Gaza and Lebanon
Cat Smith Excerpts(2 months, 1 week ago)
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Urgent Questions are proposed each morning by backbench MPs, and up to two may be selected each day by the Speaker. Chosen Urgent Questions are announced 30 minutes before Parliament sits each day.
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Anneliese Dodds
The new Government are undertaking that engagement continuously with countries in the region and beyond. We have a responsibility to be a voice for de-escalation and an active partner pushing seriously for that de-escalation.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Wyre) (Lab)
As the Minister outlined, the humanitarian situation in northern Gaza is so dire that unconventional means of getting aid into it might need to be considered. What conversations is she is having with colleagues about airdropping aid into northern Gaza to ease the humanitarian situation there?
Anneliese Dodds
My hon. Friend raises an important issue. I discussed these matters in detail when I was in Jordan, as well as with a number of humanitarian organisations that are active on the ground and in my meetings with UNRWA. There are challenges to delivering aid through airdrops—they are not as well targeted and can cause additional problems. It is important that land routes—the most effective way of getting aid into Gaza—are enabled. We need more trucks to get into Gaza and more access for people to get that aid. It is unacceptable where there are restrictions on aid.
Oral Answers to Questions
Cat Smith Excerpts(8 years, 9 months ago)
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Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
What medical and psychological services are the Government able to provide to the women referred to in the previous question, who have been held as sex slaves?
Mr Swayne
We have sent a number of experts to the region specifically to deal with violence against women. The pooled fund, to which we are the largest contributor, provides maternal and child healthcare services, protection for women and girls, and livelihoods for female heads of households. The Iraqi national action plan delivers similar services, and we are dealing specifically with the needs of women in Dohuk, Kirkuk and the northern areas through the human rights and democracy fund.
Oral Answers to Questions
Cat Smith Excerpts(9 years ago)
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James Wharton
The hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the diverse nature of the area about which he talks. We see great potential for growth across Edinburgh and south-east Scotland. We want to ensure that we can realise that potential and deliver that growth. We will continue to have talks, which have been productive and are constructive, with interested parties on the city deal. We will continue to work constructively to deliver that city deal if it can be delivered in the right way. These things must be decided properly and after due consideration. That is the process that is currently under way.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
22. What plans he has to tackle landlords who knowingly rent out unsafe and substandard accommodation.
The Minister for Housing and Planning (Brandon Lewis)
The Housing and Planning Bill contains measures to tackle and go further with rogue landlords than anything we have had before. We want to rule out rogue landlords who rent out substandard accommodation and to do all we can to ensure that tenants have a good and safe environment. Our proposals include a database of rogue landlords and letting agents, banning orders for serious or repeat offenders, a tougher fit and proper person test, extending rent repayment orders and introducing civil penalties.
Cat Smith
Over the past five years, despite the poor quality of many privately rented homes, rents have soared and they are now a fifth higher than they were in 2010. Why are the Government not taking any steps in their new Housing and Planning Bill to help private renters with these soaring rents?
Brandon Lewis
If the hon. Lady looks at the private rented sector over the past five years, she will see that its increases are, on average, lower than the increases in the social housing sector, hence our reason for the changes in the Budget. We are going a lot further than ever before in cracking down on rogue landlords, whom everyone across the House would like to see put out of business.
Oral Answers to Questions
Cat Smith Excerpts(9 years, 6 months ago)
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The Prime Minister
The first thing that we can do is to continue our investment, using our aid budget as—I think—the second largest bilateral donor in providing refugee support and refugee camps, whether in Jordan or elsewhere in the region. We should continue with that, but clearly the answer to this problem is to allow those people to go back home, whether to Iraq or to Syria, so what we need is a Government in both those countries that can represent and work with all their people.
There is some progress in Iraq with the Abadi Government in Iraq, and we need to make sure that they can represent Sunnis as well as Shi’as. In Syria, the situation is far, far worse, but we should still continue, with others, with the plan of training the moderate Syrian opposition and trying to bring about a transition, so we get rid of the Assad regime and Assad himself, who is one of the biggest drivers of terror in the region, because of what he has done to his people. That is the strategy we should pursue, for however long it takes to succeed.
Cat Smith (Lancaster and Fleetwood) (Lab)
Q6. Will the Prime Minister inform the House when he expects the UK to regain its triple A credit rating?