Sudan

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd May 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I think I am right in saying that the hon. Lady has raised that specific case with the Foreign Office. I will undertake to ensure that efforts are renewed. The answer to her underlying question is that an international ceasefire is essential.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

What actions are the UN and neighbouring states taking to make provision for the refugees? Is there an up-to-date statement on how big a problem we think that is, given the current state?

[Mr Mitchell]

If there is no ceasefire, the problem will be enormous. I can tell my right hon. Friend that the head of the UN Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs, Martin Griffiths, is in the region and is looking at precisely those issues. I will keep my right hon. Friend and the House informed of the answer to that question as it develops.

Sudan

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Gentleman makes an interesting case. Of course, through the pooled funding arrangements that we have, often that sort of work with the military can take place. I can tell him why he got that answer about Sudan last year: because all our efforts were bent towards trying to support the peace process and the negotiations that were going on to achieve a return to civilian rule. Sadly, all that is now very much on the back foot. But the aim, if we can get a ceasefire, is that those political negotiations should start so that there can be a civilian Government in Sudan.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

The Government advise nationals in difficulties to stay indoors, but what if they run out of food, what if there is no power, water or other utilities, or what if there is fire in the local area? What is the advice and message of hope for them then?

[Mr Mitchell]

My right hon. Friend makes an extremely good point. The only advice that we can give through the Foreign Office—the only advice—is to stay indoors, because of all the reasons that I have given during the statement about the jeopardy on the streets outside. We have changed the advice today to say that although we think that people should undoubtedly remain indoors if they can, if they do not, it is at their own risk. But they must make their decisions on the ground. Of course, there are those who know the situation around where they live extremely well and may well be able to exercise their judgment, but they do so at their own risk.

Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response: International Agreement

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 17th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Danny Kruger]

My hon. Friend makes an important suggestion with which I absolutely agree. He is not totally right about the way the WHO works, of course. A simple majority of member states can approve the new regulations, and a two-thirds majority can approve the treaty. Even if we objected to it, it could still go ahead. We would then have the opportunity to opt out, which is what I suggest we do.

I will come to why we absolutely should opt out. I am challenging the proposed regulations and treaty, because they are wholly and fundamentally wrong, and they represent an assault on our freedoms. We should object. I think the suggestion of my hon. Friend the Member for Winchester (Steve Brine) is absolutely right: fundamentally, Parliament needs to exercise its own responsibility and duty to oversee what we are going to do.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

To colleagues who like this treaty, is the easy answer not that we will, of course, remain members of the WHO, read its advice and accept that advice where we wish? Why should we have to accept advice when the WHO may get it wrong, and we can do nothing about it because it decides, not us?

[Danny Kruger]

That is absolutely right. We have the opportunity to say no, and it is an opportunity we need to take. Once we have said yes, we are then under the obligation to introduce, potentially, terrible infringements on liberty. I will make some more progress and then let Members intervene.

My final concern about the proposals is that they set the WHO up as the single source of truth on pandemics and responses to pandemics. There is a legitimate and understandable need to challenge misinformation and disinformation—there is a real danger there—but surely Members should recognise that there is an opposite danger as well, whereby a single supranational agency becomes the sole source of information on what is true. These are the people who said that covid-19 definitely did not come from a lab leak at the Wuhan institute, as now seems likely. These are the people who said that lockdowns would only be short and temporary, rather than lasting the best part of two years, and who said that vaccines stopped transmission, rather than having next to no impact on transmission. They said that vaccines would only be for the vulnerable, rather than everyone—including little babies. They said the vaccines would be voluntary, rather than mandated as they were in many countries, including, very nearly, our own. I do not have confidence in the WHO and its satellites to be the single source of truth on either the science or the response.

I will finish with some observations. As I mentioned, the international health regulations are an existing legal instrument, so they need only a majority of member states at the World Health Assembly in order to come into force. We then have six months to opt out of them. A treaty would require the support of two thirds of member states. I am concerned about the Government’s response to this petition, which said that they

“support a new international legally-binding instrument”.

The Government are therefore in favour of something along the lines of the proposed treaty. They went on to say:

“Not every treaty requires implementing legislation and it is too early to say if that would apply here.”

