Gaza and Sudan

Baroness Chapman of Darlington Excerpts

Wednesday 19th November 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

I agree with the noble Earl: we thank the Government for bringing the Statement to Parliament and for this opportunity to ask questions of the Minister. Having asked for a Statement at every single opportunity since I became leader of the Liberal Democrats in the Lords, I note that this is the first one on Sudan since July—but it is welcome.

With regard to Gaza, we now have Resolution 2803 and, while it is positive that it is supported by the Palestinian Authority and the Arab states, it is worth noting that Palestinian statehood is not recognised as a right within it but is conditional. There is also a lack of reference to the continuing occupation.

The task ahead will be to move at pace with implementation and to begin peacebuilding. Peace remains an ambition, but the cessation of violence is an essential component. A credible pathway to Palestinian self-determination and statehood is now the agreed focus, and this is welcome. The most recent statements of Prime Minister Netanyahu and the right-wing elements of his Government, however, could not have been more clear: they believe that there should never be a two-state solution. How are His Majesty’s Government responding to this contradictory situation?

The UK can, as I have called for previously, provide an essential and practical service in the way forward, built on our expertise and experience in re-establishing education services, health services, law and order, and trusted judicial processes. Unless Hamas is disarmed, there will continue to be gangsterism and the threat will remain for Israeli civilians. The victims will also be Palestinian civilians. On the West Bank, I note even the Israeli President signalling his view this week of settler violence as “shocking” and crossing a “red line”. But a red line having been crossed, we would expect to see action, not impunity. I hope that the Government will continue their work on adding pressure to try to reduce the violence in the West Bank, which is now at unprecedented levels.

I have said previously that the task of reducing violence in the West Bank, the commencement of state building, and the work to clear rubble are a monumental task. It is 20 times the scale of the destruction of the Blitz in London in a quarter of the geographical footprint. But even this barely comprehensible destruction does not get close to matching the continuing horror in Sudan, a country that the House knows I have visited very frequently and that I love. In my ongoing work to support civilians, their bravery and resistance are a constant inspiration to me, but the urgency and scale of the atrocities need a comparable urgent and direct set of actions now.

In El Fasher in North Darfur, the latest credible estimates are that the total death toll in Gaza has happened in three weeks. It was signalled but not prevented, even though protection of civilian tools had been authorised by the Security Council and were available. The Minister will recall that before the Summer Recess I asked specifically what preventive actions were being taken. In the House, we discussed and even questioned the value of resolutions if they cannot be implemented. But this is the worst ethnic and genocidal atrocity since the mid-1990s, when the world was stained with Rwanda and vowed, “Never again”. It is happening now and it is about to get worse imminently unless action is taken.

It is now apparent that, as a result of a failure to prevent and the continuation of the supply of equipment and munitions to the RSF, it feels emboldened to commit further atrocities in El Obeid and Tawila. I say, with respect to our Government and other Governments around the world, that condemnation without action is not acceptable. As United Nations Security Council penholder, we have a global responsibility to secure co-ordination and then implementation of the protection of civilians.

The Independent Commission for Aid Impact report on Sudan made depressing reading—I know that the Minister will have studied it closely. From my experience, it is accurate. It is depressing to read that policy decisions have been made as a result of budget reductions, not through policy choices themselves. It is not only depressing but an outrage. The Foreign Secretary said in the House of Commons that there needed to be action, and I agree with her. But she did not say what, so can the Minister for Africa state what actions are now being proposed by the UK to prevent the atrocities that could be happening in weeks?

The Minister stated that funds were raised in the London conference last year, and the new additional funds from the UK are welcome, but that London conference raised only a third of what was needed for the humanitarian emergency last year. We know the consequences of the lack of a Sudan-wide UN arms embargo, no designated safe places for education and health, no kinetic action to prevent intelligence gathering and drone attacks on civilians, and no no-fly zones—all these are emboldening the RSF, and the SAF and its NCP backers are preventing humanitarian aid from going into the areas.

