Commonwealth Day

Liz McInnes Excerpts

Monday 11th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Liz McInnes (Heywood and Middleton) (Lab)]

I thank the Minister of State for advance sight of her statement on this, Commonwealth Day. The Commonwealth is more important than ever in a world where there is currently a grave lack of global leadership, where the credibility and relevance of our great international institutions is under threat, and where human rights and the rule of law are being disregarded by dozens of Governments and deprioritised by dozens of others. In a world like that, we desperately need the global leadership and co-ordinated international action that the Commonwealth can offer. We desperately need a strong and united Commonwealth to demonstrate to the rest of the world why institutions such as this are so important, and we desperately need a Commonwealth that will defend and promote respect for human rights and the rule of law. If the Commonwealth can do all those things, it will remain a vital force for good in our world and a central part of Britain’s multilateral relationships, not because we simply see Commonwealth countries as trading partners, but because we see them as essential partners in all the challenges faced by the world and by each of our nations.

However, even on the day when we celebrate the Commonwealth, we must be honest about those areas where things have gone backward over the past year and where the Commonwealth needs to be a stronger force for promoting peace, democracy and human rights. We think, obviously, of the current tension between India and Pakistan. We also think of the democratic instability that we have seen in Sri Lanka, Nigeria and Kenya; of the deteriorating human rights situations in Uganda, Singapore and elsewhere; of the dreadful impunity of the Biya regime in Cameroon; and of the discrimination that continues in far too many Commonwealth countries against the LGBT community. I believe that it was a missed opportunity when the Government failed to put that issue formally on the agenda at the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting in London last April.

Will the Minister make it a priority, when Britain becomes co-chair of the Equal Rights Coalition in June, to seek to persuade more members of the Commonwealth to join that coalition? It cannot be right that a coalition that exists to promote the human rights of the LGBT community should have on it just six members of the Commonwealth and none from Africa, Asia or the Caribbean. We have a particular responsibility to promote that goal across that Commonwealth, along with all our other human rights goals. It is a historical debt we owe to many Commonwealth countries since it is because of us that they have these anti-LGBT laws on their statute books in the first place. The Prime Minister was right to apologise for that fact last year, but it is time for action as well as words.

I will finish with another issue where we literally owe a historic debt to members of the Commonwealth. As the Minister will know, it was recently revealed that when the men of the East Africa Force—hundreds of thousands of black, white and Asian soldiers drawn from Britain’s African colonies—received their demob pay at the end of the second world war, it was strictly calibrated according to their race, with a black African soldier paid a third of the amount given to his white African counterparts of equal rank. Many of the soldiers who faced that discrimination are still alive, but they have yet to receive even an apology from the Government, let alone compensation.

The Opposition have yet to receive any answers to the letter we wrote a month ago asking the Government, first, whether this racial discrimination also applied to the demob pay given to soldiers from the British Indian Army and the Caribbean Regiment in 1945; secondly, whether the Government knew how many men were affected in total and how many were still alive; and thirdly, what they planned to do in response. The Minister may not have those answers right now—I would not expect her to—but can she at least indicate when we can expect those answers and when the surviving men of the East Africa Force and any other affected veterans can expect the official acknowledgement and apology that are the very least they deserve?

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

I call Ian Liddell-Grainger.