Violence in the West Bank

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 4th July 2023 Commons Chamber

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I say, across this House we continue our long-standing position of a two-state solution. We will continue to work with partners across the world to find a solution that allows that to happen. In the meantime, we are deeply troubled by the level of violence and we continue to call on Israel, while defending itself and its citizens, to demonstrate the restraint required to ease the situation in Jenin today.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

My thoughts go out to the people affected by the horrific attacks on the Jenin refugee camp. We must be clear that this is a violation of international law and that the occupying forces, in particular, have a responsibility to end the violence. I will give a clear suggestion of a possible action: will the UK Government send a clear message of condemnation by bringing to an end the importation into the UK of goods that are produced in those Israeli settlements that are deemed illegal under international law?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

As I say, we will continue to make calls on Israel—[Interruption.] Goods made in the settlements are not allowed to be imported, and that continues to be the case. We continue to grow the work that we do on trade with Israel, the Palestinian Authority and the OPTs, and I know the Department for Business and Trade is focused on that development work.

Afghan Women and Girls

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for Afghan women and girls.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mrs Latham.

“We are deeply concerned about the apparent perpetration in Afghanistan of gender persecution—a systematic and grave human rights violation and a crime against humanity.”

Those are the words of the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, and the chair of the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls at the end of a visit to Afghanistan last month. Because of the gravity and extent of the issues that we are debating today, I hope Members will allow me to spend a short time outlining the events of the last 22 months in Afghanistan.

In August 2021, Kabul fell to the Taliban; within two weeks the UK had withdrawn from the country, ending a 20-year presence. There was a promise that women would not suffer under the Taliban’s regime. That was viewed with suspicion, which has proven to be correct. In March 2022, girls in Afghanistan were barred from attending secondary school—they have not returned. Shortly thereafter women were barred from travelling more than 48 miles without a male guardian, and that requirement in May 2022 was extended to any time a woman leaves her home. Despite that rule, men and women could not mix and were banned from dining out together or attending public spaces such as parks at the same time. That de facto ban is now formalised in all public recreation spaces.

In December last year there were a series of assaults on the ability of Afghan women to work. They may not attend university, teach or work with non-governmental organisations. They may not undertake any public office. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has been disbanded and replaced by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Women are required to wear a full body veil. Women and the men who are suspected of opposing the Taliban are harassed, kept in arbitrary detention, tortured and killed. I am sure that we have all received correspondence in our role as MPs that confirms those facts. Such a crime against humanity is so big and so appalling that it is tempting to look away. Those of us here today know that we cannot and that the Government must not.

On a basic level, millions of people are in dire need in Afghanistan. According to the World Food Programme, nearly 25 million Afghans are living in poverty, and the UN estimates that two thirds of the Afghan population will need humanitarian assistance this year. To put it another way, in evidence to the all-party parliamentary group on Afghan women and girls, which I co-chair, a representative from Save the Children told us that only 3% of families can currently meet all their basic needs, including food and shelter.

It is true that Afghanistan was facing difficulties prior to the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban. Economic conditions were deteriorating and droughts were increasing poverty and food insecurity. There are serious questions over the approach taken in relation to UK aid, but I know that the International Development Committee is doing excellent work examining that, so I will not consider it in detail today. What is irrefutable is that the economy and the provision of the most basic services have declined significantly in the past two years.

Expelling half of working-age adults from the workplace inevitably damages an economy, with businesses closed because of lack of staff, lack of customers, or both. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, and an expensive one. The World Economic Forum has found that the bans on women working will cause a loss of $600 million to GDP in the short term, while restrictions could lead to a further $1.5 billion loss of output by the end of next year. Meanwhile, a lack of aid, limited by many countries in the wake of the Taliban’s violent seizure of power and the exclusion of women from public life restricts access to public services, including, critically, healthcare. That is simply a perfect storm for many women. Following decades of fighting, many households are headed by women, who make up the majority of NGO workers. Those families are hit hardest by the Taliban’s edicts. The evidence from networks of Afghan women heard by the APPG is that women and children are commonly seen in groups begging. They face extreme poverty. Children are being sold, and child marriage is rising. This is in no way abstract.

