Oral Answers to Questions

Baroness Blackwood of North Oxford Excerpts

Wednesday 31st October 2012 Commons Chamber

[Meg Hillier (Hackney South and Shoreditch) (Lab/Co-op)]

3. What recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in Syria.

[Nicola Blackwood (Oxford West and Abingdon) (Con)]

6. What recent assessment she has made of the humanitarian situation in Syria.

[The Secretary of State for International Development (Justine Greening)]

The humanitarian situation in Syria is deteriorating rapidly: 2.5 million people are already in need and more than 350,000 have fled to neighbouring countries. The UK has already provided £39.5 million of funding for essential food, heating and shelter to help people to cope with the coming winter. I am assessing with other agencies how we can ensure that we are well prepared if the situation deteriorates further, as many people suspect it will.

--- Later in debate ---

[Justine Greening]

I can assure the hon. Gentleman of that. Clearly, if we are to make any progress through the United Nations, it will be critical to get buy-in from those two countries. So far, that has proved to be extremely challenging. There is clearly a diplomatic route to making progress, as well as a humanitarian one.

[Nicola Blackwood]

Save the Children’s recent report from the Zaatari camp in Jordan tells of Syrian children who have survived the most appalling atrocities, including arbitrary detention, torture and sexual violence, as well as others who have not survived. Will the Secretary of State tell us what is being done to support those children, and what steps are being taken to monitor the atrocities that they are reporting?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is shocking to see how what is now the Syrian civil war has affected children in particular. Half of our support has gone to refugees, many of whom are children fleeing with their families. The fact that we have provided trauma support for 28,000 children will give the House a sense of the scale of the problem that we are tackling, and we have announced a further £3 million of support for UNICEF’s work. We are providing not only counselling but clinical care in places such as Jordan to Syrian refugees who have experienced sexual violence. That is an incredibly worrying aspect of the work that we are doing, but we are absolutely committed to doing what we, as a country, can do with our partners to help that situation.