Sudan

Lord Alton of Liverpool Excerpts

Tuesday 21st April 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The noble Lord is absolutely right. This is not particularly a challenge with money; last week, the international community rallied together and raised more than £1 billion to spend on aid for the people of Sudan. As he rightly says, it is how we get that aid to the people who need it most. We are doubling the amount that we spend with local responders, because often they are the right people and the best people to co-ordinate in the most effective way on the ground. It is vital that the warring parties in Sudan, and anyone who is obstructing access for aid, stops doing that immediately. It has almost become competitive, to see who can put the most restrictions on agencies, which are hoping to get aid to where it is needed. It is completely wrong—the aid is there and the resources are there, and we just need the ability to get access.

[Lord Alton of Liverpool (CB)]

My Lords, in this fourth year of Sudan’s war, will the Minister take the opportunity to underline the link between the 14 million people whom the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees says are displaced in Sudan and the desperate Sudanese people who end up in small boats in the English Channel? Secondly, can she say how the Government are responding to what a UN report says are defining characteristics—“hallmarks of genocide”—with mass killings of over 59,000 people, rampant sexual violence and war crimes, including attacks on hospitals, ambulances and medical workers?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

As the noble Lord knows, the UK is supporting a sexual and gender-based violence representative to make sure that there is accountability. The fact that sexual violence is used in the way that it is, to the extent that it is in Sudan, often with absolute impunity, is something that the international community needs to act on now and make sure that we reflect on constantly once this is over, because it is something we have seen before, we see it repeatedly and we need to be steadfast in our determination to outlaw it. What the noble Lord says about displaced people is also correct: there are Sudanese people finding their way into small boats and crossing to the UK, but by far the largest number of Sudanese displaced people—around 5 million of them—are living on the border, either in Chad, in South Sudan, in Uganda or in Egypt. That is where the majority of people are and where the focus of our support is, to help those people close to their homes.