Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 26th April 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call the SNP spokesperson.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

The UK’s funding to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees was cut by more than 50% last year. UNRWA provides essential services to Palestinian refugees in the west bank, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, but it has been described as “close to collapse” due to funding shortfalls. Can we truly say, as Ambassador Allen stated to the UN Security Council in 2018, that

“the United Kingdom strongly supports peace”

between Israelis and Palestinians when it simultaneously sells arms to one side and cuts humanitarian aid to the other?

[Amanda Milling]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his question. As I have said, we are committed to a two-state solution as the best way to deliver Palestinian self-determination and a safe and secure Israel. My right hon. Friend the Minister for Europe and North America announced last year that we are providing £27 million to support UNRWA, including £4.9 million for its flash appeal following the Gaza conflicts in May.

Oral Answers to Questions

Chris Law Excerpts

Tuesday 8th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Scottish National party spokesperson Chris Law.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

On International Women’s Day, Europe is leading and united in welcoming more than 2 million refugees, almost all of whom are women and children, fleeing the bloody and murderous war by Putin against Ukraine and its citizens. Yet, pitifully, the UK stands at only 300 visas. Shamefully, we learned this morning in The Daily Telegraph that while Ireland has waived visas and expects to welcome 100,000 refugees, the UK Government have expressed fears that that would create a drug route to the UK. On the very day that President Zelensky will address this House, does the Foreign Secretary realise that the Home Office’s continued xenophobic and inhumane immigration policy must be, for her and her office, a complete humiliation, undermining the support for Ukraine and its people? Will she now call on her colleague the Home Secretary either to reverse that policy, or to resign?

[Elizabeth Truss]

As I have said, we have opened up two new routes. The Home Secretary has opened up a family route and a sponsored humanitarian route. We are also providing huge support in the region, working closely with the Ukrainian Government and local Governments such as the Polish Government.

Westminster Foundation for Democracy: Funding

Chris Law Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve with you as Chair, Dr Huq. I thank the hon. Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham) for securing this important and timely debate.

This should have been an opportunity to celebrate the 30th anniversary of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. Since 1992, after offering support for projects across the world, this Foundation has promoted its belief

“that we need strong democracies to prosper and to protect our rights and freedoms.”

And yet—and yet—it is clear that democracy is under threat globally. Over the past week we have seen just how precious but fragile democracy is. It is a simple and unequivocal fact that the spread of democracy that followed the cold war has been reversed. Every major democracy index, such as Freedom House’s “Freedom in the World”, has shown a slide downwards over the past 15 years.

Only 20% of the world’s population live in free countries: 38% live under authoritarian rule, and the rest have restricted freedom. Some say that we are living through a democratic recession—who knows? It may become a depression. Given that the WFD was founded after the fall of the Berlin wall and tasked with supporting pro-democracy political parties and developing democratic processes as countries from eastern Europe emerged from the cold war, it is a particular tragedy that Ukraine—one of the nations that has embraced democracy—should now be the victim of a bloody, brutal and barbaric invasion by Russia under Vladimir Putin’s autocratic and authoritarian regime. Sadly, the Russian regime is not the only one working to diminish freedom of expression and democratic participation. From Belarus to Syria, China to Afghanistan and Myanmar to Eritrea, we have seen that democratic freedoms are by no means guaranteed.

At this time of increased need to be vigilant about these threats and continually defend, promote and improve democracy, the WFD faces cuts that will significantly hamper its ability to operate. That is a consequence of this UK Government’s short-sighted and unimaginable decision to renege on its manifesto commitment and the cross-party consensus to spend 0.7% of GNI on overseas development aid, which is not only morally reprehensible, but penny wise and pound foolish.

The WFD’s core funding was cut by 29% during the pandemic—what a time to choose!—without consultation or consideration of the consequences. The result is that programmes are either curtailed or cancelled; staff, with all the expertise they have, are made redundant; and efforts to promote democracy ultimately suffer. The Government can try to argue that there will be a return to 0.7% when fiscal tests are met, but that will not bring back those programmes or those staff, and the likelihood is that democracy will have been eroded in the meantime.

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy should be rightly proud of the work it undertakes. It focuses on accountability and transparency, elections, environmental democracy, inclusion, participation and openness, and women’s political leadership, with 74 programmes implemented across 43 countries in the years 2020-21. Key to its work—in many ways, its unique selling point—is its collaboration with party political offices, providing them with the resource to develop their own programmes across the world. The SNP established its own WFD office after becoming the third largest party in the UK in 2015, placing a particular focus on gender equality in political representation and participation. Its two key programmes include the Arab Women Parliamentarians Network for Equality, which the SNP was instrumental in helping build. That network has gone on to develop a policy paper on violence against women in politics—the first of its kind in the Arab world, and something we should all be proud of.

The SNP WFD also supports the Malawi Parliamentary Women’s Caucus, pursuing gender-just politics and legislation, and works to promote the effective participation of women in Parliament. Furthermore, it has recently launched a new environmental democracy project in Pakistan, supporting the Climate Change Committee with post-legislative scrutiny. However, all this important work can be supported only if the Westminster Foundation for Democracy is adequately funded—it is as simple as that. The SNP’s WFD funding has dropped from £260,000 in 2016 to around £156,000 in 2020. There are real concerns that if funding drops any further, this work will simply no longer be viable.

The UK Government recognised the importance of the WFD in its integrated review last year, and made commitments to address democratic governance around the world—given how critical this is for UK interests. I agree, and I am sure every Member present does as well. However, that was on the back of cutting funding for international development programmes at the same time, when the UK Government cut aid spending from 0.7% of GNI to 0.5%, and they subsequently announced that funding for the human rights, democracy and rules-based international system would be cut. That makes no sense: it is a completely incoherent and ultimately self-defeating decision, one that has the likes of Putin and other autocrats around the world laughing at us for being such blind fools.

