International Covid-19 Response: Innovation and Access to Treatment

Layla Moran Excerpts
Thursday 5th November 2020

(4 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Wendy Chamberlain Portrait Wendy Chamberlain
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Absolutely. I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention, and I entirely agree with his sentiments. We have seen that those who are on the frontline, those who are marginalised in our society and those from minority backgrounds are often the most impacted, so it is even more important that we consider the treatments and vaccines that are available for them.

The two drugs that have been proven so far to help treat covid-19 are dexamethasone and remdesivir. The entire global stock of remdesivir was bought up by the United States Government during the summer, hence Donald Trump was in a position to receive the drug when he became unwell. What is left of the stock is currently accessible only at a very high price. The manufacturer, Gilead, sells it at almost £2,000 for a five-day course of treatment, yet it is believed that the cost to produce it is £7.

Fortunately, dexamethasone is widely available and a cheaply sourced steroid. If a patient suffering from covid requires ventilation, administering this drug reduces the chance of death by up to a third. That is great news and has greatly improved outcomes for patients who need to be ventilated. But for there to be a chance for that drug to be effective, there must be enough ventilators available for patients who need them, and there must be enough oxygen to supply those ventilators. Again, in some of the most vulnerable places globally, access to those things are very limited. In South Sudan, for example, a report earlier this year stated that there were only four ventilators available in the whole country—four.

This debate is not just about the cost of drugs or vaccines. It is also about the resources, technology and equipment needed to manage a pandemic successfully. Even with easily accessible and cheaper treatments, there is no equality of access internationally. As things stand, we run a serious risk that by 2022 we will inhabit a two-tier planet in terms of the pandemic response.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I congratulate my hon. Friend on securing this important debate. Does she share my concern that those parts of the world where people do not have immediate access to healthcare systems also do not have furlough schemes, and people do not have the money to be able to isolate? The public health aspect is just as important as access to medicines.

Wendy Chamberlain Portrait Wendy Chamberlain
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I entirely agree. Dare I say it, but even the UK’s Prime Minister this week accepted that the isolate part of the test, trace and isolate system is not working. That is largely driven by the fact that people who have an economic need to continue to work will do so if the supports are not available, and that must be true in other parts of the world as well.

As I was saying, the most affluent countries will inevitably benefit, in terms of vaccines, access to treatment, some form of recovery and a return to aspects of day-to-day life, which we so miss in this place and beyond. For the majority of people in this world, that will, arguably, be a limited prospect; it would be a hollow victory indeed if we can get the virus under control while many people around the world continue to suffer. It would be a false victory, too. Let me go back to the comments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) that I mentioned at the start. In order for a vaccine to be effective, we need to suppress the virus both at home and abroad, because coronavirus does not respect national borders. No one is safe until everyone is safe. That approach has been endorsed by the UK Government. I thank them for recognising that covid-19 medical products need to be treated as global public goods and for making commitments to deliver on that.

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Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I would like to start by congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain) on securing this debate. It is a great pleasure to be part of a debate that actually gives me a huge amount of hope. I was a science teacher before I was an MP, and I spent a lot of time explaining to young people why science can be exciting and why it is the one thing that connects humans, no matter where they may be across the globe. Science is universal, regardless of our sex, creed, or wherever we may have been born. What a great time to be a science teacher! During coronavirus, by studying science someone could literally save the fate of the world. I am particularly proud that scientists in Oxford are leading from the front with the vaccine right now, and we should not forget that these times of great turmoil often spark moments of enormous human ingenuity, and we should celebrate that.

Whenever we have such moments, however, we first have to go through times of strife, and we must recognise—it is important that the House is united on this point—that it is not just morally right to ensure equitable access to these vaccines and therapeutics, but it is also scientifically smart. It is in our own self-interest, and regardless of whether people feel good going to bed at night knowing that we have done that, it is also the thing that will save us.

No one is free from these diseases until everyone is free, and I am sure hon. Members will have been struck by today’s news from Denmark, where on the mink farms it has been discovered that the virus has passed from humans to mink, and then back. The virus has mutated, and 12 people in Denmark now have that new mutation. The entire mink population is to be culled, to try to keep that at bay.