At the moment, we do not have a commitment from the Government that they would bring the proposals to Parliament, which is very concerning.

Margaret Thatcher warned in a speech in Bruges in 1988 that the UK had not helped to defeat the Soviet Union just to subject itself to a new supranational arrangement: the European Union, as it became. We did subject ourselves to the EU until our current time, and I suggest that we did not leave the EU just to subject ourselves to a new supranational arrangement in the form of the WHO. Some may find that comparison ludicrous, as they find any defence of national sovereignty ludicrous—accept in the case of Scotland. They say that in our interconnected world we need less sovereignty and more co-operation, which means more power for people who sit above the nation states. I say that in the modern world we need nation states more than ever, because only nation states can be accountable to the people, as the WHO is not. Only nation states can temper their policy to the particular circumstances of the people, as the WHO cannot. Only nation states have the legitimacy and agility to adapt to the huge threats and opportunities of our times, as the WHO cannot.

I firmly believe that the treaty and the regulations are another, greater threat to parliamentary sovereignty. It is not clear whether the Government will submit the treaty and the regulations to parliamentary approval, but I believe they should, and I hope the Minister will commit to that today.

--- Later in debate ---

[John Redwood]

I am glad the hon. Gentleman agrees that we needed better parliamentary scrutiny and more options for the handling of the pandemic but, given that that is the case, how on earth does it make sense to give away powers to an international quango, which will then instruct future Ministers to do these things, with Parliament being told that it has no right to talk about it or to vote on it?

[Justin Madders]

If that was how it was going to proceed, I would agree with the right hon. Gentleman, but I do not believe that is the case. Any Government Member concerned about parliamentary sovereignty and scrutiny would not have voted for the Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which has put thousands of laws into the hands of Ministers without any parliamentary accountability.

Let me return to the question of how the last pandemic was dealt with. There were other examples of decisions being made seemingly without any evidence to back them up—the decision to close pubs at 10 o’clock is a good example—and there was also the lack of coherence about why people were allowed to meet in groups of not more than six and why certain establishments could reopen and some could not. It was a fast-moving and unprecedented situation but, given the draconian nature of the regulations, we needed to be better at parliamentary scrutiny than we were. The release of the WhatsApp messages of the former Health Secretary, the right hon. Member for West Suffolk (Matt Hancock), has certainly given me food for thought. Perhaps not all the decisions were made on a scientific basis.

If we find ourselves amidst another pandemic in which measures that affect people’s daily lives are proposed, this place’s ability to openly scrutinise and question Government on decisions before they are made, as well as its access to the full scientific advice, will be vital. If decisions are taken transparently and—dare I say it—if everyone is seen to be following the rules, we stand a much better chance of maintaining public confidence that the measures are necessary.

There has been a bit of talk about vaccine harms today. I do not want to be seen as unfairly critical of those who have raised those concerns. I understand that sometimes there is a deep desire for a rational explanation for the sudden loss of a loved one. I also believe that we should be able to ask legitimate questions about vaccines: it is perfectly reasonable to debate who should receive a vaccine and how often they should receive it. It is also legitimate to scrutinise Government decisions, particularly ones that impinge on individual liberty. But there is a world of difference between doing that and descending into the dark world of conspiracy theories that suggest that vaccines do more harm than good. That risks pushing people away from potentially life-saving interventions and, over the long term, damaging the public’s perception of the importance of a tool that has been used to eradicate diseases that frequently ruined lives. From smallpox to tuberculosis and polio, vaccines have saved millions of lives over the years. We cannot now abandon the importance of that work because of a few videos on YouTube. We need to be able to challenge and question, of course, but we should not ignore what decades of experience have shown us about the value of vaccinations.

The treaty has nothing to do with Bill Gates, and it is not the first step in creating a world-dominating authoritarian state. I do not believe that it will even impede our sovereignty. It will enable the combined efforts of our brilliant researchers, medics and scientists jointly to tackle the increased threat that we face from pandemics. We achieve far more as a species when we work together. The far bigger risk to our continued existence on this planet is not the so-called great reset, but a descent into paranoia and distrust, such that we avoid using our brightest and best, they end up working in silos, and they do not share their knowledge and efforts collectively. We want to avoid that. From pandemics to climate change and eradicating global poverty, we face many challenges as a species, some of which are existential. If we do not seek to work together to meet those challenges, we will ultimately all be the worse off for it.

