Nigeria: Armed Violence (Rural Communities)

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 27th November 2018 Westminster Hall

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

Thank you, Mr Betts; I am delighted to serve under your chairmanship. I acknowledge your guidance and will try to be brief.

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) —my hon. Friend in this respect—not only for securing the debate but for his assiduous questioning. The situation in Nigeria is something that we should be concerned about and we quite rightly highlight it today.

I visited Nigeria a long time ago, in 2006, with Christian Solidarity Worldwide—it is good to see Mervyn Thomas, the CEO, in the Public Gallery—and to my knowledge, this issue is historic. We saw the antecedent of what is happening today. As part of that visit, we went to Jos and to Kano, and we saw, even then, burnt out churches and loss of life because of religious conflict. The situation is complex and is partly about the conflict between pastoralists and farmers; it just so happens that the pastoralists tend to be Islamic while the farmers are Christian. The issue dates back a long time.

During that visit, I met the then Archbishop of Jos. During a debate in the other place on 17 July, which was initiated by the noble Baroness Cox, who has taken a strong interest in what has been happening in Nigeria, no less a person than the Archbishop of Canterbury spoke to alert the House of Lords to yet another attack on the Archbishop of Jos, who is a very brave man. He and his predecessor have been through all manner of conflict and lived with it. We must recognise that it is not just people out in rural areas who are affected; in the cities too there are regular attacks, and prominent Christians are subject to all aspects of that conflict.

I have one simple point to make. Even in the days when I visited, clearly the federal structure of Nigeria meant that much of the power lay in the hands of the state governors. As much as I would say that President Goodluck Jonathan and now President Buhari could do much more—I hope that the Minister will tell us what the UK Government are doing to lobby directly—we must also recognise that the different state governors have enormous influence, even to the extent that when I was there, a long time ago, it was common to hear of some Christian governors helping Islamist extremists because it was politically advantageous to do so. My visit clearly predates much of the terror of Boko Haram, but even then some extremist groups on the ground were well organised. State governors could have done much more to deal with them using the police and, dare I say it, the army, but they refused to do so.

I hope that the Government will say what they are doing to engage with not only the federal President but the state governors, because they are the key to dealing with some of the violence on the ground. Unless we ensure that our lobbying of those people is effective, that violence will continue and get worse, and the Christians—a minority now, sadly—will be driven further and further from where they have always lived and had their livelihoods. I hope that our Government will do that and ensure that this issue is dealt with appropriately. We must stop the violence to allow people to live in peace and harmony, as they have done for generations, and to get on with their lives.

Nuclear Treaty: US Withdrawal

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 25th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

It is wrong to suggest that America is trying to tear up the international order, although there are perhaps more threats to that order than has hitherto been the case. We will work together in as many international institutions as we can. The right hon. Gentleman will be aware that Germany joins the Security Council in January next year for a two-year term, and we anticipate tremendously important work being done between France, Germany and the UK in that forum to try to hold things together.

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

The problem with the politics of brinkmanship is that it takes people to the brink. Is it not about time the Government used the so-called special relationship to tell President Trump so?

[Mark Field]

I do not want to reiterate what I have said for the last half hour, but the truth of the matter is that we have reached this point because Russia has persistently and consistently failed to meet its obligations. The important thing is not that we turn our fire in the other direction, but that we work with all our allies—we are united among our NATO allies here in Europe—to ensure that Russia adheres to those obligations.

Oral Answers to Questions

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 26th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I can assure my hon. Friend that freedom of religion and belief is one of the topics we regularly raise at the highest level throughout our diplomatic network.

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

Will the Minister ensure that she talks, via the Foreign Secretary, to President Buhari of Nigeria? With the dreadful goings on in that country and the increasing pressure on the Christian community in the north, it is about time that the President stood up and did something to protect it.

[Harriett Baldwin]

Specifically on the situation in Nigeria, I can assure the hon. Gentleman that we regularly raise these issues at the highest level with our friends in Nigeria. We are aware that these conflicts are often driven by conflict over land, grazing rights and water. They should not necessarily always be characterised by religious difference.

