War in Sudan

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Monday 3rd March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. One of the things we have been concerned about—which we have raised with both parties—is access to humanitarian aid. While one side says you can have that access, it does not cross the warring parties, so we cannot get to the people who desperately need it. He is absolutely right that we have to look at all means to ensure that we get help in. In terms of the April conference, we are engaging with civil society and the Taqaddum leadership—now called Somoud, where there has been a slight breakaway—and we are concerned to ensure that we have an inclusive dialogue. I met the chargé d’affaires for Sudan last week, and I made clear that we demand humanitarian access. We have committed additional funds, but we want proper access to all parts of Sudan so that nobody suffers.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, with 24 million people in Sudan, half the population in acute need of food, including 1.5 million on the edge of famine, how does the Minister respond to Annaliese Dodds’s statement that it would be “impossible” to deliver the proposed further cuts to aid without hitting programmes in Sudan, with women and children being principal victims? Can he also say where he believes the Sudanese Armed Forces are obtaining their weaponry, particularly in regard to the repositioning of Russian assets from Syria to Sudan via Libya?

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

The noble Lord had two questions; I will answer the latter first. We are totally aware of a number of parties supplying arms, including Russian elements, which end up supporting not only the SAF but the other party too—they seem to have a continued interest in ensuring that the war carries on. To come back on his other question, as the Prime Minister made very clear, we are in unique circumstances at the moment with a generational change, and it is absolutely vital that this country is able to defend itself fully and to defend all the values that we hold so dear. He is absolutely committed, and he made that very clear at the weekend. But he also made clear that we are determined to support—as the noble Lord, Lord Purvis, said—humanitarian aid in Sudan. As a consequence of the reduction, we will make a detailed analysis of how that spending will be allocated through the spending review process that has already started, so I am not going to predetermine that. But I believe that the Prime Minister is absolutely committed to ensuring that humanitarian aid gets into this worst humanitarian situation in Sudan.