Not only is this spending the morally right thing to do, but it is in our national interest. A fairer, more democratic world is a safer and more stable world, and any savings made now while making cuts will only cost us more in the long term when vast amounts have to be spent on the crises that subsequently emerge across the world. The UK Government must now see the error of their ways, reverse the reduction in WFD grants and reinstate the commitment to spending 0.7% of GNI on ODA if they are to have any credibility in defending democracy at this vital time in the world.

--- Later in debate ---

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. The Clerk is giving me dirty looks; we cannot veer off the topic of the debate for too long.

[Chris Law]

rose—

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Chris Law will intervene, and then we will go back to the suitably attired Minister, who is wearing the correct colours.

[Chris Law]

The Minister is making a very powerful case. I hope she will conclude by saying that there will be full funding and support for WFD. She mentioned state media and the shutting down of media. Last night Google shut down RT. Two days ago, the whole of the EU shut down RT and Sputnik. So far, the UK has not gone anywhere near touching RT in this country. Will the UK Government reconsider their position, because we are isolated in our approach to Russian/Kremlin TV in this country?

[Dr Rupa Huq (in the Chair)]

Order. The Clerk has said that it was not a dirty look, but an admonition not to stray from our territory.

Sanctions

Chris Law Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

We have moved our travel advice on Russia to red, which means that we advise against all travel. That is not the same as a ban; it is ultimately Government advice, but I strongly advise people not to go to Russia. That is very clear. On the wider issue, nothing is off the table on sanctions, and we are absolutely clear about that. We are pushing our G7 allies as hard as we can to get a full ban on SWIFT and on all bank assets, and to reduce dependence on oil and gas, which is ultimately the most important economic lever over Putin.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

In the past eight years there has been a war, not just in the past few days. During that time, it has been not just military warfare, but a war of communications known as hybrid warfare. Yesterday, the EU decided to shut down RT and Sputnik. Just as the Foreign Secretary is leading in some areas, will she confirm that she will follow the EU and shut down RT and Sputnik immediately? Yesterday as I was watching it, there was a documentary completely about Nazification in Crimea in 2014. That is wholly untrue, but it is being put on our television screens today.

[Elizabeth Truss]

We are looking at what can be done with RT, but if we ban RT in the United Kingdom, that is likely to lead to channels such as the BBC being banned in Russia, and we want the Russian population to hear the truth about what Vladimir Putin is doing. There is a careful judgment to be made, and that is something the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport is looking at.

Uyghur Tribunal Judgment

Chris Law Excerpts

Thursday 20th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

The verdict of the Uyghur Tribunal—that there is proof “beyond reasonable doubt” that the People’s Republic of China is committing crimes of torture, crimes against humanity and the crime of genocide, as defined under international law, against the Uyghur population in Xinjiang—is further confirmation of what we in this Chamber already know. Indeed, in April last year the House passed a motion that stated that it

“believes that Uyghurs and other ethnic and religious minorities in…Xinjiang…are suffering crimes against humanity and genocide”.

As we heard earlier from the hon. Member for Wealden (Ms Ghani), who brought the debate to the House, there has so far been, in her words, “zero progress” from this Government.

We are not the only ones who are aware of what is going on; others are doing something about this situation. The US State Department has determined that China’s violations constitute genocide, as have the Parliaments of Canada, Lithuania and the Netherlands. Yet there is still no condemnation from the Government. There is shocking evidence of arbitrary detention, re-education camps, forced labour, the destruction of cultural sites, torture, rape and sexual violence and enforced sterilisation. Probably worst of all, and what I heard most harrowingly today, are the abortions of children who are alive at the late stage of pregnancy, who are then murdered by the Chinese state authorities. Those of us with an understanding of the Chinese Communist party’s motives, its actions in the past and its scant regard for human rights have been voicing our concerns loudly, despite attempts to keep us silent. I thank the hon. Member for Wealden for securing today’s debate and her relentless pursuing of this cause.

Although the Uyghur Tribunal has shone further light on the atrocities being committed in Xinjiang, the fact that we are relying on an unofficial body to do that, and the fact that these crimes are not prevented in the first place and continue to take place today, is shameful and an abject failure of the international community. As Sir Geoffrey Nice QC, chair of the tribunal, stated:

“Had any other body, domestic or international, determined or sought to determine these issues, the tribunal would have been unnecessary”.

For too long, as China has been emerging as a global superpower, a blind eye has been turned to the Chinese Communist party’s gross human rights abuses, but these cannot and must not be ignored any longer. Sadly, the International Criminal Court announced in December 2020 that it would not investigate allegations because China, as a non-member, was outside its jurisdiction. Furthermore, the possibility of further investigation by referral from the United Nations Security Council is hamstrung by the simple fact that China would simply use its veto to prevent that.

The UK Government therefore need to stop hiding and get away from the refrain of, “The policy of successive UK Governments is that any determination of genocide or crimes against humanity is a matter for a competent court.” It is not; it is a matter for a competent and active Government, and every voice and every party in this House is asking for urgent action—and now.

It is of grave concern that even despite the findings of report after report and investigation after investigation, the UK Government do not appear to accept the findings of genocide or their moral and, as has been said repeatedly today, legal obligation to prevent and punish these horrific crimes. It is nearly nine months since the House stated that what was happening in Xinjiang was genocide and more than one month since the Uyghur Tribunal published its judgment. We need to hear unequivocally from the Minister what assessment the UK Government have made of these verdicts, and what their next steps will be.