When the APPG has heard from organisations that have been able to resume some kind of service, usually in nutrition or health, that resumption has taken place only region by region when exemptions from the edict banning women from working with NGOs have been agreed. The exemptions are obviously not secure, and are at constant risk of being revoked by the Taliban.

I accept that none of that is straightforward, particularly when the outcome is a decision not to provide fundamental assistance, but evidence from NGOs on the ground is clear: the women who need the most assistance are less likely to be reached by all-male teams. In any case, accepting the restriction would set a precedent and suggest that the Taliban’s rules were being accepted.

I am sure the Minister is concerned about the operation of NGOs on the ground in Afghanistan and about the need to try to prevent the humanitarian disaster we see unfolding. I hope he will use his time in the Chamber today to update Members on conversations the Government are having with NGOs and the approach the Government will take to the provision of aid to regional actors.

Will the Minister update Members on the breadth of NGOs with which the Government are engaging? This is a constant theme for the APPG and one to which I shall return, but it appears that only limited interests are being listened to by the Government. We need to ensure that we hear a wider range of voices, and that those voices are amplified and listened to. For example, a lesser-known organisation that has given evidence to the APPG is the Aseel phone app, which provides a digital platform that gives humanitarian aid directly through connected citizens, rather than incurring the bureaucracy and overheads of larger organisations. How can we here support such innovation by those who are in the country?

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The point the hon. Lady has made about the potential of technologies as ways to send money directly to citizens who are suffering under the tyranny of organisations such as the Taliban is significant for the UK Government. Obviously, we need to ensure that the security is tight, but technology offers a non-traditional way to get support directly to people who would otherwise suffer.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the right hon. Member, who is my APPG co-chair, for that intervention, and yes, I agree entirely. The Aseel app is innovative in that it allows people out of or within the country to send money to buy food and other essential goods and services that are provided by people in-country. That money is not just aid or a handout; it is providing work in the Afghan economy.

On the subject of NGOs and aid spending, I urge the Minister to use this opportunity to pledge a reversal of the spending cuts in Afghanistan. This is simply the worst time to withdraw funds. Not only is every pound desperately needed, but for each pound spent two more are now required to achieve the same impact, owing to the expense involved in operating safely in Afghanistan.

If the Minister is unable to make such a pledge today, I hope that he will return to his colleagues with the message not only that more funding, not less, is needed, but that spending must at least return to three-year cycles to allow for forward planning. Reducing funding allocations to a limited annual basis might have been understandable as a temporary measure at the height of the pandemic, but those days have passed. Meanwhile, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact is clear that there will be both operational and reputational impacts for the UK aid programme if the one-year cycle is maintained.

A specific way in which Afghan women and girls need support is through education. Secondary school girls have been kept at home and away from learning for more than a year, with no hope of a return in sight. Those girls might have reached their adolescence, but they are children, and their future is being stolen from them. Research by Save the Children has found that 25% of care givers believe that the teenage girls in their care are chronically depressed. No matter what political situation unfolds in Afghanistan in five, 10 or 15 years, there are millions of girls who arguably will always struggle to support and advocate for themselves, and to know their worth, as a result of the trauma and the restrictions under which they currently exist.

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Member for bringing that case to light. There is no doubt: right from the outset of the fall of Kabul, our failure properly to support our British Council colleagues working in country was quite shameful. We need to do more. They are people who should come under existing routes. We talk about needing new routes, but the existing ones are woefully inadequate and are not doing what they were designed to do—indeed, what we were all assured they would do when we were told about them on the Floor of the House.