My first thought was that I am very much against mink farming, but let us put that to one side. My second thought was, “Well, that’s Denmark.” Denmark has a well developed public health arm in its Government, and they are able to act within 24 hours and introduce those measures. What about other countries that do not have that kind of safeguard? We have been talking about vaccines and therapeutics in the fight against coronavirus, but what if we forget about that public health arm, and as a result end up with a new mutation that will make those vaccines pointless as we will not be able to catch up? That underlines the importance of ensuring that all such matters are taken into account.

My hon. Friend the Member for North East Fife has already spoken about how intellectual property rights need to be reformed, and I have a few questions for the Government. Why have we not supported the TRIPS waiver proposal? What was our rationale for not doing that? Why did we not endorse the WHO covid technology access protocol? That global initiative is meant to prevent monopolies from blocking global access to coronavirus vaccines, and I do not understand how we in this House can say that we believe in global access to these vaccines, yet not back that protocol. It does not make any sense.

Finally, it is important to mention the context of aid and 0.7% of gross national income. Ministers have said helpfully at the Dispatch Box that they have no intention of changing or de-escalating that figure, and keeping up the pressure to ensure that that does not happen is important. As we have seen throughout the pandemic, there are already knock-on effects on other countries. In October we saw media reports about 2.5 million girls around the world being forced into child marriages over the next five years, and enormous rises in child labour in India. Suicide rates in Malawi have skyrocketed as a result of the economic downturn due to covid-19, and the UN’s “Global Report on Food Crises” warns of famines of “biblical proportions” as a result. Such economic disparities are just going to grow as the response to the virus continues, and I hope that the Government will lead from the front, and that “Global Britain” is not just rhetoric but backed up by action and not only words.

I will end on another point of hope. I hope that coronavirus will be the start of a reformation of what has been a creaking international global response over the past few years. I also very much hope that later on today we can declare that Biden has won, because Trump out of the White House would certainly help that cause. The next big crisis—the one that makes coronavirus look like just a warm-up to the main act—is of course the climate. Climate is linked to biodiversity, and biodiversity links to more likelihood of future pandemics. It is in our self-interest to use this crisis to create the new international order that will help us with our country’s and our planet’s future.

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Wendy Morton Portrait Wendy Morton
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I will cover that point off later, if I may, but I make clear that we have made commitments to the ACT accelerator partners across the health technologies of up to £813 million. Our commitment is very clear. That includes up to £500 million to Gavi, the vaccine alliance, for the COVAX advance market commitment. The support will also help to ensure access to covid-19 vaccines for up to 92 low and middle-income countries, providing up to 500 million people with vaccinations. The UK is also the largest ACT accelerator donor to the Foundation for Innovative New Diagnostics, or FIND, which is leading the way in developing diagnostic tools for the world’s poorest countries.

In terms of treatments, the UK is providing up to £40 million to the covid-19 therapeutics accelerator, alongside the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Wellcome Trust, Mastercard and other funders. The covid-19 therapeutics accelerator and Unitaid lead the work of the ACT accelerator therapeutics partnership. Unitaid has a track record of helping companies to bring affordable health technologies to developing country markets quickly, and the UK is the second largest funder.

Our funding to the ACT accelerator is supporting a pipeline of promising treatments, including monoclonal antibodies and new antivirals. New clinical trial data will emerge in coming weeks. The ACT accelerator is also preparing the way for the rapid deployment of new therapeutics as soon as possible after they have proved effective. We have seen some impressive results so far, but we recognise that the scale of the crisis means more funding will be needed across all three health technologies. We will continue to work with our international partners to encourage them to join us in stepping up their support and to support new and innovative solutions to address this challenge.

The UK is proud to be at the forefront of international efforts to develop vaccines, treatments and tests and ensure equitable access for the world’s poorest countries, but we recognise that we cannot do that alone. Only through global collaboration with our international partners and working through effective multilateral systems will we bring the pandemic under control. That is why on 30 September, the Foreign Secretary co-hosted a side event at the UN General Assembly with the UN Secretary-General, the World Health Organisation director-general and the Health Minister of South Africa. The event raised up to $1 billion in bilateral contributions for the COVAX advance market commitment. The World Bank also announced a package of $12 billion of support for countries to access vaccines, treatments and tests, and a coalition of 16 industry leaders announced a shared commitment to equitable access, including not-for-profit pricing. The commitments by this range of partners are a powerful demonstration of the international support for the ACT accelerator and the need for partnership across the international system.

