Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between James Duddridge and Anne McLaughlin

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[Anne McLaughlin (Glasgow North East) (SNP)]

T6. In 2016, President Adama Barrow gave hope to Gambians across the world when he was democratically elected, ending the dictatorship of President Jammeh and 22 years of human rights abuses. Now he himself is in danger of following suit. At the last questions session, the Minister told me that he was monitoring the situation. May I have an update, please?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (James Duddridge)]

I thank the hon. Lady for her interest in Gambia. We were very optimistic about it when it rejoined the Commonwealth. I have visited the country outside my ministerial roles, and I look forward to talking to our high commissioner within the week. I will raise these issues again and will update the hon. Lady, but we expect all Commonwealth members to uphold the best of standards.

Deaths Abroad (Consular Assistance)

Debate between James Duddridge and Anne McLaughlin

Wednesday 18th November 2015 Westminster Hall

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (James Duddridge)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) on securing this debate. She gave a heartfelt and very brave speech. Had I suffered the same personal circumstance, I am not sure that I would have been able to be quite so eloquent in the delivery of a large number of points. I have only seven or eight minutes to respond, so I want to say at the outset that I would like to meet the hon. Lady outside this debate—not literally outside, but perhaps at the Foreign Office—to discuss some of the points she raised in much more detail. We could either include outside organisations from the start, or discuss how we can liaise even more effectively with those organisations.

The hon. Lady mentioned three themes, which I would like to touch on. She asked what has changed since the Foreign Affairs Committee report. I will give my thoughts on some of the individual cases, because it is important that we learn from examples of where things have gone wrong. It is equally important that we learn from examples of where things have gone right. The debate has been very balanced, although it is easier in all walks of life to hear more about what goes wrong than what goes right. I suspect that the general view among the public, from reading national papers and so on, is slightly skewed. The front page of the Daily Mail has never been “Fabulous consular support offered in”—insert name of country. If only it was thus.

I pay tribute to a number of organisations. I am sure I would leave some out, so I will not attempt a list, but I pay particular tribute to the work of Julie Love, who lost her son in 2009. She has done a remarkable job setting up Death Abroad—You’re Not Alone, which seeks to support families. I also pay tribute to SAMM Abroad, another organisation to which the hon. Lady referred. The death of a loved one is always distressing, but a family’s grief can be compounded by not only the circumstance of that death but what happens afterwards. The British Government want to be part of ameliorating a bad process, rather than being part of any problem.

The hon. Members for Kingston upon Hull North (Diana Johnson), for Strangford (Jim Shannon) and, particularly, for North Down (Lady Hermon) outlined some really moving examples of where consular staff have got it right. Although there are sadly a large number of deaths, quite often, by the nature of there being only one or two people in post, it might be the first time that an individual staff member involved has dealt with a death. Everyone has their own experiences and concerns, and it is an emotional event for them. To put into context the work that is done, to date this year consular staff have been involved in 3,039 cases around the world. There have been 83 new murder cases so far this year, and 238 murder cases are ongoing and active.

I would like to draw colleagues’ attention to a document called “Guide for bereaved families”. Normally when there is a bereavement overseas, the initial point of contact is with a member of the police force who is in attendance, although in very rare cases a phone call is made. The other possibility is that an individual is contacted by the media. Notwithstanding that, a guide is given that goes into a lot of detail. Perhaps I will take the liberty of circulating it to the Members who are present and asking for feedback. It might also be worth circulating it more widely—the hon. Member for Glasgow North East mentioned case workers in particular.

In the two or three minutes I have remaining, I will try to canter through as many of the issues that have been raised as I can as a precursor to meeting the hon. Lady. On new training, we have changed things already, but the totality of new training has not yet been rolled out. That is ongoing.

The hon. Lady referred to a number of statistics from reports. The Foreign Office runs a survey, and from January to September 85% of people were satisfied with the level of service that they received. Nevertheless, I recognise that the data are likely to be skewed, in that those who report back to the Foreign Office are probably more likely to be happy, whereas I can imagine that those who report to support groups having looked first to the Foreign Office would be less likely to be satisfied. But to be frank, it is not acceptable for anyone to be unsatisfied, within reason.

Some really interesting ideas were mentioned relating to the use of desk officers. A specialist unit has been set up for cases of murder and manslaughter, so there will be the continuity that the hon. Lady sought. However, I gently suggest that there are advantages in using desk officers. They know the contacts in country, the language and the culture, which might not be the case with a centralised unit. I am happy to meet the hon. Lady to discuss and better understand the detail to see how that could be improved.

I do not have time to go into a lot of detail on travel advice, but I will review the disparities in the advice for South Africa. I am happy to discuss swimming conditions with the hon. Lady. The Foreign Office website discusses them in detail, but it is not always country-specific. In my experience of travel advice, more and more information can be added, but the risk is that people miss the bigger picture, such as in the case of advising, “Don’t travel to an entire area of the country because it is subject to terrorism.” So there is a case for not adding too much complexity, while also working more closely on travel advice.

The hon. Lady has indicated that I can take all the time available so that I can cover as many issues as possible.

[Anne McLaughlin]

indicated assent.

[James Duddridge]

A lot has been done in relation to Tunisia. The Prime Minister appointed the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs, my hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood), who suffered a loss when his brother was killed in the Bali bombings. He brought a lot of experience not only to how we assisted people in Tunisia but to how we followed up on that. We deployed experts and changed the travel advice as quickly as a possible, although there is a duty to be accurate as well as fast. We are looking at options for additional family support, and we still need to consider in detail a number of points in the Foreign Affairs Committee report.

Alas, there is not enough time for me to answer all the questions that have been asked, but I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North East, who made a very brave and thoughtful speech. Good will come of her raising this matter in the House, and I look forward to working with her in more detail.