Northern Ireland Protocol Bill

John Redwood Excerpts

2nd reading
Monday 27th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[The Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs (Elizabeth Truss)]

I beg to move, That the Bill be now read a Second time.

We are taking this action to uphold the Belfast/Good Friday agreement, which has brought peace and political stability to Northern Ireland. The Northern Ireland protocol is undermining the function of the agreement and of power sharing. It has created fractures between east and west, diverted trade and meant that people in Northern Ireland are treated differently from people in Great Britain. It has weakened their economic rights. That has created a sense that parity of esteem between different parts of the community, an essential part of the agreement, has been damaged.

The Bill will address those political challenges and fix the practical problems the protocol has created. It avoids a hard border and protects the integrity of the UK and the European Union single market. It is necessary because the growing issues in Northern Ireland, including on tax and customs, are baked into the protocol itself. Our preference remains a negotiated solution, and the Bill contains a provision that allows for negotiated agreement, but the EU has ruled out up-front making changes to the text of the protocol.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on her very patient and good diplomacy. Will she confirm that this very moderate measure is completely legal and essential to the peace and good will of Northern Ireland?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I can absolutely confirm that this Bill is both necessary and legal, and the Government have published a legal statement setting that out.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Lammy]

I will not; I will make some progress.

The Government are bringing the Bill to the House because they object to the text that they negotiated, and the choices that they freely made. They are asking each Member of the House to vote for a Bill that flouts international law. That proposition should never be put to hon. Members. The Bill is damaging and counterproductive. The strategy behind it is flawed. The legal justification for it is feeble. The precedent that it sets is dangerous and the timing could hardly be worse. It divides the United Kingdom and the European Union at a time when we should be pulling together against Putin’s war on the continent, and it risks causing new trade barriers during a cost of living crisis.

[John Redwood]

The protocol makes very clear the primacy of the Good Friday agreement for peace in Northern Ireland and says that the EU will respect our internal market. The EU is doing neither. What is the right hon. Gentleman’s policy to persuade it to do so?

[Mr Lammy]

Negotiate—just as Labour did to get the Good Friday agreement. We negotiate. We do not break international law and alienate our partners and allies not just in Europe but across the world, and the right hon. Gentleman should know better.

As we debate the Bill, we should ask ourselves some simple questions. First, will it resolve the situation in Northern Ireland? Secondly, is it in the best interests of our great country? Thirdly, is it compatible with our commitment to the rule of law? Let me take each of those in turn.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Brandon Lewis)]

I thank all Members who have spoken on Second Reading. I will attempt to respond to as many of the points raised as possible, perhaps leaving out the choice of sandwich that the hon. Member for Hove (Peter Kyle) has been talking about this evening and in various interviews. There have been a huge number of thoughtful and insightful speeches and a wide range of views have been expressed across this House. That shows the interest and the support, certainly from the Conservative Benches, for ensuring a resolution to the issues affecting the people of Northern Ireland.

The Northern Ireland protocol, while agreed with the best of intentions, is causing practical problems for people and businesses in Northern Ireland, including trade disruption and diversion, significant costs and bureaucracy for traders. It cannot be right that it is easier to send goods from Great Yarmouth to Glasgow than to Belfast—still a part, and an important part, of the United Kingdom. Everybody in the United Kingdom should be able to access products and goods in the same way.

Political life in Northern Ireland is, as it has been, built on compromise and power sharing between communities, as the hon. Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley) outlined, but the protocol does not have the support of all communities in Northern Ireland. As a result, we are seeing both political and social stress in Northern Ireland, including the lack of functioning of both the Northern Ireland Executive and the Northern Ireland Assembly, as rightly outlined by my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for South Swindon (Sir Robert Buckland).

