestically in the UK. People are making choices to remain in countries. To come back to his earlier point about people still having contracts, be they in the short, medium or long term, we will have to look at that need when it arises. This is a fluid situation. I cannot predict the length of time this pandemic will continue. Certainly until a vaccine is found we all have to be on our guard, and be wary and cognisant of the very changeable and dynamic situation that we all face, not just domestically but globally.

Polish Anti-defamation Law

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

We can learn a lot from cemeteries. When I visited eastern Poland with a Jewish family to look at their historical roots there, we visited the Jewish cemetery. It was not in a particularly good state—I do not think anybody had visited it for many decades—but what struck me was how big it was, because the village had been largely Jewish.

I had research done into that family’s history, and I got photographs that showed the village. They raise the question about what happened to the properties. Three million Poles were murdered, which means 3 million properties disappeared, plus the communal buildings such as the synagogues. What happened to them? We can learn a lot from looking at cemeteries about what happened and who did or did not do what at any time.

There are plenty of people living in that village, but none of them are Jewish. That is not a surprise. There were 3 million Jewish Poles; there are now under 1,000. It is a thriving rural village, like many others in Poland, with a Jewish graveyard. People live in the same village, on the same streets, sometimes in the same properties, and certainly on the same land.

History can be interpreted in different ways. Let us be quite clear: this law has not come from nowhere, so those who have been protesting about it, such as Netanyahu, should have opened their mouths when the first such law was brought in by Hungary in 2010. That law criminalised the wrong interpretation of history and came with a three-year maximum prison sentence.

As Hungary attempted to legally define its history in 2010, Lithuania did too. Its law was more generous, with only two years’ imprisonment, but at the same time, Lithuania attempted to arrest two women over the age of 90: Fania Brantsovsky and Rachel Margolis. Most people, including me, would describe them as war heroes. They fought with the resistance in the Lithuanian forest. They undoubtedly killed people, but they were fighting alongside the Soviets, who came in and eventually liberated that country as part of the war effort. In 2010, Lithuania attempted to arrest those two war heroes for being war criminals. They were fighting for the resistance—it is unambiguous; there is no argument about what happened—but they went from war heroes to war criminals, and Lithuania attempted to jail them.

In 2014, Latvia brought in a law that came with five years in prison. In different ways, Ukraine and Estonia brought in criminal laws in advance of Poland, so this legislation has not come from nowhere. In Austria, there are people who attempt to describe Mauthausen as a Polish camp. Actually, I disagree with my hon. Friend the Member for Ealing North (Stephen Pound): it is very rare to hear the Nazi death camps in Poland described as Polish, just like it is very rare to hear death camps elsewhere described as anything other than death camps by their names, but it happens and it has happened for a period of time. Why were those camps there? They were where the Jewish population was.

There were differences in Ukraine. Ukrainians took the jobs and murdered the people. That did not happen in Poland. They did not recruit Poles to do that. They did in Lithuania. They did not bother with the camps. The Lithuanians took Jewish people out into the forest and shot them to save time and money. They did not need the Germans to do it. But who were the Nazis in all that? Who were the Nazis in Lithuania? Who were the nationalists? Who was on the side of Lithuania?

Starting with a conference in Hungary in 2008, with the European Parliament as a conduit, a group of politicians has co-ordinated and drawn together other nationalist politicians, including from Poland, to rewrite history. That is what has been going on. The example of Lithuania, and the rest of the Baltic states, is the simplest one, and in essence it says, “We weren’t fighting for anyone, other than fighting the Communists. There was a double genocide”—that term was created at the 2008 conference. “The Nazis and the communists are equally bad. The communists controlled our country and did many evil things under Stalin and beyond.” That is true; that is factually the case.