Have the UK Government explored the prospect of a UN Human Rights Council commission of inquiry using their Human Rights Council seat, as recommended by the Foreign Affairs Committee? If the Chinese Government continue to stall and prevent in-country investigations, the UK Government should propose a Human Rights Council motion that the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights should conduct an investigation into atrocities in Xinjiang from outside China. I hope the Minister is making some notes, because I would like to hear the answers to these questions today. Even if the Chinese Government continue to deny international observers access to Xinjiang, there is a great deal of evidence that can be used to verify the extent of crimes being committed there, as shown by the volume of evidence received at the hearings of the Uyghur Tribunal.

When it comes to access to Xinjiang and other regions in China, we can learn from others. The USA enacted the Reciprocal Access to Tibet Act 2018, which denies Chinese Government officials access to the US if they are responsible for implementing restrictions on Americans who seek access to Tibet. I put it on the record today that I would like to join colleagues in the House who have been sanctioned and are fearful to travel to China in putting forward a visa application to see whether we will be denied. If we are, it will be a golden opportunity for the UK Government to step up and say, “That is fine. You are denying our own democratic representatives. This is what will happen to your officials.”

[Ms Ghani]

I just want to challenge the hon. Member’s point. I think he said that the sanctioned MPs are “fearful” of the sanctions and travelling to China. May I put it on the record that none of the sanctioned MPs are fearful of travelling to China or of the Chinese Communist party?

[Chris Law]

I am glad that the hon. Member has addressed that point. I did not directly mean those who had been sanctioned, but others beyond that who would like to say and do more. I fully appreciate that there are no sanctioned Members here who fear the Communist party state and its behaviour towards its inhabitants.

I was talking about reciprocal access to Tibet. The hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), who is no longer in his seat, and who I work with as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Tibet, has persevered with the Tibet and Xinjiang (Reciprocal Access) Bill. I once again urge the UK Government to give the Bill their full support and to enact its provisions immediately. I look forward to hearing a response on that this afternoon.

Indeed, many have commented that the illegal invasion and occupation of Tibet was the testing ground for the Chinese Communist party, and that the lessons learned from the oppression of Tibetans have been applied to Xinjiang, yet none of us across the decade since then has done enough to stand up for the people of Tibet, and this is the consequence of silence. It would be worthwhile, therefore, if the UK Government reversed the regrettable decision taken by the then Foreign Secretary, David Miliband, in 2008 to disregard the previous recognised autonomy of Tibet and accept Chinese authority over the region.

In 2011, Chen Quanguo was appointed the party secretary in the Tibetan autonomous region after the Chinese Communist party vowed never to let the protests that happened there in 2008 occur again. He was the key individual behind blanket surveillance, a heavy police presence, arrests and disappearances, and re-education camps in Tibet. From 2016, he has employed the same security measures in his repression of the Uyghurs, only this time on a far expanded scale. He was able to move seamlessly from repressing one group of people to another, because as far as the Chinese Communist party is concerned, he got results and he got away with it in the international community.

Chen is named in the Xinjiang papers released at the Uyghur Tribunal, and the UK Government must step up sanctions against him and his colleagues involved in perpetrating these gross human rights abuses. So I would like to hear from the Minister what further names have been added to the Magnitsky sanctions. The USA has sanctioned him, and it is again ahead of the UK, having just passed the Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act banning all imports from Xinjiang unless a company can prove that they were not made with forced labour.

The UK could be doing exactly the same, but instead is choosing to sit on its hands, and the Government have in fact rejected the BEIS Committee’s recommendations to help tackle slave labour in Xinjiang. The Minister needs to explain why, and I urge the Government that this needs to change. Given that one in five garments globally are made from the cotton of Xinjiang—which means that just about every one of us in this Chamber will be wearing such a garment—and that other key products such as solar panels, which have been mentioned, are produced there, the UK needs to toughen up and enforce its own legislation. Furthermore, the UK should be pressing for the International Labour Organisation to conduct a full investigation on the Xinjiang region, to verify the extent of forced labour there as a matter of urgency.

The recent integrated review of security, defence, development and foreign policy called for more trade with China, but that potential trade liberalisation cannot come at the cost of forced labour in Xinjiang and weak words and inaction from the UK Government on these grave human rights abuses. As we have heard, the current Foreign Secretary, in her previous position as International Trade Secretary, facilitated a doubling of trade with China. The world cannot be picked off nation by nation, each turning a blind eye to genocide for the sake of trade deals.

I echo the hon. Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), who is no longer in his place, in saying that we need to work with democracies across the world because democracy is fragile, and that is fundamentally what is being undermined as we do nothing here. Instead of focusing on trade, and whipping Members to vote against anti-genocide amendments to the Trade Bill, atrocity prevention should be the priority. It is deeply regrettable that the UK Government, like others, failed to recognise and prevent the atrocities in Xinjiang before they reached the levels that we are currently witnessing.

Finally, the UK Government cannot appease China, given these crimes against humanity. It is imperative that the UK Government go beyond words of condemnation and use every single possible avenue to end the persecution and to pursue the punishment of those who have instigated and participated in it. The Chinese Government must be held to account for their abhorrent crimes, and held to account now. Given the overwhelming evidence, and given that every single person in this Chamber is saying, time and again, “Please act, and please act now,” I expect nothing less than that from the UK Government Minister this afternoon, to show that we are not cowardly; and I also expect to hear her accept that to do nothing would be an utterly shameful abandonment of our legal and moral duty, as well as our own humanity.

Ethiopia: Humanitarian and Political Situation

Chris Law Excerpts

Wednesday 19th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the hon. Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) for securing today’s debate. He was very insightful, and brought to my attention how long he has been speaking up for Ethiopia, having been chair of the all-party parliamentary group since 2008. I also thank all the hon. Members present today. They have given their own perspectives, but we all have one thing in common: we want to see a ceasefire—and to see it as soon as possible.

