Syria Crisis: UK Response

Debate between Justine Greening and Pauline Latham

Monday 8th February 2016 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady raises the important point that it is vital that countries that came and made promises at last week’s conference live up to them. Too often at similar meetings in the past, countries have spoken warm words or set out promises that they have not lived up to. The UK will play its role by delivering on our promises, as we have in the past and will in the future, and by putting in place the necessary transparency to enable us to ensure that other countries live up to the promises they made.

It is wrong of the hon. Lady to say that we have not played our role close to home. Our strategy from the word go has been to tackle the root causes of the crisis that we have seen reaching our own shores, which is to make it viable for refugees to stay close to home in their home region as that is, overwhelmingly, the first choice of most refugees. It has been a failure to deliver on such promises and to provide the necessary resourcing that has led them over time to give up on that.

We are playing our role close to home here in Europe. It is the UK that has been working with UNHCR and the Red Cross, making sure that newly arrived refugees are effectively registered—although the hon. Lady will understand the challenges that poses on occasion—and making sure that they have the shelter, clothing, blankets and sustenance that they need, having finally made that often fatal journey. So we are playing our role.

The hon. Lady will know that we are resettling 20,000 refugees from the region directly. That is not only a safer route for people to get to the UK if that is where they need to be resettled, but it enables us to focus on the most vulnerable people affected by the crisis who need to be resettled—people who could never otherwise make the kind of journey we have seen other refugees making across Europe. In more recent days we have set out the work that we will be doing particularly to help children affected by the crisis. I am very proud of the work that the UK has done to put children at the centre of our response to the Syrian crisis. It was at our initiative that the No Lost Generation initiative was set up. It was through our help that UNICEF has been able to put safe zones in refugees camps to help link up children who have become separated from their family. It is the UK that has been ensuring the availability of the psychosocial support that children so often need, having been involved in such crises and undergone the experiences that they have, and we will continue to do that.

More broadly, the hon. Lady’s condemnation of Russia is correct. We can debate whether and how the UK’s support for people affected by this crisis is working, but we should all be able to agree that the routine flagrant, deliberate breaches of international humanitarian law that we see daily in relation to this crisis are unacceptable. A country such as Russia should be playing its role by pressing the Assad regime, which it is spending so much time and resource supporting, to allow the aid that is there in places such as Damascus to get down the road to the people who desperately need it. I believe that in time, as we look back on the crisis in the years to come, that breach of international humanitarian law will be one of the most telling aspects of it. People will ask themselves how it could have been allowed to go on.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

May I commend my right hon. Friend for her calm and factual statement on the situation of the Syrian refugees, which contrasted with the rather emotive statement by the shadow Secretary of State, who is trying to whip up emotion about these things? Does my right hon. Friend agree that, actually, we do need peace in the region, we do need to talk to Russia about what it is doing, and somebody needs to tackle Assad? We should also be looking at keeping as many people as possible in the area where they have been brought up, where their culture is correct and where they understand the lifestyle, rather than encouraging them, as the Labour party might choose to do, to come to this country, when we are putting so much money—taxpayers’ money—into helping these people to settle there.

[Justine Greening]

These are two related issues. One, as I have said, is that we are, of course, playing our role close to home—here in Europe—in helping refugees who have finally arrived on our shores. However, my hon. Friend is right to recognise that, overwhelmingly, refugees basically want to stay close to home. I met a lady on my last trip to Jordan whose family were still in Homs, and she had intermittent contact with them. For her, the prospect of even considering leaving Jordan was totally not what she was looking at; what she desperately needed was to be able to work legally to support herself while she tried to get on with the life she suddenly found herself living.

As I said, at the beginning of this crisis, none of the refugees thought that they were leaving Syria for anything more than a few weeks or months, and we should all think about how we would cope with such situations. It is incumbent on the international community, though, to make sure that we now go beyond providing just day-to-day support, so that people are not just alive but able to have some kind of life. That is in their interests, but it is also in the interests of the host communities, which are so generously accommodating them.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Pauline Latham

Wednesday 16th December 2015 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

Not only is our aid policy helping to improve the prospects and the lives of millions of people in poverty around the world, but it is in our national interest. I have just talked about how what we are doing is important for UK security and international security, but it is also important in terms of prosperity. The international rules that the hon. Gentleman talks about can be a key way of enabling prosperity through allowing freer trade, which can help developing countries to trade their way out of aid dependence.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

What is DFID doing to stop the problem with malaria in the north of Uganda, which I am going to visit over the new year? I know that DFID is working hard there, but will she tell the House specifically what it is doing?

