Harriett Baldwin
Main Page: Harriett Baldwin (Conservative - West Worcestershire)Department Debates - View all Harriett Baldwin's debates with the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office
(2 days ago)
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Catherine West
My hon. Friend is a doughty campaigner on behalf of her constituents in Westminster and the City. I encourage her and her staff to use the MP hotline, because that is the best way of getting through in order to get consular advice and to reassure our communities in the diaspora of Sudan.
Dame Harriett Baldwin (West Worcestershire) (Con)
I thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield (Sir Andrew Mitchell) for securing this urgent question on the world’s worst humanitarian crisis. I welcome the leadership steps that the UK Government are taking, but will the Minister tell the House what conversations are being had with both the African Union and the United Nations about the possibility of surging peacekeepers into Sudan to protect civilians?
Catherine West
I thank the hon. Lady for her leadership role in the previous Parliament as the chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Sudan and South Sudan and as International Development Minister.
There are a number of partners; she has mentioned some of them. The participants at the London Sudan conference included Egypt, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Qatar, South Sudan, Chad, Kenya, Ethiopia and Uganda, and of course the like-mindeds: Norway, Canada, the USA and Switzerland. It was a perfect moment and the hon. Lady asks how we can continue that. We will redouble our efforts to work with the multilaterals such as the UN and the League of Arab States. There is quite a lot on their agenda at the moment, but it is very important that Sudan is not brought down the agenda just because it is in Africa. That is a fear, which is why it is so good to see the reporting in the Financial Times, The Guardian, and many of our other mainstream newspapers, to keep it in the spotlight. We will ensure that we work bilaterally with the countries we work with in normal times, and on a multilateral level to maintain our leadership role.