I was the first person to leave Poland with a Solidarność badge in 1980—that is a different story, which I will leave for now—so I am very aware of what the Soviets and the communists did in eastern Europe, but the problem is putting together those two genocides and describing them as if they were equal and comparable. There is an academic in Latvia who has taken it further and brought in blood libel as well. The logic goes, “My grandfather did nothing wrong, because my grandfather was a patriot. He was not supporting the Nazis. He was fighting the communists. By the way, who speaks Russian? The communists. Who speaks Russian in our country? The Jews speak Russian. Rachel Margolis speaks Russian.”

Therefore, it is possible to distort history so quickly and so easily—rewrite your own history and the history for every country, including our country and our role, as the country that failed to take in Jewish migrants in the ’30s and, indeed, after the war, in the ’40s. This country turned them away. We can all rewrite our history, sanitise our role in things and glorify what we were good at—the little bits. “Oh, we had the Kindertransport here. Weren’t we brilliant?” We let a few Jews slip in. What about the rest?

Well, that is what is going on in Poland—an attempt to rewrite history—and we should not accept that. Yes, it is true that the Poles did not run those camps—that is a fact—unlike in some neighbouring countries; but we can also look at the language. I keep reading and hearing about the 3 million Jews in Poland—the 3 million Poles; the 3 million of our citizens who were Jewish, who were murdered and lost everything. It is not a surprise that there is not much of an eyewitness record there compared with anywhere else, because few survived. It is harder for the dead to be eyewitnesses.

I will end on this. When I look at what is going on now, I take the Albert Camus view of the world—to see the world through the eye of football. In Poland at the moment, if someone goes to see a football match in Łódź—once a massive Jewish community; now no Jews live in Łódź—what is the insult used in the Łódź derby? “Jew”. From one Łódź team to the other Łódź team, for both sets of fans their term of insult is “Jew”. And what happens in Kraków when Cracovia play Wisła? Do the tourists there go on the nice, sanitised route to Auschwitz-Birkenau? My advice to anyone going there is to go on the suburban route. If they do, I will tell them what they will see on every station: Wisła Kraków graffiti saying “Jews Out”.

[Stephen Pound]

Albert Camus was obviously a great goalkeeper, and I understand my hon. Friend’s analogy. However, I am sure that he has seen Spurs play at home as many times as I have, so he will know the insult that is used against Tottenham Hotspur players. Does he agree that that sort of language—that sort of foul anti-Semitism—should be a matter for criminal law and prosecution? It should not be perceived as indicative of a nation or even a group of football supporters.

[John Mann]

Of course it should be a matter for criminal law—it is in many countries—but my point is not that Poland is any worse than any other country, but that anti-Semitism remains and this law plays to that sentiment. That is the danger of the law.

I will end with a recent quotation from a radio reporter in Poland, Marcin Wolski of TVP2. What did he describe? He said, “Let’s rename the death camps. They’re not ‘Polish death camps’, they’re ‘Jewish death camps’.” He said that on Polish radio recently—because the Sonderkommando ran the death camps, we should therefore rename them “Jewish death camps”. Bring in this kind of law and that kind of racism and anti-Semitism is unleashed. But this is not something that started in Poland; it started elsewhere in eastern Europe. People have been too silent about it—about trying to use the law to rewrite history. The law is not the way to rewrite history.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

There is no plan for no deal, because we are going to get a great deal. For the sake of illustration, I remind the right hon. Lady that there was a time, which I am old enough to remember, when Britain was not in what we then called the Common Market.

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

3. What discussions he has had with the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport on celebrating the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower pilgrims in 2020 in the UK and abroad.

[The Minister for Europe and the Americas (Sir Alan Duncan)]

Foreign Office officials are working closely with colleagues from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport to prepare for the 400th anniversary. I am pleased that Oliver Colvile, the former Member for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, has been appointed chair of the Mayflower committee by the Prime Minister. The committee will make the most of the opportunity to commemorate the legacy of the pilgrims and the special relationship.

