Israel and Palestine

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Alison McGovern

Monday 8th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The British Government make their views very clear at all times; I have just given the hon. Gentleman a list of all the different people the Prime Minister has been engaged with since this awful conflict started. We make consistent and clear points, all of which are questioned in this House.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Whatever the rhetoric we still sometimes hear, I know the Minister will agree that there is absolutely nowhere in this conflict that is safe for children. Further to the answers he has already given to my right hon. Friend the Member for Hayes and Harlington (John McDonnell) and the hon. Member for Colchester (Will Quince), may I ask him to spell out how his humanitarian strategy, and the aid that he is trying to get in to the area, will respond to the desperate needs of the children who are affected?

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Alison McGovern

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady once again demonstrates the dreadful position that the appalling act perpetrated by Hamas terrorists on 7 October has landed people in.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

I think I heard the Minister correctly just now when he confirmed reports in the Financial Times that all but one of the hospitals in the north of Gaza have stopped functioning. That news is catastrophic, and my constituents just want to know—as all of us do—that there is some hope that this hell is coming to an end. As such, further to the responses he gave to the hon. Member for The Cotswolds (Sir Geoffrey Clifton-Brown) and my right hon. Friend the Member for East Ham (Sir Stephen Timms), can I ask the Minister to describe the UK Government’s diplomatic strategy? He has mentioned that he will be travelling this evening: which of our partners will he be engaging to bring this war to an end?

[Mr Mitchell]

I will be travelling to Egypt tonight, but the discussions that are going on are about the hostages and the humanitarian situation, which I have explained extensively today. There are also discussions about the politics and how we move on. Those discussions are going on not just within the British Government, but with our partners, allies and like-minded parties overseas—in particular, through the extraordinary diplomatic reach of the British Foreign Office with all the countries in the region, which of course care as much as we do about the appalling loss of life.

Turkey and Syria Earthquakes

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Alison McGovern

Wednesday 1st March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. and learned Friend is absolutely right to make the point about the need to restore schools. Otherwise, on top of everything else, children will miss out on education, one of the key ladders for opportunity in their later lives. Education Cannot Wait, a charity Britain has been enormously supportive of, is a key area that can make an immediate effect. That is why we were so pleased to see it respond with $7 million of support in the immediate aftermath of the earthquake.

[Alison McGovern (Wirral South) (Lab)]

Many people in the Wirral have been fundraising as well; it is so good to see Britain coming together. I know that because of that, the Minister will have given the thanks of everyone in this House to our brilliant civil servants who have been helping and to all those he has met who are engaged in the response. On what he said about the United Nations, does he think we can now get better collaboration and support in pursuit of safety and care for civilians in Syria?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Lady for her comments. She knows a lot about these difficulties and she rightly says that the United Nations is the key to restoring basic services and the ability of people caught up in this terrible earthquake in northern Syria to survive. I believe that Martin Griffiths and his colleagues across the six agencies actively taking aid into northern Syria have wrestled at speed, and with effect, with the early problems, some of which were as a result of the earthquake damaging the infrastructure of crossings. I think she can now have confidence, as I have confidence, that the UN is delivering on the ground.

Finance Bill

Debate between Andrew Mitchell and Alison McGovern

Report stage & Report stage: House of Commons & Report: 1st sitting & Report: 1st sitting: House of Commons
Wednesday 1st July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Member is absolutely right. I think two very good examples are Pakistan, where British techniques and expertise have helped the Pakistan authorities to raise more tax from their citizens, and Rwanda, where Britain helped the Rwandan Government set up a fair and equitable system of taxation that has worked and succeeded in helping that country to fund its expenditure. Back in 2007, the Rwandan Government raised only about 20% of their annual expenditure, and today they raise over 80%.

[Alison McGovern]

I know some people think that tax is boring, but how could we listen to that example, talking about one of the countries that has suffered worst in the world in my lifetime, and not think that this new clause—the issue of getting tax to the place where it belongs—is truly a great mission that we should all subscribe to? Forgive me for being passionate about it, Madam Deputy Speaker, but I think it is much more important than any of us ever properly give it credit for.

The DFID aspect of this is absolutely crucial. If we want to stop giving aid forever and a day—I personally think that that should be our objective in having a more equal world—we absolutely need to pull every other lever that we possibly can in this House to get developing countries and poor countries globally the tax they are due, and this is how we will do it. As has been mentioned, this House has already voted in favour of it. It is quite obvious from the debate today that there is cross-party support, and, given all the other controversies that we have to deal with, why we would not do something supported by all corners of the House, I do not know.

The Minister will forgive me for telling him that while accepting that the Government have gone so far and have made efforts and shown willing, there is an old trade union saying, “When you argue with the manager, never say that they have done nothing; always say that they have not yet done enough.” That is my message to the Minister: you need to go further.