I visited Ethiopia nearly three years ago with the International Development Committee. I visited it to see the blossoming of peace—just months after the peace accord between Eritrea and Ethiopia—both in Addis Ababa and up in the Tigray region. From everyone I spoke to—not only people who were working there with the UN, the WFP or the aid agencies, but people on the ground and refugees, some of whom had been there for decades—I heard a sense of optimism, excitement and energy.

[Jim Shannon]

And hope.

--- Later in debate ---

[Chris Law]

Yes, absolutely. It dismays me that I stand here in this debate so soon after that visit. However, I will press on, and I hope that time is on my side.

Here we are. The past 14 months of ongoing conflict in Ethiopia have been discussed in this House on several occasions, and little is changing. On each occasion, we have heard about the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe: millions of people are in need of food assistance in northern Ethiopia, drought is affecting the south of the country and 2 million refugees are internally displaced. We have also heard about the truly horrifying civil war taking place, with stories of forced displacement, mass detention, starvation, torture and—as we heard from the hon. Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion), who is my colleague on the Select Committee—the extensive use of rape and sexual and gender-based violence as a weapon of war by all parties since the conflict began. Repeatedly, Members from both sides of the House have called for urgent humanitarian assistance to be facilitated to provide life-saving support to these victims of war. Furthermore, we have stressed the desperate need for the ongoing violence to end, with a negotiated, consensual settlement that would allow peace to return to Ethiopia.

Unimaginable anguish has been caused by this conflict, and the country has been brought to the verge of collapse in such a short space of time. However, the withdrawal of Tigrayan forces from neighbouring regions and the federal Government’s promise not to push further into Tigray needs to be used as an opportunity to bring an end to hostilities and begin work on a peace settlement.

There may be grounds for cautious optimism. Earlier this month, the Ethiopian federal Government announced that they would pardon and release several prominent political prisoners. That was welcomed by UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who called for a “lasting ceasefire” and

“a credible and inclusive national dialogue and reconciliation process”.

The federal Government in Ethiopia themselves stated that the key to lasting unity is dialogue, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell Fontelles urged all parties to “seize the moment”—and the moment we should seize.

The suggestion of dialogue is arguably the most significant breakthrough since war broke out in the northern Tigray region in November 2020. To move forward peacefully, Ethiopian leaders must find a way to accommodate competing ideological perspectives and build a vision for consensual governance. Any political settlement must address the country’s festering grievances and build a new societal order based on mutual understanding and inclusivity. The Tigrayans must accept that deep grievances from their long period of dominance in Ethiopian politics remain and that most Ethiopians will not agree to their leading the federation again. Both sides can aspire to win the war, and win the war they must together, because neither can hope to win a peace alone.

Ethiopia is a patchwork of 80 ethnic groups, and any potential peace process is likely to be complex. I have a number of detailed questions today, and I hope to hear some responses from the Minister. How will the Government look to support any peace process? For example, will the FCDO use existing expertise from the stabilisation unit to create a clear road map for inclusive, post-conflict reconstruction in Tigray that proactively addresses development needs and embeds peacebuilding in the FCDO’s work in the region? Will the UK work with other key partners, including, as we heard from the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), the UN, the African Union and the African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights, to ensure the engagement of regional leaders and an increased likelihood of successful peace?

This moment of opportunity is a fragile one, and there is no time to waste. This month there have been numerous airstrikes, killing and injuring dozens of children and civilians, including those in refugee camps. The horrific war crimes that have been a feature of the 14 months of this conflict continue without the perpetrators being held to account. The de facto blockade of humanitarian relief in Tigray has meant that no convoy from the World Food Programme—which has done so much in years gone by—has reached the Tigrayan capital since mid-December. They have had no food for the last four weeks. The continuation of this conflict will only deepen mistrust between communities, risk a potential rapid deterioration in the conflict and make peace frankly impossible.

My second set of questions for the Minister therefore concern the political and economic levers the UK is using to help to secure peace. For example, is the UK making its funding to Ethiopia through British International Investment—formally known as the CDC—conditional and dependent on an end to the blockade and violence? With airstrikes in the last few days killing scores of civilians, what engagement has the Minister had to urge parties such as Turkey and the UAE to stop providing drones, other weapons and military support to Ethiopia? Will the UK call for a UN arms embargo? That would be real leadership.

What discussions has the UK been involved in to ensure accountability for the war crimes that have taken place during the conflict? These questions have been asked repeatedly by each and every Member present, but they are important and need to be answered. Will the UK representatives at the UN use all diplomatic capabilities to call for the invoking of Security Council resolution 2417, which explicitly condemns starvation as a method of warfare and the denial of humanitarian access to civilian populations? I recognise that I have asked numerous questions, but they must be addressed if progress is to be made and to ensure that we are not having a similar debate in several months’ time to the ones we have had over the past months.

It is vital that urgent humanitarian assistance is facilitated immediately. There must be immediate guarantees from all parties to the conflict for safe and secure humanitarian corridors via all routes across northern Ethiopia. They must allow movement of supplies across battle lines and allow access to affected populations wherever and whenever needed. As we have heard, an estimated 9.4 million people are in dire need of food assistance as a result of the conflict, yet less than 12% of the supplies required to meet humanitarian needs are reaching Tigray. Supplies of food, fuel and cash, along with humanitarian workers, are unable to reach Tigray as this humanitarian catastrophe unfolds before our eyes. The World Food Programme, which does amazing work around the world, is calling for an additional $337 million to deliver its emergency food assistance response in northern Ethiopia. Across the entire country, the World Food Programme has an unprecedented gap of nearly two thirds of a billion dollars in the funding needed to save and change the lives of 12 million people over the next six months.

