War in Gaza

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Tuesday 7th May 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Member raises the issue of UNRWA, which was also raised by his hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) and I should have responded on that point. Britain is currently in a position of not owing any money to UNRWA, we have said that we are considering the Colonna report and we are waiting for the Office of Internal Oversight Services report. In due course, we will come to the House to tell it the decision we have made, but it is important to recognise that at the current time Britain is fully paid up in respect of UNRWA’s money and work.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

More than 14,500 children have been killed in Gaza. Is the Minister proud that the UK continues to sell arms for use in this action?

[Mr Mitchell]

I am proud that Britain is doing everything it can and that the Government are bending every sinew to try to resolve this desperate situation and to make sure that we get aid into Gaza—“flood” Gaza with aid, as the Israeli Government have promised—but also get out the hostages, whose families have suffered so much since the appalling pogrom on 7 October.

Israel and Gaza

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Will the UK continuing to sell arms to Israel result in fewer innocent civilians losing their lives in Gaza?

[Mr Mitchell]

I have set out the fact that Britain has the toughest arms export regulations anywhere in the world. Ministers rely upon the legal advice and other advice that accompanies the work of an independent committee within Government.

Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Monday 29th January 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

On the hon. Lady’s final point, UNRWA humanitarian operations, getting aid to people who need it, will not be fettered in any way by the British decision. She will be well aware that there are very significant logistical problems outside that, but the effect of the decision that we have made about suspending future payments does not affect the payments we have made already. I recognise the importance she attaches to getting more aid and humanitarian support into Gaza, and that is the absolute intention of the British Government.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The Minister is right to reference the desperate plight of civilians in Gaza. One of my constituents, Dr Salim Ghayyada, is an NHS surgeon of 20 years and a UK citizen. He is terrified for his family, who are trapped in Gaza. Unlike other Governments, the UK Government are offering no help to UK citizens who have family stuck in Gaza. Will the Government consider a scheme for non-citizens, such as the Ukraine scheme, to help with this desperate situation—this plight for citizens in Gaza?

[Mr Mitchell]

We have been working with partners to secure passage for all those who wish to leave, including British nationals and their families. We have helped to facilitate over 300 British nationals leaving Gaza. We are working with Egyptian and Israeli authorities to ensure that any remaining British nationals who want to leave but have not been able to do so previously can do so.

Israel and Gaza

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Tuesday 19th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

My hon. Friend will know that this Government have made a particular and important intervention to try to stop gender-based violence, and in particular the use of sexual crimes in warfare. I can tell her that her view is well heard and well respected, and we will continue to do just that.

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Can the Minister assure the House that should a vote on a ceasefire be brought forward today at the UN Security Council, the Government will not abdicate their responsibility to innocent children, women and men, and will vote for that ceasefire and not abstain?

[Mr Mitchell]

I can reassure the hon. Gentleman that the Government certainly will not abdicate our responsibility, but how the Government exercise our vote on the Security Council will depend on the text that is agreed.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Tuesday 18th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

The effects of climate change are intensifying—NASA has just reported that June was the hottest month ever recorded—so it is important that the Government stand by their promise to double international climate finance. Will the Minister, at the Dispatch Box, confirm that that is exactly what they will do, or is the rumour that they are about to renege actually the case?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman will have heard my response to the hon. Member for Brighton, Pavilion (Caroline Lucas). I can tell him that we are committed to tripling our adaptation finance from £500 million in 2019 to £1.5 billion by 2025. I hope he will wait, with admitted patience, until September when we will be able to set all these figures out.

Ugandan School Attack

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

This is a shocking terrorist crime, and I put on record my party’s condolences to the families of those murdered in this horrific attack. I congratulate the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) on bringing attention to this crime, which has had too little of that.

The people who carried out this atrocity are not an unknown group. They have already been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Uganda and the United States of America. When will the UK Government finally join those countries in proscribing them too? What will the UK Government do to support Uganda in response to this attack and to the ongoing threats that clearly exist there?

Lasting solutions can only be achieved by Governments in this region with outside support investing in peacebuilding and civic society building. Military cannot be the only option, so does the Minister agree that it would be a mistake to continue cutting aid in the sub-Saharan area and, indeed, worldwide?

[Mr Mitchell]

On the hon. Gentleman’s final point, we are deploying very large amounts of British taxpayers’ money in the area, as he suggests, and we are ensuring that we are light on our feet and using that to good humanitarian effect. If he looks at some of the programmes I have announced recently, he will see that they directly affect the humanitarian position, particularly for girls and women.

In respect of what Britain is doing to try to ensure greater security in the eastern DRC and on the border to which the hon. Gentleman refers, although we never discuss proscription and other security measures in advance, he may rest assured that the British Government are fully engaged, not least through the Nairobi peace process, in doing anything that we can to bring back stability to this very troubled part of the world.

Sudan

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. I echo the thanks to the men and women of the armed forces and other staff involved in the evacuations of UK nationals, as well as to those of other countries who immediately stepped up to the plate to evacuate UK citizens along with their own nationals at the start of this escalation of the conflict.

