Lachin Corridor and Nagorno-Karabakh

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 24th January 2023 Westminster Hall

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) on bringing this issue to the attention of the House; it is important that we discuss it this afternoon. I have been contacted by a number of constituents who are particularly concerned about friends and family in Nagorno-Karabakh, and they are frankly appalled at the lack of action on this front.

The blockade of the Lachin corridor is the latest stage in the ongoing hostilities between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The corridor is both a trade route and a link between many families who are split between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. When the blockade was started in December by the so-called “environmentalists”, described by the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham in some detail, it severely limited trade as well as access to essential goods, medicine and foods.

While gas and electricity were being cut off, leaving people in Nagorno-Karabakh without heating and the means to power, there were also those outside who were stranded. In fact, there have been reports of up to 1,000 people who have ended up stranded outside their homes in Nagorno-Karabakh and have no way of getting back, including a number of school groups on field trips. Individually, these actions can cause chaos, but if we add in the freezing winter conditions that we hear about, they have left a situation that is rife for a humanitarian crisis.

I am pleased that the UK Government have spoken out on the issue and are focusing on restoring freedom of movement along the Lachin corridor, raising the issue at the OSCE and the UN Security Council. Those were both positive steps, but while the Government appear to be in dialogue with their Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts, I am disappointed at the detail we are hearing from them. I recently submitted a number of written questions regarding an action plan on this issue and what we should be doing on the Lachin corridor. I did receive responses, but there was a lack of detail; they lacked the teeth required to deal with this.

The UK has a significant trade relationship with Azerbaijan. The President of Azerbaijan has declared that the UK is Azerbaijan’s “largest investor” and strategic partner. Trade between the UK and Azerbaijan last year was over £1 billion, which gives us some leverage. It is not clear from the answers I received, or indeed from what we have heard so far, how humanitarian issues factor into any trade relations, so we need some detail from the Government on that. How can we on the one hand denounce the actions that lead to a humanitarian crisis, while on the other hand seek to increase trade with the very same state?

The UK must support both a lifting of the blockade and a lasting peace in the region. To realise that ambition, there must be engagement with both the Azerbaijani Government and the Armenian Government to reach solutions, but the UK has trade leverage with which we can help to resolve the conflict. We should be looking at sanctions and international monitoring of the situation, including supporting a humanitarian airlift mission to get supplies into Nagorno-Karabakh. Ultimately, we need the blockade lifted. Over 100,000 people are suffering greatly at the moment, and they seem to have been forgotten, so I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say.

Mahsa Amini

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

I thank the right hon. Gentleman for raising that point. It is also fair to say that we should congratulate the men who have joined those protests. We have all observed that and very much welcome it. It is a very important part of the change.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

Of course, Mahsa Amini is her legal name, but her family name—her Kurdish name—is Jîna. We have to recognise that, because the Kurdish community in Iran are among the most persecuted groups. My hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow South West (Chris Stephens) has already asked about expediting asylum cases, but I will ask the Minister again. There are many people in our communities who are from a Kurdish background and, indeed, who are Iranian human rights activists. What are the Government going to do to expedite these asylum claims, given the barbarity of the regime that we are now witnessing?

[Gillian Keegan]

Of course, Iran must cease its indiscriminate bombardment of Kurdish towns, which has led to the loss of innocent lives and damaged civilian infrastructure. Those wholly unacceptable attacks are a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and they demonstrate a repeated pattern of Iranian destabilising activity in the region. We are acutely aware of that and are working to improve the situation.

Srebrenica

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 14th July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Bambos Charalambous (Enfield, Southgate) (Lab)]

I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Bolton South East (Yasmin Qureshi) and the hon. Member for Rutland and Melton (Alicia Kearns) for securing this immensely important debate today, and Members across the House who have made moving, thoughtful and measured contributions. I also welcome the Minister to his place.

This House is at its very best where we speak with one voice and in defence of the core values that, despite our political differences, we all share: democracy, a commitment to conflict prevention and the defence of human rights. Peace in the western Balkans is a priority for me and our team, and would be for a Labour Government. The shadow Europe Minister is currently in the region and continues to engage with officials to build consensus on achieving lasting stability, and my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy) made a moving speech alongside the President of Bosnia and Herzegovina on Tuesday at the Speaker’s House.

It must be recognised that the UK and its armed forces have played a powerful and lasting role in ensuring peace and stability in Bosnia and across the western Balkans. Labour recognises that the UK must continue to provide that critical support during these deeply concerning times. The horrors of the 1990s are ingrained in the minds of so many people across the country, including our armed forces personnel.