In relation to visas, I want to focus the Minister’s attention on one issue and I hope he can update us on this today: the ability of women, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham, to reach third-party countries—I am concerned that could be used as an excuse not to do what we should be doing—and their support and safety in those countries before visas are approved. I had an email from a former female judge who is now stuck in Pakistan. Women have very specific limited mobility. They cannot just leave their homes and head to the border. Pakistan is not necessarily a safe country for vulnerable women to be spending time without family and resources. We have to acknowledge that. I am no expert on what the solution might be, but there are many at the Government’s disposal in the region and in security. The UK must be a safe haven for Afghan women and any visa route must be designed with those women and their specific needs in mind.

I have touched on the very real issues where the UK Government can and should provide support: aid, education, healthcare, infrastructure and safe passage. As I conclude, I want to turn to the Government’s strategic priorities in Afghanistan. This year has seen the publication of the UK women, peace and security national action plan and the international women and girls strategy. It is not clear how they apply to the Government’s actions in Afghanistan. The Minister will know that strategic objectives for his Department under the action plan are to increase women’s participation, leadership and representation in decision making; to prevent gender-based violence; to support the needs of women and girls in crises, and ensure that they can participate and lead in responses; to increase the accountability of security and justice actors to women and girls; and to ensure they respond to the need of women and girls as part of their approach to transnational threats.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The hon. Lady is being generous with her time. One thing completely within the Government’s power is the steps they take with the integration of Afghan refugees to the United Kingdom. My office has been working with a young woman called Mah through Urdd Gobaith Cymru, which is much engaged with the integration of Afghan refugees at its centre in Cardiff, which has been recognised as an exemplar.

Surely we should look to prepare women and girls for the possibility of going back to Afghanistan, and ensure that they have every opportunity through education and skills gaining. We should also recognise the way that dynamics work in Afghan families in the UK. I hope to work with Mah to set up a toolkit to support women and girls as they arrive in the UK from Afghanistan, but I sincerely believe that this is something the Government should be leading on, showing what they can do within their powers in the United Kingdom.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

We have to remember these people come to the UK fleeing conflict in Afghanistan. Many of them, if the situation changes in Afghanistan, want to go back to help and support. I think about the judges that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) works to support, and about those who are former MPs or have worked for NGOs. These are women who care passionately about their country and want to return to make it better, when and if they can, and we should look to do anything we can do to help them maintain that while they are here in the UK.

The women and girls strategy sets out the principles by which the Minister’s Department will be governed: standing up and speaking out for women’s and girls’ rights and freedoms; emboldening and amplifying the work of diverse grassroots women’s organisations and movements; targeting investment towards the key life stages for women and girls; acting for and with women and girls impacted by crises and shocks; and strengthening the political, economic and social systems that protect and empower women.

Those are all excellent ideals and I am sure that everyone here, regardless of party, can get behind them, but I want to ask the Minister what they actually mean for women and girls in Afghanistan. What can I tell the networks of Afghan women who give evidence to our APPG about what the Government’s concrete plans are? I will be quite honest, Minister: they are not feeling very positive about the UK and its role in relation to Afghanistan. How are the Government standing up and speaking for their rights and freedoms? How are the Government working with the whole spectrum of women’s organisations? How are the Government supporting Afghan women’s leadership? How are the Government investing in women and girls? How are the Government preventing gender-based violence, which is institutionalised across Afghanistan?

I will give the Minister a simple starting point, as I conclude. Will he today join the UN in naming the atrocities in Afghanistan for what they are—a gender apartheid? Every point here is vital; everything needs addressing by the Government. Frankly, it should not need me and this debate for the Government to hear the voices of Afghan women. The APPG has heard from women with a wide variety of perspectives and experience, yet the Government have so far declined actively to engage. Let me state that more clearly. These women are here—the secretariat of the APPG is here today—and they are experts who want to share their expertise, but the Government seem to block them from the rooms where the decisions about them are being made. Engaging with a small number of stakeholders is not good enough, and it is not representative.