This is developing into a full-blown humanitarian crisis, with hundreds of thousands of people being displaced. There are acute food, water and medicinal shortages and they are likely to get worse. Agencies on the ground that have humanitarian, peacebuilding and development programmes will need to pivot quickly, so what assistance are the UK Government giving to those individual agencies? Can the Minister give us some details? I did not hear a response to the shadow Minister about how many UK nationals are estimated to be still in Sudan. Can he give us that estimate, because I would imagine that the Government have one?

The Minister said that there were more UK citizens in Sudan than citizens from other nations. Does that not mean that the emphasis should have been on our being better prepared and better resourced to move more quickly than those other nations? As violence erupts in Darfur, what actions has he agreed with international partners to protect international civilians?

Finally, the Minister for Africa said on TV last night that there were no safe and legal routes for refugees from Sudan. The Foreign Secretary promised last week that detail would be coming forward shortly. Can the Minister give us that detail now and tell us when those safe and legal routes will be in place?

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his comments, particularly his comments about the work of the armed forces, which, as he said, was absolutely outstanding. He asked about how we elevate our humanitarian response to this crisis. I have to tell him that more than 10 humanitarian workers have been murdered during the course of this conflict. I said in my statement that it was five humanitarian workers, but if we include the wider definition of humanitarian workers, the number is more than 10. For the humanitarian work to take place and for the corridors that Prime Minister Hamdok has called for to operate, there must be a ceasefire and therefore all our efforts are addressed to that. We are working closely with all the humanitarian agencies, through the United Nations, the Intergovernmental Authority on Development and the African Union, to secure that.

The hon. Gentleman asked me for an estimate of those who are left, but it is not possible to be precise about that. He will have seen the figures of those who have been evacuated by the Royal Air Force and those who have gone from Port Sudan by sea. However, there is no question that those in Khartoum, which is where the predominant number of people were, will have known about the evacuation and will have been able to go to the airport. We believe that it is inconceivable that people did not know about it, and we think most of them are out.

Finally, the hon. Gentleman asked me about safe and legal routes. When the Prime Minister made his comprehensive statement to the House about how we would stop the boats and the poor people coming across the busiest sea lane in the world, putting themselves into the hands of the modern-day equivalent of the slave trader, he set out a whole range of measures, including that in due course he would introduce safe and legal routes. That is the answer to that question.

Israel and Occupied Palestinian Territories

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Thursday 20th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

I also thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement. It is a horrific murder, and our deepest condolences go to the family of Lucy, Maia and Rina at this time for this brutal murder, and indeed to the family of the Italian tourist killed in Tel Aviv and those affected. Violence on either side must be thoroughly condemned. No innocent Israeli or Palestinian should face this kind of terror when going about their day. Respect for international law, human rights and due process must prevail.

There is little to disagree with, and much to support, in the Minister’s statement; however, there is also little specific action outlined. The UK Government must act to call out the glaring and obvious mass and systematic discrimination in the Occupied Palestinian Territories at the hands of the Israeli Government and military, so why does the 2030 road map for UK-Israeli bilateral relations contain no reference to the Israeli authorities’ treatment of Palestinians there? This situation is rapidly deteriorating, so did the Prime Minister raise these concerns with his counterpart when he visited last month? Will the Government cease licensing arms and security equipment while these settlements are being illegally progressed and exempt construction equipment from tariff-free deals? Will they halt trade negotiations while illegal settlements are being progressed, too?

More needs to be done to de-escalate the situation. If the UK Government are going to use the strong relationship that they have with Israel to move beyond platitudes and promises of raising concerns, it is critical that they take direct action to ensure that those things are real, and they need to do so now.

[Mr Mitchell]

I thank the SNP spokesman for his comments. The wide Dee family will draw strength, at a dreadful time, from the solidarity that the House is showing towards them.

The hon. Gentleman asks how often discrimination in the Palestinian territories is raised, and whether the Prime Minister has done so recently. The Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary raise these matters regularly in all the conversations that they have with both sides. On arms sales, as he will know, the Government have the strongest and toughest export regulations of any country in the world. On his comments about discrimination, we welcome the recent engagement between Israeli and Palestinian leadership at Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh.

British Council Contractors: Afghanistan

Debate between Drew Hendry and Andrew Mitchell

Monday 12th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[Drew Hendry (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey) (SNP)]

Thank you, Mr Speaker.

I, too, congratulate the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron) on securing this important urgent question. It is morally indefensible that, more than a year after the disastrous withdrawal from Afghanistan, there are still innocent Afghans who worked for the British Government and military who have received zero support from this Government and the Home Office. It is not acceptable to use terms such as “something like.” Exactly how many former British Council staff, including support staff, are still living in Afghanistan in fear of their lives and livelihoods? When the Government say they have brought 6,300 Afghans to “safety,” what exactly does that mean? How many of them are former British Council employees?

The Taliban’s so-called kill list is an active threat. Do the Government know how many of their former employees are on that list? Finally, it is appropriate that 540 staff are working on the Ukraine schemes but, if the Government are taking Afghanistan as seriously as they are supposed to be, why do the figures show a maximum of eight people working on the Afghan schemes?

[Mr Mitchell]

The frustration expressed by the hon. Gentleman is shared by many of us. It is not possible to quantify the figures in precisely the way he requests, but I will ensure that we write to him with the closest possible approximation.