Sudan

Lord Collins of Highbury Excerpts

Thursday 28th June 2018 Grand Committee

[Lord Collins of Highbury (Lab)]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Sheikh, for initiating this debate on Sudan, a country where more than one-third of the population still lives in poverty. As I have no doubt the Minister will remind us, the UK is an important donor, giving £50 million each year that is focused on humanitarian assistance to over 500,000 internally displaced people and South Sudanese refugees.

The Minister said at the end of last year that the Government continue to work with the international community to reform the approach to long-term displaced persons in Darfur. What is the Minister’s assessment of that process in achieving collaboration internationally?

On human rights in Sudan, Amnesty International has said:

“The rights to freedom of expression, association and peaceful assembly were arbitrarily restricted”,


and that there are,

“widespread violations of international humanitarian and human rights law”.

The Government have argued—we have heard it in this debate—that the UK-Sudan Strategic Dialogue represents a shift from the stick to the carrot, and that real change in Sudan could come only through engagement, a point reinforced by the noble Lord, Lord Luce. Clearly, the Government of Sudan are gaining a great deal of credibility from these high-level ministerial exchanges. Can the Minister provide us with a specific example of where such engagement from our Government has brought about a positive change from their Sudanese counterpart?

After the fourth session of the strategic dialogue in October last year, agreement was reached on the clear steps that the Government of Sudan would take to address human rights issues. In relation to the five key issues of humanitarian access to conflict-afflicted regions, non-interference in South Sudan and maintaining the Government’s cessation of hostilities in Darfur and the Two Areas, is the Minister satisfied that progress continues to be made? The UK also raised specific issues, including sexual and gender-based violence, freedom of religion or belief, freedom of expression and the convention against torture. At the time, the Minister also stated that corruption was discussed. Sudan currently ranks 170th out of 176 on the Transparency International corruption index.

Following April’s fifth meeting of the strategic dialogue, the communiqué stressed trade and investment. Trade promotion in Sudan must be paired with macroeconomic reforms to ensure that any growth dividend is evenly shared, and it must not result in a watering down of human rights concerns. What steps will the Government take to ensure that such reforms are implemented to prevent the benefits of this trade going solely to the narrow elite that has ruled the country for almost 30 years?

I agree totally with the noble Lord, Lord Luce, that it is important that we support civil society. It is critical to sustaining meaningful peace and dialogue for the future, and this should be the focus of UK policy in Sudan. UK aid has funded a £1 million British Council project to strengthen,

“cultural and educational development by building skills and capacity and by creating new opportunities and connections with the UK”.

The UK Government, through the Chevening scholarships,

“enables students to pursue postgraduate study at UK higher education institutions”.

Like the noble Baroness, Lady Uddin, I would particularly like to know how those students are selected. We have been supporting only 14 students, who are mainly from Khartoum. Will the Government commit to expanding the programme and ensure that the students are drawn from a much wider group of the population, particularly from Darfur and the Two Areas of eastern Sudan?