Tuberculosis

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 7th June 2018 Commons Chamber

[Nick Herbert]

I strongly agree with the hon. Gentleman that the diseases must be treated together. However, great progress has been made on tackling AIDS, partly because of the tremendous new tools available. By comparison, less progress has been made on tuberculosis. Last year, 1.7 million people died of tuberculosis. That is more than AIDS and malaria combined. The single fact that most people do not realise is that tuberculosis is now the world’s deadliest infectious disease, and it deserves more attention than it gets. Some 10 million people globally are falling ill each year as a result of this disease.

TB was declared a global health emergency by the World Health Organisation 24 years ago. Since then, 54 million people have died. That is not a great advert for the declaration of a global health emergency. Three years ago in New York, the world’s leaders set the sustainable development goals. Target 3.3 was to eliminate these major epidemics in 15 years. At the current trajectory, TB will not be eliminated for 160 years, so another 28 million people will die in the sustainable development goal period alone, costing the world economy $1 trillion cumulatively. Middle and lower-income countries will be the most severely hit, with lower-income countries experiencing a reduction of something like 2% of their GDP.

On top of this, there are new threats. I mentioned that TB strikes when immune systems are compromised, and they can be compromised in new ways, including by the acquisition of diabetes. In Indonesia, TB is striking people with diabetes, which is a growing problem.

Above all—this should concern the House greatly—is the growing risk of drug resistance. TB is the only major drug resistant infection that is transmitted through the air. It is already responsible for one in three deaths worldwide from all forms of drug resistance. Drug resistance generally now kills 700,000 people a year, but Lord O’Neill’s commission, set up by David Cameron, predicted that drug resistance would kill 10 million people a year by 2050, and that those deaths would fall in the west and advanced economies, not just in poor and middle-income ones. That compares with, for instance, 8 million deaths a year from cancer. We are talking about catastrophic loss and catastrophic economic cost, with a cumulative GDP loss of $100 trillion, knocking 2% to 3.5% off global GDP. It is significant that a quarter of those deaths from antimicrobial resistance would be due to tuberculosis, which is already responsible for a third of antimicrobial resistance deaths; that is 200,000 deaths a year.

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

The right hon. Gentleman is making an excellent speech. Will he also accept the connection between TB and conflict? In the parts of the world where TB is rife—including South Sudan, which I know very well—conflict is adding to the complexity for people suffering from disease.

[Nick Herbert]

That is a very interesting point. TB is a disease of poverty. This opportunistic infection will strike if there are no basic health systems and if nutrition and housing are poor, and all those conditions would probably exist in areas of conflict.

Drug-resistant TB is a terrible affliction. It can be dealt with, but even in an advanced healthcare system, it requires a course of treatment in which some 14,000 pills have to be taken. This treatment is appalling, as it can cause patients to become deaf and creates a lot of suffering. Only half of drug-resistant TB patients are successfully treated. In fact, there is a lower survival rate for drug-resistant TB than for lung cancer.

Conflict in South Sudan

David Drew Excerpts

Tuesday 5th June 2018 Westminster Hall

[Nic Dakin]

That is good news, indeed. We all need to work together to help peace to prevail. Sadly, in the history of South Sudan, we have been here before. That is not a reason for us not to make better progress this time. I know the Minister is focused on this issue, because I have heard her speak on it many times. She will want to ensure that the British Government do everything they can to encourage a positive process.

Born in 2011 after decades of conflict with Sudan, South Sudan became the world’s newest country and a beacon of hope for post-conflict societies. The eyes of the world watched as a brand-new state was formed with the help of millions of dollars from the international community. Barack Obama said proudly at the time,

“Today is a reminder that after the darkness of war, the light of a new dawn is possible.”

