Yemen

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Wednesday 19th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

I do not know where the hon. Gentleman gets that information from, but it is not correct.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I would like to thank the Secretary of State and his team for the work they have been doing on this grave issue of the war in Yemen. It has been a war on children and the most vulnerable. Every 10 minutes, a child dies in Yemen. My local churches are desperate to do all they can, and I know that the Minister for the Middle East will be visiting the DFID office in my constituency tomorrow. What more can we do as MPs, communities and constituents to avert the humanitarian disaster that has encompassed Yemen?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. The answer is that we can all ensure that our constituents know about the issues in Yemen and encourage people to support the charities and NGOs that are funding the humanitarian work there.

Draft African Development Bank (Fourteenth Replenishment of the African Development Fund) Order 2017 Draft Asian Development Bank (Eleventh Replenishment of the Asian Development Fund) Order 2017 Draft Caribbean Development Bank (Ninth Replenishment of the Unified Special Development Fund) Order 2017

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 General Committees

[Rory Stewart]

These are all incredibly important points and questions, which go to the heart of our international development operations. The key questions here are about why we work through multilateral development banks and, of course, the fundamental question raised by my hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire: why we do any of this in the first place and whether it is a good use of money.

The fundamental thing is that we are working with concessional loan facilities in some of the very poorest countries on earth. These are countries, in some cases, where one in five children dies before the age of five, where adult life expectancy is 37, where rates of HIV/AIDS can be 30% or 40%, where unemployment rates can be 85%, where even relatively prosperous people in a community will still not have access to mains electricity or water, and where 85% of children emerging from school are still functionally illiterate.

The needs are desperate. People are living lives which are beyond imagining. Indeed, it is worse than that: in some of the countries where the African Development Bank operates, there are currently children dying because they do not have enough food to eat. There are currently children turning up at UNICEF emergency nutrition centres in Somalia who are having emergency tubes put in their nose because they have not been able to eat for two weeks, and of those a number are dying.

It is very important to stick to the fundamental basics here. We are talking about instruments and ways of moving money around, but in the end we are talking about some of the poorest and most vulnerable people on earth. Things that seem a little bit boring—moving £100 million here and there or building road and electricity networks—are absolutely vital, because those electricity networks allow clinics to refrigerate vaccines to keep the children alive. Those roads allow the child dying of malnutrition to make it to the emergency nutrition centre. Those investments, hopefully, ultimately allow those countries to stand on their own feet and generate the taxation revenue to pay for their own health and education systems, and allow the developed world to disengage.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I appreciate what the Minister is saying about reaching the most vulnerable. I would be interested to find out what level of detail we have to show that the most vulnerable, and leaving no one behind, are at the crux of all the projects, and that projects and programmes reach out to rural communities, for instance by getting disabled children into school.

[Rory Stewart]

That is a very good challenge. It is absolutely right that there is always a tension in the work of multilateral development banks between their traditional primary focus of infrastructure and economic growth, and making sure at the same time that we leave no one behind. That is something DFID has been doing since the hon. Member for Harrow West was a Minister in the Department; it has been leading on ensuring that we focus on the very poorest people, on rural communities and on equality. That is now central to the missions of the multilateral development banks, but it remains a challenge and it is something that we have to keep challenging them on again and again.

Of the three banks we are discussing in these statutory instruments, perhaps it is with the Asian Development Bank that we have had some of the most difficult conversations about ensuring that its successful track record on infrastructure investment focuses on the people at the very poorest levels of society who need it, rather than simply benefiting urban dwellers.

I will respond to the individual speeches made, starting with my right hon. Friend the Member for East Devon, who began with the question of administration costs. The administration costs are perhaps less of a challenge in multilateral development banks; it is a good question, but it would probably be more of a challenge if we were talking about non-government organisations. Most of the multilateral development banks have rather large equity portfolios, so their administration costs are relatively small. The target we are focused on, taking the African Development Bank as an example, is about 2.5% administration against equity, which we believe is reasonably competitive. It is roughly in line with where DFID itself sits in its ratio of staff to portfolio.

The second question was on flexibility, particularly relating to Zimbabwe. There is another challenge there, to be honest. The banks tend to make very long-term investments. Big road infrastructure and energy projects can take eight to 10 years to come to fruition, and by their very nature, it is difficult to suddenly shift money, in two weeks, from one place to another. If we are looking for rapid response to an emerging situation such as Zimbabwe, it is not to the multilateral development banks that we would look. However, my right hon. Friend’s question is absolutely bang on the money, because we are hoping that the situation in Zimbabwe could be an extraordinary opportunity.

That opportunity is not only about Commonwealth membership and the United Nations, but about all the instruments that the international community can bring to help the Zimbabwean people, if the reform comes through and we go into a transition where there are free, fair and credible elections. For that, there needs to be an independent electoral commission, and we need to ensure there is proper voter registration, as there are currently one million “ghost voters”. We must ensure that Zimbabweans outside the country get their constitutional right to vote. If those things come into place, there is a great deal that we ought to be able to do, one aspect of which relates to multilateral institutions and ensuring that IMF loans are able to come in to save the Zimbabwean economy, which is in a difficult situation at the moment.

My right hon. Friend’s final question was about British business, and he is absolutely right that certain sectors where DFID invests, particularly green energy, financial services and insurance, are sectors where British companies can have a competitive advantage. The City of London has a strong advantage in financial services. Edinburgh, for example, also has strong advantages in financial services and insurance, and we have some impressive and innovative companies in green energy and city development.

Our aid is, of course, not tied, so it is about allowing British companies to compete fairly against other international companies for those contracts. The greatest thing that we can do for British companies is the longer term work of economic development. The reality in Africa at the moment is that there are only 17 million people who earn over £200 a month. That means that the middle class consumer population of Africa is currently about the size of Belgium, in a continent that is 100 times the size of Belgium and with considerably more externalities. The real opportunity for British business will only come when we really get the economic development off the ground and we can build that consumer base.

That brings me to the specific questions on the three banks raised by the shadow Minister, the hon. Member for City of Durham, and then I will conclude with the questions of my predecessor, the hon. Member for Harrow West. To go through the banks one by one, regarding the African Development Bank, the answer is that we have set very detailed performance indicators. Each one of these priorities that we have set around recruitment, value for money, efficiency and anti-corruption then breaks down into sub-performance indicators.

To give an example, we are not simply talking about recruitment. We have set a number: we are demanding that they recruit an additional 298 people by March. That would be an example of a recruitment indicator. I am not going to go through every one of the performance indicators, but I would be very happy to share them with the shadow Minister. In delivery and values, we are focusing on ensuring that 90% of the performance completion reports are completed in a year, and we will monitor that. In relation to countries in transition, we are making sure that all the 16 country offices are fully staffed.