[John Mann]

I thought the Prime Minister wanted help from Opposition Members, and here I am, available—the re-elected co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for the Mayflower pilgrims—unlike Olly, who now has other pursuits to pursue. I was prepared to offer my services to take on that role, rather than a non-parliamentarian. Nevertheless, can the good people of Bassetlaw expect support from this Government, as promised by George Osborne, to properly celebrate the fact that the pilgrims and their legacy—including the modern United States—originated in Bassetlaw?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

At least the hon. Gentleman did not claim that Bassetlaw had strong coastal links. We already welcome his contribution to the House in the form of the comments he made on 9 March 2016, when he reminded us that the anniversary would provide an “historic opportunity” for us to celebrate. Across the House, we will think of every possible way in which we can do so to best effect.

African Great Lakes Region

Lord Mann Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the security and political situation in the African Great Lakes region.

This is the first opportunity that the House has had since the general election to discuss the great lakes region. I shall curtail my remarks somewhat to allow sufficient time for Back Benchers who wish to speak, as we have already lost 12 minutes or more of the debate.

The first three countries I am going to mention are countries where things have gone better in recent times. I start with Rwanda, which has a booming economy and has moved on from the genocide of 1994 in the most admirable ways. In November 2015, the White House put out a statement saying:

“President Kagame, who in many ways has strengthened and developed Rwanda, now has an historic opportunity to enshrine his legacy by honouring his commitments to respect the term limits set when he entered office...any move to prolong his hold on power would be to the detriment of Kagame’s legacy”.

On 1 December, Samantha Power called for Kagame to step down in 2017. What is the UK Government’s position on this?

Secondly, in relation to the UN rapporteur’s report on freedom of association and freedom of expression, has the UK been making representations—for example, in the Minister’s meeting with the Rwandans in December 2015 —to ensure that those in other political parties are not being labelled as enemies of the state and that the plurality of democracy becomes a key part, alongside a booming economy, of building this country as one of the great powerhouses of Africa?

The third issue is the function of non-governmental organisations, which is another big worry in Rwanda, not least in relation to appointments to the leadership of NGOs through the Rwanda Governance Board, whose role should be regulatory—it should not interfere and control. What is our Government’s position on that, and what representations are being made on those three issues?

I will move on from Rwanda. It would have been good to say more, but I am sure that others will do so. I suspect that less will be said about the Central African Republic, which is not mentioned or visited much by anyone. It has been too unsafe to visit, but the Pope has now demonstrated that it is moving on. The turnout at the last election in 2016 was an impressive 79%, and with democracy comes the possibility of stability, peace and development, but that is tempered by this week’s report by Amnesty International. What is the Government’s response to that report?

What assistance are the Government giving to help that country to move out of its dark years, or are we standing on the sidelines? The remnants of the Lord’s Resistance Army are causing turmoil at every opportunity in the east of the country. What assistance are we giving to CAR to help it become a more normalised and stable country that can grow democratically and economically with a significant level of peace?

I wish to turn to the Congo, by which I mean not the Democratic Republic of the Congo, which I will come to and which I am sure will be the main issue of concern —it is a major country where we have a lot of relationships—but Congo-Brazzaville, which is also hardly mentioned. What are we doing there to ensure that its political stability is acknowledged and strengthened?

As an important aside, given the work of the World Wildlife Fund and Tusk with Prince William and others, it is a significant country in terms of the preservation of forest elephants and lowland gorillas. It seems to me that there is huge potential for boosting tourism; whether one welcomes or regrets that, it is a significant part of maintaining those critically endangered species. The issue is also relevant to CAR, whose national park borders Congo-Brazzaville. What practical assistance are we giving to help that develop? This country has a great interest in that area, not least through Prince William’s exertions. We will host a major conference in 2018. We have great expertise and there are opportunities do something hugely significant in a country that is rarely mentioned in this House.