I put on record our thanks to and continuing support for Remembering Srebrenica, whose work has been so important in paying tribute to those who lost their lives and in warning us that we can never allow this to happen again. I echo the sentiments of the Leader of the Opposition: let us use this day and the memory of Srebrenica not only to remember those we lost, but to educate future generations and bring communities together. That is why Remembering Srebrenica has done so wonderfully. It has done the necessary and critical work of keeping the memory of the tragedy alive, and educating more than 180,000 young people about the evil that took place. That is integral to building stronger and more cohesive communities into the future, and developing an awareness of contemporary challenges.

This debate, marking the 27th anniversary of the genocide in Srebrenica, comes at a particularly salient time for our continent. During Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have seen some of the most shocking and harrowing war crimes committed on this continent in decades. We must ensure that our collective resolve remains unwavering as the conflict across the east and the south continues to intensify. Labour continues to support the Government’s humanitarian, military and diplomatic efforts to support Ukrainians, who face enormous challenges in Putin’s barbaric and egregious war.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

A theme seen in Ukraine and in Srebrenica has been not only the killing of civilians and the genocide, but the sexual violence used as a tool of war. As well as those who have lost loved ones, many people are still living with the scars of the events that happened to them—not just in Srebrenica, but in pretty much every conflict across the world. Does the hon. Member agree that we must do more to support the victims of sexual violence in conflict?

[Bambos Charalambous]

The hon. Member makes an excellent point. Sexual violence is one of the most heinous war crimes that can be committed, and it has a lasting effect. It is unspeakably dreadful. As she says, we need to do so much more to ensure that the victims are supported. I am sure that the Minister will make reference to that in his speech.

Shireen Abu Aqla

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

We stand by journalists all across the world and it is a tragedy that so many journalists have been killed in recent years, and particularly this year. That is why we continue to raise issues of media freedom on the global stage. In February in Estonia, we announced support for the secretariat for the Media Freedom Coalition, which we founded and which now has 52 members. We will absolutely stand for media freedom and for journalists all across the world.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

It is important that the Minister has condemned this killing this afternoon and I thank her for doing so several times. Many of us are puzzled by her reluctance to summon the Israeli ambassador; that seems like the first step that should have been taken. Will the Government now commit to supporting the International Criminal Court investigations into not only this incident, but the wider behaviour of the Israeli Defence Forces in the occupied territories?

[Vicky Ford]

Not only have we worked with other members of the UN Security Council in strongly condemning this incident and needing to have this investigation, as I have mentioned, but we have been very clear that we are very concerned about other incidents of Palestinian civilians being killed by Israeli security forces in recent weeks. We continue to urge further transparent investigations of those killings as well.

Withdrawal from Afghanistan: Joint Committee

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 15th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Alyn Smith]

My hon. Friend has made a very sensible point. I would add gently to the Government that perhaps there would not be a call for a specific inquiry if we felt that the inquiries had been dealt with properly thus far.

What we need to do, as a priority—all of us—while learning lessons is get people out and make people safe. I pay tribute to the work that has been done on that, but we need more. The House needs to scrutinise the ARAP scheme itself, but we also urgently need the details of the new scheme so that our constituents can be informed. We in the SNP already think that it needs to be expanded. We do not think that 20,000 is remotely sufficient for the scale of the trouble ahead.

We would also like clarity on the actual timescale. If, as we have heard, “in the coming years” means more people coming in, does that mean that, if 20,000 people apply in the first few months of next year, the scheme will close—in which case it is wholly insufficient—or does it mean that there is a quota for how many people can actually get in? These are basic questions that are as yet unanswered, so we need more details urgently.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

We have another issue, and that is family reunion. The family reunion visa will not be suitable for the situation that we face. There is currently a 12-year-old girl in my constituency who was separated from her parents in the chaos at Kabul airport, and we cannot get the parents out. Surely we need to look very carefully at how we are going to operate family reunion in cases such as that.

[Alyn Smith]

I strongly agree; in fact, that was going to be the next line of my remarks. Indeed, a number of Members across the House have been pressing for details on family reunion. There is also the question of funding for local authorities to keep people safe. I have met three families from Afghanistan who have already been settled in Stirling in the last couple of weeks, and they were particularly concerned about friends and family who were still in the country and still very much in harm’s way. I pay tribute to Stirling Council and to Forth Valley Welcome, who have done so much to make these refugees feel safe and secure in the Forth Valley. I say, in a genuine and constructive offer to the Government, that we can do more: the Forth Valley can do more and Scotland can do more. We need the details of the scheme and particularly of the funding, because we are not going to make promises that we cannot keep, but we are willing to play our part constructively.

There are wider and longer-term implications to the Afghanistan situation. It is not just about Afghanistan. Where is your global Britain now? After Afghanistan, it is clear that the UK cannot operate significant independent engagement and that it has precious little influence on US engagement. This was a collective failure of the US, the UK and others; many countries have failed in this. The world is less secure than it was, and the bad guys are now feeling more confident than they should be. That is something we should all be deeply concerned about.