Vaccine nationalism was raised by Members on the Opposition Benches. In the UK, we are challenging vaccine nationalism. We are a leading supporter of the COVAX facility, which is open to all countries and aims to make vaccines widely available when they are proven. At the UN General Assembly, we used our diplomacy to convene countries in support of that and announced UK aid to fund the COVAX advance market commitment.

Intellectual property rights provide incentives to create and commercialise new inventions, such as life-changing vaccines. They keep innovators innovating, creators creating and investors investing. The UK believes that a robust and fair intellectual property system is a key part of the innovation framework that allows economies to grow while enabling society to benefit from knowledge and ideas. Multiple factors need to be considered to ensure equitable access for all to covid-19 vaccines. These include increasing manufacturing and distribution capacity, measures to support or incentivise technology transfer, ensuring that global supply chains remain open, and ensuring that effective platforms are utilised to voluntarily share IP and know-how.

The UK has long supported affordable and equitable access to essential medicines. We have not signed the solidarity call to action, but we remain committed to collaborating with public and private partners, including by exploring voluntary arrangements and approaches such as non-exclusive voluntary licensing.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran
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Will the Minister give way?

Wendy Morton Portrait Wendy Morton
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I would just like to make a bit more progress so that I can cover as many points as possible.

Several hon. Member asked about the allocation of vaccines. I assure them that this is being considered. The World Health Organisation’s allocation framework recommends the highest priority populations by age, underlying conditions and health workers—estimated at about 3%. We cannot prevent a country from administering doses as they want, but there is a framework and countries will submit national deployment plans that will be reviewed by the WHO and COVAX.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) raised the issue of inequalities for minority groups. I assure all hon. Members that we are working closely with organisations such as UNICEF and Gavi in that regard. These are organisations that we have worked with for many years.

I really hope that the House is reassured by the Government’s comprehensive approach to supporting innovation and equitable access to covid-19 vaccines, through scientific co-operation, working with industry, funding and multilateral collaboration. The UK is leading efforts to respond to the pandemic by developing and delivering the medical tools that are essential to ending the pandemic for everyone everywhere, but we must all work together to develop safe, effective and affordable vaccines, treatments and tests that can be produced quickly and made available to all.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Layla Moran Excerpts
Tuesday 3rd November 2020

(4 years, 3 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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James Cleverly Portrait James Cleverly
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I thank my hon. Friend for his question. Ultimately, he is right: the responsibility lies with the Government of Iran, the Iranian regime. We remain committed to securing immediate, full and permanent release. While we are pleased that Mrs Zaghari-Ratcliffe has not been returned to Evin prison, that is not the end of the matter. We will continue to work to have her and the other detainees return home.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I thank the Minister for his responses so far and I share the House’s view that this is absolutely ridiculous, that we are still here talking not just about Nazanin, but about all those political prisoners who are being detained. I am particularly concerned about Anousheh Ashouri and his susceptibility to covid-19. Specifically, which other detainees is the Minister aware of who also have susceptibility to covid-19, and what assurances will he give the House that robust conversations have been had about their getting specific medical attention for the those comorbidities?

James Cleverly Portrait James Cleverly
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The welfare of all our British dual nationals imprisoned in Iran remains a priority, and we have raised their cases at the most senior level, in particular with discussions about health vulnerabilities. Ultimately—I find myself coming back to this point, but it is the fundamental one—the very best thing that we can do for all of them is to secure their permanent release back to their families at the earliest opportunity. That is what we will continue to work towards.

China’s Policy on its Uyghur Population

Layla Moran Excerpts
Monday 12th October 2020

(4 years, 4 months ago)

Westminster Hall
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Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. We have three minutes in which to cover a huge amount, so I will just say that I agree with literally everything I have heard so far. I think it is wonderful how this place comes together to represent what I think is, as we are seeing, the enormous, heartfelt, emotional view of our constituents and the country as a whole.

Today, in addition to continuing to make the case that we must call this a genocide and that we must get on with Magnitsky sanctions, I want to focus on the fact that we all have power because we are all consumers. As has already been mentioned by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Ladywood (Shabana Mahmood), there are issues with the procurement of PPE and ventilators, but the apparel industry is also well-trodden ground. It is estimated that one in five cotton garments from anywhere in the world has touched this supply chain, and when this has been looked into by the Associated Press, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and others including the Australian Strategic Policy Institute, some of the names of the list of companies are shocking.