The UK Government have committed £76 million to the crisis response, making the UK the second largest donor globally, which I am sure is welcomed by everyone in this room. The Minister has previously stated that the UK continues to lobby other countries to increase their commitments. I have a fundamental problem with that: it just goes to illustrate the short-sighted folly—once again—of the Government’s decision to cut aid from 0.7% to 0.5%. How can they expect others to contribute more when we are cutting back? How can it be a good policy to reduce aid spending aimed at proactively preventing conflicts and crises such as the one in Ethiopia when we have to reactively increase our contributions when war, displacement, malnourishment and disease inevitably arise? Fundamentally, where is the credibility? Where is the economics in that? It is a case of penny wise, pound foolish.

Additional flexible funding is needed as a priority, but it will be of no use unless there is unfettered humanitarian access. So what steps are the UK Government taking to facilitate that? Given the killing of aid workers throughout this conflict, what guarantees has the Minister had from the Ethiopian Government on the safety of humanitarian aid workers?

Finally, we cannot lose sight of the tragedy unfolding in Ethiopia. The warnings of an impending full-scale humanitarian catastrophe have become a harsh and heartbreaking reality. Like many Members present, I remember the 1985 campaign led by Bob Geldof; as a teenager, I ran in a six-mile fun run to raise money for people in Ethiopia facing mass starvation. Here we are again, much older, seeing the same thing in the same location. It is vital that all parties involved in this conflict begin the long-required dialogue to bring hostilities to an end. The UK Government must do everything in their power to ensure that this is not a missed opportunity that prolongs this brutal conflict.

Afghanistan: Humanitarian Crisis

Chris Law Excerpts

Wednesday 12th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Vicky Ford]

My hon. Friend makes a very good point about children. She asks what we are doing with other countries in the region, including Pakistan. My colleague the Minister for south and central Asia, Lord Ahmad, is in regular contact with other neighbouring countries, and £30 million was allocated to help other countries in the region respond to the impact of the crisis on themselves.

We are committed to ensuring that at least half the aid reaches women and girls. Just before Christmas I met NGOs and organisations representing both women’s and girls’ organisation and LGBT organisations, and their feedback from the ground was incredibly helpful. The Minister for Afghan Resettlement made a statement on the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme last week, and she mentioned that three cohorts of LGBT people have already come to the UK under the scheme. We will continue to prioritise those women who are most at risk, but we need to recognise that, although we are doing a huge amount to help resettle people in this country, we need to support people on the ground, which is why we are working with world-leading organisations to focus always on the most vulnerable, including women and girls.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

Even before our chaotic withdrawal, it was known that the people of Afghanistan faced a humanitarian crisis this winter. In September the UN estimated that only 5% of Afghans had enough food to eat each day, so the UK Government cannot say that this famine has caught them by surprise. With 1 million children at risk of severe malnourishment and 23 million people threatened with starvation, less than 25% of UK aid money pledged to Afghanistan in 2021 had been disbursed by the beginning of December, which is shocking.

With the UN launching an appeal for nearly £5 billion in aid for Afghanistan, will the UK Government ensure that all the funds pledged urgently reach those in need? Can the Minister confirm what new money the UK will donate, above and beyond the previous announcements? Will the UK Government finally recognise that their ideological cuts to aid have cost countless lives not only in Afghanistan but across the world, and will they reverse that decision?

Deforestation in the Amazon

Chris Law Excerpts

Wednesday 5th January 2022 Westminster Hall

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hollobone. I thank the previous speakers, who have all brought insightful points to this debate, and I thank the right hon. Member for Epsom and Ewell (Chris Grayling) for securing it.

When we last debated this subject in June, I noted that it had been two years since we had previously discussed deforestation in the Amazon. I concluded by saying that I did not want to be speaking about

“further reports of increasing rates of deforestation, logging, resource mining, tree burning for farming and cattle-raising, or…land seizures from indigenous people.”—[Official Report, 23 June 2021; Vol. 697, c. 384WH.]

Yet here we are, rather depressingly, less than seven months on from the last debate: tragically, it appears that global efforts to combat deforestation in the Amazon have not been strong enough and that the Bolsonaro regime in Brazil has continued to act with impunity.

Last month the Brazilian Government said that they wanted to end illegal deforestation by 2028. In September, President Bolsonaro told the United Nations—I quote without irony:

“No country in the world has a more complete environmental legislation than ours.”

Despite such bold statements, deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon has jumped by 22% in the last 12 months alone, reaching its highest level since 2006. The Brazilian research institute, Imazon, found that between August 2020 and July last year the Brazilian Amazon rainforest lost nearly 10,500 sq km—roughly the same area as the island of Jamaica. The simple fact is that deforestation has accelerated since President Bolsonaro took office in January 2019. Marcio Astrini from the Climate Observatory was damning in his remarks:

“We are seeing the Amazon rainforest being destroyed by a government which made environmental destruction its public policy.”

Exact figures are not available, but recent studies suggest that as much as 94% of deforestation and habitat destruction in Brazil could be illegal—that is more than nine tenths. Despite that, Bolsonaro has cut funding for the agencies responsible for prosecuting the farmers and loggers who break environmental law. Fines for illegal logging fell by more than a fifth in 2020 alone. There is potential for worse yet to come, as has previously been mentioned.

This year the Brazilian Senate will vote on two Bills, which could contribute enormously to increased deforestation and violence against indigenous peoples, particularly in the Amazon. If approved, the Bills will legalise land grabbing in public forests, inducing further deforestation; will weaken the existing verification of land titling mechanisms, which exist to prevent fraud; and will legalise a land-grabbing economy. The Bills will weaken the control over deforestation through the construction or improvement of roads that cross well-preserved forest regions. High-impact projects will be installed without environmental assessment, and they will allow automatic licensing of most projects, including mining and road improvement.