Domestically, the integrated review is out of date within six months of its publication. We also see that the UK’s Indo-Pacific tilt looks even less credible than it did—and frankly that was not much, from our perspective. Global Britain is not the SNP’s project. That stands to reason, as we have a different world view. We believe that Scotland’s best future is as an independent state within the European Union, but we do not wish global Britain harm. The UK is always going to be our closest neighbour and our closest friend. The SNP submitted constructive suggestions to the integrated defence and foreign affairs review, and they are even more relevant now than they were. We will continue to work constructively, from our perspective, to help our nearest friend and neighbour to learn the lessons of the last few months, but that needs to be done on the basis of humility and reality. Learning lessons would go a long way to support the motion put forward by Labour today, which we are very pleased to support.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tom Tugendhat (Tonbridge and Malling) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow several hon. and right hon. Friends. I find myself in the unusual position of disagreeing with the Opposition and agreeing with those on the Government Benches, which, as many Members will know, has a touch of novelty for me. I think I have been doing my best to hold this Government to account on matters of foreign affairs, but Members might feel that I have not been quite as rigorous on this matter as I should have been today. Could I ask you, Mr Deputy Speaker, to check whether the phone signal is working properly in the Chamber? My phone seems remarkably unable to ring.

[Carol Monaghan]

I wonder whether the hon. Gentleman would share his contact list with me, because he seems to be able to contact the Home Secretary directly while many of us cannot. We have similar cases to his, and I congratulate him on having success with his case, but it might be helpful if he could do that.

[Tom Tugendhat]

I would be absolutely delighted to. As many Members of the House will know, I share any Member’s phone number with other Members once I have got their permission to do so, and if the hon. Lady would like to ask me, I would be very happy to do exactly that.

I share much of the criticism that I have heard from various Members about how the relief and evacuation operations have been handled. I have been pretty critical of the ways in which questions have been answered and co-ordination has been conducted. I think I have also been pretty robust in expressing how that should be improved.

Ethiopia

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 14th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

I thank my hon. Friend for his support. Of course we are still contributing £10 billion of aid. That is an enormous sum of money in absolute terms. It is also enormous relative to the actual size of our economy—it is much larger than other members of the G7 and our international partners, such as the Americans, for example. Not only that, but it is not a permanent change; we are going to get back to 0.7% when the economic conditions allow. I know that there are other hon. Members in the House who want that to happen very quickly, but we will keep that situation under review and try to get it back. It certainly does not stop us helping more in situations such as that in Ethiopia.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP) [V]]

Gang rape and brutal sexual violence against women and little girls are being used as weapons of war in Tigray. This fear of sexual violence means that women and girls are in hiding, too terrified to travel to food distribution centres. Children are literally starving because of fear of rape. What work are the Government doing internationally to remove the stigma of rape in conflict? What steps are being taken to bring perpetrators of sexual violence in conflict to justice?

[James Duddridge]

This is an incredibly important issue, which was given a higher profile when Lord Hague was Foreign Secretary. It was raised up the international agenda. In fact, I was alongside him in a number of UN meetings when I was Minister for Africa under David Cameron, raising these issues. It does appear that sexual violence is being used more, not less. Some of that might be our awareness and our willingness to talk about it, rather than brushing it under the carpet, but it is really important that we flag that it is one of the worst areas of behaviour. We need to get away from it. I note that the House is discussing the issue in more detail—perhaps I will be able to provide more detail—on Thursday this week.

UN International Day of Education

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Thursday 28th January 2021 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP) [V]]

I thank the hon. Member for West Worcestershire (Harriett Baldwin) for bringing forward this important debate. On the UN International Day of Education, we must renew our commitment to UN sustainable development goal 4, pledging that by 2030 quality education will be accessible to all children and young people, regardless of nationality, ethnicity, gender, religion, sexual orientation or class. This was always going to be a challenge. However, the pandemic has further highlighted unequal access to education. We must redouble our efforts to address long-standing educational obstacles and the new challenges that we face as a world in lockdown.

At the height of covid restrictions, schools were closed to more than 1.6 billion learners globally, and the impact has been felt most acutely by the most vulnerable. In the UK, as many as 1 million children and young people suffer from digital exclusion. I welcome measures from broadband providers to extend internet access to the most disadvantaged children. I also pay tribute to teachers in Glasgow, who, in some cases, have been going around houses to hand out dongles to those in need. However, more needs to be done at a UK Government level so that no young person is ever disadvantaged because of digital exclusion.

Internationally, remote learning remains out of reach for at least 500 million students. Many Members have pointed out that those most affected will be girls. Pre pandemic, 132 million girls worldwide did not attend school due to poverty or gender-based discrimination and violence. As a result of covid school closures, millions more are dropping out of school, with the Malala Fund estimating that an additional 20 million girls could be out of school by the time the pandemic ends. This is an entire generation of girls for whom life chances and choices are limited. We should also all take note of the comments from the hon. Member for Putney (Fleur Anderson) regarding WASH.