We do have leverage over this. It is not just the nuclear option, which as I said is that 25% of this will not be disbursed immediately; 75% will be disbursed, but 25% will be held back. That is the nuclear option, but apart from that we are about to enter 2018 general capital negotiations, and if we find that it is not meeting the performance indicators, that will affect the general capital contribution we make. In the next statutory instrument, which I hope we will both have the pleasure of debating here in three years’ time, we will perhaps have an opportunity to set exactly the kind of performance rewards that we have set for the Caribbean Development Bank. However, we do not think that we need to do that yet with the African Development Bank; we think that the performance indicator framework is the correct way to approach it.

There were two questions in relation to the Asian Development Bank. The first question was, is it enough money? The answer is yes, it is enough money. The Asian Development Bank is a smaller bank than the World Bank. While the International Development Association is disbursing about £75 billion a year, the Asian Development Bank will disburse only about £3.3 billion. As the shadow Minister pointed out, it now self-finances its concessional lending, which means that the amount of money it needs from us is reduced, and we are now in a situation in which the AIDB, the Asian Infrastructure Development Bank, is now stepping in to some of the areas in which the Asian Development Bank used to operate. The merger of its balance sheet has also given it much more flexibility in the way that it deals with moneys—it has merged the concessional and non-concessional parts of its balance sheet.

That brings me to the Caribbean Development Bank. The question was, is it correct that the amount of money that we have given it has been reduced from £33 million last time to £18 million this time? It is absolutely correct: we have reduced the amount of money that we are giving the Caribbean Development Bank by 50%. That is directly because in the multilateral development review we found that there were a number of serious problems in the way that the Caribbean Development Bank operated. Our view as Ministers—I am sure this would be the same on the other Benches—is that if we find there are serious performance problems, that has to have consequences.

We cannot be comfortable saying that there are serious performance problems and simply signing off the same amount of money, so we have halved the amount of money that we are giving. However, as the shadow Minister pointed out, there are still key tasks that the Caribbean Development Bank, and only the Caribbean Development Bank, can perform, particularly in the light of the hurricane. That is particularly its speciality in small island states and is why, notwithstanding our problems, we will, in a very carefully monitored way, be providing some money to it for that, but holding back £4.5 million for a performance bonus if it manages to meet the targets that we have provided. We will be looking in particular at ensuring that it delivers education. We have set this education target of 100,000 children in school, and we will be looking at that very carefully.

That brings me to the comments of the hon. Member for Harrow West. He began with the question of corruption and fraud, which is a big issue. It is a big issue because the countries in which one is operating are particularly fragile, conflict-affected states. It is extremely difficult in Afghanistan or Somalia—in somewhere like Mogadishu, people can barely leave the airport—to have a direct idea of what is happening on the ground.

We have an increasing number of sophisticated methods to try to ensure we do monitoring and evaluation in an imperfect world. For example, when it comes to humanitarian delivery, we are relying on people using mobile telephones, so that we can track where the trucks are going and have photographs of beneficiaries receiving deliveries. An increasing amount of money goes into employing local monitoring and evaluation partners, who are completely independent of the projects. They go out to visit the projects, produce documentation and challenge directly what is being done on the ground.

We found in the multilateral development review that, in fact, these organisations are among the best for controlling fraud. They probably perform better, on average, than general NGOs in terms of their financial management systems and the fraud mechanisms they have in place. However, we supplement that with our own auditors and with new DFID approaches, where we go all the way down the chain, through every beneficiary and sub-beneficiary, to the ground. If we visit a DFID country office now, that entire map, which is often very complex, is up from the ground. That is supplemented by the work of the National Audit Office, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact and the International Development Committee.

We are never complacent about this problem, and if we find any cases of fraud and corruption, we come down on it very firmly and will take our money back. There was a case recently where we had to be reimbursed because we discovered that something of that sort had happened; it was not with these banks, but another NGO implementing partner.

That brings me to the final question from the hon. Member for Harrow West, which was about what happens after we leave the European Union. It is absolutely correct that as we leave the EU, there will probably and potentially be more development money to spend. I say probably and potentially because it is still an open question as to whether we might continue to put money through European institutions after we leave the EU. That is something for the Brexit negotiators to determine.

Some of these European institutions are highly professional and very competent. In particular, ECHO—the Directorate-General for European Civil Protection and Humanitarian Aid Operations—does an enormous amount of good work in the humanitarian sphere. We may be tempted to look at this on a case-by-case basis and continue to partner with them, but that is above my pay grade; it is a question for the negotiators.

If we were to reduce the amount of money we put through European institutions and had money coming back, my instinct is that it would be worth looking at the question raised by the hon. Member for Harrow West. That is to say, we may want to increase the number of our staff. We may want to look at the possibility of having larger footprints, because as we worry more and more about risk and implementation, we may need to get more people into the field and into schools and those clinics to check what they are doing. Those people need to be able to speak local languages well and they need to understand the context well.

We need to be able to ensure that when we are spending money in a country, we have highly expert professional British civil servants on the ground to monitor those projects. My instinct—again, this is a broader discussion within the Department that would have to take place after Brexit—is that we would, as the hon. Gentleman implies, need more staff on the ground to ensure that implementation happened.

International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Thursday 26th October 2017 Westminster Hall

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. Truthfully, I am not sure I am in a position to answer that question, but wherever there is true Christianity—or true religious belief, whatever the religion may be—people should be able to practise other religions. That is what I wish to see. Does it happen in every country? No, but it happens in many.

The report’s first recommendations are to ask the Foreign Secretary and the Secretary of State for International Development to identify freedom of religion or belief as a political priority of both Departments, and to establish a FORB programming funding stream to support that work. In some of the questions that I and other Members have put forward recently, we have tried to focus on that and perhaps nudge the Government towards doing it. Hopefully, the Minister will give an indication of how that will work in his response. It is also important that our embassies around the world have the freedom of religious belief clearly in their psyche, and that they are able to respond well to those concerns. Some Members may have heard my co-chair Baroness Berridge raise those issues last week on BBC Radio 4’s “Sunday” programme.

Although there is now considerable talk about FORB and how to tackle violations of that right, there is an ever-pressing need for systematic and proactive actions and policies to move FORB from rhetoric to reality. The scope of FORB violations is extensive, as the report clearly states—if Members have not read it, please let us know and we will make sure they receive a copy. It sets out 10 examples of persecution—of Christians, of those with other religions and, indeed, of those with no religion—and where it is necessary to speak up.

According to the Pew Research Centre, nearly 80%

“of the world’s population lived in countries with high or very high levels of restrictions and/or hostilities”

towards certain beliefs. The violations are truly global. There is not just one type of perpetrator or victim. Groups that face persecution in one country may be the persecutors in others. In his comments at Speaker’s House yesterday, Lord Ahmad noted that we want a society where Muslims speak for Christians, Christians speak for Hindus and Jehovah’s Witnesses speak for Shi’as. That came out of the international conference held in September 2015, and if we all did that, that would encapsulate what we need to do across the whole world.

