Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd March 2023 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

The historic Abraham accords prove once and for all that peace between Israel and her Arab neighbours is not only possible, but can quickly bring remarkable and positive change to the region. Will my right hon. Friend join me in celebrating the accords, and does she agree that Palestinian leaders would be best served by embracing their spirit and joining Israel at the negotiating table as soon as possible?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The Abraham accords have provided an opportunity to move forward, and we were pleased to see progress at the Aqaba and Sharm el-Sheikh meetings earlier in the year, and we continue to support and encourage all sides to continue that process. This is difficult—we understand that—and we stand ready to support all to ensure that a two-state solution is the one that we reach.

Turkey and Syria Earthquake

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Thursday 23rd February 2023 Westminster Hall

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

First, I congratulate my right hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton) on securing this important debate. Few events can have the capacity to shake us to our core more than an earthquake. We are all moved by individual stories of victims of these natural disasters. In the news last week, I heard of a man whose home was one of the thousands of buildings in north-west Syria that were completely destroyed by the 6 February earthquakes. At least a hundred people in the building died. He recalled the shaking and the smell of dust, as his children fled from the second floor. Another building crumbled down in front of their eyes as they stepped outside.

Two weeks after the earthquakes, he now lives in a tent with his wife and seven children in the garden of a non-governmental organisation. He used to work in an olive refinery, but he is now unemployed, and since the earthquakes his family gets by with food support provided by charities.

With the rise of natural disasters often triggered by the impact of climate change, the challenges our world faces are becoming more complex. At the same time, ever-growing regions are subject to political unrest and instability. In this context, the solidarity shown in response to Syria and Turkey’s emergency has been inspiring.

I take this opportunity to thank every Government organisation and individual who has offered immediate assistance in the form of much-needed critical resources, such as winter clothing, health and nutrition supplies, electric heaters and hygiene kits, as well as the specialist rescue units that are helping extract people from under the rubble. I am proud that as a country we have been able to pledge more than £30 million in assistance, including the deployment of search and rescue teams and an additional £3.8 million in funding for the Syrian White Helmets.

I am aware of the critical humanitarian situation in north Syria over many years. This natural disaster has exacerbated the high level of humanitarian need, with many Syrian refugees concentrated in the 10 affected provinces of southern Turkey, and Syria suffering from more than a decade of civil war.

Before the earthquakes, the region had a high level of humanitarian need and displacement, and the UN said that its funding for the area was already overstretched. While the earthquake was felt as far away as Lebanon, closer to home, northern Syria’s Aleppo and surrounding areas also reportedly saw thousands of buildings collapse, including two hospitals. The UN estimates that in north-west Syria, 120 schools have been destroyed and 57 hospitals have been partially damaged or forced to suspend their services.

Getting assistance to some 4.6 million Syrians living in the north-west has been slower than in the Government-controlled areas. It took nearly five days for the first UN aid to arrive, due to the restricted access. I am glad that the UK has been able to take steps to make it easier for the aid agencies to operate without breaching any sanctions that target the Assad regime.

Political unrest and instability clearly create challenges to countries wanting to offer aid. While aid agencies are working to help millions, there is concern that needs arising from other crises such as the war in Ukraine and Syria’s protracted civil war could affect that assistance over time. I would also like to highlight the fact that, as snow and rain have hampered the work of rescue teams, we also need to consider the safety and security of people offering the aid.

To deal with the aftermath of this crisis, we have years of work ahead. What support are we offering to ensure the rebuilding of housing so that populations are not displaced? As the situation on the ground moves to a new phase, from rescue to recovery, it is important that the UK considers the focus of our international aid budget in offering support that will last, by rebuilding people’s homes. This is a shared responsibility across the international community, but Britain will take a lead. I know that if we fail in this task we will pick up the cost of displacement in other ways.

It is important that the UK takes a role of leadership in international humanitarian support. We have a long and proud history of being at the heart of responses to disaster and conflict. The war in Ukraine has shown our allies how Britain can take the lead. In his recent speech, given next door in Westminster Hall, President Zelensky said:

“London has stood with Kyiv since day one, from the first seconds and minutes of the full-scale war. Great Britain, you extended your helping hand when the world had not yet come to understand how to react.”

We need to continue to work with the United Nations and other partner organisations in Turkey and northern Syria to co-ordinate the emergency response, with a particular focus on areas where access is difficult.