Although I welcome the Government’s commitment to supporting 12 years of quality education for girls, and their support for the UN Refugee Agency for education of refugee children, these announcements are sullied by the decision to reduce the UK aid budget from 0.7% to 0.5% of GNI. Even a short-term cut will impact children struggling to access an education, and it is notable that Members on both sides of the House have criticised this cut today.

One of the most challenging groups to support are learners in conflict zones. The Secretary of State has previously stated that he is proud of the UK’s aid generosity and that aid is a very positive vision for the UK as a “force for good” in the world, but if we are truly to emerge as a progressive global Britain, we must also acknowledge the impact on children and their access to education of UK foreign policy. Whether we are discussing generations of Palestinian children confined to refugee camps or the plight of children in Yemen after years of a war partially facilitated by the arms trade with Saudi Arabia, it is our duty to recognise the consequences of our actions and flawed foreign policy decisions. Only then can the UK sincerely call itself a resolute force for good in the world.

Finally, I echo the words of the UN Secretary-General:

“education is the foundation for expanding opportunities, transforming economies, fighting intolerance, protecting our planet and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.”

These are objectives that all Members share, so I call on all of us to continue working towards safe, accessible and quality education for all—especially girls—both at home and around the world.

Uyghur Slave Labour: Xinjiang

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

Like many right hon. and hon. Members, my hon. Friend is right to raise this issue. We constantly urge businesses involved in investing in this part of the world to ensure that their supply chains are free of forced labour and to satisfy themselves that their activities do not support, or give the impression that they support, forced labour. We constantly talk to industry groups, as well as directly to businesses. It is worth pointing out that we have financed projects to increase awareness of how international supply chains may contribute to human rights violations or abuses in Xinjiang.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP) [V]]

Concentration camps, forced labour, medical sterilisations —disturbingly, we have seen all this before. Until garment retailers and Xinjiang officials act, will the Minister legislate to require UK garment retailers to show on labelling if cotton is sourced from forced Uyghur labour in Xinjiang, so that consumers can decide for themselves which brands they wish to support?

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Lady is right to raise this issue. We constantly raise serious concerns about the gross violations of human rights to which she refers. As I have said, we raised the deeply concerning latest new evidence directly with the Chinese embassy yesterday. I urge her to have a little patience in terms of the new measures on supply chains that the Government are going to bring forward.

Turkey-Greece Border: Refugees

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Tuesday 10th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

Indeed. I commend my hon. Friend for her work on Lesbos, which is one of the islands that is very much under pressure. As she will know, we are one of the largest donors to the crisis in the region. We will continue to provide assistance in the affected area, as well as in Syria, and it is not just the Foreign Office. The Department for International Development, in particular, has been a significant donor and is committed to pushing projects inside Syria, as well as in the affected area.

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

In many ways, the EU-Turkey deal of 2016 has allowed the EU to bury its head in the sand on this situation. We know refugees will flee wherever they can through whatever method they can, so a lot of refugees are not in established or recognised refugee camps but on the islands, not because they have chosen those places but because they were the first place of safety. What are the UK Government doing to rehouse, move and take responsibility for these refugees, not just those in recognised camps?

[Nigel Adams]

The United Kingdom is doing a significant amount. We are supporting Turkey to implement the EU-Turkey statement, and the United Kingdom has made €483 million of bilateral and EU budget contributions towards the €6 billion facility for these refugees.

Commonwealth in 2020

Carol Monaghan Excerpts

Monday 9th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Carol Monaghan (Glasgow North West) (SNP)]

We are hearing from members of the armed forces and the Royal British Legion that these people have been recruited because we are not meeting our own recruitment targets here in the UK. We are going out to these countries and actively recruiting: promising the earth and then delivering very little for their families. It really is not how we should be operating.

[Patrick Grady]

I entirely agree. My hon. Friend speaks with some experience on these matters. The mismatch between rhetoric and reality is a bit of a theme on a number of issues in this debate, particularly the final one that I want to touch on. Again, this will not be a surprise to the Minister, because we have exchanged words on it in Westminster Hall on many occasions.

The issue is, of course, the UK’s role in the question of sovereignty over the Chagos Islands. Mauritius, which claims sovereignty and whose sovereignty has in fact been recognised by a resolution of the United Nations General Assembly, is a fellow member of the Commonwealth. Where is global Britain in all of this? Mauritius has had to seek an advisory opinion from the International Court of Justice. The UN resolution stated that the United Kingdom should surrender the British Indian Ocean Territory unconditionally, and the deadline for that was breached in November 2019. Where is global Britain in all that? Where is the respect for the partnership of the Commonwealth of Nations?