I will name and shame a few: they are public services, people will love me for it, and I will not be able to do more because I am going to run out of time. I ask anyone who might be listening to please look on my Twitter feed. Those companies include Amazon, Calvin Klein, Esprit, Fila and Gap. They include H&M—I was really sad to read that—and Ikea. Who does not have Ikea in their homes? They also include Nike, Polo Ralph Lauren, Puma, Skechers, Tommy Hilfiger, Uniqlo, Victoria’s Secret and Zara, and that is not the full list.

In addition to the apparel industry, we know that there is movement of workers from these internment camps to factories across China that, in turn, touch the supply chains of other types of companies. Those include Amazon, Apple, BMW, Dell, Gap, Jaguar Land Rover, Mercedes-Benz, Microsoft, Nintendo and Nokia, and the list goes on. I want these companies to take up what I am saying, and take issue with what is happening. This was raised with Adidas and Lacoste, and to their credit they have now agreed to cut ties with the implicated suppliers and contractors as a result of that public pressure. I hope that has added to the public pressure on those other companies.

As I say, people need to look up the full list. They have power as consumers; we have power in this place as well, and the Government have power. I believe the Government should now be looking at those international supply chains. We are doing it with forests; we can do it with human rights. I ask the Minister whether he will agree to meet with me at some other time so that we can discuss this further, because I think this might be one of the ways in which every single person can act quickly.

Belarus: Presidential Elections

Layla Moran Excerpts
Thursday 24th September 2020

(4 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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I admire the hon. Gentleman’s passion for justice and human rights. I am not sure that the relationship between Lukashenko and President Putin is quite the way he describes. I think there is more nuance there, but one of the challenges we have, as we hold Lukashenko to account, is to try to avoid the inevitability of Belarus slipping further and further into Moscow’s embrace. On the action we are taking in the UK, we have one of the most rigorous systems in the world to ensure, as I have described, that dirty money and blood money do not find their way washing through UK businesses or banks, and we are going to strengthen that even further in the way I described by proceeding to add and extend Magnitsky sanctions to the corruption field as well.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and the substance of it, and I add the voice of the Liberal Democrats to the solidarity shown across the House. It is so important that we stand together in our fight for democracy and against those who want to undermine human rights. I am glad also that the Foreign Secretary is now flexing his muscles when it comes to Magnitsky sanctions. It shows what can be done. Can I press him to continue to flex those muscles in other parts of the world so that global Britain is consistent in its approach? I press him in particular to act against those who commit human rights abuses against the Uyghurs in Xinjiang.

Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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I thank the hon. Lady and welcome the Liberal Democrats’ support for these measures. We of course want to apply the Magnitsky sanctions as effectively as possible. I think part of that is making sure that we have clear evidence to do so. The one thing we want to avoid is the kind of legal challenge that gives the perpetrators of human rights abuses a political propaganda gift, but as I have said before, both in relation to Xinjiang and Hong Kong, we are assimilating, collating and co-ordinating with our international partners and allies to ensure we have the clearest understanding of the abuses that are taking place.

Yemen

Layla Moran Excerpts
Thursday 24th September 2020

(4 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)
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I beg to move,

That this House has considered the situation in Yemen.

I am delighted to move the motion, and I am aware of the very great interest in this debate, so I will make my comments as quickly as possible. If people would not intervene, that would be helpful, and I do not propose to take the few minutes at the end to respond to give as many Members as possible the opportunity to come in. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. We have tried many times—it was aborted some six months ago because of lockdown—but now, at last, we are able to debate this situation.

The trouble is that the situation has not got any better. I am not surprised that there is so much interest in Yemen today, because it has become the victim of the most lethal and complex cocktail: an extended and ostensibly insoluble civil war with international ramifications; various other man-made disasters; numerous natural disasters and potentially catastrophic environmental ones; an economic meltdown; and now, on top of it all, a deadly pandemic that Yemen was least prepared and equipped to deal with.

There is also great interest beyond Parliament; I gather that more than 210,000 people have signed a petition calling for a ceasefire, and that that petition has been tagged to this debate. Alas, in the six months spent trying to secure this debate, the situation has deteriorated yet further on multiple fronts. It is vital that, despite all the distractions at home and across the world in dealing with the pandemic, we neither forget nor neglect the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, which Yemen remains.