It is clear that the protocol has become a major political problem, and it is putting a strain on the delicate balance inherent within the Belfast/Good Friday agreement. It is worth noting, and it might be forgotten from what some Opposition Members have said today, that all party leaders in Northern Ireland, at some stage or another over the past few months, have been clear that there is a need to change the Northern Ireland protocol. This legislation is about preserving the wider social and political stability in Northern Ireland, finding a more stable and sustainable solution, and ensuring that the frictions faced by businesses and consumers in Northern Ireland on goods coming from the rest of the United Kingdom are removed.

It remains the preference of the UK Government to achieve these benefits through negotiations. These are negotiations that have been conducted by the Foreign Secretary and predecessors over the past 18 months. The lack of flexibility that we have seen from the EU, as rightly outlined by my hon. Friend the Member for Newcastle-under-Lyme (Aaron Bell), has led us to the point where it is right that we make a decision about taking forward a solution that works for the people of the United Kingdom and, within the United Kingdom, the people of Northern Ireland.

This Bill will enable us to implement a successful negotiated settlement as well. It is important to recognise that that will require a significant change in approach from the EU Commission, as a number of hon. Friends have outlined. I am afraid that that change has not yet been forthcoming. The scale of problems and the depth of feelings aroused by the protocol unfortunately, if anything, have been exacerbated, rather than eased by the current EU approach—whether it was through triggering article 16 over crucial vaccine supplies to Northern Ireland in January 2021, launching infraction proceedings following emergency easements to ensure the movement of food and parcels to Northern Ireland in March 2021, or repeatedly failing to show pragmatic flexibility in more than 300 hours of negotiations over the past nine months and continuing to insist on processes that would add to, rather than remove, the burdens currently felt by businesses moving goods to Northern Ireland.

[John Redwood]

Has my right hon. Friend noticed how Labour always takes the side of the EU, even when, as in this case, the EU is damaging the Good Friday agreement and diverting trade expressly against the legal provisions of the protocol?

[Brandon Lewis]

My right hon. Friend makes a fair point. He will know from attending oral questions to the Northern Ireland Office that I have regularly had to listen to the hon. Member for Hove at the Dispatch Box taking the side of the EU—but then, the hon. Member wants to rejoin the EU, so I suppose we should not be surprised.

We should also be clear about the reality, when we hear about the flexibility of the European Union and the offer it has made, based on its October offer. That would be a backwards step from the current situation, which is already not working for businesses and people in Northern Ireland.

Executions in Saudi Arabia

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 14th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

As I have said, we were deeply shocked by the executions of the 81 individuals on 13 March. As I have also said, no aspect of our relationship with Saudi Arabia prevents us from speaking frankly about human rights, and we regularly raise our concerns about human rights with Saudi authorities through diplomatic channels, including Ministers and our ambassador, and at the embassy. Saudi Arabia remains an FCDO human rights priority country, particularly because of the use of the death penalty but also because of restrictions on women’s rights, freedom of expression and freedom of religion or belief.

I am not going to speculate in respect of the Prime Minister’s visits.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Does not this bad news reinforce the urgency of the UK producing more of its own oil and gas to reduce dependence on these powers? Could not that include onshore gas where the local community of people are willing? Would not that be speeded up if they were given a royalty?

[Amanda Milling]

It is important for all partners to work together to ensure that there is stability in energy markets, and OPEC also has a key role to play in this regard.

Sanctions

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

I assure the hon. Lady that we have a hit list of oligarchs and Duma members—those key personnel we are talking about. We will be announcing those as we build the evidence and case against them, but we need those cases to be legally watertight—that is what is important—so that when we hit them, the hit sticks.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Will the Government now allow and encourage more domestic production of oil and gas, to help reduce the cruel dependency of Europe on Russian energy?

[Elizabeth Truss]

We certainly are committed to using the UK’s oil and gas fields. Energy independence is vital. We also need to invest more in nuclear, which my right hon. Friend the Business Secretary is working on.

Afghanistan: FCDO Update

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 6th September 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I thank the hon. Lady for the work that she and the APPG are doing. She raises a really important point. It is a practical point, but one that will only exacerbate people’s fear and anxiety, particularly if they are disabled or from an ethnic minority, as she described. I urge her to send me and the Home Secretary any papers or recommendations that the APPG has.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con)]

Given the way in which the Taliban have taken a lot of NATO equipment to strengthen their hold on the country, how could we send aid in without the Taliban using or abusing it for their own purposes?

