Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Wednesday 15th July 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I would be very happy to meet my right hon. Friend to discuss that. The Conflict, Stability and Security Fund exists to do just that and we need to think about how we maximise the use of all our UK efforts to help the most vulnerable, so I look forward to debating with him.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Going into this pandemic, many of the world’s poorest countries were spending more on debt payments than their own healthcare. The current suspension of payments is welcome, but will the Government go further and support the cross-party multi-faith call, co-ordinated by the Catholic Agency for Overseas Development, to cancel those debts and enable those poorest countries to focus on tackling the virus and climate change?

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Catherine McKinnell and Anne-Marie Trevelyan

Wednesday 4th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I thank my right hon. Friend for his question, and for the enormous amount of work that he has done in previous iterations of his posts in this Department and others. He is absolutely right; the challenge of finding a vaccine for covid-19 is something that we are actively involved in, and we have already supported £5 million to the World Health Organisation. I was speaking to Dr Tedros yesterday to find out what other support we could bring, not only in cash terms but in expertise such as the skills of epidemiologists and logisticians, which could help the WHO to drive forwards in the weakest health systems across the world to ensure that they have the support they need.

[Catherine McKinnell (Newcastle upon Tyne North) (Lab)]

Is the Secretary of State confident that her Department has sufficient resources to deal with the consequences of the ongoing conflict in Syria, especially given the recent call from the UN high commissioner for refugees for the international support for refugees trapped in Idlib to be sustained and stepped up?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

I think we are all continually horrified by the increasing abandonment of any kind of respect for humanitarian law that we are seeing in Syria from the regime, supported by the Russians. I signed off an £89 million package last week to provide more immediate help in that area. The challenge is to get it in, and to ensure that those who are able to deliver that humanitarian relief are able to get in and out safely. The Foreign Secretary was in Turkey yesterday continuing to try to find ways to ensure that those communities are at least able to keep warm and fed while we find ways to really sort out this impossible humanitarian challenge.