I chair the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen, and I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), who I am glad to see will be participating in the debate, and to the secretariat provided by Jack Patterson, who has kept members updated and arranged briefings, including just this Tuesday with the British deputy ambassador in Yemen, Simon Smart, the military attaché and representatives from Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières, which, with many other agencies, are doing such an amazing job in almost impossible conditions in Yemen. I pay tribute to all those agencies and workers

To deal with the political and military situation first, 2020 marks five years of a devastating conflict in Yemen and almost 10 years of chaos since the Arab spring in that country. Yemen desperately needs an effective and lasting ceasefire. Out of a total population of some 30 million, 24 million people rely wholly or partly on aid, and they desperately need protection now.

Yet ceasefires and peace agreements in Yemen have a reputation for being broken almost as soon as they are brokered. The comprehensive Stockholm agreement, brokered in December 2018, set out a comprehensive peace plan. It was backed in January 2019 by the United Nations’ unanimously adopting the UK-drafted resolution 2452, which established a special political mission and special envoy, Martin Griffiths, who has worked tirelessly to secure a settlement.

The agreement promised the withdrawal of Houthi and Government-led forces from Hodeidah, a large-scale prisoner transfer, UN observers and various other urgently needed measures. The United Arab Emirates, which had been very involved with the conflict, ostensibly stepped back and withdrew its troops from Yemen. The position has been complicated, though, by the emergence of the Southern Transitional Council, who have taken control of Aden, fragmenting the Government position in trying to present a united resistance to the Houthis.

Great importance has been placed on the Riyadh agreement, signed in December 2019 between the Yemeni Government and the STC, outlining a series of measures to bring peace to the south of Yemen; but the agreement broke after just eight months, although Martin Griffiths and others work hard to revive it. The fragile pause in the conflict in 2019 broke down in 2020 after an attack in northern Yemen. A unilateral ceasefire by the Saudi-led coalition in April 2020 in the light of covid-19 expired in May, but The Guardian reported that the Houthis had broken a truce no fewer than 241 times in the space of just two days.

I could talk about abuses on all sides: the 42 airstrikes in July alone, which particularly impacted and killed civilians; drones dropping grenades on civilian targets; and Houthi missile strikes on Riyadh in Saudi Arabia just earlier this month. The catalogue of abuse, devastation, destruction and mistrust on all sides goes on. As a result, 10 new frontlines have emerged since the beginning of 2020, with particularly intense fighting in the past four months, especially around the strategically important areas of Ma’rib, which controls access to the oilfields, Taiz and in the Hodeidah governate on the west coast.

Peace is as elusive as ever, yet death and suffering are worse than ever. More than 250,000 Yemenis, at least, have died since 2015, including 100,000 as a result of combat and 130,000 from hunger and disease. That is probably a very conservative estimate. It includes an estimated 1,000 civilians killed or seriously injured in the conflict in the first six months of this year, including 100 children. There are more than 2 million internally displaced people, with a majority in and around Ma’rib, which is currently under siege from the Houthis, who are throwing everything at that city, despite suffering very high casualties. Clearly they view the lives of their troops as cheap.

Some 24.3 million people need humanitarian aid—24.3 million out of a population of 30 million. That includes 12.2 million children. A total of 20.1 million people are food-insecure, and 20.5 million people lack clean water or sanitation. There have been more than 2.3 million cholera cases since 2017, as a collapsed health system has been woefully inadequate even before covid hit.

The exact impact of covid is unknown; the 1,000 cases reported in Sana’a is surely a woeful underestimate of the reality. We all saw the images on the news of mass graves being dug in the capital. The International Rescue Committee projects that the most likely scenario is that covid could infect nearly 16 million people and kill more than 42,000, making the fatality rate in Yemen one of the highest in the world. There is little chance of testing. We might think we have a problem with testing in the United Kingdom, but there are just 118 tests for every 1 million people in Yemen, compared with 41,500 in the UK. Just 0.01% of the population stands a chance of being tested, and there is no clue about how they will cope if they are hit by a second wave.

Since 2015, air raids have hit water and health facilities more than 200 times. Oxfam reports that those remaining often lack electricity and fresh water, and even if a hospital is operating, fuel is so expensive that people in remoter areas cannot get transport to hospital, and their conditions worsen untreated. Médecins sans Frontières, whose volunteers have done incredible work under fire, reports that many medical staff—if not most—have not been paid for years, and they struggle to survive and carry on their jobs in the most extraordinary circumstances.