Sadly, the jubilant scenes of July 2011 quickly faded into violence. In December 2013, conflict erupted between warring factions of the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement party, quickly escalating into a national crisis, which divided communities along ethnic fault lines. The regional Intergovernmental Authority on Development—IGAD—brokered a peace deal in 2015, to which the hon. Member for Henley (John Howell) alluded, but by July 2016 conflict had kick-started again and the last two years has seen escalating violence and tensions across the country.

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

My hon. Friend knows I have a passionate interest in the country. One sad aspect of this is that while some said that once the south got freedom, peace would ensue, what happened was, of course, anything but that. Those who did not help by outside intervention ought to hold their heads in shame. It is about time the world community focused back on this bedevilled nation.

[Nic Dakin]

My hon. Friend has had a strong, passionate commitment over many years to the situation in South Sudan, speaks with great perception and is to be listened to.

Humanitarian statistics rarely tell the whole story of a conflict, but the latest figures coming out of South Sudan are truly staggering. Some 1.8 million people are internally displaced, with a further 2.4 million seeking refuge in neighbouring countries. That is over a third of the country’s population forced to flee their homes, with 85% of those fleeing being women and children. South Sudanese refugees can be found in Uganda, Kenya, Sudan and Ethiopia. It is testament to the horrors of the conflict in South Sudan that refugees are also seeking safety in countries ravaged by their own civil wars, such as the DRC and Central African Republic. At various points in the conflict, the Bidi Bidi camp in Uganda was receiving more than 1,000 refugees every single day. Now covering an area bigger than Birmingham, it is the largest refugee camp in the world.

We all remember the famine that spread through east Africa last year and the remarkable response from local NGOs, aid agencies and ordinary people in the UK who gave money to the fundraising appeal. This year the UN predicts that famine will return and food insecurity will be greater than last year, with starvation being used as a weapon of war.

Internally Displaced People

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 25th April 2018 Westminster Hall

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

My own experience of visits to South Sudan is that IDPs get the worst treatment. They stayed within the country, which means that the SPLA—the Sudan People’s Liberation Army—does not trust them, because it organises the refugees. The SPLA blamed the people who remained in the south for being part of the regime of the north, and out of everybody they got the worst treatment.

[Dame Caroline Spelman]

I suspect that the hon. Gentleman’s point will be made over and over again. One of the long-standing principles of international development is that, as far as possible, assistance should be given in the region so that people can remain in the region and rebuild war-torn places. However, when it comes to IDPs, that principle meets with the most incredible difficulties, and that problem must not be underestimated in any way.

The pictures that we see of both Syria and Iraq—sadly, those of us who have been to the conflict zone in Sudan will have seen similar things—show that when IDPs return to their homes, those homes are nothing more than a pile of rubble. Debris fills the streets and makes it difficult to navigate through the communities that IDPs used to live in. Sadly, uncleared and unexploded ordnance can cost lives, and certainly limbs, among those who return to these areas. They remain a very dangerous environment to return to.

The Government of Iraq and the UN agencies are working hard to try to make these areas safe, but given the level of destruction in a place such as Mosul and the high risk of unexploded devices, it cannot happen all that quickly. People are being secondarily displaced by the lengthy clean-up operation; on their return, they find that they cannot stay, and they are displaced all over again to camps or host communities while they wait for the area to be made safe so that they can return and start to rebuild something that looks a bit like normality. In January and February of this year, more than 23,000 people in Iraq were secondarily displaced to IDP camps.

Even for the IDPs who can make the journey home, and whose houses have not been destroyed, their return is often far from straightforward. They often encounter disputes over property; it is a common problem. Often, they are unable to provide the necessary documentation, and the relevant authorities are so overwhelmed by trying to resolve the large number of land rights disputes that many IDPs remain unable to return. Property disputes are an issue shared by refugees returning from other countries in which they have sought refuge, but because IDPs have not crossed an international border, their status is not as clear cut. These issues are therefore more hidden and more complex.

