Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what proportion of the UK’s Official Development Assistance spending went to Commonwealth nations in each year since 2010.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
Information on annual UK bilateral aid to Commonwealth nations over the period 2009 to 2019 is contained in table A4g of the 2019 UK Statistics on International Development, published on Gov.UK (www.gov.uk/government/statistics/statistics-on-international-development-final-uk-aid-spend-2019).
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, if he will support the Government of the Netherland's attempt to hold the Syrian Government responsible under the United Nations Convention against Torture for gross human rights violations and torture.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The UK welcomes the action taken by the Netherlands Government to hold the Assad regime responsible for human rights violations under international law. We are deeply concerned about the ongoing gross human rights violations in Syria and support all efforts on accountability for the regime's crimes. The UK has provided £11 million to support accountability work for war crimes committed in Syria since 2012.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what his timescale is for rescheduling the postponed Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative conference, Time for Justice: Putting Survivors First.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative (PSVI) International Conference, Time for Justice: Putting Survivors First, was postponed in light of the global COVID-19 pandemic. We will revisit plans when the international situation allows.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to support negotiations between the United States and the Russian Federation on the extension of the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.
Answered by Wendy Morton
The Foreign Secretary holds regular discussions with his US counterpart on a range of issues, including on arms control and strategic stability. These discussions are reflected and supported by daily cooperation at official level between the UK and the US, as well as by wider cooperation with NATO Allies.
US strategic arms, along with those of Russia, are limited by the New START Treaty. We recognise the contribution New START has made to international security and strategic stability by increasing transparency and mutual confidence among the two largest Nuclear Weapons States. As we have stated publicly, both in multilateral fora and in this House, we support its continued implementation and have encouraged the US to extend New START while negotiating a successor agreement.
However, we recognise that New START has its limits. It does not include new Russian systems, nor does it place any limits on China's growing nuclear arsenal. We therefore urge China to engage seriously with US calls for a new trilateral arms control agreement.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the US Department of Defense report entitled, Military and Security Developments Involving the People’s Republic of China, published 1 September 2020, what steps the UK is taking to support nuclear arms controls on China.
Answered by Nigel Adams
While US and Russian strategic arms are limited by the New START Treaty, China's growing nuclear arsenal is not. We recognise the contribution New START has made to international security by increasing transparency and mutual confidence among the two largest Nuclear Weapons States. We support its continued implementation and have encouraged the US to extend New START while negotiating a successor agreement. However, New START does not place any limits on China's growing nuclear arsenal. We therefore urge China to engage seriously with the US calls for a new trilateral arms control agreement.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to support freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
Answered by Nigel Adams
In the South China Sea, our commitment is to international law, particularly the UN Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), and to freedom of navigation and overflight. We encourage all parties to settle their disputes peacefully through the existing legal mechanisms, particularly UNCLOS.
Given the importance we attach to UNCLOS, on 3 September, I (Minister Adams) set out in full our legal analysis on the South China Sea for the first time. I (Minister Adams) made clear that the group of rights generally considered under "freedom of navigation", including innocent passage and overflight, apply in the South China Sea, regardless of sovereignty claims. On 16 September, we issued a joint Note Verbale with France and Germany to the UN Secretary General in response to assertions in Chinese Notes Verbale that we consider inconsistent with UNCLOS. We underlined the importance of unhampered freedom of navigation in the South China Sea.
As part of the UK's consistent presence in the region, five Royal Navy ships have transited the South China Sea since April 2018, most recently HMS Enterprise in early 2020. These deployments serve to reinforce our commitment to regional security and to upholding UNCLOS. Wherever the Royal Navy operates, it does so in full compliance with international laws, norms and rights to freedom of navigation provided for by UNCLOS.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, with reference to the Amnesty International report on torture in Iran, published on 2 September 2020, what steps he is taking to help reduce human rights abuses in that country.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The findings in Amnesty International's report about the November 2019 protests are deeply worrying. Iran's human rights record continues to be of serious concern to the UK. As we said at the time, we unreservedly support the right to peaceful protest, and call on Iran to uphold its commitments under international law to protect freedom of assembly and speech. The UK is committed to holding Iran to account on a wide range of human rights issues, through contact with the Iranian Government and internationally through the UN and our likeminded partners. We regularly raise human rights with the Iranians at all levels and we continue to take action with the international community to press Iran to improve its poor record on all human rights issues.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, what steps he is taking to help reform OECD guidance on the use of Official Development Assistance in funding peacekeeping operations.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
Peace and security are the basis for all development - as recognised in Sustainable Development Goal 16 on peace, justice and strong institutions. Peacekeeping plays a vital role.
In 2017, UK leadership at the OECD Development Assistance Committee helped deliver important reforms on the use of Official Development Assistance (ODA) for peacekeeping. This included doubling the percentage of contributions to UN peacekeeping missions in ODA eligible countries that count as ODA.
We continue to review potential for reform and are looking at how our aid budget can be used most effectively and strategically through the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, whether it remains Government policy to spend 0.7 per cent of gross national income on Official Development Assistance.
Answered by James Cleverly - Home Secretary
The Government is committed to spending 0.7% of our national income on development assistance. It is a manifesto commitment and is enshrined in law.
Asked by: Anthony Mangnall (Conservative - Totnes)
Question to the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office:
To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, what steps he is taking to co-ordinate the use of the Global Human Rights sanction regime with his counterparts overseas.
Answered by Nigel Adams
The UK is a global leader on sanctions, based on the smart, targeted use of sanctions, as part of wider political and diplomatic strategies. The UK will look to coordinate with international partners, like the US and Canada, who use sanctions to address human rights issues, to ensure there is no safe haven for torturers, killers, enslavers, and their enablers. As sanctions are most effective when applied in concert with partners, we look forward to continuing to coordinate with partners in the future.