Since 1978, waves of violence carried out by the Myanmar state and military have been directed towards the 1 million Rohingya Muslims living largely in Rakhine state. The 1982 citizenship law made it almost impossible for the Rohingya to keep their citizenship, and temporary voting cards handed out in 1993 were revoked before the 2015 election. The Rohingya have no parliamentary representation and are largely viewed as illegal immigrants. Recent military violence against the Rohingya, killing more than 1,000 people and forcing more than half a million—I think that figure has now increased to nearly 800,000—to flee to Bangladesh, Indonesia and Thailand, has been described by the UN as ethnic cleansing. There are about 120,000 Christians among those 800,000, and they have also had to flee with nothing. None of us, inside or outside this Chamber, could fail to be moved by the fate of those people.

I also want to speak about the Baha’is. I was fortunate last week to be invited to an event in my constituency to celebrate the 200th anniversary of Bahá’u’lláh—I hope my pronunciation is okay, for an Ulster Scots man—the founder of the Baha’i faith. Its motto is:

“The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens”.

If we want to encapsulate what we should all be trying to do, when we look on all our brothers and sisters wherever they might be across the world, that phrase—“and mankind its citizens”—is something we should be aware of.

I was introduced to the Baha’i faith when I was mayor in 1992, in a different life, by Eddie and Mary Whiteside, who lived in my constituency. Eddie passed away a few years ago but his wife and family still live there. He introduced me to the Baha’i faith, and told me a lot about what they try to do. I have never before met such gentle people—gentle in nature, in how they approach people and how they see things across the world. I am very conscious of them, and they epitomise the resilience of faith communities. I celebrated the 200th anniversary of the birth of their founder. Bahá’u’lláh taught that religious prejudice destroys the edifice of humanity; peace and security are unattainable without unity. The brothers and sisters, sometimes literally, of those I joined at that celebration are, however, undergoing systematic oppression in Iran.

I do not want to be political—though perhaps it is hard being a politician not to be political—and I do not want to refer to the Iran nuclear deal. Members will know that when that matter came to the House—my right hon. Friend the Member for Belfast North (Nigel Dodds) will remember that night—I made my comments very clear. I felt that we should tie in any Iranian nuclear deal with human rights and equality. We should have done that. We did not do that the way that I wanted it done, and many Members on both sides of the House spoke equally strongly about it.

Those brothers and sisters are undergoing systematic oppression. Government authorities have killed or executed more than 200 Baha’is recently, and more than 10,000 have been dismissed from Government or university positions since 1979. As of February this year, at least 90 Baha’is remain imprisoned. They are not allowed to own property or have a job like we do, or organise, and their children are not able to get the opportunity of education, and healthcare is also restricted. That is the life of Baha’is in Iran. Today, in this House, we want to speak for the Baha’is, for the Rohingya Muslims and Christians, and for those people who are being systematically abused.

The Minister will no doubt have heard of the crimes of ISIS towards religious communities in Iraq and Syria, including an estimated 250,000 Yazidis, and they really “make you bad”—that is how we would describe it back home. They undermine confidence in the world and the people that live in it. The Yazidis have been particularly abused. They have been murdered, and Yazidi women have been subject to all sorts of attacks. Some 150,000 Yazidis fled to Mount Sinjar, where hundreds perished before a co-ordinated rescue operation could be carried out. Christian leaders estimate that there are now fewer than 250,000 Christians in Iraq, down from the pre-2003 estimate of 1.4 million—what a drop!

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his excellent speech and for bringing this important debate to Westminster Hall. Does he share my concern about evidence presented to the International Development Committee in the previous Parliament, which showed that Christians, in particular, in the refugee camps in Syria are being persecuted and now often do not go to the camps? The Minister and the Department for International Development should work together to ensure people of all religious beliefs are safe and secure in the camps.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank the hon. Lady for her intervention. She, like everyone else in the Chamber, has a particular interest in this debate. She is very active on these issues in her constituency, and we have discussed them at length.

This month, it has been estimated that there are 70 mass graves containing the remains of ISIS victims. There was an article in one of the newspapers the other day about one of the towns outside Raqqa, which has just been liberated, in which 20,000 Christian people had lived along the banks of the river. Of those 450—almost 500—families, there are just 50 left. They live in mud huts and are probably the lowest class in the whole society. They live on handouts from their families who live in America and elsewhere. Again, that is an indication of the problem that Christians face. Their villages were marked by elaborate churches and monasteries, but now the 35 Christian villages of the Khabur valley echo emptily. That illustrates what has happened.

I want to talk about Syria and Iraq. I understand that, in the last few days, the US Government have said that they want to stop the UN’s funding for Iraq because it is not getting through to religious minorities. I find that very worrying, if that is what they are doing. If the funding is not getting through to religious minorities, I would want to make sure it does, but stopping it would mean that nobody got it, so we need to be careful about that. I had the opportunity to visit Iraq under the auspices of Aid to the Church in Need. I visited Irbil and Alqosh, and I got pretty close to Mosul, where battles were still ongoing. It was good to travel in places that the Bible spoke of, such as the plains of Nineveh. Will the Minister take up the issue of the US’s very worrying indication that it intends to stop its aid?

We are glad that the UN Security Council announced that it will set up an international investigative team to gather evidence of ISIS crimes. We want that to happen, but we ask that the Government ensure that the team is adequately resourced, that its leaders have internationally recognised credentials, and that its evidence is used to bring the perpetrators of ISIS’s crimes to justice.

In Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Pakistan and Malaysia, both the Shi’a Muslim and atheist communities face treatment amounting to persecution. In Saudi Arabia, the Shi’a town al-Awamiyah, in the eastern province, remains besieged by security forces. Legislation that came into force in 2014 declared the promotion of atheism in any form to be terrorism—how can the two be equated? Earlier this year, the death sentence of a 29-year-old man, Ahmad al-Shamri, on charges of atheism and blasphemy was upheld, even after two appeals. Despite the variation in the scale of violations, there are recognisable patterns, and “Article 18: from rhetoric to reality” outlines good practices, which the Government can use to tackle FORB violations in different countries and contexts.

I declare an interest: I am also chair of the all-party group on Pakistan minorities. That issue is very close to my heart. The violations in Pakistan and countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Turkey include the spread of intolerant narratives and their use in school textbooks. A story in the press yesterday indicated that, in Saudi Arabia, one of the princes said he is going to make a change. I hope he will make the strong Islamic viewpoint more moderate and try to change society. That can only happen over a period of time, but if there is a mood of change, I welcome that. If that happens in Saudi Arabia, that is good news. Textbooks contain biased material, including hate speech about Hindus, Christians, Ahmadis, Sikhs and Shi’as have been found in a number of provinces in Pakistan, including Sind and Baluchistan.