I hope the UK can now steer a regional co-ordination mechanism for humanitarian assistance. I hope the Minister can appeal to the Prime Minister so that he makes it a priority for this country on the global stage to ensure that there is a cessation of violence, that there is a prevention of atrocities, and that we can signal the work on the future of Sudan being for the civilians of Sudan, not the warring parties, which currently feel as if they have impunity.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Baroness Chapman of Darlington) (Lab)]

I thank both noble Lords for their thoughtful contributions, and I agree with much of what has been said. The noble Earl started by talking about the ceasefire in Gaza. We very much welcome this and will do everything we can to support the path to peace. As both noble Lords said, this is an early stage in the process and there is a very long way to go. It is unlikely to be smooth and without disruption along the way, and we need to be ready for that and to have the determination to do whatever it takes to see this through.

I was asked about the ISF and UK troops. It is not our intention that there should be UK troops. The Foreign Secretary said very clearly that that is not what we expect to happen, and there are many reasons for that. I was also asked about Hamas, which is an important question. It has long been the position of this Government and our predecessor Governments—and it will continue to be the position—that we consider Hamas to be a terrorist organisation. We therefore think that Hamas should have no role in the future of leadership in Palestine in any guise at all.

I am going to Brussels tomorrow to meet Mr Mustafa to talk about how the Palestinian Authority takes that role in the future, and to make sure that it is properly equipped and has the capability to do that. We are not ready today, but it is important that the international community, as appropriate, comes together and provides that support. We have been doing that and we need to increase those efforts at the moment. Accepting the board of peace and all the other structures within the 20-point plan that we still need to work through, it is difficult to see how, in the longer term, you can have a Government of Palestine without the Palestinian Authority.

Clearly, we keep the issue of arms sales under review. We are mindful of the decisions that our partners and allies make. We are at an early stage in the process and I would not rule out a change, but, at the moment, we need to monitor things and see how they progress. The return of hostages is absolutely vital. Those families have been through far too much and, tragic though it is, the bodies of their loved ones must be returned; we will continue to make the case for that to happen as soon as possible.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, asked about the plan as well, and our position is that this is the best chance we have of achieving peace at the moment. I know that there is some scepticism, and it is not difficult to find things that are missing and elements that it would be good to see, but we are in a position where this is the plan that we have. It is the plan that we must all work as hard as we possibly can to make work. Where there are things that we can add to it, and things that would help and ways in which we can support it, that is what we must do.

The noble Lord asks what we will do when the Government of Israel does not want, perhaps, to do some of the things that we would like them to do in relation to the plan. We need to have dialogue and discussion and take those issues as they come. We need to start from a position that, before this plan was agreed—very close to the moment when this plan was agreed—many of us were starting to lose most of our hope in relation to this. Yet the plan happened and the ceasefire happened. So we must proceed with a clear eye, but with the best intentions.

What are we doing to support the Palestinian Authority? We are doing a great deal, including the work with Michael Barber, who many noble Lords will be familiar with. We continue to work with those in the Palestinian Authority and we have a very good relationship with them. I have met them many times, as has Minister Falconer and many others, and we will continue to do that.

It has been a dreadful season for settler violence. It is the olive harvest season, and it has been some of the worst periods in terms of the volume and nature of violence that we have seen. I have met families in Palestine who have been forced to move many times, and their stories are devastating. We have used our sanctions regime to address this and we will continue to use that and other mechanisms, as the noble Lord would expect, to try to improve the situation of those living in Palestine.

The noble Lord asked me about sanctions on Sudan. Yes, we use some sanctions in relation to Sudan. Noble Lords have heard me say many times that we do not comment on future designations. But that does not mean it is a waste of time to raise it in this House. It is important that, where noble Lords feel that they would like to see more action, they use these opportunities to encourage the Government and make that clear, because that affects our calculation and our thinking. It is important that we know that that is the view of parliamentarians.

The issue of aid to Sudan was raised. There is an issue with the amount of aid, but really it is an issue of access. That is the problem. The restrictions that are placed on agencies, the registration requirements, the payments that are needed, the safety and the blocking of access are incredibly frustrating. I was asked about air drops. There are real problems with air drops and they are an absolute last resort. We do not know who the aid is going to. People have died when we dropped aid in this way in the past, and it is an incredibly expensive way of getting aid to a population we could reach easily over land, if only the warring parties would allow that to happen. We continue to argue, alongside Tom Fletcher and others—Tom Fletcher has been in Darfur this week and I am sure that this is one of the cases he will have been making—for the necessity of both sides, whatever else they cannot agree on, and there is plenty, to come to a position where they can allow access for humanitarian workers to operate safely.

