Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Amanda Milling and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

I thank my hon. Friend for his question and for being such a strong voice for the Chagossian community; I know that he has a large Chagossian community in his constituency of Crawley. We have gone to great lengths to find projects for that money that will benefit the Chagossian community. I would like to meet my hon. Friend to discuss what more we can do.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

T2. According to Human Rights Watch’s “World Report 2020”, the Rwandan regime is active in“Arbitrary detention, ill-treatment, and torture in official and unofficial detention facilities”.Despite the Home Secretary’s nonchalant dismissal in the Chamber recently of legitimate concerns about the safety of asylum seekers, what mechanisms will the Foreign Secretary exercise in the oversight of those detention facilities to ensure that the same ill treatment and torture does not befall the already vulnerable human beings whom this Tory Government will be callously shipping off to Rwanda?

Executions in Saudi Arabia

Debate between Amanda Milling and Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

In terms of energy, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine, we are having to phase out Russian oil, which is absolutely the right thing to do. It is important that all partners work together to ensure the stability of the markets.

[Mr Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Slough) (Lab)]

There seems to be a bit of a pattern developing here. When the Deputy Prime Minister visited Saudi Arabia in June, the regime subsequently executed Mustafa al-Darwish, a child defendant convicted of protest-related offences. Now, days before the Prime Minister is due to go and speak business with the Saudi monarchy, the regime has executed 81 people. Does the Minister agree that the Saudi monarchy sees this UK Government as a soft touch—as people it can ignore—because Ministers do not possess the backbone to stand up for British values and for human rights, and the regime can therefore act with impunity and continue with its bloodshed?

[Amanda Milling]

As I have said on a number of occasions, it is because of our relationship with Saudi Arabia that we are able to have very, very frank conversations about human rights. We were shocked by the executions at the weekend. We do raise our concerns; the ambassador has raised concerns with the Saudi national security adviser and the Vice Foreign Minister.