Problematically for the UK and the wider international community, the legalisation of deforestation has the potential to hinder their actions to prevent deforestation. For example, as has been mentioned, the UK Government’s commendable Environment Act 2021, passed in November, includes an obligation for firms to conduct due diligence to determine whether they can use commodities from areas that have been illegally deforested. It does not, however, take account of countries such as Brazil legalising illegal deforestation and therefore does not do enough to remove deforestation from supply chains. It is therefore vital that the UK Government make their opposition to the actions of the Brazilian Government clear and strengthen their own legislation if the proposals come to pass. The actions of the Bolsonaro regime must be met with international condemnation, and he must be held to account for his country’s international commitments. Nothing more, nothing less.

The Brazilian Government have been widely criticised for sending a delegation to COP26—I had the privilege to spend two weeks there in Glasgow—fully aware of their recent deforestation data, despite attempting to hide it. President Bolsonaro did not attend the summit; Brazil’s top climate diplomat, Paulino de Carvalho Neto, told Sky News—wait for it—that the President

“had other things to do.”

Furthermore, the land grabbing and environmental licensing Bills will lead Brazil in the opposite direction of pledges made at COP26, and will make it harder—if not impossible—to battle deforestation in the coming years. There are therefore deep and widespread concerns that the Brazilian Government cannot be regarded as an actor in good faith by the international community when it comes to deforestation. The consequences of the continued abuse of the Amazon will have a direct impact on the ability of all countries to tackle climate change. As a result, this is a matter of species survival and potential mass extinction over our entire planet. That is not something that we say easily in any debate, but it is now a matter of fact, not conjecture. Shockingly, the Amazon rainforest now emits more carbon than it absorbs. Scientists recently warned that it will reach an irreversible tipping point—some estimate within five years—beyond which it will not generate enough rain to support itself. This would be an unprecedented climate catastrophe that affected all living beings on Earth.

To briefly recap on previous debates, the Amazon rainforest is invaluable to the environment, producing as much as 20% of the world’s oxygen and acting as natural carbon capture for vast amounts of greenhouse gas emissions. Deforestation threatens the 30 million people who live there, including up to 400 indigenous groups, and many thousands of plant and animal species. It also threatens to fundamentally hinder attempts to tackle climate change, reversing any progress made so far and contributing to rising global temperatures, with all the devastation that this will bring.

If we are really serious about the climate emergency, we must use every tool available to us to ensure that we lead the international effort to end destructive deforestation in the Amazon and put pressure on Bolsonaro’s Government in Brazil. COP26 and the Osaka summit clarified Brazil’s obligations, and there should be diplomatic and economic consequences if Brazil chooses not to meet them. Exports of illegally cut logs must be cracked down on multilaterally. Rules of origin regulations must be looked at for any resources generated by habitat destruction. Furthermore, trade agreements should not be concluded outside a legal framework that enforces the agreements made at COP26 and elsewhere. Many EU states have threatened to dissolve the EU-Mercosur trade agreement if Brazil fails to live up to its commitments to tackle emissions and ensure protection for the Amazon rainforest, which is the key natural asset in tackling climate change.

Of course, deforestation is a global problem. The UN says that 1 billion acres of forest have been lost worldwide since 1990. At COP26, more than 100 world leaders promised to end and reverse deforestation by 2030. Brazil’s Government is not the only organisation responsible for deforestation; others must do more. Agriculture is the main cause of deforestation, but other sectors, such as the fashion industry, must look at becoming more sustainable. It is not just the banks, which have been mentioned; a recent report called out popular fashion brands, such as Prada, H&M, Zara, Adidas, Nike and Fendi, for having multiple connections to an industry that props up deforestation. I hope that their chief executive officers and customers are listening to today’s debate.

Others countries also have deforestation problems. In the Democratic Republic of Congo, which contains the Congo forest basin—the second-largest rainforest in the world—nearly half a million hectares of primary forest have been lost annually in the past five years, and the Government have announced a plan to lift the ban on new logging operations, which dates back to 2002. In Indonesia, however, there is a positive story. President Joko Widodo pledged in 2014 to crack down on deforestation by tackling the main contributor: land for palm oil plantations. In 2016, a record 929,000 hectares of forest disappeared, but there has been a steady decrease in the rate of deforestation since then, and by 2020, the loss was down to 270,000 hectares. Just a year before, in 2019, President Widodo issued a three-year moratorium on forest clearance covering about 66 million hectares of primary forest and peatland; that was extended indefinitely. It makes it all the more galling and infuriating that just weeks after the UK’s COP26 president visited Indonesia and called on it to move forward with plans to reach net zero carbon emissions by 2050, the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office cancelled the green growth programme, which was designed to prevent deforestation in the Indonesian Papuan provinces, three years into its five-year programme. It was described as the most successful programme that had ever been seen in Indonesia.

The UK Government need to get serious and take action. Will the Minister ensure that resources are in place to combat deforestation across the world, or will his contribution be more words with little or no financial backing, just as the Government provided at recent education and nutrition replenishment summits? We need to hear that the UK Government plan to tackle deforestation in the Amazon and are co-operating with other Governments around the world, and with the EU, to do so. What recent discussions have the UK Government had with their counterparts in Brazil? How will they prevent goods from illegal or newly legalised deforestation making their way to the UK? Will protection of the Amazon be put front and centre in any trade talks and agreements with Brazil, to ensure that the UK does not share in the profits of the rainforest’s deliberate destruction?

The UK Government must send the strongest message possible, as we have done in the debate today, and take all appropriate actions to ensure that the catastrophic destruction of the Amazon is stopped. Failure to protect that vital, fragile ecosystem is a failure to support all those who live there and all of us who rely on it across our planet.