The Ahmadis are a small minority Muslim group that lives in Pakistan and Indonesia. The hate speech that has been fomented against them has been incredible. When the state of Pakistan was first formed, Muhammad Ali Jinnah made a speech on 11 August 1947 in which he said—this was his hope for Pakistan—

“You may belong to any religion, cast or creed—that has nothing to do with the business of the state.”

How that has changed between 1947 and 2017! I speak, as we all do, for the right of the Ahmadis to practise their religion across the world—in Pakistan, Indonesia and elsewhere.

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in laws treating blasphemy as a criminal offence in countries including Indonesia, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Mauritania, Russia and Nigeria. In Nepal, about which the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Stephen Lloyd) spoke, there is a criminal code Bill that criminalises religious conversion and the hurting of religious sentiment. What does “the hurting of religious sentiment” mean? It can mean anything. If someone wants to interpret it strongly, they will do that. It is very worrying that that stringent legislation has now been signed into law. After all the parliamentary changes in Nepal, it is sad to see that the worst possible legislation has resulted.

[James Gray in the Chair]

The increased use of anti-terrorism legislation against religious or belief groups in countries including Iran, China, Russia, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, has resulted in a variety of FORB violations. In July, Russia declared the Jehovah’s Witnesses a terrorist organisation and prosecuted scores of them for meeting and being in possession of their literature. In August last year, five Christian members of an Iranian house church were arrested at a picnic and charged with acting against national security. Such things are happening all over the world.

At the same time, we hear stories of churches growing. Three weeks ago, we had a missionary weekend at our church—the Baptist church at Newtownards. We hear of churches growing in Laos, where there is a Communist regime, and of people being saved and becoming Christians. People have religious liberty, even though it is very restricted. We hear some good stories, but we are here today to speak out on behalf of the people who do not have the opportunity to enjoy the freedom we have in this country.

The APPG’s report recommends that the Government track and audit the overseas funding and investment of relevant Departments, including DFID, to ensure it is not being channelled directly or indirectly to Governments, organisations or individuals who do not support or demonstrate a clear understanding of and strong respect for FORB. The importance of that has been demonstrated by the fact that some of the UK’s and US’s education funding has been given to the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in Pakistan. In 2016, that government gave $3 million to Darul Uloom Haqqania seminary, known as the “university of jihad”. That illustrates the problem. That religious institution supports the Taliban and religious radicalisation in Pakistan. It is not clear whether US or UK funds were included in the funds that the provincial government gave to it, but that example highlights the importance of auditing and tracking funding. In the report, we ask for such things to be looked at.

Action to tackle divisive and intolerant narratives about those with different beliefs in school textbooks and broadcast on radio and television is also greatly needed. That action is needed not just overseas but here in the UK, too. It is alarming that overseas media channels that broadcast messages legitimising violence towards people because of their beliefs continue to be broadcast directly into UK homes.

There are many good things happening. We have the right of freedom of religious belief across the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Last week, I was fortunate to attend the 200th anniversary of St Mark’s parish church in Newtownards, which was celebrating 200 years of doing Christian work in the town, of spreading the gospel, of encouraging people and the community, and of highlighting the physical, prayerful, emotional and spiritual part of Christian life. We are very pleased that the Church of Ireland church, as well as other churches, has been so involved in that.

Action to tackle divisive and intolerant narratives is important. The APPG report therefore recommends the establishment of a cross-departmental programme to create space across a range of media and educational platforms for pro-FORB messaging and narratives that delegitimise dangerous speech against those with different beliefs. Such action across a range of media platforms will also support measures intended to prevent violent extremism by helping to build respect and understanding between people and, in turn, cohesive communities.

Increasing religious literacy as well as FORB literacy is a crucial first step for UK embassy staff and all country-specific civil servants throughout the relevant Departments, including the country desk officers. Again, that is one of the recommendations of the report. That is one of the things that we are asking for because it will make a difference to people throughout the world. Training in one literacy or the other, or both, would vary depending on the official’s role. Such training would provide officials with the confidence and necessary skill set, including the tools, principles and practice to monitor and track religious dynamics and to respond appropriately to conflict when it breaks out. We could be right there where it is happening to help directly through our Government, embassies and staff. That is one of the things that we are trying to achieve.

The frameworks and training are readily available. The report highlights them and the Government can ensure they are maximally used. To enhance embassy staff and civil servants’ work overseas on FORB, local consultation with affected groups would increase understanding of the real causes, concerns and flashpoints, helping to find solutions for the many FORB violations. There is a balance to strike when consulting groups, to ensure that no one agenda takes precedence due to someone’s lived experiences, but the people affected are often far more able to identify the most pressing concerns in complex situations, and they are sometimes able to provide more immediate solutions to their problems. If we have competent, well-trained embassy staff on the frontline, clearly they can affect change where it is needed and when it is needed.

A long-term vision beyond the immediacy of politics is needed for such work. Action would allow religious communities who have been in conflict to come together to share understanding and create a future vision for co-existence. I have tried to draw out a central theme for where we are—it is about co-existence, all the religions together, respect for each other, practising our religion as we wish to, and ensuring that we have the right to do so. Building networks of influential community leaders and organisations who are trusted within those communities and who can lead those mediations will allow that work to reduce conflict and human rights violations to be successful. We have an end goal and a target that we are trying to achieve.

Work is particularly urgent in the middle east. There has certainly been some talk—I am not sure how much substance it has—about the Government creating a middle east ambassador or envoy from this House. If so, there is a clear role for that person to play in this context. In Iraq and Syria, the building of an equal, multi-faith society that is represented in local and national government is critical to ensuring long-term stability in the region.

I am sure my colleagues welcome the FCO and DFID integrating use of the right to FORB into their work, such as that on preventing violent extremism. To continue that work, I ask that the extremism analysis unit carries out research to add to the evidence base that is outlined in the APPG report and to analyse the role of religion as a driver of extremism, as well as to find evidence of the role that the promotion of religious tolerance plays in building societies resilient to extremism. I hope that the Foreign Secretary and the Minister will agree to meet with me and my colleagues in and outside this House who are working on this to discuss how that work can continue in the UK and at the international level.

I hope that DFID Ministers and civil servants working to achieve the sustainable development goals will agree to meet us, too, to discuss how the right to freedom of religion or belief plays a role in achieving SDG 16, which is about building peaceful and inclusive societies, and how religious leaders and faith and belief-based organisations are key partners in that. As we can see, not only is FORB a fundamental human right of great importance for the more than 80% of us globally who say that we adhere to a particular religion or belief but, in making that right a reality, it would be helpful in building peace and stability, and so achieving UK Government goals and objectives.