It is not often that politicians want to make themselves obsolete, but in this case I really do. I urge the Government to make my role as an intermediary obsolete, and to engage directly with all the Afghan women and regional experts who are at their disposal. They may be silenced in their home country; that cannot persist here.

UK’s Exit from the European Union

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 24th April 2023 Westminster Hall

[Martyn Day]

I am happy to agree with that. The more I learn, the more I realise that there is no such thing as a good Brexit. I think we are all seeing that clearly.

The Trade Secretary’s reason for saying what she did could be that, according to the UK Government’s own scoping assessment, the shiny new CPTPP trade bloc deal will bring an increase of only 0.08% in GDP over a lengthy 15 years. The House of Commons Library reports that the economic benefits of CPTPP membership “appear to be small.”

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The hon. Gentleman mentions the 0.08% boost to GDP promised by access to the CPTPP. Surely, in all honesty, for the sake of our economy the time has come to stop burying our heads in the sand. We cannot just multiply excuses; we have got to face the reality that Brexit is part of the problem. With that, from Plaid Cymru’s point of view, we should be looking to move towards rejoining the single market, but the first part is to recognise that there are multiple causes and that Brexit is a critical one of them.

[Martyn Day]

I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. It is fair to say that the economic impact of Brexit falls well short of the benefits that the UK enjoyed with EU membership; the OBR expects our withdrawal from that to reduce the overall trade intensity of the UK economy by 15% in the long term. The OBR’s latest Brexit analysis assumes that the trade and co-operation agreement, which sets the terms of the post-Brexit trading relationship between the UK and the EU, will reduce the potential productivity of the UK economy by 4%, largely due to the increase in non-tariff barriers.

In rebutting those figures during the CPTPP announcement, the Trade Secretary pointed out that the OBR’s forecasting was speculative. However, the OBR’s economic and fiscal outlook last month highlighted that it had been reviewing and refining its assumptions about the economic impact of Brexit as new evidence arrived and that, two years into the trade and co-operation agreement, the trends on UK trade volumes remained consistent with its assumptions. Additionally, the OBR forecasts stem from out-turn data published by the Office for National Statistics. The latest data from the third quarter of 2022 suggested that UK trade volumes remain 3% below their 2019 level, while there has been an average increase of 5.5% across other G7 countries. Similarly, trade intensity is 2.6% lower than its pre-pandemic level in the UK, yet it is 3.6% higher in the rest of the G7.

A recent study estimates that UK goods trade was 7% lower in June 2022 than it would have been were we still in the EU. All in all, in terms of trading, the Pacific rim trade deal, along with the already-signed agreements with Australia and New Zealand, which have yet to come into force, has limited positive economic impact to compensate for what we have lost due to the UK Government pushing through a hard Brexit deal outside the EU single market and customs union.

In December 2021, the National Audit Office predicted that the macroeconomic benefits of free trade agreement negotiations being carried out by the UK Government at the time would only increase the UK’s GDP by between 0.33%, at best, and 0.17%, at worst, after 50 years. From those projections, the USA was the biggest potential FTA partner. However, although negotiations started nearly three years ago, there is no trade agreement with the USA, and neither is one expected any time soon. The relatively modest economic benefits projected from the secured and proposed agreements by the Department for International Trade have therefore further decreased.

Compare that with where we were: part of the second largest and most-integrated world trading blocs, which also happens to lead the way in global standards and regulations. Maybe the Prime Minister’s idea about mandatory maths for everyone up to the age of 18 holds some credence after all, as the sums certainly do not add up. The Pacific rim trade deal also has wider negative impacts, such as its inclusion of investor-state dispute settlement clauses, which I am totally against, and environmental costs. For example, the UK Government’s own analysis stated that joining CPTPP is estimated to increase the UK’s domestic greenhouse gas emissions. How that complies with the UK Government’s net zero ambitions escapes me; perhaps the Minister can enlighten us on that point, too.

