Hazaras (Afghanistan and Pakistan)

Jeremy Lefroy Excerpts

Monday 1st September 2014 Commons Chamber

[Jeremy Lefroy (Stafford) (Con)]

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and I congratulate the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen (Mr Denham) and indeed the Backbench Business Committee on bringing this debate forward. You will be glad to hear, Madam Deputy Speaker, that because the right hon. Gentleman has eloquently outlined the situation that the Hazaras face, I intend to make just one point.

I wish to say that it is the responsibility of every Government on this planet to look after their minorities—whatever they think of them, whatever the background or history. Governments have the responsibility to protect their minorities. We are not necessarily here to dictate political systems or say whether minorities such as the Hazaras should have this or that kind of democracy, but it is a fundamental role of any state to protect and to provide safety and security for all its people, and not to discriminate against any one people because of their faith, creed, colour or whatever else.

That leads precisely on to the point made by the right hon. Member for Southampton, Itchen: it is up to the UK Government, in whatever way they interact with another Government, in Pakistan, Afghanistan or elsewhere around the world, to oppose any discrimination against and persecution of minorities simply because of who they are, and wherever that discrimination and persecution are taking place. It is for the UK Government at each and every opportunity, whether it be through development, military, diplomatic or even economic relations, to make that point. As I say, this does not apply only to Pakistan and Afghanistan, as we could think of dozens of other places where it is happening. It is a duty to protect minority citizens and give them equal rights with others.

In my work on the International Development Committee, I sometimes feel that we do not take up this challenge enough. Let us not forget that Pakistan is the single biggest bilateral recipient of UK aid. We have clout there. When our Committee visited Pakistan a couple of years ago, we could not go anywhere near Quetta or to Balochistan because of the situation there. We could go to Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Punjab and we saw some excellent work being done there, but we could not go to a place where all these things were going on at the time. I believe that it is for our Ministers in the Department for International Development and for parliamentarians on the International Development Committee to raise those matters whenever we have the opportunity. We may be ignored and there may be no action, but we could be listened to and it is our responsibility to act as I have suggested.