FCDO Staffing

Chris Law Excerpts

Thursday 16th December 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

My hon. Friend makes an incredibly important and accurate point about the value that our diplomatic network and our diplomats around that network provide. We are all incredibly proud of the level of expertise of the FCDO staff, and I know the Foreign Secretary has said this to them directly. Our diplomats are an absolutely top-tier team. We retain a high ambition for our international relations, as set out in the integrated review. We will continue investing in our people, including in language skills and other skills, to ensure that we retain that position. He is right that they are the primary means by which we exercise soft power around the world, and they will continue to be very much at the forefront of our thinking when it comes to planning for the future.

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

It should come as no surprise that there are reports that the FCDO is facing job cuts of up to 20%, although I have not yet heard from the Minister what those cuts will actually be. Over the past two years, the Prime Minister has frequently talked about global Britain, but the reality is that it has been nothing but a nasty little Britain. For example, we have seen the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office—a merger that has yet even to integrate the IT and email systems—the ideological death sentence cuts imposed by reducing the aid budget and breaking the 0.7% manifesto commitment and the chaotic response to the Afghanistan crisis in the summer. People there will be facing the consequences this winter. This UK Government have routinely reneged on their commitments, and this staff cut, whatever the percentage will be—I look forward to hearing it—will further erode the UK’s diplomatic and development capabilities. Given the huge cuts to aid, and now the direct hit to the number of diplomats carrying forward the Government’s incoherent vision for the UK abroad, is it not the case that the global Britain slogan has been laid bare as simply a fig leaf covering up the UK’s retreating and ever-diminishing role in the world? Can the Minister confirm the actual percentage of the cuts as staff face Christmas with job insecurities?

[James Cleverly]

Once again the hon. Gentleman throws around the figure of 20% staff cuts. I can tell him that it is nonsense. The UK remains a top-tier global diplomatic powerhouse. I pay particular tribute to the FCDO staff based in Abercrombie House, whose invaluable work adds to the huge diplomatic output of the FCDO. Were his party to fulfil its dream of isolationism, I cannot believe that those jobs at Abercrombie House would be maintained. We support the fantastic work that Scots do within the UK’s global posture. We intend to make sure that they are supported and retained and their work enhanced.

Tokyo Nutrition for Growth Summit

Chris Law Excerpts

Thursday 2nd December 2021 Westminster Hall

[Chris Law (Dundee West) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Bone. I thank the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) not only for securing this debate, but for making very eloquent and powerful arguments in the run-up to the Tokyo Nutrition for Growth summit next week. I thank all Members who have spoken. It seems that we are breaking out into consensus, and I hope to hear a consensual reply from the Minister.

For many of us, our first and fundamental understanding of international development, and our moral obligation as global citizens to provide assistance to the poorest and most vulnerable in the world, will have been shaped by stories and images of children who did not have the well-nourished, healthy life that we took for granted. We see pleas, both on television and in newspapers, almost every day for support from our citizens for those most in need. Those of us old enough remember the horrific images from the mid-1980s of many children starving to death, which led to an international outcry. We all watched the Band Aid concert, which raised hundreds of millions worldwide to help people in Ethiopia.

The simple fact is that a healthy diet is a fundamental human need—in fact, it should be a right. That is something even the youngest child can understand, but as we debate this issue today, halfway through the United Nations decade of action on nutrition, the UN has sombrely concluded that the world is not on track to achieve sustainable development goal 2, which is zero hunger by 2030, or on track to meet global nutrition targets. Sadly, it is not on track to meet some of the other sustainable development goals, either.

In fact, the number of undernourished people has increased by over 50%, from 633 million to 957 million—almost a billion—in the past three years alone. Pause to consider that number for a second: that is one in seven people on Earth. Let us be in no doubt: this is a global crisis. That increase should shame us all, and today this Chamber is clearly sending the Government the message that they must reaffirm their commitment to global nutrition—not through vague platitudes from the Minister at the end of this debate, but through concrete and evidenced action at next week’s summit.

Nutrition has a fundamental impact on the life chances of a child, even before they are born. We all know that well-nourished women have safer pregnancies and deliver healthier babies, yet one third of women of reproductive age suffer from anaemia—the leading cause of complication in pregnancy and childbirth—which increases the likelihood of miscarriage, stillbirth, low birth weight and maternal mortality. Sadly, Governments are not on track to reach the World Health Organisation target of reducing anaemia in women by 50% by 2025, despite the fact that providing iron supplements costs less than $5 per woman. Well-nourished infants and children are healthier and have stronger immune systems, making them more able to resist infection and disease. Without sufficient nutrition, children, particularly those under the age of two, are at high risk of wasting, which causes them to be too thin and to have weak immune systems. That results in development delays, disease and, ultimately, death. Tragically, as was mentioned by the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, malnutrition is still linked to 45% of all under-five child deaths.

Similarly, in 2019, 144 million children under the age of five were affected by stunting—being too short for their age. They, too, are more susceptible to disease and infection, and are unlikely to develop their full cognitive potential. Adults who are stunted earn about 20% less than their peers, and mothers who are undernourished are more likely to have children who are subsequently stunted, perpetuating a cycle of poverty and undernutrition. If there is a point to be made here about lifting people out of poverty around the world, it is this: we are talking about a simple and affordable investment that will ensure that nations around the world can grow out of a situation in which they are regularly in need of international development. That argument, I would think, would work for even the most libertarian Conservatives in this Government.