[Justine Greening]

We have a range of programmes, including in Uganda, that have helped with the cheap intervention of providing bed nets. We have seen over the past 15 years that the number of deaths from malaria has fallen by two thirds, which is important because some countries spend 40% of their health budget purely on responding to malaria.

Oral Answers to Questions

Debate between Justine Greening and Pauline Latham

Wednesday 17th December 2014 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

I have spoken directly with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees lead, Antonio Guterres, about this. We also have discussions with our Home Office colleagues on the progress of that scheme. Our aim has been to help people to do what they want to do, which is to get support where they are, outside Syria, but also to have the prospect of returning home, which is what the overwhelming majority want to do.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

T2. Will the Secretary of State tell us what her Department has done to address the serious and well-documented allegations of bribery and violence committed by SOCO International in the Virunga national park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo?

Afghanistan

Debate between Justine Greening and Pauline Latham

Thursday 17th October 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The principal route for DFID, aside from our strengthening of institutions in the security and policing spheres, has been the focus on livelihoods, particularly in the agricultural sector. The reality is that we simply must give Afghan farmers an alternative to cultivating poppies. That has clearly been a real challenge. We have seen some significant progress, but the challenge remains, which is why DFID’s livelihoods work will continue.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I was delighted to hear the Secretary of State mention the HALO Trust which, along with MAG, is helping to de-mine large areas all over the world. When the Select Committee went to Afghanistan, I noticed that women were employed to de-mine areas, which helps to raise their status in the country. I hope that we will be able to continue to fund that in the future and the wonderful ICRC-funded hospital—everyone who works there is at least a single amputee if not a double amputee, providing fantastic role models for disabled people.

[Justine Greening]

I am very grateful for that question. As I have said, we want to allow HALO to continue the important work it does and clear Herat province of mines by 2018. I can assure my hon. Friend her that this work on health, and particularly improving the access of pregnant women to health facilities, will continue to be one of our key priorities.

Overseas Aid (Private Sector Contracts)

Debate between Justine Greening and Pauline Latham

Monday 11th March 2013 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady might have seen that I have today set out our plans to work with Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs to set up a tax capacity-building unit, which will provide tax expertise to developing countries to help them to broaden their tax base and improve their tax collection. The Chancellor has made it clear that we want to see real progress on tax and tax transparency at the G8, which is why they are on the agenda.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

The hon. Member for Birmingham, Northfield (Richard Burden) and I came back from Ethiopia last week. A company called Pittards is investing money from this country to upskill people there—it has helped 1,500 so far and it wants to get up to 5,000. It is paying more than the minimum wage. Does the Secretary of State agree that that is the best way for companies to invest, to get the right products coming back to this country and exported all over the world, and to get women into better jobs?

[Justine Greening]

I completely agree. My hon. Friend has provided a really good example of how this can work in practice. Another good example would be Taylors of Harrogate, which has worked to improve its tea collection and tea capability in Rwanda. It has not only improved things but brought about new products that benefit us all. This is a really practical way of lifting the poorest people in developing countries out of poverty—not just through cash transfers, but by genuinely providing them with what they want: a job.

Afghanistan

Debate between Justine Greening and Pauline Latham

Thursday 13th September 2012 Commons Chamber

[Justine Greening]

The hon. Lady will no doubt understand that a huge range of different activities are happening, and not just at national level—provincial and district plans are also in place. The district plans are very much locally driven, but we are providing assistance. As I have said, we are providing assistance at national level in Ministries to ensure that they are better placed in terms of their skills and capability to deliver at local level, but we need to see further progress. The Tokyo mutual accountability framework is the right one to enable us not only to agree what needs to be done, but to track it to ensure that it happens.

[Pauline Latham (Mid Derbyshire) (Con)]

I, too, welcome my right hon. Friend to her new position. I am sure she welcomes the fact that the representation of women in the Afghan National Assembly is 27%—it is 22% in the UK House of Commons—but there is only one female governor in Afghanistan. In addition, through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, I have met several Afghani women National Assembly Members who are concerned about their future, and who feel that they will go backwards when our support and troops come out. What will she do to ensure that they retain their position and that level of representation?

[Justine Greening]

My hon. Friend is right to flag up those understandable concerns. The NATO-led combat mission will come to an end by the end of 2014. One key outcome of the Chicago conference was that NATO now needs to consider post-2014 support. We need to ensure that the constitution, which enshrines women’s rights, works on the ground as well as on paper. That is incredibly important, and as I have said, I take a close personal interest in it.