Expanding networks globally recognise the importance of FORB, such as the International Panel of Parliamentarians for Freedom of Religion or Belief, which I joined in New York in 2015. Globally, the IPP now has some 200 parliamentarians who have committed to raising this human right within their own countries. That process, which started in New York in September 2015, was replicated here in the APPG, which brings some 90 MPs and peers together, and in Africa, the Americas, the far east and the middle east. We are trying to build forums where people can come together. I met a Christian and a Muslim from Pakistan; the Muslim said she was speaking for the Christians, and the Christian said she was speaking for the Muslims—that is an example of the goal we should look forward to.

The private sector’s work to promote religious tolerance is recognised in the Religious Freedom and Business Foundation’s annual awards, which have been supported over the past few years by the International Olympic and Paralympic Committees.

To mark International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day tomorrow, I hope that the Minister will agree with the importance of this human right and commit to working with me, all my colleagues in the Chamber who have the same belief and commitment, the APPG, its staff and all stakeholders—we have 22 or 23 stakeholders who are part of the APPG. The work is to move, as the report says, from rhetoric to reality. That is what we want to achieve. Without Government support, this is a human right that will not be a reality for many people around the world and there is no better time than International Freedom of Religion or Belief Day to work towards that reality. That is where we will be tomorrow. As I said earlier, we are the voice of the voiceless—for those who have no one to speak for them, we do it here.

Violence in Rakhine State

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Tuesday 5th September 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

As I have said, that is a legal issue that has to go through the United Nations. It is not for the Government to make such a condemnation or to grandstand, either in the Chamber or elsewhere. The issue will need to be dealt with through the United Nations if it is to go to an International Criminal Court action, and at the moment we judge that it would be unlikely to get through the UN because at least one of the permanent five members of the Security Council would look to impose a veto. We will do our best to make the statements that we need to make in the international community, but this is ultimately a legal rather than a political matter. It would be easy for me to say words from the Dispatch Box to satisfy the hon. Lady now, but it makes much more sense to do things in a systematic manner.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

The Department for International Development can and will do excellent work, but there are reports that authorities are restricting access to international aid. What will be done to ensure that the most vulnerable get the aid that they so desperately need? What political steps will be taken, and will the Government condemn those who will not allow access to aid in this humanitarian crisis?

[Mark Field]

The hon. Lady makes a fair point. Particularly on the Burmese side of the border, it is desperately difficult to get our DFID representatives the access that we would like them to have. By contrast, once people have crossed that border and are in refugee camps just inside the Bangladeshi border—I accept that that is by no means an ideal situation—we are able to do terrific work on the ground, and will continue to do so, to try to ensure that a looming humanitarian crisis is kept at bay.

Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Tuesday 11th July 2017 Commons Chamber

[The Minister for Africa (Rory Stewart)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend, who is our trade envoy to Ghana. Ghana is one of the most impressive recent developments in Africa, with three recent transitions of democratic power and a rapidly growing economy. It is a huge example of how the Commonwealth can become one of the great success stories of Britain’s next five years, as we move towards the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

T8. The Paralympic games in Rio were a great success, showcasing inspirational talent and the importance of sports inclusion worldwide. What discussions has the Foreign Office had with Japanese counterparts to lend our full support to the Tokyo Paralympic games?

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Lady for her question. She can rest assured that a huge amount of work is going on, partly on the security side, with my right hon. Friend the Minister for Security, but there is also, very importantly, as she rightly says, the sheer organisation. We are working closely to make sure there is seamless progress between 2012 and 2020, albeit that we have had Rio in the meantime. I think the Paralympic games in Tokyo are going to be a great success.

Global Education: G20 Summit

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Thursday 6th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Stringer. I congratulate the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who as always gave an extremely comprehensive overview. It is a field that he led in both for his party and in his chairpersonship of the International Development Committee in the last Parliament. I hope he continues in that role—he has my full backing in that regard. It is a role he has taken to avidly and for which he has utilised all of his skills, abilities and experience to the utmost.

The timing of the debate is important, given the G20 summit focusing on sustainable growth and development taking place in Hamburg this week. Sustainable development has been one of the key issues we have focused on in the International Development Committee, as have the sustainable development goals, which are a step forward in overcoming poverty and giving potential and opportunity to people of all ages around the developing world. On our sustainable development goals, the key issue for me is that we leave no one behind. That is extremely important for education, and for the post-school education and vocational training that should be available to all.

I reaffirm the Scottish National party’s commitment to the 0.7% foreign aid target—I believe there is cross-party consensus on that, which I am extremely pleased about. Education for girls is something that we have taken a lead role in and have championed, and we should continue to champion it in future. I will focus particularly on secondary education and girls’ access to it. Our achievements in primary education are changing cultural values and beliefs about the worth of girls, and about the cultural stereotypes that we must overcome. However, until girls have equal access to secondary education, equal value and equal opportunity will never be fully achieved.

Our history shows that, when girls and boys have had access to proper education through to secondary school and further training beyond, it has been possible for all to reach their full potential, no matter which area of the country they come from or whether they come from a disadvantaged background. We need to learn from our own history, but we also need to support those across the developing world to aspire to achieve that. We need to try our very hardest to leave absolutely no one behind.

In some countries that I had the privilege to visit with the International Development Committee, early marriage continued to be an issue, particularly for girls. It took them out of school at the age of 13 or 14, meaning that they were unable to aspire to careers or think about what they wanted to do in their future outwith a marriage at that very early stage of their lives. Secondary education is key to changing those attitudes and stereotypes, and to affording girls the full potential of their own lives and making choices therein.

There were other worries from our work on early marriage. When I visited Nigeria and Kenya, I spoke with local people who said that, although there appears to be less early marriage, it is because it is often not recorded—it still takes place, but it is a cultural marriage and not an official one. The statistics we have do not show the depth of the difficulty we face. I ask the Minister to target young girls who want to continue education and give them support to overcome early marriage where we can. I would also like the Minister to look at the data to ensure that we have accurate statistics on early marriage.

The Committee looked at the importance of data collection on our sustainable development goals. We can use innovative techniques such as mobile phone data to collect appropriate statistics. I would be interested to know how we are updating census material to show that we are working towards the sustainable development goals utilising all data sources, which will be extremely important in that regard.

Jobs and livelihoods are another key issue. It is important that we look beyond the formal role of education and think about vocational training for young people in developing countries. We should lend our support for apprenticeships, sustainable businesses and employment opportunities. When I was in Nigeria, I was rather disappointed to meet Ministers who appeared to be creating vocational training centres focused largely on opportunities for boys. There appeared to be cultural stereotypes—girls did not have the same access and thought was not given to girls’ vocational opportunities.