The water shortage has brought big challenges for food supply, as farmers cannot irrigate their crops, and more than 90% of Yemen’s food is now imported. With a collapsing currency and an economy that has shrunk by 45% since 2015, UNICEF forecasts that the number of malnourished children under the age of five will grow by 20% over the next six months, to reach 2.4 million—2.4 million malnourished children.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I thank the hon. Gentleman for leading the debate; he is making it clear just how heartbreaking the situation is for the people on the ground in Yemen. Does he agree that that is why we should stand proud and firm by the 0.7% of gross national income that this country gives in aid to other countries? It is so sorely needed, especially during this pandemic.

Tim Loughton Portrait Tim Loughton
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I agree with the hon. Lady, and I will finish on the figures about the United Kingdom. We have been the third largest donor and are one of the most important donors at the moment. The reasons are obvious, and the results are so important.

To cap it all, ironically, recent floods in Hajjah and Amran have destroyed crops, and they have now been hit by swarms of locusts—truly a human tragedy of biblical proportions. Added to that, the Red sea faces a potential environmental catastrophe from the FSO Safer, a 45-year-old oil tanker loaded with more than 1 million barrels of crude oil, anchored 60 km off the rebel-held port of Hodeidah and left to decay for the last five years, with no agreement over access for engineers.

So we can see why the country is almost totally dependent on aid from the international community and the heroic efforts of aid organisations and their staff, who are working in extremely dangerous conditions as a result of conflict and disease, with the added challenge of getting aid in through blockaded ports under fire or via the main airport, which has now closed again, as well as the everyday problems of corruption and bureaucracy on all sides using access to aid as a military weapon. Indeed, the Houthis tried to impose a tax on aid supplies coming in. NGO buildings have been looted and aid workers arrested.

The aid itself is now seriously in question. So far this year, only 37% of the requested funding in the humanitarian response plan has been met, as some of the most generous donors previously—including the US, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—have reduced or withdrawn their funding at the worst possible time. As the International Rescue Committee points out, it was that funding that narrowly prevented famine two years ago, but now more than 9 million Yemenis have seen their aid cut, driving them to the brink of starvation; 12 of the UN’s 30 major programmes have already been scaled back; and a further 20 programmes could be reduced or closed completely if funding fails to emerge urgently.

Yemen is facing a perfect storm of a crumbling economy, reducing aid, restrictions placed on humanitarian access by warring parties, the continuing impact of an intractable conflict and now the additional pressures of covid. Amid all this, the support and financial aid from United Kingdom has been a rare, but desperately needed, constant. We are the third largest donor behind the US and Saudi Arabia. The UK has committed nearly £8 billion of assistance since the conflict began, including £160 million at the recent pledging conference. UK support has met the immediate food needs of more than 1 million Yemenis every month. It has treated 70,000 children for malnutrition and provided more than 1 million people with improved water and basic sanitation. The new money in the latest round will provide medical consultations, train 12,000 healthcare workers, boost 4,000 crumbling health centres and help in the fight against covid. The Education Cannot Wait campaign has helped girls, especially, who are missing out on education and helped programmes against the rise in violence against women and girls in particular, and against child labour. These are all problems affecting Yemen, as if it did not have enough problems already.

As the penholder on Yemen at the UN Security Council, the UK is in a crucial position. It is leading the international community to do more to respond to the Yemen crisis, and Martin Griffiths is doing an extraordinary job. We have a proud record of support and I hope that when the Minister speaks, he will confirm that that support will continue. However, there can be no real progress without a sustainable ceasefire leading to peace talks that are broad and inclusive, not just with Government forces, the STC and the Houthis but with all aspects of civil society and with the support of the regional powers, who will hopefully return to the donor table. Again, I hope the Minister can update the House about the UK continuing to play a leading and proactive role to help to bring this about.

Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and the world’s preoccupation with fighting covid at the moment cannot be an excuse for sidelining the unfolding tragedy that continues to engulf the Arab world’s poorest nation. It is difficult to think of a more tragic combination of circumstances affecting a nation and its people quite as toxically and systematically as is happening now in Yemen, and it has been going on for far too long. It is time for peace. It is time for the world to put pressure on the warring factions and their backers, and time to rally around the people of Yemen to regroup, recover and rebuild. I am sure that the whole House will want to show its support for that.