I want to touch on the plight of women and girls as IDPs. In the 100th year of our hard-fought battle for women’s suffrage in the UK, it is entirely appropriate to dwell for a moment on how women are disproportionately affected by internal displacement. They are at greater risk of sexual violence and trafficking. Girls suffer higher levels of early marriage. In many contexts, women have weaker property rights than men, or no property rights. Those things make returning or seeking compensation for land losses even further beyond their reach. For displaced women, even simple activities such as going to fetch firewood or water can see them fall victim to physical or sexual attack.

It is important to note that women often do not find personal security following displacement. Instead, they suffer violence as they flee and frequently continue to experience high levels of violence while living in displacement. I am sure Members will remember the haunting pictures of Yazidi women in the Upper Waiting Hall. They reminded us all, in their brief life stories, of what they have had to cope with. Estimates suggest that at least one in five women IDPs have experienced sexual violence in displacement. In South Sudan’s IDP camps, UN investigators found that 70% of women had been raped, typically by soldiers and police officers. The one place where a woman is hoping to find safe refuge can turn out to be a dangerous environment for her to reside in. Given the great work that the Government have been doing to support women and girls in developing countries, I would be grateful if my right hon. Friend the Minister could assure me that IDPs are firmly on the Government’s radar. Given the sheer number of IDPs today—there are more than 40 million globally—we must take steps.

--- Later in debate ---

[Ann Clwyd (Cynon Valley) (Lab)]

I am pleased to see you in the chair, Mr Davies. I dispense with the usual niceties because there is not enough time, but I congratulate the right hon. Member for Meriden (Dame Caroline Spelman) on securing this debate.

I was made aware of the difficulties of helping internally displaced people through speaking to Iraqis and representatives of the international community when I led an Inter-Parliamentary Union delegation to Iraq in February. We were told repeatedly that rebuilding infrastructure and the restoration of services in areas recently won back from Daesh—some 40 cities in two and a half years—was the priority, so that IDPs could return home. Managing expectations about what could be done was, however, challenging.

We were told that reconciliation would be crucial in allowing thousands with family ties to militants to return to their homes. Yet the Financial Times recently reported:

“Aid groups and western powers all acknowledge the importance of suturing Iraq’s divisions, but few are willing to co-ordinate with Baghdad”.

They worry, the article continues, about some of the Government’s methods,

“like walling suspected ISIS relatives in displacement camps, while forcing other families to return home before they feel safe”,

sometimes when the area is not even cleared of bombs.

[Dr Drew]

Would my right hon. Friend accept that one of the problems is that, whereas refugees often come under the accountable control of international agencies, including the military and the police, IDPs are often subject to national agencies and therefore subject to the conflict and repression that they have tried to flee from, and they get put back into that situation?

[Ann Clwyd]

Indeed I would. That is a very good point. The Financial Times article also points out such methods

“violate international law and is a recipe for another round of radicalisation. That leaves much of the work to civil society groups, tribes and politicians with competing interests.”

There was an incredible account in The Times last week about the work of a young nurse in Mosul who now collects the remains of dead bodies with a small team of volunteers, which highlighted how little reconstruction has been carried out so far in the old city, though some rebuilding has begun in less damaged parts of west Mosul. Even more worryingly, the report highlighted the feeling of some there that the authorities are now enacting a form of collective punishment on Mosul, Iraq’s largest Sunni city, which was seen as a hotbed of radicalism even before Daesh took it on in 2014. There is a very real difficulty in fostering the reconciliation that will be required to ensure that many IDPs can return home and stay there.

I would like to talk about the tragic situation that colleagues have talked about in Syria, Yemen, the DRC and Colombia. However, I will conclude by calling on Governments with IDPs and the international community to do more to understand and address the challenges faced by IDPs and to engage with them. Last, but not least—who has the primary responsibility to protect and assist IDPs when their home state will not or cannot do so? Will the Minister tell us today what action the Department for International Development has taken to develop and publish a departmental strategy to support IDPs around the world, and what has been done to deliver on commitments on IDPs made at the 2016 World Humanitarian Summit?