I have a particular focus on education for disabled children, as hon. Members will attest. I have been chair of the all-party parliamentary group for disability since the previous Parliament. I was heartened to see the work being done and the progress being made on some of the International Development Committee’s visits. We saw work supported by DFID, including work supported from my own constituency of East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow. It is extremely important that we try to lead the way on inclusive education and prioritise it. We have the skills and the ability to support other countries, and it is extremely important that we use them to help the most vulnerable right across the world—disabled children are the most vulnerable. I believe the public would be behind that type of initiative, and I would like to hear from the Minister on that.

An issue that came up during one of our visits—I think it was in Kenya—was that specialist teacher training for work with disabled children tended to be for those in secondary schools. Most disabled children were not reaching secondary school—many were not able to access primary school, but even when they did, they were not going on to secondary school. Where we can, we must focus our efforts on making teacher training inclusive and ensuring it is at the right level, so that teachers who will be working with disabled children are also available in primary schools, where the majority of disabled children will start their education.

Investment in buildings is important. We saw some good examples of wheelchair-accessible schools in Kenya and the difference it can make to children who can then come into the classroom, socialise with peers and have such a better quality of early life. Overcoming marginalisation and ensuring we help the most vulnerable disabled children to achieve their potential is crucial. I argue strongly that we should be leading on that. We cannot fail if we are to meet the sustainable development goal of leaving no one behind.

One example that touched my heart was in Tanzania, where I spoke to people from Sense who informed me about a young girl who was both deaf and blind. Her parents, out of fear for her safety, would tie her to a tree locally for most of the day while they worked in a nearby field, because they worried that she would wander off. Obviously, the risks to her person and the quality of her life were absolutely atrocious, but the parents struggled to know how to sustain the rest of the family while looking after her very specific needs. Sense worked with the family to ensure that a care placement was provided for her during the daytime, to give her an excellent quality of life, comparatively, and to ensure that her parents felt secure in the knowledge that she was safe during the day and that they had the support they needed. Some of these initiatives require additional resourcing, as they are resource-intensive, but the magnitude of change they can make to a young disabled child’s life is without comparison.

I would like to mention the visit I undertook with the International Development Committee to a school in Lebanon that hosted Palestinian refugee children. The work being done there was inspirational. However, the school building lacked windows, and the children had to wear gloves because it was often too cold for them to write and learn. Where we are contributing funds and working on education, I would like us to take a holistic approach to ensure that the environment is conducive to the education of children attending the school.

A worrying issue was raised while I visited camps in Lebanon and Jordan. One camp that we were not able to visit, due to apparent security issues, was for Palestinian refugees. We were told by civil society representatives that the electricity system in the camp, which has been there for many decades, had no health and safety standards, and there were regular reports every week of individuals being electrocuted. Will the Minister follow that up or write to me about the work we are doing there? I understand that we provide education support to the camp, but I was told that we do not provide sanitation, electricity or other basic needs because it is not DFID’s role. However, the very basic human rights are for safety, shelter and sanitation, and people being electrocuted every week is not right. If we are contributing to that camp, health and safety standards must be correct, and we must surely provide for those people’s needs.

While we saw some very good education work by the British Council in the countries we visited, we tended to meet only the most affluent individuals who accessed it. I hope the Minister will tell us how the British Council is reaching out to marginalised and disadvantaged groups and ensuring that children from all backgrounds can learn English with our support.

Finally, I pay tribute to the Send My Friend to School campaign and all the work that our local schools have been doing, which shows how strongly they feel that access to education for all children right around the world is important. I look forward to the Minister’s response and thank the hon. Members for Liverpool, West Derby, and for Stafford (Jeremy Lefroy), for their excellent contributions.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rory Stewart]

The honest answer is that I have seen them, but they are easier to identify in schools where a great deal of investment is going in to individual children. I have a particular case study in mind of a vocational training school that does a three-year course that includes literacy, numeracy and English along with vocational skills, has a business incubation process at the end of it, links people into an industrial park, helps to create the markets and then moves away. But that requires an enormous amount of investment in the individual and is very difficult to replicate at scale.

One of the challenges is that that gold standard, which really does get extraordinary successes—at that particular vocational school, 95% of graduates find their way into employment in those sectors—is being achieved for an expenditure of about $1,200 per person per year. How is that going to be achievable with investment down at $50 to $60?

As I move on with the argument, the key is the very detailed work done by DFID education advisers—looking critically at what goes on on the ground, for example. One of the striking things we see from this conversation going back and forth is the real differences that exist between Kenya and Uganda, or Tanzania and Lebanon, and the different ways in which people are approaching this issue.

The hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby has focused a great deal on spending. We will reply to the hon. Gentleman by letter, having taken on board the overall ODA expenditure on education; the plea for the excellent global partnership, which we do believe in; and the request on the G20 communiqué. All that is fully lodged in the brain. Fundamentally, however, my argument is that, although spending is very important, the big question is not about expenditure but about what we actually do. It is not the “how much”, but the “how”.

How do we sort out teacher training in the developing world? How do we deal with the issue of ghost teachers? How do we deal with the fact that in many cases we are paying the salaries of teachers who do not exist? A survey found that in Ghor province in Afghanistan 3,500 teachers on the Afghan Government payroll were not teachers at all—they were just ordinary people sitting at home and receiving a teacher’s salary. That is replicated again and again across the developing world.

How do we deal with political resistance? How do we deal with a country where a particular political party has taken over the teachers’ union? How hard can the teachers’ union be pushed? How do we deal with the fact that many of the teachers being dealt with are spending most of their time teaching in private schools and only part of their time teaching in the public schools for which they were originally employed?

We all agree that education matters. We are really proud in DFID of what we have done. We are proud that we have achieved this 43% change in the number of people going into primary education. It is extraordinary. Countries such as Pakistan and Afghanistan now see primary school registration rates, theoretically, of 88% or 90% of children. If we look back 15 or 20 years, in Afghanistan, famously, no girl was going to school at all. These are incredible changes, but there is so much more to do.

If I may for a second, I wish to pay tribute to the Secretary of State for International Development, my right hon. Friend the Member for Witham (Priti Patel), who has, as the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow pointed out, put a lot of emphasis on disability. She has also put a lot of emphasis on some of the issues that are raised by Gordon Brown’s Education Commission. One that we have not discussed today is testing and standards—all the grisly stuff that, in the British context, gets everybody overheated about Ofsted. That is a critical question: how much emphasis do we put on testing? More than 50% of the countries concerned have no testing in place.

I am aware that I am trespassing on your patience, Mr Stringer, so I will move toward the end of my speech. I do not wish to continue for too long, but I will make two main points. One, before we all give up in despair, is that there are places where progress has been made. Ethiopia is a striking example of a place that has gone from one in five children in school to four in five. How has that been achieved? Largely through the leadership of the Ethiopian Government, who are genuinely committed to education, teacher training, getting people into remote areas and access for marginalised communities such as disabled people, women and others.