Occupied Palestinian Territories

Layla Moran Excerpts
Thursday 24th September 2020

(4 years, 4 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I thank the Backbench Business Committee, but also the hon. Member for Aberavon (Stephen Kinnock) for leading this debate and the other Members who have brought it to the House. It is incredibly important—I thank those who have contributed—and I think many of the facts and figures that have been thrown around are well understood. I rise as the first British Palestinian MP, and I thought the best thing I could do would be to give some human colour to the debate.

When I saw Trump’s peace plan, which we asked to debate back in March, my heart sank. The reason why it sank was that there is no one more than me and my family, and my cousins and aunts and uncles back home, who wants peace. We want peace—of course we want peace—and Hamas does not speak for me. I stand here as a friend of Israel as much as I am a daughter of Palestine. To those who suggest that this is in some way a weird thing for a Palestinian to say, I reply that most Palestinians I know actually say that. All Palestinians I know recognise Israel and all Palestinians I know want peace. This is not some black-and-white situation; that is where we want to get to.

In that plan there was mention of Jericho. My family is a Greek Orthodox family, and we had a long history of living in Jerusalem within the city walls, but after 1967, the family moved away because it was no longer safe to raise my mother there. She and her five siblings went to live in Jericho, which is where she grew up. The plan that Trump was putting forward would essentially have meant a suffocation of Jericho. A farmer in Jericho would, under this plan, have had to seek a permit to go and tend to their land. When Members say—I noted the words of the right hon. Member for Preseli Pembrokeshire (Stephen Crabb)—in the old ways of thinking, “Why don’t people just engage?” it is the equivalent of someone going to where they have grown up and saying to them, “We are going to suffocate the very village where you grew up or where your mother grew up, and you should be grateful that we have come up with this great plan for your family.” In response, Members would turn around and go, “No!”, yet that is what is going on in this case.

It is very obvious that this plan was never going to work. It is very obvious that the peace plan between the UAE, Bahrain and Israel—good for them; all peace is good, and the more peace, the better—is not going to help Palestine. Let us not fool ourselves. What we can do in this House and what this Government can do is recognise my other country, the one I love equally with this one. What that would do is give hope, because ultimately that is what keeps being eroded with every annexation, with every so-called peace plan and with every intervention by Trump. Frankly, he does not believe in peace; he just wants to be re-elected. What we need now is hope, and that is what is in the gift of this Government.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office

Layla Moran Excerpts
Wednesday 2nd September 2020

(4 years, 5 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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My right hon. Friend is absolutely right. One reason for integrating, not just in the new Department but in the structures that we have across Government, is to make sure that all aspects of our foreign policy are joined together. Trade and the work that the Secretary of State for International Trade is doing—she is doing an absolutely fantastic job—is critical, not just in countries such as the US and Australia but in the poorest countries, where a liberal approach to free trade can lift millions out of poverty.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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Coronavirus, climate change—it has never been more important to understand that we all share one planet and that it is in our interests to help others through the sustainable development goals and by staying with 0.7% unequivocally, so I will try one more time: will the Secretary of State commit, right here and now, to fighting for all that money to be maintained in his budget to be there for poverty reduction and economic development?

Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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I congratulate the hon. Lady on her new shadow position and congratulate her on and pay tribute to her leadership campaign, which she conducted with conviction and integrity, as ever. She is absolutely right that we must look after the poorest. We have had an ODA review because of the impact of coronavirus on the economy and on gross national income. We have made it clear—I think this can give her the assurance she seeks—that we are absolutely committed, as we were in that review, to safeguarding the money for the very poorest, for girls’ education and for COP26 and our climate change goals. I agree with the hon. Lady about COP26. We are making sure that we use our aid money and our development expertise to provide 26 million people with access to clean energy and we are supporting farmers to grow climate-resilient crops. In all those ways, the bringing together of our development expertise with our Foreign Office reach and clout can show that we can have even greater impact in the months and years ahead.

Hong Kong National Security Legislation: UK Response

Layla Moran Excerpts
Tuesday 2nd June 2020

(4 years, 8 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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I can absolutely give my hon. Friend that assurance. Of course, we are dealing with a major economic power that relies on all its economic and political leverage and, indeed, other means, to bring different countries and Governments to its way of thinking or just to quieten them down. Our approach—as I have described, based on principle and international law—is therefore the most likely to be effective in building up that groundswell of support that has the best chance of changing China’s behaviour.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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As far back as 1989, the late, great Paddy Ashdown called on the Government to institute safeguards just in case one day China not just overreached but breached the joint declaration. We now potentially find ourselves in that position. Hongkongers are finding that the world is shifting beneath their feet, with nowhere to go. I understand that former Foreign Secretaries have written to the current Foreign Secretary, asking him to set up an international contact group to look at international human rights and also a lifeboat policy for Hongkongers. Has he considered their call and will he set up such a group?

Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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I pay tribute to the late Lord Paddy Ashdown for all his work. The UK is in the vanguard of the international response on Hong Kong. I am not sure that we are quite in the same situation with China and Hong Kong as we were with the former Yugoslavia, on which I worked as a war crimes lawyer in the early 2000s. None the less, the spirit of the hon. Lady’s question is absolutely right. As I have described, we want to build up a groundswell of those who share our commitment to the basic tenets of international law. That is most likely to be effective in getting China to think again about Hong Kong and all those other areas. We have raised China’s conduct on human rights issues in the Human Rights Council and the United Nations Security Council, and we will raise Hong Kong in every appropriate forum that we conceivably can.

Covid-19

Layla Moran Excerpts
Tuesday 17th March 2020

(4 years, 10 months ago)

Commons Chamber
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Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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We have been following the course of the Silver Shadow very carefully. I can tell my right hon. Friend that there are 300 passengers on board, of whom about 120 are British nationals—that goes to my earlier point about the need for an international team effort. Royal Caribbean, the parent company of the ship, has indicated that it will offer at least three charter flights to get passengers home—one to the UK, one to the US and one to Canada, and possibly also one to Australia. That gives my right hon. Friend a sense of not just the challenge we face, but how we are straining every sinew to deal with constituents such as her own.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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I would like to add my voice to those thanking FCO workers, who I am sure are working around the clock. I am sure that they are wanting to get home, but they are staying to help others. I have been listening very carefully to what the Secretary of State has been saying about repatriation, and I understand his arguments about the airlines, but we have to accept that the reason why the airlines are not running flights is that they cannot afford to, and they are worried about coming out of this at the other end. Would he consider providing a subsidy for the airlines to enable them to run these flights, particularly from areas where flights have been cancelled or shut down completely?

Dominic Raab Portrait Dominic Raab
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The hon. Lady raises a really important point. On the one hand, we do want commercial airlines to fly, but they are clearly under severe financial pressure, given the domestic restrictions being placed on them, and indeed other Governments, including our own, changing their travel advice. We will work with the airlines to see what support we can provide, and our priority continues to be to make sure that commercial flights can access as many areas as possible to get people back in the kind of scale and volume that is necessary to address the challenge we face.

Middle East Peace Plan

Layla Moran Excerpts
Thursday 30th January 2020

(5 years ago)

Commons Chamber
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Andrew Murrison Portrait Dr Murrison
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It would be unwise to completely dismiss out of hand something of this nature, created and built by one of our closest allies, but that appears to be the position of those on the Opposition Front Bench. We need to get to a position where we have the start of a negotiation. That is, as I have said, baby steps, but if we can see a way forward to the start of a negotiation, that would be a good thing.

Layla Moran Portrait Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)
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This is not a plan. This is a scam. The Minister wonders why those of us with Palestinian family, but also anyone else who believes in the international rules-based order, are suggesting that our Government should reject it. This is an insult. The Palestinians were not consulted during its wide gestation. This is not the best of us. We should reject it outright.

I remind the Minister of our Prime Minister’s words when he was Foreign Secretary:

“What we are saying is that you have to have a two-state solution or else you have a kind of apartheid system. You have to go for a two-state approach, that is the long-standing position of the government”.

This plan is not the basis for a viable two-state solution. Does the Minister therefore accept that these are baby steps, to use his words, towards an apartheid system that we should reject outright?

Andrew Murrison Portrait Dr Murrison
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I think the hon. Lady needs to be a little careful with her language, if I may say so. If I may quote the EU High Representative—this is important, particularly in the context of the hon. Lady’s party and our incipient departure from the European Union—he said:

“Today’s initiative by the United States provides an occasion to re-launch the urgently needed efforts towards a negotiated and viable solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict”

He is welcoming this—[Interruption.] Yes, he is. I could read out any number of comments made along those lines by international leaders over the past 48 hours. The important thing is that this may be the start of a process after a very long period of stand-off between Palestinians and Israelis. If that proves to be the case, I would welcome it.