Disability-inclusive Development

Jonathan Lord Excerpts

Thursday 31st October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Mr Jonathan Lord (Woking) (Con)]

It is an enormous pleasure to follow my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy). It is a great sadness to many of us that he has decided to stand down from this place. His speech demonstrated to us in a very real way the things that inspire him in politics. It was a vision of compassion, of looking outwards and of helping others. I know that he will not mind me saying that it was also inspired by his Christian faith. We will miss him very much in this place. We thank him for all his efforts in the arena of international development, and on the other issues that he has taken up in this House.

I also pay tribute briefly to the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who has chaired the International Development Committee extremely well. As I think he knows, he is not only very well respected across the House, but very well liked. We will certainly miss him too. I wish him well for the future.

I wanted to speak for two reasons. In general terms, our country is grappling with its future place in the world, and perhaps some of our friends around the world, and indeed our enemies, are wondering when the UK will regain a surer footing on its vision for the future. The work that this country does, ably led by our Department for International Development, in trying to alleviate poverty and suffering around the world, gives a strong signal—it is perhaps not publicised widely enough or known about—to all the countries around the world that might be harbouring one or two doubts about the political difficulties of the past couple of years. It gives a powerful signal that this country stands for the right values, is compassionate and wants to have a leading, positive role in the world.

I am proud that my town and borough of Woking proactively decided to take in Syrian refugees. I am able to report to the House that it has worked extremely well. Some of the refugees had severe health and disability issues. I pay tribute to the efforts of our local national health service’s efforts in giving them the help and support they needed. I also pay tribute to our local mosques, particularly the Shah Jahan mosque, and our Christian churches, which rallied around those people, who had come from a terrible war-torn situation. Many of them had very difficult personal stories of what they and their families had been through. It was very moving when many of those refugees, who are now fully settled—most are looking forward to a future in this country, but if they wish to return they will be helped to do so—decided to cook a feast at the end of Eid and invite the community, particularly the faith communities from the mosque and our churches, to celebrate together. They made it clear how thankful and grateful they were to the churches, the mosque and the wider Woking community for giving them such a warm welcome after their times of trouble.

I will not detain hon. Members any longer. The work that our Department for International Development does is very valuable around the world. It is important that the International Development Committee scrutinises it and encourages it in its efforts; we thank the Committee for its work. I hope that the Minister will tell us in his response a little more about this country’s international development efforts to help and support people from conflict zones, such as Syria and Yemen. The House would be grateful to hear more about its work in those areas.