Furthermore, good nutrition is critical to brain development and educational achievement. Well-nourished schoolchildren are more likely to stay in school, but malnourished children are, at age eight, 20% less likely to be able to read simple sentences and 13% less likely to be in the correct school year for their age. Once again, if trade is to be a key part of our development work—which I fully support—we need to make sure that young people have good access to health and education. Food will be a key part of that. Only then will they be able to trade their way out of their current situation and be prosperous like those in other nations in the western world.

Ensuring good nutrition is therefore critical to preventing disease, reducing unnecessary death, and enabling people to reach their full potential. Nutrition is recognised by Nobel economists as the most effective development intervention. That makes it all the more regrettable that it has been neglected, and that malnutrition is on the rise. It is therefore fundamentally vital—I cannot emphasise this enough—that the UK Government recommit to reaching over 50 million children, women, and adolescent girls with nutrition-relevant programmes by 2025. Those in this Chamber have said that with one voice. The Department for International Development was able to exceed that commitment between 2015 and 2020, so there should be no reason why the FCDO could not do likewise.

Covid-19 has had a devastating impact on global nutrition, with rates of malnutrition soaring due to the pandemic. The disruption to economic, health, development and educational systems has meant that livelihoods have become more fragile, and has exacerbated existing inequalities. How can someone provide a broad range of food for their family when lockdowns and economic instability have meant that they have lost their job and income? How can they receive nutritional supplements when their country’s healthcare system is overwhelmed with covid patients, or when aid workers cannot reach them because of border closures? How can they receive their one healthy meal a day when the school that they go to is closed?

The impact has been catastrophic. Between 2020 and 2022, an additional 3.6 million children are predicted to become stunted, and 13.6 million children are predicted to become wasted. This will cause over a quarter of a million more children under five to die from malnutrition. That is 225 children dying every single day—these could be our children. Will the Minister commit today to conducting an impact assessment on how covid-19 has affected, and will continue to affect, rates of malnutrition in FCDO partner countries?

Nutrition is even more important in the context of covid-19, as good nutrition is essential to maintaining a strong immune system, as was noted by my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady). Conversely, malnutrition is the leading cause of ill health and death worldwide, increasing the risk of developing severe covid symptoms, and therefore possibly reducing the efficacy of covid vaccines. The impact of covid should have made the UK’s investment in nutrition more important, not less—the impact of covid should have made all of the UK’s aid spending more important.

However, what did we see from this UK Government in response? We saw the very opposite. We saw the Prime Minister, the Chancellor and the Cabinet abandon their obligation to leave no one behind, abandon any notion of building back better, and abandon the UK’s role as a leader—let us be clear—in international development by reneging on the cross-party manifesto commitment to spend 0.7% of gross national income on ODA. The term “global Britain” would be funny if it was not so tragic.

Rather than step up to help the world’s poorest and most vulnerable when they needed it the most, the Government stepped away and made an ideologically motivated death-sentence cut. The pandemic forced hundreds of millions of people into hunger and malnutrition, but at a time when people needed strong immunity more than ever, UK aid for nutrition-specific programmes plummeted by—wait for it—70%, from £118 million in 2018 to just £37 million this year. Despite nutrition being central to the FCDO’s development priorities, less than 1% of the UK budget is spent on nutrition-specific programmes. Withdrawing support from these life-saving nutrition programmes severely compromises the effectiveness of UK aid, including in priority areas such as covid, global health security and, fundamentally, girls’ education. Studies have repeatedly demonstrated the importance of good nutrition for human immunity and vaccine efficacy. Well-nourished girls are more likely to stay in school, succeed in their studies and delay their first pregnancy.

The tragedy of the “global Britain” approach is that the Government knew that they would be undermining this work. Their own equalities assessment concluded that these cuts would negatively impact girls’ education, harm wider efforts to advance gender equality, disrupt disability-inclusive development and diminish the ability to reach those furthest behind. It was not done without knowledge in advance. Nevertheless, they pressed ahead with this callous cut regardless. Let us be clear that these cuts have consequences: they kill. Therefore, this UK Government have blood on their dirty little hands.

I will demonstrate an example of this. In evidence given to the International Development Committee, of which I am a member, along with my colleague from the Labour party, the hon. Member for Ealing, Southall (Mr Sharma), witnesses from UNICEF spoke of their UK aid-funded nutrition programme in South Sudan, which was cut this year by 75%, from £20 million to £5 million. What does that mean on the ground? It means that an additional 73,000 children with severe wasting may not be reached and now face the highest risk of death. These cuts stand in stark contrast with every other G7 country, which have increased their aid contributions over the past year. It is no wonder that they have done this; we have been living through covid and we all know what that has meant. It is something that every country on earth is experiencing—we are not unique. It is the Scottish Government who have pledged to increase their international development fund by 50%. Let me be crystal clear: Scotland wants no part of the UK Government’s abdication of responsibility, and sees international development very differently.

This Conservative Government have abandoned the UK’s role as leader in international development in favour of following the manifesto commitments of the UK Independence party and the Brexit party. The upcoming Nutrition for Growth summit cannot fall short in the same way that the Education for Development summit did this summer. Rose Caldwell, chief executive of Plan International UK, said that the UK had failed in its duty as co-host after the summit failed to reach its target by a staggering $1 billion.

As the host of the original Nutrition for Growth summit in 2013, which was supported by cross-party unanimity when David Cameron brought it forward, the UK should have tremendous convening power. If the UK Government wish to restore their credibility on the world’s stage in any shape or form, they must deliver a strong pledge next week to catalyse commitments from other donors. It is essential that the UK increases aid for nutrition-specific programmes and, at the very least, returns to the original 2015-20 levels and commits the necessary £120 million per year over the next five years.

The Nutrition for Growth summit is a rare opportunity for ambitious change. It is not too late. The UK Government, and Governments across the world, cannot let down those most in need yet again.