The all-party parliamentary group on the African great lakes region intends to make a proposal relating to the delegation to the Inter-Parliamentary Union Assembly—Members may be interested in participating—and both CAR and Congo-Brazzaville may well be part of that. The Foreign Office in Kinshasa would certainly be keen on delegations visiting areas with which we need to build relationships and whose gains we can consolidate. Things have improved significantly in those countries in recent times, which is welcome. We should temper criticism and provide support for improving their democracy. We should continue to press them on that, while acknowledging their progress.

In Burundi, which I visited two years ago, there is a less happy state of affairs. The Department for International Development has pulled out and we do not have an embassy there. I pressed Ministers in the last Government on that issue. It was a mistake for us to withdraw from Burundi—and that has proven to be the case—because it is becoming increasingly anglicised in its approach to the world, as part of the east African community. It has followed many others by going its own way. Some Presidents seem to think that they ought to be there for life. In this case, there has been significant turmoil and a lot of violence, not least from the acolytes of President Nkurunziza and his entourage. There are huge dangers in the country, but what are we doing to assist and intervene? Do we support the use of chapter 7 of the UN charter to deploy a police force, in accordance with UN resolution 2303 of July 2016? What will it take for the UN Security Council to make that decision, and are we working to that end? What other leverage are we using on the President to ensure that the country moves on?

Burundi is hardly spoken about, but its genocide compares with the worst in Africa in recent and historic times. An extraordinary level of genocide was hidden away in the ’70s and ’80s. From 1972 onwards, the country experienced the biggest single proportionate dislocation of people anywhere in the world. The displaced population moved across the border to Tanzania in dramatically large numbers, and they have been reassimilated extraordinarily successfully. Yet we stand aside from all that, and from the needs of the country. Its democracy is under threat and violence has broken out repeatedly. The country carries the legacy of the hidden genocide, which has been highlighted by the discovery in the last 24 hours of 1,000 bodies in a mass grave in the Rusaka district. What are we doing, and why are we not properly engaging?

What about the NGO situation? The Iteka league was banned on 3 January. What about malaria? The country—the second-poorest country on the planet—is not really moving forward in tackling malaria. When it comes to human rights, what are we doing in Geneva with the Human Rights Council to ensure that Burundi is not given a soft option and that it is tackled about what it is doing, so that it can become a great success in Africa rather than regressing into dictatorship and the ensuing violence?

The final country I shall mention is the seventh poorest on the planet and the biggest—the DRC. It is a country of extraordinary size, with a population of 60 million, high levels of displacement and wars on its eastern side for a long time. Again, the opportunities are great, but what are we doing? An agreement was reached on 31 December on progression to enable the President to stand down. He has not yet signed the agreement, although most observers seem to think that he will. What are we doing to ensure that democracy prevails in that huge country? We have a significant aid programme in the country. What are we doing to ensure that the move on of Kabila is seen as a starting point for significant change, not a silver bullet?

What are we doing to ensure that our efforts are not concentrated entirely on the conflict areas of the east, but that they reach the whole mass of the country? The largest amount of—I am not sure that illegal is the right term—ad hoc land mining anywhere in the world has taken place across the western borders, and a huge chunk of the country has the most extraordinary health and safety conditions, deaths and lack of regulations. Our expertise could play a significant role.

[Mark Field (Cities of London and Westminster) (Con)]

I understand the plaintive cry of, “What are we doing?” This country can do a lot only through working with others, but we are doing a significant amount in our own right at Foreign Office level, through DFID, and, as the hon. Gentleman knows, even at party level. In my role as vice-chairman of international affairs in the Conservative party, we work, along with the Westminster Foundation for Democracy, on democracy building in several of those states. The Conservative party has a project, and I suspect that the Scottish National party and the Labour party have projects too, in the great lakes region. There is one pivotal country to which the hon. Gentleman has not referred—Uganda. The security implications of what is happening in Uganda will be gravely important for the whole region in the years to come.

[John Mann]

The right hon. Gentleman makes his point eloquently.