We have looked into the issue of British-made equipment, and we are incredibly concerned about any evidence of anything happening of that nature. As the noble Lord will know, we take pride in the robustness of our systems, and we take incredibly seriously any issues there may be with diversion. These have been investigated. The items included in the reports were items that were sold many years ago. They were not bullets or guns or anything like that; it was something to do with a car engine. Nevertheless, those things should not end up in Sudan. We continue to monitor this very closely, because we do not want anything that has come out of this country to be used to perpetrate the kinds of atrocities that we are seeing in Sudan. We will keep that closely monitored and we will, of course, investigate any evidence immediately.

The noble Lord, Lord Purvis of Tweed, asked about the ICAI report. It was a very good report. I read it; it was a thoughtful, well-rounded piece of work. The policy choices on Sudan referred to in the report are not things that have happened recently, or even under this Government. The policy choices that we are making in relation to Sudan have not been related to budget, because we have not reduced our budget for Sudan. We have protected it, for reasons that noble Lords do not need me to explain. We will also make sure that we consider the money that is used to support the fast-growing numbers of people living on the borders of Sudan, in Chad, Egypt and South Sudan, who are being displaced as a result of this hideous conflict.

The noble Lord asked what we were doing. He made a point about Statements only taking us so far and not having an impact on the ground; I have a lot of time for that opinion. We held a session of the Human Rights Council last week. The position on Sudan was agreed unanimously, which was encouraging. It is good. I was talking to a Minister from Chad to thank the Government of Chad for what they are doing. His view is very clear: the war is political, it needs to stop, and we can do all we want with refugees and aid but, until those warring parties stop and put down their arms, we will continue to face this hideous situation.

The fact that we were able to pass something unanimously in Geneva serves to bring attention and focus to this conflict, because we will need all our partners and allies to bring their attention to Sudan, in the way that they did, in the end, with Gaza. We will need international pressure and an international response to make progress on bringing about peace in Sudan—so they do serve a purpose.

I was also asked about impunity. We have the fact-finding mission that we support. We are supporting the ICC and local agencies to make sure that we have evidence and that we can seek those prosecutions which will be necessary very soon, I hope, to bring those responsible to justice.

[Lord Polak (Con)]

My Lords, I refer the House to my entry in the register of interests. In the Statement, the Foreign Secretary talked about the Manama dialogue in Bahrain. I was there, and I congratulate the Foreign Secretary for publicly calling for intense efforts to address the crisis in Sudan. She did it there, and that was the right place for her to do it. In the other place, Andrew Mitchell asked the Foreign Secretary to call Africa Union members to encourage them to encourage the US to take this awful slaughter as seriously as they have done with Gaza. Can the Minister tell us whether that is happening?

It is, of course, good news that that Resolution 2803 has been passed. I have returned from Germany today and, as my noble friend Lord Courtown quite rightly said, they have lifted the suspension on arms exports to Israel. The Minister said it is early, but they have done it. I therefore asking the Minister whether she will be recommending the same action. Also, will she now say to the Royal College of Defence Studies: enough of this banning of Israelis? At the time, it said that the reason it was banning Israelis was because

“the Israeli Government’s decision to further escalate its military operation in Gaza is wrong”.

That was on 15 September. The ceasefire took effect in October and we are now in November, so I hope that the Minister will call for that.

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

It would be a very good thing to get to a point where the process is embedded and the confidence is there to enable us to do that. I very much look forward to the day when these measures can be lifted, that is when we will know that there is stability in the process and confidence being built on both sides to enable us to do that.

On the African Union, yes, we do talk to its members. They attended the conference that we held, and I think that they would like to be able to do more. This is not a straightforward situation, and it is important that we stand alongside the African Union. There is something about African solutions to African problems. I would say that the situation in Sudan is a lot more than an African problem, and we need to be working very closely alongside them.

