London Sudan Conference

Lord Boateng Excerpts

Monday 28th April 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

Clearly, the withdrawal of USAID support is having an impact in many places around the world, and we are doing what we can. One of the outcomes from the conference, although not an aim of it, was that £800 million was raised, which is positive. But the noble Lord is right to raise the impact of the withdrawal of USAID as well. It is a mistake to impose a test of the success or failure of a conference such as the one we led that is about whether there was an agreed statement or a contact group. Clearly, ideally, you would have those things, but let us be realistic about where this is. If that became the test of a successful conference, I would venture to say that fewer leaders would take the steps that our Foreign Secretary did. This is protracted, long-standing and fiendishly difficult to resolve, but our Foreign Secretary cares deeply about it and wants to use his convening power to make progress. That is what he has done and will continue to do.

[Lord Boateng (Lab)]

My Lords, no one doubts for one moment the Minister’s sincerity and activity and those of her colleagues the Minister for Africa and the Foreign Secretary on this issue. But the reality is that, only yesterday, news came out of Omdurman that some 31 people, including women and children, were executed. It was not a question of being caught in crossfire; they were executed by the Rapid Support Forces. We know that the churches are actively engaged with the Islamic community in promoting conflict resolution and peacebuilding—the Holy Father gave ample evidence of this. So, if civil society was not represented adequately at the conference—and it was not—what practical steps of support will HMG give to faith-based groups to tackle this issue?

[Baroness Chapman of Darlington (Lab)]

The reality is exactly as the noble Lord describes. This is the worst humanitarian situation on the planet at the moment. It gets too little attention, but this Government want to use their influence, multilaterally and with partners in the region, to improve it. He is right to say that we ought to work more closely with faith and civil society organisations. We are doing that and, where we can do more, we will.