Like the Pacific rim trade deal, Brexit is causing damage on multiple levels, but I will try to confine my remarks to the specific issues that the petition mentions, and move on to how Brexit is impacting on opportunities for young people and on the rights of individuals. Before doing so, let me point out the obvious: the damaging impact of Brexit on trade and the economy undoubtedly has ripple effects on opportunities and rights. That said, I will start with the removal of the right to free movement—not just for work purposes—which puts barriers in place for both UK and EU citizens and causes workforce shortages in key sectors, including the crucial health and care sector, due to the simple matter of travel, which is now much less straightforward and flexible.

We have only to look back a couple of weeks to see the delays at Dover over the Easter break, which were caused by new passport stamping requirements, and we can look forward to worse delays to come when the EU’s post-Brexit entry-exit system, or EES, comes into effect next year. This new border control for non-EU travellers, which Brexit has made us, has been described as “anticipated chaos”—another Brexit benefit for us all to look forward to. Delays at customs are also a major headache for manufacturers, with 31% predicting that owing to new trading rules, customs delays will be the biggest risk to their company’s competitiveness in 2023, and 36% of small and medium-sized businesses are still struggling with the new customs procedures and paperwork.

There are also privacy rights, with the EU’s general data protections regulations thus far serving us well in protecting our personal data. To replace them, the Science Secretary has recently put forward the new Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill to supersede its predecessor, which was repeatedly delayed. However, I have serious concerns that the Bill will, first, erode the high standards of data protection rights that UK citizens held as part of the EU GDPR and, secondly, further negatively impact on any review of the UK-EU trade deal if it fails to protect EU citizens. I want to see a commitment to robust data privacy protections and world-beating data protection regulations being maintained. However, on the Bill’s Second Reading last week, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North West (Carol Monaghan) put on the record that, with regards to how this piece of post-Brexit legislation will affect individuals’ rights, the Open Rights Group has said:

“The government has an opportunity to strengthen the UK’s data protection regime post Brexit. However, it is instead setting the country on a dangerous path that undermines trust, furthers economic instability, and erodes fundamental rights.”

Back in 2016, the Vote Leave campaign described EU regulations as excessive red tape. Like it or not, regulation is essential not just for the EU single market to function, but to protect workers. The UK Government’s Retained EU Law (Revocation and Reform) Bill, which was brought forward despite it not being known exactly how many regulations it would affect, will enable the UK Government to abandon vital legislation that has protected people’s rights for almost 50 years. In Committee in the House of Commons, my hon. Friend the Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) tabled many amendments that targeted multiple issues in that Bill, including about workers’ rights, food standards, consumer safety and the uncertainty facing businesses. It is a disgrace that those concerns were ignored by the UK Government and that all SNP amendments were voted down by Conservative MPs.

On the impact of Brexit on opportunities for young people, it is no exaggeration to say that it has removed their access to a European, if not global, labour market. Instead of prioritising young people, enhancing their opportunities and widening access to positive destinations to ensure that they get the best possible start in life, Brexit has stolen those prospects for success.

Mahsa Amini

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2022 Commons Chamber

[Gillian Keegan]

As I outlined to my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith), we cannot comment on this action or on any future discussions that may take place.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Today is the International Day of the Girl and, of course, everybody in this Chamber stands firm against the violent oppression of women in Iran. We have seen similar brutality in other countries such as Afghanistan, where the Taliban have cracked down on gender-based rights and where 53 Hazara girls were recently killed in a terrorist attack. Many women and girls wish to flee these violent regimes for their own safety. Will the Minister support women in Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere by creating a dedicated UK asylum and resettlement route for women at risk of persecution solely for asserting the rights that we take for granted?