We have had other kinds of experiences in other countries. One question is how to deal with the particular context. In Afghanistan, education is community-based, and Save the Children, CARE and the Aga Khan Development Network work in remote rural villages in Hazarajat. That is quite different from what reform means in Jordan, where USAID has been working with the Jordanian Government on education for nearly 40 years; in the Education Minister’s office, reports are piled up almost to the ceiling. There is almost nothing in one of those reports from 1987 with which we would disagree today, but the challenge has traditionally been implementation, particularly on difficult issues such as how to deal with teachers’ unions—to drop a grenade into the middle of this room.

Dealing with teachers’ unions is not as easy as it might sound in a British context. In Jordan, the issue has famously been dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood. We can discuss the political contexts in other countries, and what they mean for the curriculum and for what goes on in the classroom. In conclusion—to reassure you, Mr Stringer, that I will not remain on my hind feet forever—

[Dr Cameron]

I am listening intently to the Minister’s comprehensive speech. One practical thing that could be done is to give advice and support to those becoming primary school teachers, so that they have the ability, skills and experience to teach disabled children and so that education at that level can be inclusive. In the countries that we visited, some secondary school teachers have had those skills, but they do not reach primary school children.

[Rory Stewart]

I could not agree more. Teacher training is vital, especially teacher training on how to deal with children with disabilities and, in a refugee context, how to deal with children suffering from trauma. One impressive thing that the hon. Member for East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow might have seen in Jordan is the learning centres run by Save the Children and UNICEF, where psycho-social counselling is a strong element of the teaching.

However, there is a more fundamental challenge, which is that in some countries, around 50% to 60% of teachers are illiterate—they cannot read or write. In many other countries, 80% of teachers are educated only one grade above their students: that is, if they are teaching second grade, they have a third grade education. While thinking about how to ensure that teachers can deal with disabled children, we must begin by ensuring that teachers can read and write. If they cannot, it does not matter how good the textbook is or how fancy the internet provision is; the teacher lacks the most basic skills to communicate. We are all a bit polite in this business. At the moment, those kinds of facts—and the fact that more than 60% of the children leaving such schools cannot themselves read or write—are not being mentioned enough in this debate.

To finish with the shadow Minister’s challenge, yes, we will produce an education strategy, which I hope will address many of these issues and more that Mr Stringer has not given me time to address in this debate. Those will include the seriousness of Governments’ commitments to education. What do we do when the national Government are not committed and do not care very much? What do we do in a conflict situation where there is no state in place and almost nobody to work with to drive through education? How do we think about classrooms? In particular, what is the point of a classroom if affordability is a challenge and if uniform or food costs make it impossible for a child to go to school, or if the opportunity costs of that child not being at home to look after livestock or a baby prevent the parents from sending them to school? What do we do with the digital revolution?

Above all, how do we challenge business as usual? How do we move beyond this excellent report and all the wonderful things that we hope will follow from organisations such as the G20 and the UN to realising that there is an enormous, fatal, terrifying gap between rhetoric and reality in this, as in so much else in international development?

Yemen: Political and Humanitarian Situation

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Wednesday 5th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Alison Thewliss]

I absolutely agree with the right hon. Gentleman. I pay tribute to him for going to Yemen with Oxfam, as well as to Oxfam for its work on the ground.

After first mentioning that more than 2 million children under the age of 5 are acutely malnourished, including half a million who are at the most extreme level of that critical danger, I was going to come on to the situation with the cranes and the ports. The World Food Programme has, I understand, been refused access for the four new mobile cranes that it had provided to aid the situation. Could the Minister provide any further updates on the situation with the cranes? If food and medical supplies cannot get in, we are unlikely to see any alleviation of the problem.

It is not just about access to Hodeidah port. There is no access to Sana’a Airport, and the route through Aden is at capacity; people cannot get anything more through there. The aid that is getting through Aden is then subject to an overland journey, which is, as hon. Members can imagine, very difficult and extremely dangerous in a conflict situation for the aid agencies involved. They are having to take aid overland. Had access been possible, that aid could quite easily have gone through Hodeidah port.

On 2 July, the World Health Organisation managed to get a shipment in through Hodeidah, which included 20 ambulances, 100 cholera kits, hospital equipment and 128,000 bags of intravenous fluids. It sounds like big numbers, and it was a 403 tonne shipment that they managed to get in—but there are 200,000 cases of cholera. That is not even enough bags of intravenous fluids for every person that has cholera. It is a drop in the ocean in terms of the need in that region; there is a need to get aid in quickly and to prevent any further delays. We must make all the efforts we can to make sure that aid gets to the people that need it and gets there now. The people in Yemen cannot wait any longer.

I am glad that the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned the issue of arms sales. It is absolutely clear that aid agencies that are working so hard on the ground are being impeded in their work by the bombs falling from the sky above them and the danger that they face every single day. They cannot provide the services that they would like to, because they are constantly under attack.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

My hon. Friend is making a poignant speech. Would she agree that UK Government policy appears to be undermining itself, selling arms on the one hand and trying to provide aid through the Department for International Development on the other?

[Alison Thewliss]

I agree that it is a huge waste of money to be providing aid and to also be endorsing the bombs that are being sold in such huge volumes and at such huge financial value. That has to stop. We cannot continue to ask aid agencies to put their staff at risk every single day. It is not just international aid agencies such as Oxfam, Save the Children, the Norwegian Refugee Council or Islamic Relief, but the locally based aid agencies as well. They are at significantly greater risk, because they are right there on the ground facing severe dangers every single day. I implore the Minister to act to try to provide the support and ceasefire that we need to allow aid agencies to do their work and to prevent any more children dying from preventable causes. It is a situation that we can fix.

Persecution of Christians: Role of UK Embassies

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing this extremely important debate before the House: the first debate of the Parliament in Westminster Hall—

[Jim Shannon]

The first of many.

[Dr Cameron]

Yes—the first of many, I am sure. I commend the hon. Gentleman on his 4 July tie, which has brought a great splash of colour to Westminster Hall. I must declare an interest in this important debate: I am a practising Christian and a member of the all-party parliamentary group on Christians in Parliament.

As we have heard, individuals are persecuted throughout the world for a variety of religious beliefs, not just for Christianity. It is important to stand up for freedom of religion everywhere in the world and for all religious beliefs, and to teach future generations tolerance of religious belief.

Only a few years ago, I enjoyed a family holiday in America—in Pennsylvania—and my children were able to meet Amish communities and to learn about other religions that we might not have much contact with in the UK. The message is that we must have religious tolerance and teach our children it from the word go. That is an important lesson to learn and it will set them up for the rest of their lives, as well as giving them such interesting learning experiences. We can cherish meeting those with different beliefs from around the world.

