Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Lord Hague of Richmond

Tuesday 3rd September 2013 Commons Chamber

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

T5. Last week the Foreign Secretary tweeted that he had spoken to John Kerry after last Thursday’s vote. Has he also spoken to his Russian counterpart since the vote? If not, why not, and, if he has, what was said?

[Mr Hague]

I will try to remember the sequence of that question. I speak regularly to my Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, and I think I last spoke to him on Wednesday last week. That was before our deliberations in this House and therefore not since the vote, but I speak to him regularly and I spoke to him twice last week. The Prime Minister will meet President Putin later this week at the G20, so our intense contact with Russia over Syria continues. They know our positions well, and we will continue to try to work with Russia to bring about a conference in Geneva and work towards a political solution in Syria.

Middle East and North Africa

Debate between Heidi Alexander and Lord Hague of Richmond

Tuesday 7th June 2011 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hague]

Yes. Such support predominantly comes from the Department for International Development or out of the reserve. The costs of the operations in Libya are being met from the reserve, as the Chancellor has said, so they are not an additional burden on the Ministry of Defence.

[Heidi Alexander (Lewisham East) (Lab)]

What conditions, if any, have been placed on the Arab partnership fund to ensure women’s equal political participation and—dare I say it—representation in north Africa’s emerging democracies?

[Mr Hague]

This is one of the objectives of the fund and £40 million of it is there to encourage political reform. That is very much one of the objectives. As I have said several times before, the encouragement of civil society, human rights groups, NGOs, and training for liberal and secular political parties is designed to ensure, among other things, that women have a strong role in the politics and society of these countries. We will strongly champion that.