[Gillian Keegan]

We continue to work closely with like-minded partners to ensure that Iran and other countries are held to account, including via the Human Rights Council in Geneva and the UN General Assembly in New York. Our permanent representative in Geneva, Ambassador Simon Manley, specifically raised the death of Mahsa Amini at the 51st session of the Human Rights Council, and he called on Iran to carry out an independent transparent investigation into her death. We joined 52 other countries in a joint statement to the Human Rights Council urging restraint. Of course, we will continue to work with those partners when we see human rights abuses in other countries.

Women’s Rights to Reproductive Healthcare: United States

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 28th June 2022 Commons Chamber

[Amanda Milling]

As my hon. Friend rightly says, we do not have the ability to legislate for other countries or jurisdictions, but I can reassure the House that this is an incredibly important matter and SRHR is something that we continue to promote and defend, particularly at the United Nations and in other international forums.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr, Dirprwy Lefarydd. Yesterday, the UK Government confirmed that they would undermine both devolution and Welsh workers’ rights by scrapping the Trade Union (Wales) Act 2017. We in Wales have taken steps to protect women’s access to healthcare by making permanent the covid measures that allowed women to take early medical abortion tablets at home. In England, women’s access to such services has been reduced by allowing such provisions to expire. Will the Minister guarantee that this Government will never interfere with women’s reproductive rights in Wales?

Shireen Abu Aqla

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 16th May 2022 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I call Liz Saville Roberts.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr, Mr Llefarydd. The International Federation of Journalists’ complaint to the ICC about the treatment of Palestinian journalists is about not only protecting the human rights of journalists, but safeguarding the work that they do as a profession to protect collective human rights. The Secretary of State has spoken many times about the need for an independent and impartial investigation. To ensure that independence and impartiality, will she support the IFJ’s complaint to the International Criminal Court to ensure those very virtues?

[Vicky Ford]

As I said, we have been working with our friends and other members of the UN Security Council on the joint statement about the investigation. I do not have any further details that I can share with the right hon. Member at present.

Ukraine

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 28th March 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

Humanitarian aid is going directly into Ukraine—some of it is being delivered by the UN agency and by international Red Cross, and some by the Ukrainian Government themselves. In terms of the aid that is supporting in neighbouring countries, we are working through the UN but we are also working directly with the Government of Poland and other neighbouring Governments who have an effective system to be able to deliver that aid. So a lot of the aid we are putting in is going to those Governments so that they can distribute it. We are also acting as a deliverer of logistics for third-party Governments. For example, the Australians have contributed donations and we are doing the logistics to get that Australian aid into the neighbouring nations and also directly into Ukraine.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

My constituent Gareth Roberts is currently in Prague with his Ukrainian wife Nataliia and her daughter and granddaughter, awaiting news of their family visa application. Like many others caught up in this Kafkaesque dystopia of excessive bureaucracy and insufficient capacity, they are beginning to run out of funds. Granddaughter Albina has scoliosis, which means she has to wear a brace for 23 hours every day. Comfortable accommodation is not a luxury for them; it is a necessity—so much so that the family are contemplating applying for refugee status in the Czech Republic. I trust that the Minister speaks regularly to her Home Office colleagues, so can she confirm that people who are forced to apply for refugee status in other countries due to slow UK bureaucracy will not then be made ineligible for family visas here in the UK?

[Elizabeth Truss]

I will take up the right hon. Lady’s case urgently with the Home Office to get it resolved as soon as possible.

Sanctions

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Monday 28th February 2022 Commons Chamber

[Elizabeth Truss]

The hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) asked about our friends across the Commonwealth, and I assure her that we are approaching them to secure their support for the sanctions, for the strong stance against Russia and for the Ukrainian people.

On the subject of humanitarian relief in neighbouring countries, we have sent teams to support Poland and Slovakia. We have launched our campaign, and we will launch a further public appeal to secure further humanitarian donations. In fact, I am due to meet my Polish counterpart in Geneva tomorrow, and we will be working very closely with our allies in eastern Europe to support the people of Ukraine.

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

I welcome BP’s decision to divest from Rosneft after I raised the issue with the Prime Minister last week.

