Persecution of Christians: Role of UK Embassies

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr David Drew (Stroud) (Lab/Co-op)]

I am delighted that my first contribution is on this topic. Having been away for seven years, my knowledge will be somewhat dated, but hopefully the spirit and the faith I have always tried to demonstrate are still there.

I would like to say two things in my very short contribution. First, I have always seen it as the role of MPs to take up the position of minorities in various parts of the world that are being discriminated against, persecuted and even worse. Secondly, I was pleased to go with Christian Solidarity Worldwide on a number of visits. Pakistan and Nigeria were two of the main ones, but when I was previously in this House I was able to go to Geneva to make representations on behalf of a North Korean who had escaped from that regime. Likewise, I have demonstrated outside a few embassies, including the Eritrean and Burmese embassies, because of the way their countries have deliberately persecuted not just Christians but all manner of minorities. The hon. Member for Torbay (Kevin Foster) said it is a tragedy in this day and age that we have to have such debates, and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) made that point eruditely.

My experience of embassies abroad comes from the country I was most concerned about, Sudan—now, of course, there is South Sudan as well as Sudan. Whenever we went on a visit there when I was the chairman of the all-party parliamentary group on Sudan, my experience was that the embassy was very helpful. It flew us about and gave us an enormous amount of time. On the third visit, the ambassador, Sir William Patey, went beyond the call of duty. My only criticism of him is that he went on to become chairman of Swindon Town Football Club, who are our rivals—I am a former chairman of Forest Green Rovers—so he went on to do things that were not as good as those he had done as an ambassador.

It is vital for the role of the embassy team to do research, to make representations and, when it receives delegations, to ensure that those delegations can see what is happening, despite how difficult that is—at times in Sudan it was dangerous. It is the role of the embassies to ensure that that is carried out to the best of their ability. I had that experience in Sudan certainly. I do not know what it is like now, although I imagine it is even more difficult. To my mind, that is why we as parliamentarians have a role to play. When we make such visits, which are important, we must ensure that the embassies make our visits not so much seamless but as instrumental as possible in enabling us to obtain information that we can bring back to debate and on which, we hope, we can make some representations to our own Government.