Myanmar

Baroness Smith of Newnham Excerpts

Thursday 11th February 2021 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, the noble Lord, who served as a Foreign Office Minister himself, knows that I cannot make those specific commitments from the Dispatch Box, but I have noted what he said very carefully. As I indicated in my earlier answers, we are looking at all options to ensure that those who have committed and are behind the coup are also held fully to account. That includes all tools. We have noted the sanctions that the Americans have already acted on and, as I have said several times, when we act together on sanctions, we see a better result.

[Baroness Smith of Newnham (LD) [V]]

My Lords, the Minister’s indication that the Government are thinking of formally intervening in the Gambia’s genocide case against Myanmar, at the ICJ, is welcome. Given the Government’s preference for Parliament to express its views on genocide now, rather than taking things to a court, could the Minister tell the House whether parliamentary interventions and suggestions on how to intervene would be welcome?

[Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)]

My Lords, I always welcome interventions from parliamentary colleagues. On the specific issue of the ICJ intervention, as I said before, our long-standing position is to support the action that the Gambia has taken. We regard a formal intervention as something that should be measured and timely to make sure that the issue can move on. It does not mean that we are not supportive, because we have not formally intervened. I further assure the noble Baroness that we have been engaging with the APPG, for example, which is looking carefully at these issues. Recently, Minister Adams and I convened a meeting with, among others, my right honourable friend Jeremy Hunt and Rushanara Ali to discuss this very issue.