[Dominic Raab]

We will not give aid to the Taliban. The Taliban have a choice and a set of decisions that they have to make about whether they want to preside over the wholesale economic and social collapse of the fabric of the country. If not, they will have to give certain assurances. I think that will particularly apply to the permissive environment we would need for aid agencies in order to continue our aid. Again, that falls within the category of early tests for the Taliban, which is why we will engage with them without recognising them.

Cyber-attack: Microsoft

John Redwood Excerpts

Tuesday 20th July 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I have made the points that the UK Government recognise the significance of China on the world stage, that we want China to be a responsible actor, that we recognise that China will engage in trade and investment with countries around the world and that we seek to influence China to be a better player on the world stage. This is best done in conjunction with international partners, which is why the attribution statement yesterday was so important, with an unprecedented number of countries—39—working together to attribute responsibility. As I said, that is the foundation stone upon which other actions may well be taken in the future.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

The success or failure of the COP26 rests heavily on whether the UK, as chairman, can persuade China—the world’s largest emitter of carbon dioxide—to set tough targets to cut its output. Is this affecting the Government’s response to this issue? What is the UK’s strategy to influence China across the piece, as there are many areas where it needs to do so?

[James Cleverly]

I can assure my right hon. Friend that the actions of the UK Government in response to this cyber-attack are driven by this cyber-attack and our complete unwillingness to accept it as a pattern of behaviour. He does make an incredibly important point though, and it reflects the point that I have made that we cannot simply ignore China. A previous question this morning highlighted the fact that China is still heavily reliant on coal as an energy production source, and we know the climate change implications of that. We want China to behave better on the international stage both on things such as cyber-security, intellectual property and human rights, but also on the incredibly important agenda that will affect our children, our grandchildren and our great-grandchildren, which is the protection of the environment and a move towards greener energy generation.

Official Development Assistance and the British Council

John Redwood Excerpts

Wednesday 30th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

I support the Government’s estimate and I look forward to its passage. I also back the Government’s judgment at this very difficult time, when so many economies, including our own, have been badly damaged by responses to the pandemic. But I also understand the mood of the House and I understand that a number of my hon. and right hon. Friends whom I respect have misgivings about all this. I would just like to make a few remarks in the spirit of trying to build some bridges between the Government and their critics, who have been very wide-ranging in this debate.

The first point I make is that I do not trust the figures. I think that the Government understate just how much we already do and how much we already spend. We are much more cautious about what we regard as aid expenditure than some other countries we are compared against, even though we usually spend more than they do as a percentage.

Let us take, for example, an area that colleagues have already mentioned. This country has received a very large number of economic migrants and asylum seekers in recent years. In the year to March 2020, the last for which we have official figures, 715,000 people came to live in our country, and many of them came from poor countries that have qualified for overseas aid. We do not fully account, in the way that one might, for the first-year set-up costs—the housing, the public service provision, the top-up benefits and the other assistance that people are rightfully given when they come to live with us and we wish them to live to a reasonable standard. Surely, helping people who wish to come here because they find their own countries so disadvantageous is a very important part of our overseas aid.

We are also too cautious about all the expenditure we make through the Ministry of Defence. Why were we in Afghanistan? Afghanistan is one of the main recipients of our aid, and in recent years we have been spending considerable sums of money on support through our military and the advice we offer. Those things should also be taken into account to get a realistic picture of just how much the Government are spending on necessary assistance abroad.

The second issue that has been raised in the debate is that colleagues fear a loss of influence. I would like to reassure them that surely this year, of all years, is when we have seen a major advance in British influence. We have just taken our full seat with a vote on the World Trade Organisation, and we are busily signing off a number of trade agreements around the world that we could not have done in previous years. The Prime Minister has just very successfully chaired the G7 and has helped to bring together the seven most powerful western democracies in terms of economic strength to reach important agreements to improve the world outlook. We have COP26 coming up, when I trust that British chairmanship will be astute and helpful in order to agree something that many Governments in the world talk a lot about, though not all of them do as much as we do to try and see things through. We are very much the second most important member of NATO in terms of contribution after the United States of America, and we are a force within NATO to make sure that it is used for the good, as a force for peace.