Foreign Affairs Committee

David Drew Excerpts

Thursday 22nd February 2018 Commons Chamber

[Tom Tugendhat]

I welcome the Minister’s words. Very few of us here do not respect enormously the work of the Minister for the Middle East. His work, influence and knowledge of the region is second to none.

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

Is it not about time that we made stronger representations through the NATO Parliamentary Assembly that one of our allies is spending huge resource in attacking potentially one of our other allies in the battle against Daesh?

[Tom Tugendhat]

I very much welcome the NATO Parliamentary Assembly’s work, and the hon. Gentleman is right that that is an excellent forum for discussion. However, I should say that the Turkish Government have not only the right, but the duty to protect their population against terrorist attacks and, if they feel threatened, it is incumbent on them to take action. I would much rather see both parties separating, so that we do not see conflict and the peace process can begin, with different groups not engaged in immediate battles.

Refugees and Human Rights

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry]

The right hon. Gentleman advises the House simply to give up. We do not give up. We must work in a multilateral way, within the United Nations, and fight our corner. We should be a force for good. We should not allow the difficulties that we face make us say that it is all too hard and that we should simply walk away.

Let me make some progress. There no shortage of state persecution in our world, whether it is done by states such as Russia and Iran, which the Government rightly criticise, or those such as Egypt, Saudi Arabia and the Philippines, whose abuses they choose to ignore. As we saw in Darfur exactly 15 years ago, when the state turns an entire group of people—even the children and the elderly—into military targets, it leaves families with an impossible choice: they must risk their lives by staying put, or risk their lives by fleeing. That is exactly what we have seen in Myanmar.

No one present needs any reminding of the horrors and hardship that the Rohingya have faced ever since the attacks in August. No one needs any telling of the desperate humanitarian situation in the camps on the Bangladesh border. No one needs any warning of the dangers of the proposed repatriation of the Rohingya. What we need to know is what action our Government are actually taking—not just to alleviate the situation, but to resolve it.

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

My right hon. Friend will, like me, be disappointed to hear that the situation in Darfur is worse today than it was 15 years ago. There is more conflict there but, because of other conflicts in the world, it has sadly gone off the front pages. Will she do what she can to help the bedevilled people of Sudan and South Sudan, who have known nothing but conflict for the past 40 years?

[Emily Thornberry]

My hon. Friend, having visited the region himself, is a great expert in that area. He echoes many of the things that the shadow Minister for Africa, my hon. Friend the Member for Heywood and Middleton (Liz McInnes), has been telling us. My hon. Friend the Member for Edmonton (Kate Osamor) will sum up the debate, focusing particularly on the humanitarian situation in Africa.

We know that Myanmar simply will not act without external pressure—not on consent for repatriation, and not on the guarantees the Rohingya need regarding their future security, citizenship and economic viability. Will the Minister, finally, use our role as the UN penholder on this issue to submit a Security Council resolution to ensure legally binding guarantees on and international monitoring of all these issues? Until we get those guarantees, will he urge India and Japan to withdraw their offer to fund the planned repatriation?

As we work for the future protection of the Rohingya, we cannot forget those who have already suffered and died, so let me ask the Minister this as well: is it still the case that only two of the Government’s 70 experts on international sexual violence have so far been deployed in the region, despite the vast scale of crimes that have occurred? Will he make it clear that Myanmar must allow the UN special rapporteur on human rights to carry out her investigation unobstructed, or Myanmar risks once more being a pariah state and being pushed out into the cold?

The second challenge is about the countries locked in intractable conflicts, leaving millions of innocent civilians internally displaced or as refugees. I turn to Yemen. More than 5,000 children have now been killed or injured since the war began—five children every single day. Hundreds of children are now suffering with malnutrition, cholera and diphtheria. I learned only recently what diphtheria really meant. For me, it was just about my children being injected when they were young. Diphtheria is called the strangling disease: it strangles babies. It is now stalking Yemen, and 2 million children are now receiving no schooling at all.