I want to speak briefly about the role of the Department for International Development. I was a member of the Select Committee on International Development in the previous Parliament and we were fortunate enough to visit Lebanon and Jordan to see the good work being done there. Our aid money is helping some of the most vulnerable refugees in the camps, and I very much appreciated that work. However, when preparing our report, we heard evidence to the Committee that Christians are often fearful of going to refugee camps—they fear persecution and being singled out. They hide their religious beliefs in the refugee camps, and some are so much in fear for their lives and of the potential danger that they will simply not go to the camps.

In countries where we are working with refugees, our work in the field and our aid are important, but we must also ensure that we reach out to marginalised groups, including the Christians whom we heard about in Committee. They might not otherwise figure in our work, so might not benefit from relocation programmes such as those of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. I ask the Minister: what percentage of Christians will feature in those programmes and, wherever possible, will refugees from all religious backgrounds be included in our relocation work?

I have also heard from local churches in my constituency. At times Church groups can feel that their beliefs are marginalised in this country, too. It is extremely important for us to stand up and to say that all faiths have a place in society—their beliefs should never be marginalised. We are an open and multicultural society. It is also important that families with strong religious beliefs are able to access religious education where they feel that that would benefit their children.

I echo the request made by the hon. Member for Strangford: a cross-departmental approach by the FCO, DFID and so on to this very important issue is much needed. We must highlight religious persecution wherever it happens right across the world, but we should also effectively resource our embassies to monitor and ensure freedom of religious beliefs, and advocate that freedom wherever we are in the world.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

Oral Answers to Questions

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Tuesday 28th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

My hon. Friend is right to point to our manifesto commitment. Given the fact that Mugabe is still in place, he will understand that there are limits to what I can say, but I can assure him that we are working on this very hard indeed.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

I congratulate the right hon. Gentleman on his actions last week.

There have been disturbing reports in which six women allege they were targeted for refusing to follow instructions to feign illiteracy, blindness and physical injury, which would have allowed someone else to assist them by marking their ballot. Will the Foreign Secretary urge the police officer in command of Mashonaland central province to investigate these disturbing reports?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady illustrates just one example of what is happening in the country as we lead up to these elections. That is why we and other nation states in the United Nations, and indeed in the African Union, are very concerned. We have limited access ourselves, so we need to place pressure on those countries that are working in the country, to make sure that free and fair elections can take place and that this sort of activity is not carried out.

UN International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination

Lisa Cameron Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2017 Westminster Hall

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Streeter. I particularly thank the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) for bringing such an important debate to Westminster Hall today. Her speech was delivered so eloquently and with such high emotion, which is only right, given the topic. It will be remembered in Parliament for years to come.

Rights to equality and non-discrimination are cornerstones of human rights law. Today, the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights is asking people to “Stand up for Someone’s Rights Today”, which is an important step that I believe we should all be taking. I will speak briefly about three main issues today: the impact of discrimination on the individual, the impact on refugee communities, which are extremely vulnerable, and why we must learn lessons from the past and never forget them.

Racial discrimination is surely toxic, not only for the individual who experiences it, but for society. It has an impact on people’s self-esteem and it can even lead to mental health issues, such as depression, loneliness, isolation or feeling ostracised. Discrimination closes us to experience, rather than opening our appreciation for diversity, culture and religion. It is an unhealthy position to take: it undermines the self-worth of those who experience it, but it is also unhealthy for those who discriminate, because it closes them off from experiences of culture, religion and tolerance that would enhance their own being.

Education is key, particularly for younger generations at school and beyond. The internet can widen our horizons, but it can also be a place where people experience discrimination and intolerance. Surely we should be looking at the UK Government’s policy on that and at how they work with providers. The internet can help us to connect. It can be positive; it can help us to speak to people from different nations, understand their experiences and learn about their lives. It can be a doorway to understanding, but it must be used appropriately. It can be very important in the future, given the way in which we can link with people from right across the world in an interactive manner.

Secondly, racial discrimination can impact upon disenfranchised communities, particularly refugee populations. It is not helpful to ban particular races from entering countries, and I implore the President of the United States to reconsider his actions in that regard, because his policy has no actual basis in risk assessment or risk management. Such a heuristic measure does nothing to promote understanding, tolerance or integration, and in the long run it does little for security.

We must understand that often refugees are fleeing conflict, torture, starvation, malnutrition or other significant life-impacting situations—things that we would never want ourselves or our families to experience. As a member of the International Development Committee, I was privileged to visit the refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon at the end of last year and to meet and speak with refugee families and their children. I was able to interact with the young children in their schools, including those who were traumatised and had not been able to speak for days or even weeks, and needed mental health care—those needed expert help and assistance. I was told about the difficulties that host communities experienced in integrating large numbers of refugees, and the strains that Governments felt were being placed on local jobs and on education and health systems. Both Jordan and Lebanon have done much to address these issues, but there is much more to do.

When Governments do not allow refugees to live, work or engage properly in local communities, it creates a “them and us” attitude. It reduces tolerance and understanding. Integration, tolerance-building and learning from each other, are key to the way forward. We should encourage Governments to progress in this manner, but we also need to look at our own role, particularly over the Dubs amendment, and our attitude to refugees. Lone children in Europe; those who need our assistance; those who are vulnerable; those who may be disabled; those who have no parents to help to look after them—surely we must be able to open our hearts to those children and, more importantly, offer them refuge.

[Bob Stewart (Beckenham) (Con)]

One thing that severely worries me is that I get many letters from constituents who say that the matter of children coming into this country is of deep concern to them. I write back and say, “I have not had one constituent who has said to me, ‘I will take a child into my house’.” That really worries me, when we compare it with what happened in 1938-39 with the Kindertransport. We have changed in the way we approach this sort of thing.

[Dr Cameron]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his intervention. We must open our hearts and our homes to lone children. It is incumbent upon us as a progressive society to do so, and I know that local authorities in Scotland are keen to accept more children and more child refugees.

[Bob Stewart]

Local authorities, not families.

[Mr Gary Streeter (in the Chair)]

Order.

[Dr Cameron]

I know from speaking to Save the Children that those children are very much in need. Many of them are going missing; we do not know what has become of them. As a country with a responsibility in the world, surely we must take that very seriously.

Thirdly, learning lessons from the past is important. If we cannot learn lessons from the holocaust and ensure that such dehumanisation of a race never occurs again, then there is little that we can learn in this world at all. It is incumbent upon us to challenge discrimination wherever it occurs—in schools, colleges, the workplace and beyond. Political leaders must lead and ensure that anti-Semitism and other forms of discrimination are challenged in all of our systems.

We all have a part to play, from the nursery teacher teaching our toddlers to the university lecturer to politicians. We must challenge discrimination at all levels of society. Only then will we achieve true equality: when we stand up, stand together and ensure that we are no longer divided but that we celebrate diversity.