Oral Answers to Questions

James Duddridge Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady, who has deep experience in the country, is absolutely right to point to the worries about the electoral registration process and the prospect of unfair elections taking place. She is aware that we do not have the access we would like. We are concerned about the misuse of biometric data even now and about registration kits going missing and then being used. We are working with our counterparts, including the United Nations, as well as multi-donor programmes, to improve access to justice and for the media so that, hopefully, the elections can take place in a fairer atmosphere.

[James Duddridge (Rochford and Southend East) (Con)]

My right hon. Friend will be aware that Chinese, Russian and Israeli money is flooding in, buying influence in anticipation of a post-Mugabe—probably ZANU-PF-led—environment. With that in mind, what are the Government doing to meet their manifesto pledge to uphold the rule of law in Zimbabwe, which could again become the centre of sub-Saharan Africa?

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right to point to our manifesto commitment. Given the fact that Mugabe is still in place, he will understand that there are limits to what I can say, but I can assure him that we are working on this very hard indeed.