UNICEF usually says that such and such percentage of children require support, but last week it was clear that almost every single child in Yemen now needs humanitarian aid. Resolving this situation could not be more urgent. In that context, I do not know whether the Minister was present for the Foreign Secretary’s recent Cabinet presentation on the Yemen conflict, but, according to The Mail on Sunday, his opening line was, “We have got to do something about the Saudi war on Yemen”. Well, that is what we have been telling the Government for two years now, so thank goodness they are finally listening, even if they do so only in private.

I hope that the Minister will admit another private truth today. He says that there is no military solution in Yemen—the UN says it and even Rex Tillerson says it—but the truth is that that is not what the Saudis believe. Just a few weeks ago, exiled President Hadi said that the current Saudi military offensive would

“put an end to the Houthi coup”

and that, as a result, there was no purpose in peace talks. In other words, the war will continue until the Saudis secure victory, no matter how long it takes and no matter what the cost. That is unacceptable. If the Government genuinely want to do something to end the Saudi war, I suggest that, as with Myanmar, they take the following steps: pull their finger out, get their pen out and do their job. They should do the job that they have been given by the United Nations and submit a resolution demanding an immediate ceasefire and the resumption of peace talks. Will the Government follow the lead of Germany and Norway and suspend arms sales for use in this conflict pending the result of a full independent investigation of alleged war crimes?

In Syria, the humanitarian situation is equally dire. The need for peace is just as great, and we face the same impasse in moving towards a political solution. From Astana to Sochi, and from Geneva to Vienna, we have rival peace processes with no agreed set of participants and no agreed set of goals or acceptable outcomes. As long as that impasse continues, the only incentive on all sides is to maximise territorial gains whatever the costs.

We see that Assad’s typically criminal assault on Idlib and eastern Ghouta is already triggering a fresh wave of displaced civilians. What we also see is the US plan for an open-ended military presence to stabilise so-called liberated areas near the Turkish border alongside a new 30,000 strong Kurdish army, which was idiotically named by the Americans as the Syrian border force. Therefore, while we condemn Turkey’s response in invading the border area and assaulting the Afrin enclave, we must ask the US how it thought Turkey was likely to respond. It is a hugely dangerous development, and it takes me back to what I said at this Dispatch Box some 15 months ago, which is that a long-term political solution in Syria must be predicated on the de-escalation of overseas forces, not a move to their permanent presence.

I have these questions for the Minister. First, what steps is he taking to resolve the impasse over peace talks? In particular, is he determined now automatically to reject any positive outcome from next week’s congress in Sochi? Secondly, can he tell us whether there are any UK personnel—military or otherwise—involved either in training the new Kurdish border force or in America’s proposed “stabilisation activities” in Northern Syria? Finally, as the violence escalates in Idlib and Rojava, what preparations are the Government making for a fresh wave of Syrian refugees fleeing towards Turkey and the Aegean sea?

The third challenge concerns countries caught in a cycle of entrenched division and sporadic violence, leaving millions of civilians trapped in poverty and deprivation. My hon. Friend the shadow International Development Secretary will talk later about the grave situations in Somalia and South Sudan.

Let me focus in particular on the millions of Palestinian refugees spread across Gaza, the west bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria. For almost 70 years, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency has supported those refugees and their descendants. UNRWA’s budget last year was $760 million. We could fund its work for the next 220 years with the cost of just one “Boris bridge” across the channel, and it would be a far better use of the money.

Thanks to UNRWA, 500,000 Palestinian children receive schooling every day and millions more receive healthcare. Last week, Donald Trump cut their funding by $65 million. I am reluctant to quote his Tweet, but he said:

“we pay the Palestinians…MILLIONS…and get no appreciation or respect.”

Young children will be denied education and medicine all because poor Donald Trump does not think that he gets enough “appreciation or respect”. How utterly pathetic!