I have some practicalities for the Minister. The electoral commission in the DRC has no money and no capacity. Our expertise in elections is huge, so could we provide expertise and support? Are we considering how our aid programme can assist in trying to ameliorate some of the conflicts—for example, that in Katanga with the Bantu and the competition for land? How do we see the MONUSCO force developing? Many perceive it as highly ineffective in recent times. What is our approach to ensuring that that force is effective and that our expertise is brought to bear as part of it?

Alongside our aid programme, we have huge interests, such as mining companies, which are heavily involved in the DRC. The minerals are without question the reason for so much continuous war in the east and the south-east. People are battling for minerals, or groups are funded by minerals. What are we doing to ensure that we, with companies in this country, are not responsible? Indeed, when we consider the bribery and the payments to military groups, how do we know whether we are responsible?

Do the Government not see the importance of the proposals on beneficial ownership in places such as the British Virgin Islands? That directly connects to the conflict in the DRC through mineral companies that are based in offshore locations such as the British Virgin Islands. The New York Times recently revealed a series of suspicious bank transfers totalling around $100 million to Mr Kabila’s adopted brother. That is only one example. It is clear from the way in which the Serious Fraud Office has had to be involved that that is only skimming the surface. We could do a significant amount if we simply clarified and confirmed beneficial ownership of the moneys and the mining interests and held people to account. Some people believe that the various military forces battling illegally in the DRC are using mining money through bribery and direct extraction. We therefore have a huge responsibility to the region as well as to the DRC. What are we doing about that?

I pay tribute to Carole Velasquez and Noreen Kassam—two volunteers who have assisted the all-party group; in Carole’s case, for many years—for their support, and to CAFOD, which has been hugely influential in supporting and assisting the Catholic Church in getting the breakthrough in the DRC. There are many other great players in the aid world in this country, and they should be congratulated on their work. I could say much more but I will not; I hand over to others.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

I thank the Minister for his response and his kind offer to write to hon. Members present to pick up the myriad detailed issues that were raised—clearly, no one could possibly answer them all within any rational time limit. His offer is appreciated, and it would be very helpful.

Mr Deputy Speaker, inspired by your firm but fair moving-on of the last debate to allow us to have this debate, let me say that this has been a most excellent debate. That is hardly a surprise, given the experience of those on the Back Benches and Front Benches who have participated. Nevertheless, the debate has been of superb quality. We have managed to cover—in important detail and knowledgeably—seven different countries in a short time. That perhaps shows the scale of the issues and the opportunities.

I hope the Minister will take away in particular from the debate the fact that we have huge leverage. We have different kinds of leverage: someone who is forced out of office in disgrace and who has a fortune in Swiss banks has been paid by somebody, and some of those people will certainly be British. Therefore, the more we have transparency, the more we can add to that leverage. However, there are many other kinds of leverage—not least from excellent Departments. The Minister has excellent civil servants in the region, as does DFID, and we stand with a competitive advantage if we use our leverage wisely. I trust that the Minister will take from the debate the importance that the House gives to using that leverage. I share with the hon. Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy) and my hon. Friend who represents Middleton—[Interruption.] Lancashire somewhere—the other side of the border—

Political and Human Rights (African Great Lakes)

Lord Mann Excerpts

Tuesday 13th May 2014 Westminster Hall

[John Mann (Bassetlaw) (Lab)]

I thank the Backbench Business Committee for allocating time for the debate. I want to make four points. First, briefly, the Prime Minister in government has been keen to emphasise the Christian nature of the country and the Government. I had the opportunity, with the Bishop of Durham, other Church leaders and some parliamentarians, with the assistance of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, to visit the great lakes last summer. We were hosted by local Church leaders in Uganda, Rwanda and Burundi.