On the 0.7% target, I make no secret of the fact that I do not like targets like that. I did not feel at the time it went through that there was any point in trying to persuade Parliament because Parliament was very hooked on such a target. The difficulty with a target like that is, as we have seen, that national income can change quite rapidly in ways that people did not predict—if something like a pandemic strikes, in particular—and it is not always possible, when we get the recovery, to build up the spending as quickly as the GNI, and it would be silly to have to spend money when we do not have really good projects.

Nor do I like the idea of Governments passing legislation to bind themselves. It seems to me completely pointless. What matters is the word of the Government. If circumstances change, they may have to change, and all the time that the Government control a majority, the fact that it is in legislation does not make any difference. The Government still have to decide whether to keep their word or whether force majeure or force of circumstance requires some temporary or permanent change.

In this debate, I think lots of colleagues have all decided to duplicate and replicate one another’s speeches by saying how much they dislike any kind of cut in our immediate aid programme. I would like to have heard, from all those who are understandably enthusiastic about the good that aid could do, rather more discussion of what works best when we have limited money—as we always will, whether the limit is 0.5% or 0.7% of our GDP—so that we can do the most good with it. We have had several years of 0.7% but we still have the same list of main countries needing aid, so we know that this is not a simple fix, that we are one of many and that we need to work with other partners around the world. We need to harness the private sector and the charitable sector; it does not all have to come from British taxpayers.

When we are looking at progress, we first need to establish a peace. Quite a lot of the countries that need a lot of aid still do not have a peace; they have a civil war going on. That means that any particular projects may just be damaged or wasted because of the lack of that fundamental condition. It is best if there is a decent Government who can deliver and who are not corrupt. To what extent are we allowed to try to influence Governments in the right direction, because we do not wish to become a neo-colonial power?

We need to harness the private sector more so that the money that our taxpayers and other advanced countries’ taxpayers put in is multiplied several times by getting that investment in the water systems, the communications systems or the food systems that are needed, which should come more from commercial work. Above all, I think our message should be that trade is often more effective as a means of promoting economic growth and prosperity than aid. We, above all, should believe that, now that we are leading advocates of freer trade around the world and back there in the WTO. Is it not much better that we help to offer contracts to people who can organise economic activity, which creates better-paid jobs and things to do, rather than just having one-off amounts of aid to ease the particular problems of not having a decent economy?

This year, above all, surely is the year when Britain can be truly proud of its achievements in this area, because, thanks to our scientists, the NHS and the Government, we are giving to the world the cheapest vaccine, the one non-profit vaccine—often a free vaccine, because our taxpayers are standing behind that offer. This surely sums up the generosity of spirit of the British people, and the success of the British economy and our world influence: that it will be a British vaccine that is so often deployed, and that it was a British vaccine at the heart of the Prime Minister’s successful negotiations at the G7 to get other rich countries to get on with the task of vaccinating the world.

ODA Budget

John Redwood Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

More often than not, security and the alleviation of pain and suffering go hand in hand. All around the world, the prevention and resolution of conflict is the most significant positive move that could be taken to alleviate pain and suffering. That is exactly why the integrated review looks across the gamut of international affairs, including defence and security, as well as diplomacy and development. It is right that we think of these things hand in hand.

[John Redwood (Wokingham) (Con) [V]]

Is the UK now stopping making overseas aid payments through the EU, given the way it has been spending money on a country such as China, which has $3.2 trillion in reserves? Is this not an opportunity for the UK to express its own moral priorities, and secure better value for money by making more of its own direct choices and payments? Can that include being very generous in response to the current Indian crisis?

[James Cleverly]

My right hon. Friend makes the important point that, having left the European Union, the United Kingdom can now make its own decisions. In many instances—not in all cases—the positions that we take now are similar to those that we took as members of the European Union. He will note that we have significantly—almost completely—reduced our aid support to China; the only expenditure now is in support of human rights and open societies. As I said in response to an earlier question, we will be focused very much on how we can support our friends around the world in their times of need.