International Human Rights Day

David Drew Excerpts

Wednesday 20th December 2017 Westminster Hall

[Ann Clwyd]

I thank my right hon. Friend very much for making that point; I absolutely agree with her, and I will come to that in the course of my speech. I have not talked about countries being ravaged by violent conflict, where, as well as human rights, basic principles of international humanitarian law meant to protect civilians from the worst effects of conflict are disregarded every day.

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

As always, my right hon. Friend makes a compelling case. Does she agree that one of the biggest threats to our world is the growth of slavery? To be fair, this Parliament and this Government have done what they should do, but I attended a film yesterday about the return of a slave, a woman named Mende Nazer, who went back to the Nuba mountains in South Sudan, a place I know very well. It is horrifying to know that, as a result of the conflict there, slavery is—dare I say it—alive and well.

[Ann Clwyd]

Again, I am grateful to my hon. Friend for making that point. I know the Government have been particularly active on that matter. I have been to South Sudan myself in the past, looking at aid agency distribution to the very many starving people in that area. I was not able to go to the Nuba mountains, because I was not allowed to go there at the time. I am glad he raised that issue.

In the countries I have already mentioned, civilians and civilian infrastructure, such as hospitals, schools and markets, are targeted either deliberately or through negligence. Citizens who are not involved in the fighting are held under siege and starved. I would also add Libya, Afghanistan and the Central African Republic as conflict hotspots where civilian suffering is widespread. I am very concerned that we in the UK, and those who support and believe in fundamental human rights, are not doing enough to push back. We have to raise our game.

Budget Resolutions

David Drew Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2017 Commons Chamber

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

Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Stockton North (Alex Cunningham), this is my first Budget speech in seven years, so I shall enjoy myself in making it. In his great roman à thèse on the situation of Britain, “Sybil”, written in 1845, Disraeli referred to the two nations: the nation that was growing in prosperity—the bourgeoisie, the landowners and professional classes; and the wage slaves in the factories and those who eked a bare existence on the land. Unfortunately, if Disraeli were to come back today, he may see the similarities, rather than the differences. We are quite simply talking about two nations here.

In my short Budget speech, I wish to draw attention to a number of issues that highlight those two nations, the first of which is housing. Although the £44 billion is a welcome figure, we need to boost local authority housing—what we used to call “council housing”. The only reference to this in the Red Book, on page 63, states:

“The Budget will lift Housing Revenue Account borrowing caps for councils in areas of high affordability pressure, so they can build more council homes.”

That takes effect only in 2019-20, so we already have to wait a year, and we are talking about £1 billion. My simplistic calculation leads me to believe that that may allow us to build a few hundred homes, but we have a crisis in social renting and it needs crisis finance. We are not providing that.

Other areas are simply ignored in the Budget—for example, the care sector. Much of my local care sector is in crisis; there is not the money to provide any decent quality of care. Renewables are flatlining. If we are to go towards the carbon-free economy, we have to boost renewables, yet aside from a brief mention there is nothing about them in this Budget. Likewise, we are not trying to do anything other than offer placebos on education. Sadly, the national funding formula, which many of us who have supported the f40 campaign have long awaited, has not improved the funding of many of our schools. Indeed, things are worse for many of our schools because of the way in which the Government have, by a clever trick, now conflated the special educational needs budget into the base budget. That is a tragedy because it is our children who will be suffering.

I welcome the comments in the Budget on what we intend to do about plastics, but we need to go much further in tackling waste. We need to boost the way in which we deal with food recycling, recognising that there is an alternative to incineration, which seems to be how the Government Front Benchers see us dealing with waste. In a time of air quality problems, that is exactly the wrong direction to go in. I welcome what the hon. Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton) said about the WASPI women. I had a short meeting with them on Saturday and it was one of the most moving meetings I have ever sat in, just because they feel that they have been robbed. To me, all those issues are clear dividing lines. We live in a country where we do not want those dividing lines. We need to bring it back together and I hope that a future Government will—

[Mr Deputy Speaker (Mr Lindsay Hoyle)]

Order. I call Sir Robert Syms.