The role of the Church, post-conflict—and, more critically, post-border—in reconstruction is one that the Government, in their international development and foreign affairs work, must build on. I will come on to Burundi in my fourth point, but there and in Rwanda we see Church leaders, from different ethnic minorities in each country, working alongside communities that have been in conflict in different and tragic ways more or less ever since independence. Whether we wish it or not, a critical element of our role is to assist in bringing together the Churches to work on the problems in the region. There are a variety of Churches; the Catholic Church is hosting a meeting today, and the Church of England has got a particular role in relation to the problems we are discussing, which I hope that the Government will capitalise on. The Church of England—not least in Nottingham and Nottinghamshire—has done an immense amount of work over many years to build links across the great lakes, not least in Burundi.

Secondly, I want to talk about the group that nobody seems to be dealing with, namely the Twa community. The Department for International Development, wrongly, does nothing about them; it has done nothing about them for many years, so that is a criticism not merely of any changes made by this Government, but of the continuing lack of priority given to the group. That community of former forest dwellers across the great lakes is small in number now. It was once great in number, but its members were murdered in greater numbers than anyone else under Belgian colonial rule; vast numbers of the Twa were murdered over the past century. Those who remain in Uganda, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Rwanda and Burundi are the most impoverished of the poor. They are the most disfranchised and the least represented. Having been removed from the forest for the benefits of nature conservation and western tourists—

[Jim Shannon]

And business.

[John Mann]

—and business, they have incredible levels of inter-communal violence, particularly sexual violence and rape, and they are struggling to cope with life outside the forest.

It is not for me to come up with or even to suggest solutions, other than to say that without question, DFID ought to give proper priority to projects working with the Twa, not least those that develop youth leadership and potential community leadership. There is some exciting church-led work in that area, which is creating new leaders for the future. That is vital if the Twa are to continue to exist and not disappear in what I would describe, I think accurately, as an assisted genocide—a genocide assisted by the inaction of everyone, both inside and outside the country. We share some responsibility for that. With our proud history of international development, such projects ought to be the kind of thing we are good at. It is rather shameful that over the past decade we have done nothing about the Twa in those countries.

Thirdly, other Members have already raised the attempts by SOCO, a UK-based oil exploration company, to plunder the reserves in the Virunga national park. I would make two points. I do not wish to be trite, but it is a fact that there are more parliamentarians in Britain than mountain gorillas in the wild. If we balloted our constituents on which they would like to preserve for the future, I suspect that parliamentarians would lose out, and lose out heavily. We have a responsibility to future generations. It must be cost-effective to preserve wildlife. There may well be roles for the Twa to play in that, for their economic livelihoods. After all, they are removed from the forest to allow tourists to visit the mountain gorillas and bring in hard currency.

The point is more fundamental than that for human beings. The national parks in the great lakes region are the natural borders and boundaries that, more than anything else, will preserve nation states and restrict cross-border conflicts. The Akagera national park between Rwanda and Tanzania is being rebuilt. It has an horrendous history from the genocide, but, as well as having income-generating potential for the country, it serves as a natural brake on cross-border issues. The Volcans national park in the north-west corner of Rwanda, the Virunga and others serve a similar purpose. The preservation of such natural borders and the wildlife they contain is therefore ethically right and economically sensible for the long term—for tourism and livelihoods in 50, 100 or 150 years, not just the profits for SOCO or whatever in the next 10 or 20 years. Such preservation is critical to these countries’ competitive advantage, but also to minimising conflict now and in future. That should be seen as part of our foreign policy and international development work, and be given much higher strategic priority.

Fourthly and finally, I want to make a slightly longer point about Burundi, which is 178th out of the 187 countries assessed by the UN for poverty; it is not the poorest, but it is virtually the poorest country in the world. The UN says that Burundi is likely to achieve one out of the 18 millennium development goals. That is beyond the scale of most countries. For a post-conflict country with such a level of poverty to go without support from this country—here I will criticise this Government—is, whatever the reason, a mistake that must be reversed by whoever is in power after 2015. We must stop our lack of engagement with Burundi on international development.

