Christians Overseas

Barry Sheerman Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd May 2018 Westminster Hall

[Chris Philp]

The hon. Gentleman is quite right. I have been raising individual cases, because they tell a painful and powerful story, but behind those individual cases lie hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of Christians being persecuted and displaced, particularly in the middle east. We cannot stand by or walk by on the other side. We must take action.

[Mr Barry Sheerman (Huddersfield) (Lab/Co-op)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on bringing this important debate. I was reminded that when I was the parliamentary churchwarden for St Margaret’s, we did some good work trying to engage the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association to get an interface with some of these countries where we are not getting through. Could we be optimistic and get something moving back on that kind of track?

[Chris Philp]

I hope we can. The hon. Gentleman is driving at the point I was just beginning to make. We understand that there are terrorist organisations, such as ISIS, that do terrible things, and we are quite rightly combating them. However, I chose the examples I did very specifically, because in those examples, Governments of nation states—some of them Commonwealth members, and some of them allies of the United Kingdom—have either stood by and done nothing or, in some cases, actively encouraged and facilitated the persecution I have been describing. It is unacceptable that allies of the United Kingdom should stand by and allow this kind of persecution to take place. As a powerful western nation, we have levers at our disposal to influence these countries that are allowing the persecution of Christians to take place under their nose—and knowingly, deliberately and intentionally doing nothing.

The most obvious lever that we have was referred to by the hon. Member for Coventry South (Mr Cunningham), namely the overseas aid budget. It is a good thing that we spend £13 billion a year on overseas aid, which is 0.7% of GDP. That gives us enormous influence. Much of that aid is spent bilaterally. It goes directly to countries rather than via third-party agencies such as the United Nations or the European Union. I believe we should use the power that aid donation confers to achieve the change we want to see.

For example, the largest bilateral recipient of overseas aid is Pakistan, which receives about £350 million a year. Yet, Christians there are persecuted terribly with violent acts. The court system in Pakistan often prosecutes Christians using blasphemy laws, which are wholly contrary to any notion of free speech or religious freedom. I believe we should be looking at imposing some conditionality, particularly on aid we give directly to another Government. We should ask that they do more and not just pay lip service and say fine words, which generally speaking they do, but that they take real action to prevent the persecution of Christians, whether it is in the court system, or through the police and other armed forces standing by and doing nothing.