[Baroness Royall of Blaisdon (Lab)]

My Lords, I am glad that my noble friend the Minister quite rightly recognised that Sudan is not just an African problem, as it were, and I am delighted by all that she says about what our Government are doing. The noble Lord, Lord Purvis, rightly says that more aid will be needed, and indeed it will. I understand that access is the issue at the moment, but I urge the Government to ensure that there is more aid in due course, especially when it comes to the 3.5 million children who are malnourished. I wonder what we can do, perhaps working with civil society—maybe it is too early in Sudan—to give hope to the young people of that country. I am really glad that the Government are working with the surrounding countries where the refugees will be fleeing to, and I just wonder what we can do to build that up. In Gaza, for example, we gave young people hope by enabling some of them to come to this country on scholarships to go to university. Is there anything similar that we could do for students in Sudan?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Those are really important questions. We will continue to protect our aid to Sudan. We have supported 2.5 million people, we are the third largest donor internationally ,and we take our responsibilities to continue that support very seriously.

On the point about civil society and local organisations, in many areas in Sudan, that is your only option. We are doing okay at that, but we need to do a lot more and to get better at it. We need to encourage international NGOs, the United Nations and others who work there to work in a similar way. It is more efficient, as you build capacity while you are doing the humanitarian work. These organisations right now can reach people who are just really hard to support in other ways.

On the issue of students, I have met students from Sudan and some women who had just completed their courses. They are incredibly frustrated: they are well educated, articulate and have an awful lot to give; they want professions and careers in Sudan and their ambition is to be able to work to reconstruct their country and rebuild their society. It is right that we do everything we can to enable them to realise that ambition.

[Lord Austin of Dudley (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, as has been said, this is the worst humanitarian crisis on the planet, with half a million children already dead from starvation, 10 million more starving and millions more internally displaced or leaving the country as refugees. Tragically, the number starving actually is more than Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Gaza, Mali and South Sudan put together. We have seen appalling bloodshed in El Fasher over the last few weeks, and it looks like Tawila could be next. There are 650,000 desperate civilians. Given our role at the UN, what more can the Government do to protect civilians, to enable the negotiation of a ceasefire and to get the desperately needed aid that we have just heard about into the country?

I do not want to end on a discordant note, but this Statement is, as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis said, long overdue. I just wonder, after the last three years, and the almost daily—obsessive, if I may say so—debates that we have had on Israel and Gaza, which has been discussed in Parliament more than any other issue, including the economy, the NHS, crime or education, why is it that we sit here in an almost empty Chamber? Why are there are no protests outside every day or marches taking over the streets of London every week? Why does the Minister think that, when it comes to the desperate plight of people in Africa, there is an apparent comparative lack of concern in Parliament and among the public? What could explain this?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

There is no doubt that this is the worst humanitarian crisis of our time by a considerable measure. The number of deaths, the atrocities that are being committed, the lack of control and the normalisation of violence, particularly sexual violence, in this conflict are beyond anything that we have witnessed this century. What more can we do? We need to rally the international community to get more focus on this conflict. That, in the end, is how people will be brought to the negotiating table. We need to do everything that we can within the legal structures that we have and our work on the ground to ensure that testimonies are taken and evidence is gathered so there is accountability and an end to impunity. We need to continue to provide the practical support—both directly and through our partners on the ground—to provide the food, medicine and education that are needed by people who are in such desperate need.

Why has this taken so long to reach the attention of the country and internationally? There are many theories around this—I think the noble Lord, my friend, has his own. You can point to the lack of journalists in the area, or to the fact that Africa generally receives far too little attention. The noble Earl opposite says that there is desensitisation, and I have no doubt that that is part of it too. It is our job, however, to put all those things to one side and make sure that this conflict, and the suffering that it has brought about, receives the attention that it needs. If we do not, this will carry on for year after year. The only way that this will be resolved is with the international community—including but not only the African Union—stepping up, shining a light on it, coming together and resolving to conclude it.

[Lord Bates (Con)]

My Lords, I join those welcoming the commitment made in the Statement of £125 million of British taxpayer funding to Sudan and welcome the “life-saving support”, as it says, to over 650,000 people. Is the Minister aware of the comments made today by Jean-Martin Bauer of the World Food Programme, when he said:

“We have two confirmed famines in 2025—the first time this century—things have never been this bad”?