I know that the Minister is a good man and a good Minister, in my experience. I do not normally give even the most modest praise to Tories, but he is a good man and has been, in my view, a good Minister. As he has been to Burundi, I would like to hear about his experience; perhaps he might like to give us his recommendations about how the Government should relate to that country, because it is applying for Commonwealth status. I hope that the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association will engage with Burundi on not just a parliamentary but an official level, and on a more intense basis. We should be in there, assisting a country that is increasingly looking to the English language, to the Commonwealth—not least because of the trade links with east Africa—and to us. There is a lot that we can offer.

Many criticisms can rightly be levelled at Burundi. It is not exactly a pluralistic democracy of the highest calibre. Currently, there is not the freedom of media and non-governmental organisations that we would want and expect. However, Burundi has had the most successful repatriation of displaced people in recorded history. More than 1 million refugees have returned, without civil war breaking out, and reintegrated into one of the world’s poorest economies. Although there have been, and remain, issues of land disputes and so on, on balance the process has been incredibly successful compared with any other such mass movement of people back into a country after they had been driven out by civil war. Many second-generation Burundians were born in Tanzania but have returned to their historic roots, sometimes with elderly family, sometimes without. That has been handled extraordinarily well. We should praise them for that, but we should also be in there with them.

The people of Burundi have recovered from what was an almost hidden war, certainly in the western media, in which as many people were killed as in Rwanda, over a longer period and with some of the same ethnic conflict bases. If any of that had ever been reported by the western media, people in this country would have been jumping up and down. But it was a secret civil war in a country that no one had ever heard of and that very few people across the world and in Britain have heard of. Yet Burundi has come out of that conflict, so we should be there using our great expertise in pluralist democracy and in building up civil society and its institutions. We have expertise in how the Churches can contribute to that process, because they—not least the Church of England—already play a significant part in what is happening in Burundi, and I would say a positive one.

There are many reasons why modest investment by DFID and better engagement—including by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office—would pay great dividends for us, for Burundi and for the great lakes region. I hope that the Minister will give some encouraging signs that this country will re-engage. If this Government do not, I want to put on the record for whoever is in power after 2015 the fact that this demand will not go away. We should re-engage, DFID should re-engage, and our diplomatic staff should be in Burundi, representing us and assisting the country.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Mann]

It would please me even more to hear that the Labour Front-Bench spokesman will commit to the UK re-engaging the Department for International Development in Burundi when we are in power.

[Ian Lucas]

My hon. Friend set out Burundi’s position on the index, which concerns me deeply. There is a real issue with the UK’s engagement and development of relationships with smaller countries in Africa. Some of the decisions that we made before 2010 relating to withdrawal from smaller countries should be revisited. I have taken on board what he says. I have a particular interest in smaller countries in Africa that leads me in the same direction.

My hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) has again brought his substantial experience of African issues to bear. He stressed that the primacy of rights is important and is linked to the essential question of governance. It is about the capacity of countries in the region to deliver rights for their citizens and good governance that improves lives. As we speak, there is a great deal of intense work in the region. I mentioned earlier the progress that has been made in eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo and Rwanda through the peace, security and co-operation framework, which led to intense international activity. I commend Mary Robinson’s work in the region. I would like to hear about the UK Government’s position on what is happening there at present. What more needs to be done? What are the UK Government’s priorities?

The extractive industries are important, and we had an excellent suggestion for holding a conference to try to impose a structure to deliver better governance and to emphasise the obligations of international companies to work with Governments in the region to ensure that the people of the countries concerned benefit.

The Government have done excellent work on sexual violence, but worrying concerns have been raised about the acquittals of officers in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. What is the Government’s assessment of the effectiveness of the procedures that are in place to address sexual violence in the region? What steps are the Government taking in response to those concerns? Will the Minister also update us on efforts to integrate the preventing sexual violence in conflict imitative in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and throughout the great lakes region?

This has been a wide-ranging debate on a massive topic for a massive region with huge problems. I thank all of the participants, and I look forward to the Minister’s response to the points raised by me and my colleagues.