Local Government (Disqualification) Bill

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Report stage
Friday 14th January 2022 Commons Chamber

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

I rise to speak to the amendments all together. Before I came to this place, I was a councillor for many years, and I absolutely uphold the principles of the Bill and of the Nolan principles of conduct in public life. I also believe in redemption. I have dealt a lot with issues relating to county lines and there is nothing more powerful than seeing somebody who has been involved as a victim but who is none the less convicted because at a very young age they were involved in something over which they had very little choice. The thought that in later life that person might be disqualified from serving in public office is wrong, and it is my understanding that that would happen if we included these amendments. We need to reflect on the fact that people in public office need to have experience and sometimes that experience may be in areas where they need to advise people of their past mistakes. Safeguarding is a different issue and I absolutely support the Bill in that regard. As a result of that, I will not support the amendments if they come to a vote.

[Sir Paul Beresford (Mole Valley) (Con)]

I have known my hon. Friend the Member for Christchurch (Sir Christopher Chope), as he said, for some considerable time; we were both on a south London council. Although we are on the same side of the House, sometimes we agree and sometimes we do not. This afternoon, although I have sympathy with what he is plugging for, I do not think this is an appropriate Bill for what he is proposing. It is a Bill that is answering one small point, on which there has tremendous pressure, because there has been evidence of it and of the loophole being abused. As has been said, the loophole is child protection and the relationship with elected councillors. There has been wide consultation with local government before this Bill on the specific issue. The measures it contains are very deliberate and not retrospective. They are also de facto time-limited by the nature of the current legislation relating to the sex offenders list.

It would be fair to say that the new clauses came as a bit of a surprise, although I should have anticipated them because I have known my hon. Friend for some considerable time. I did ask him whether he would like to serve on the Committee, because I knew he would have issues to raise, but he declined to do so. These new clauses will have a draconian effect on local government. I am not a lawyer, but it seems to me that they will be retrospective all the way back to 1971 for drugs offences, to 1978 for drink-driving offences and to 2018 for social disorder offences. There is no time limit for this disqualification and no consideration given to the nature of the offence or the length of the conviction. This is a retrospective, one-strike-and-you-are-out proposal.

If the proposals were put to local government as they are on the Order Paper, I suspect the response would include the far from unreasonable request that such disqualification laws should be applied to Members of Parliament as well. I am sure my hon. Friend has no distant conviction, so there will be no difficulty for him, but if he has, I suspect he may not be alone. More to the point, I would strongly argue that any such purely hypothetical conviction from decades ago would have no bearing on his ability or that of any other hon. Member to discharge their duties in this place.

The same applies to most, if not almost all, of our hard-working colleagues in local government. When I looked at the amendments and new clauses, I had visions of some poor councillor who had the misfortune to be convicted in the late 1970s for a minor drink-driving offence when a student—I remember my life as a student; I got away with it—driving their battered Mini around the university campus. This person may have gone on to serve as a councillor or even as a mayor for decades, rendering great service to their community, but they would be disqualified at a stroke by the conviction many years ago, thereby forcing a by-election. It is worth mentioning a point that will have crossed the minds of some hon. Members. The inevitable and aggressive partisan trawling for past convictions to be used as a tool to unseat councillors will be particularly horrendous should these new clauses be accepted. Certainly, we will see minor, irrelevant incidents from the councillor’s past dredged up and used as weapons to force the resignation of people who have given huge amounts to their local community. That cannot be right on the basis of the brief discussion that we have had on these amendments today.

Uyghur Slave Labour: Xinjiang

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Wednesday 16th December 2020 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

The hon. Lady will have to be patient, I am afraid, in terms of the parliamentary time that would allow us to bring forward the changes to strengthen the Modern Slavery Act, for example. She talked about our very recent relationship with China. We want a positive and mature relationship with China, which is a very important member of the international community. Without China, we risk not being able to tackle global challenges, but when we have concerns we will raise them, and where we need to intervene we do.

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

My constituents in Stoke-on-Trent Central are deeply concerned and shocked by reports of forced labour of the Uyghur people in Xinjiang. Britain’s Modern Slavery Act requires big businesses to detail their anti-slavery efforts annually; however, as my hon. Friend will know, well-meaning words fall short of action. What measures are the Government taking to ensure that UK businesses are not complicit in modern-day slavery?