Yet the World Food Programme, which is providing life-saving food aid to 110 million people, is facing a 40% cut in its funding. Does the Minister agree that it would be unconscionable for the UK to cut its contribution to the World Food Programme while it is dealing with this unprecedented humanitarian emergency? If so, will she give that assurance to the House this evening?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

We will continue to fund the World Food Programme, because it is often the agency that can best get supplies mobilised at speed and at scale in these situations. The situation in Sudan is very difficult, even for the UN, because of the restrictions that are put in place and the inability to move supplies around in the way that we need to. We work with other agencies as well—the International Rescue Committee and others—because we need to be able to work with a range of partners because of the very challenging and dangerous circumstances in which we find ourselves having to operate. Unlike some others, we are absolutely committed to working with the World Food Programme, UNICEF, UNHCR and all the UN agencies, and particularly closely through Tom Fletcher, the co-ordinator, because we recognise and respect the fact that the UN is often—not always, but often—the best partner in such circumstances.

[Lord Mohammed of Tinsley (LD)]

My Lords, I join my noble friend Lord Purvis in his frustration about how long it has taken to have a Statement on Sudan. In particular, I have concerns around the credible evidence of atrocities that are highly possible in El Obeid and Tawila. What specific actions are His Majesty’s Government taking to prevent this? I particularly welcome the final section of the Statement, which says that a resolution was passed

“securing international consensus for an urgent UN inquiry into alleged crimes in El Fasher, because impunity cannot be the outcome of these horrifying events”

in El Fasher and across Sudan, and further states:

“We need to ensure that teams can get in to investigate those atrocities and hold the perpetrators to account, and I have instructed my officials to bring forward potential sanctions relating to human rights violations and abuses in Sudan”.


We need to get those individuals in to investigate and collate that evidence, because with every day that passes, the likelihood increases that those people, whether they be civilians or people in regular or irregular armies, may well get away with it.

On the same issue, will His Majesty’s Government have the same determination to hold those people to account who have committed war crimes in Palestine, be it in Gaza or in the West Bank, particularly given the settler violence that we have had? What clear message will they send to those individuals who are going around burning dairies and other livelihoods?

Finally, we have seen pictures of aid stacked up in places such as Jordan and the flooding that has happened in Gaza. What actions will His Majesty’s Government take to ensure that those tents, which are needed right now, are provided, as well as access to baby food and other essentials? I have talked about sanitary products for women in the past. Can we please ensure that they reach the people in Gaza urgently?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

I have been to those warehouses, so I know exactly what the noble Lord is talking about. It is very frustrating when we see aid and equipment that is desperately needed being unable to get to the people who need it. But access is improving; it could still get better. We have conversations about dual-use items and all those issues regularly, but things are slowly getting better. The noble Lord asked whether we treat violations of international humanitarian law differently in different places. No, these things are universal, and that is the approach that this Government will always take. On what we are doing about the atrocities and accountability in Sudan, that is an important question. We are working urgently to press the parties to agree an immediate three-month truce, as a beginning, to enable that aid to get in, but also to enable people’s accounts of what has happened, because it is important, as he says—and I think it is what he wants—that the individuals responsible find themselves in the International Criminal Court, which is where they belong.

[Lord Purvis of Tweed (LD)]

My Lords, I know that it is unusual to contribute a second time, but I have raised El Obeid and Tawila, as has my noble friend. I would be grateful for some specific reference to actions on what may be imminent atrocities carried out there. We know that the RSF has declared a truce and is using that, cynically and politically, to gather data and intelligence on its next victims. We also know that the NCP has said that anything that Burhan or SAF are saying will also not be implemented. What actions are we now taking to prevent what could well be imminent atrocities?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Lord is correct to remind us of this. I think everybody watched what happened in El Fasher, could see it starting and could tell what was going to happen. We have the same fear in the pit of our stomachs now about Tawila and other places too. We have to work alongside the Quad process that the US is leading, and there are other processes too. The UK supports all of them and is working as closely as it can. We have organisations that are speaking to both sides, including with armed groups on the ground. It is a case of using every possible lever to make the case that people will be held to account. The world is now watching in horror at what has been happening, and we must choose every method that we can to try to prevent any further atrocities occurring. We are all sickened to our core at what is happening and what we fear may be about to take place.