International sanctions now include Russia’s civilian aircraft fleet. The UK has a part to play in their enforcement because, as of yesterday, 713 leased Russian aircraft are registered in Bermuda, a British overseas territory. For far too long, weak UK regulation of Londongrad and tax haven overseas territories has enabled Putin’s regime. What discussions has the right hon. Lady had with the British overseas territories to ensure the immediate and effective implementation of UK sanctions against Russia?

[Elizabeth Truss]

Like the right hon. Lady, I welcome BP’s divestment. We are working closely with the overseas territories to make sure that Putin’s oligarchs have nowhere to hide.

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 16th November 2021 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

In February, the Minister assured us that the UK Government were using every tool in their diplomatic arsenal and doing everything they could to get Nazanin home. Does the hon. Lady want to ask the Minister, as I do, what is missing from those diplomatic tools, because so far they have failed to bring anything about?

[Tulip Siddiq]

What I would say is that in the nearly six years that Richard Ratcliffe and I have been campaigned to get Nazanin home, we have heard every platitude. We have heard about no stones being unturned. We have heard about how this issue is top of the Government’s agenda. We know it is their highest priority, but warm words are not enough any more. After six years, I want to see my constituent come home. I do not want to hear from the Government the same rhetoric over and over again, which is what we are hearing.

Global Britain: Human Rights and Climate Change

Liz Saville Roberts Excerpts

Tuesday 7th September 2021 Westminster Hall

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

Diolch yn fawr, Llefarydd. It is an honour to follow the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon). First, I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Arfon (Hywel Williams) for securing this debate, and for his welcome remarks on the need to move to an inclusive global human rights-orientated foreign policy approach. He rightly draws attention to this Government’s failure to take full advantage of the UK’s roles, both as co-hosts of COP26 and as current president of the G7, to secure definitive climate action ahead of November.

Equally worrying is our relative failure compared to the efforts of the French Government in 2015 to secure conclusive global engagement, or even to mobilise a common cross-Government approach to the upcoming summit. “GB: Global Britain”, as a slogan, has frankly failed to mean anything tangible in Whitehall, let alone to our partners abroad. Alliteration is not the same thing as action.

However, I would like my remarks today to focus on the broader issue of migration and displacement that is attributable to climate change, as referred to by my hon. Friend. That is, of course, an issue that is real and pressing, both here in the UK and abroad. The UN Refugee Agency believes that already, due to increasing intensity and frequency of extreme weather events, more than 20 million people, on average, are being internally displaced annually. Despite such suffering, appropriate descriptions, such as the term “climate refugee” are yet to receive a solid legal basis that would, following accordingly, give them international protection and rights. I therefore invite and would welcome a comment from the Minister today on the Government’s approach to the rights of people displaced by climate change, and on how the Government will be raising this point at the upcoming COP26 summit.

Displacement due to climate change is also happening here, in the UK. In my constituency lies Fairbourne, and the UK’s first community facing decommissioning. These are people who do not know where their homes will be, and what the value of their community is, per se. Will they be kept together? How will the infrastructure be dealt with, and what remains of that community? What are the rights of these people? All of the legislation that we have in place overrides their rights. Until we know what their rights are here, it is difficult for us to talk about those abroad. They have been left in limbo, by both the UK and the Welsh Government, and by our wider modern economy and social safety net. Their plight demonstrates that if we, even as one of the world’s wealthiest nations, cannot properly respect and look after our own, we cannot expect developing nations, who will be more affected by climate change than the UK, to do so?

To close, I hope that the Minister and the Government will take on board my hon. Friend’s call for an ethical, human rights-based foreign policy that acknowledges the importance of international law, the role of international institutions, and the inviolability of human rights, both here and abroad.

[Mr Clive Betts (in the Chair)]

We now move on to the Front Benches: five minutes for the SNP, five minutes for the Opposition, and 10 minutes for the Minister.