[Nigel Adams]

My hon. Friend rightly raises the Modern Slavery Act. At the risk of repeating myself, I remind the House that we are the first country in the world to require businesses to report on how they are tackling modern slavery in their operations and supply chains. As she will know, in September the Home Office announced a series of measures to strengthen the Act, and transparency in thousands of businesses and public body supply chains. That involves extending the reporting requirement to public bodies with a budget of £36 million or more. We want more transparency and comparability by requiring organisations to publish their statement on our new reporting service. We will bring those measures forward at the first opportunity when parliamentary time allows.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 30th June 2020 Commons Chamber

[Christian Wakeford (Bury South) (Con)]

What diplomatic steps the Government are taking to support the development of a covid-19 vaccine (a) in the UK and (b) throughout the world.

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

What diplomatic steps the Government are taking to support the development of a covid-19 vaccine (a) in the UK and (b) throughout the world.

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

Finding a covid-19 vaccine is a top priority for the Government. The Prime Minister has set up a vaccine taskforce and appointed Kate Bingham to lead it. The taskforce aims to secure access to promising vaccines for the UK population and to support access to vaccines to help bring the pandemic to an end. We have invested more than £130 million in research for the vaccine front-runners at the University of Oxford and Imperial College, London, and this is in addition to the £250 million that we have contributed to the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and the £1.65 billion to Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Morton]

International collaboration is absolutely vital as we search for a vaccine, and finding a vaccine for covid-19 is a top priority for the Government. The Prime Minister has made it clear that we see vaccines as a global challenge and that no one country can do this alone. That is why the UK has called for clear global commitments from international partners to tackle the pandemic, including through the G7, the G20 and other international forums. The Prime Minister hosted a global vaccine summit on 4 June, which brought together more than 60 countries, including 44 Heads of State and Government, and raised an incredible $8.8 billion to support immunisation of more than 300 million children against vaccine preventable diseases.

[Jo Gideon]

Does my hon. Friend agree that Britain has demonstrated its global reach during this pandemic? May I thank the Department for listening to my representations on behalf of my constituents in Stoke-on-Trent Central, who were repatriated from Kathmandu and Durban during lockdown, and ask that the Department use the same global reach to ensure that our world- class vaccine development work benefits the global community?

[Wendy Morton]

I know how hard my hon. Friend works in her Stoke-on-Trent Central constituency. Together, the Foreign Secretary, the ministerial team and the diplomatic network continue to galvanise international support and financial commitments to support research, development and equitable access to vaccines. Through ongoing research at Oxford University and Imperial College, London, the UK is leading the way in developing a coronavirus vaccine. We are also working with international partners to ensure that, wherever a vaccine is discovered, it will benefit the global community as a whole.

Oral Answers to Questions

Jo Gideon Excerpts

Tuesday 17th March 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Duddridge]

All parties are looking for a greater degree of safety and security, particularly in the north-east. It is a complicated situation that does keep coming back. As one suppresses some problems, others come out. We are working very closely with our Nigerian and international partners in the north-east and across the whole of Nigeria. Nigeria is one of our biggest partners on these and a number of other issues. I will raise them with our high commissioner again. I met our high commissioner last week and will continue to work on these issues, and I look forward to going back to Nigeria to visit friends and colleagues.

[Jo Gideon (Stoke-on-Trent Central) (Con)]

13. What progress the Government have made on tackling climate change through international co-operation.

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

Climate change is one of the most urgent and pressing international challenges we face today and no country alone can solve this problem. As COP presidents, in partnership with Italy, we are driving forward the historic agreement secured in Paris. The year 2020 is crucial for international co-operation on climate, which is why this is a cross-Government priority. The Prime Minister and other Ministers are working hard to make COP26 a success.

[Jo Gideon]

Does my hon. Friend agree that central to delivering a successful COP is the UK playing a leadership role in the international community and pushing our global friends to more ambitious climate targets?

[Wendy Morton]

Absolutely. This is something the Prime Minister, the Foreign Secretary and all my colleagues on the Front Bench take very seriously. We use every opportunity to raise this issue in bilateral meetings and in relation to business. It is vital that the world comes together and takes renewed action to limit global warming to 1.5°. We urge every country to come forward in 2020 with ambitious new nationally determined contributions that will help us to meet the commitments set out under the 2015 Paris agreement.