International Day of Democracy
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I agree with my noble friend. Indeed, my noble friend Lady Anelay and I had a brief discussion on this very question about 24 hours ago. The United Kingdom has been over time a strong beacon in supporting democracy around the world, and the Commonwealth network is a huge example of how we strengthen democracies and human rights.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
Does the Minister agree that the Council of Europe is an important agency for promoting democracy? Is it not significant that Belarus is the only country in Europe not a member of the Council of Europe? Following the illegitimate election of President Lukashenko, what are the Government doing to try to ensure the return of democracy in Belarus?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s first point—it is not often that I say this to him—I totally agree with him. He knows my views on the Council of Europe. On Belarus, the United Kingdom has worked very strongly and closely with key partners, including the G7, in calling out the flagrant betrayal of democracy and the continued reliance on Russia. It comes back to the point that my noble friend Lady Anelay raised about Russia and Russian support. It is therefore important that we build alliances, strengthen coalitions and co-operation, and send a clear message to Russia that its aggression, particularly in Europe—but also elsewhere around the world—will not be tolerated. In doing so, however, we must build alliances and partnerships.
Covid-19: Vaccine Donations
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, on the noble Lord’s second point, we allocated specific support for African nations and have continued to support them in that respect. On his first point about my noble friend’s response, it is important to secure domestic vaccinations, but I agree with what he has put forward: we are only as safe as everyone else is. Therefore, we must support other countries, but this is not a binary choice; we can do both. We can secure our own populations and help those elsewhere in the world as well.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, is it any wonder that we face a tidal wave of omicron when we have provided only one-fifth of the vaccine doses promised to countries overseas? Did the Minister hear the evidence given by an expert to the Select Committee in another place that it was very short-sighted of the Government not to support the facility at Livingston in Scotland which was ready to provide hundreds of millions of doses that could be sent overseas? Will he ask his colleagues in the departments concerned to think again about keeping that facility open?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, one thing that the challenge of Covid-19 has shown is our interdependency and the need to work together. We have certainly demonstrated that. On the noble Lord’s first point about short-sightedness, on the contrary, when my right honourable friend the Prime Minister returned from his own challenge with Covid-19, the first thing he did was to spearhead the COVAX facility. That is doing exactly what the noble Lord suggests in ensuring that the most vulnerable are supported. I shall follow up on his specific question about the Livingston facility.
Smuggling: Kittens and Puppies
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(2 years, 11 months ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, there are no proposed changes to the animal health requirements of pets entering Great Britain within this Bill, as our focus here is on stopping low-welfare practices for pets being imported. However, the Government monitor disease risk carefully, and changes to animal health requirements will be made under separate legislation. We remain aware of the concerns around non-endemic diseases and continue to monitor the disease situation carefully, but our future policy will be guided by risk assessment.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, has the Minister seen the reports that Pen Farthing and his dogs were evacuated from Afghanistan following the personal intervention of the Prime Minister, encouraged by his wife? Why does No. 10 give priority to dogs over threatened human beings?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, No. 10 and, indeed, the Prime Minister have clearly and emphatically pushed back against any such suggestion today. The noble Lord shakes his head, but I can tell him from my own experience that his rebuttal is entirely accurate.
International Development Strategy
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, the Government committed some time ago—I believe it was two years ago—to double our international climate finance to £11.6 billion. There was a commitment from the Prime Minister that we will add £1 billion to that commitment if the financial trajectory that is anticipated for this country continues and we meet various criteria, but the commitments that were announced around Amazon forest protection, indigenous people’s support and so on will come from the international climate finance commitment that has already been made.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, when I was at DfID I was greatly impressed by the development work done by older people, particularly older women, in families and communities. How much more could be done with greater encouragement and support? Could the Minister give an assurance that there will be a section in the international development strategy on the way in which older people can contribute to the development in their countries?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
My Lords, I cannot give specific commitments but the principle is absolutely right. One of the reasons we are looking at scaling back our investments through some of the multilateral development organisations is in order to be able to provide more bilateral support. That bilateral support, when directed at the grass roots—when directed towards supporting those people who are really delivering change on the ground—will be more effective, in our view, than some of the investments that have been made in the past. That would of course include investing in communities and all members of those communities.
Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(3 years ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what action they are taking to secure the release and return to the United Kingdom of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con)
My Lords, it is unacceptable and unjustifiable that Iran has chosen to continue with this second, wholly arbitrary case against Nazanin. Iran has put her through an inhumane ordeal. We continue to call on Iran in the strongest possible terms to allow her to return to the UK to be reunited with her family. The Prime Minister raised her situation with former President Rouhani, and the Foreign Secretary continues to engage with Foreign Minister Amir-Abdollahian, most recently on 8 November.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, first, I commend the bravery of Richard Ratcliffe—
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
—in his determination to get his wife home safe. We understand why he ended his hunger strike, and it was right for him to do so.
Will the Minister now confirm that there is no doubt whatever that the United Kingdom Government owe Iran £400 million for tanks the Iranian Government paid for but which were never supplied? Secondly, when the Prime Minister was Foreign Secretary, he pledged that that debt would be paid, and it is further acknowledged that when it is paid, Nazanin will be released. Can the Minister therefore use his undoubted influence with the Prime Minister to get him to make it his top priority to resolve this issue and get Nazanin released and returned home to her husband and daughter, because it is the Prime Minister’s moral duty to do so?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con)
Like the noble Lord, I recognise the commitment and huge sacrifice that has been shown by Mr Ratcliffe and the families of other British detainees in seeking the release and return of their loved ones detained in Iran. We continue to call on Iran to end Nazanin’s suffering immediately and to allow her to return home to her family in the UK. But I need to be clear, in the place of my colleague and noble friend Lord Ahmad, who is not here to answer the Question, that the UK does not and never will accept our dual nationals being used as diplomatic leverage. Our priority is securing Nazanin’s immediate release so that she can be reunited with her family.
Cost of Living
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Baroness Stedman-Scott (Con)
I thank my noble friend for the time that she has given us in talking about the ideas put forward as a result of the £20 uplift being removed and other ways in which that can be mitigated. It really was a pleasure to sit down in a most positive way and discuss this. My noble friend will understand that I cannot make any commitments on that.
Baroness Stedman-Scott
Let me finish. I am not able to say what might happen but the ideas that my noble friend has put forward are in the melting pot. As for in-work progression, a lot is going on and the labour market should make it really possible for people who can work to work more and earn more.
Belarus: Elections
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(3 years, 4 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, first, I warmly thank the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, who, as he said, is a UK delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, as, indeed, I am. I thank him for tabling this important subject for debate today. As he said, in PACE we have debated the situation in Belarus on a number of occasions and we have received strong support for the kind of action he is calling for today and, indeed, for going further.
The presidential election held in Belarus on 9 August last year, which saw Lukashenko returned based on the so-called official result was described by independent observers, and indeed by our Foreign Secretary, as neither free nor fair. I particularly commend the United Kingdom Government for rightly describing Lukashenko’s subsequent inauguration as fraudulent. However, the protests against the regime in Belarus have resulted in an unprecedented series of arrests of innocent political prisoners and a vicious crackdown on journalists—and, in particular, against civil society activists and opposition politicians.
Indeed, the lengths to which the dictator will go to clamp down on opposition activities reached a new height on 23 May with the hijacking by the regime of Ryanair flight FR4978 to detain an opposition activist, Roman Protasevič, and his girlfriend Sofia Sapega. It was an unprecedented, astonishing state hijack, widely condemned by the United Kingdom, the European Union, the United States and almost everyone—with the notable exception of Russia, which considered it an “internal matter” for Belarus.
What can we do, here and now, to respond to these acts of repression and barbarism? First, as individuals we can protest. But even more usefully, as parliamentarians we can give some hope to individual prisoners—as I am doing, along with others here in Westminster and around Europe, by adopting one of them.
Ten months ago, the prisoner I adopted, an arborist called Stepan Latypov, was arrested on a trumped-up charge because one of the chemicals that he uses for his work as an arborist can be combined with others to make explosives. He was brought to court limping, with bruises and a bandaged hand resulting from the way he had been treated. He was threatened that if he did not admit his guilt, his relatives would be persecuted. He then attempted suicide. Meanwhile, pressure is exerted on him by refusing visitors, controlling correspondence, round-the-clock surveillance and limiting access to showers and other facilities.
The delay in bringing Stepan to trial puts more pressure on him; however, it also looks as if they are playing for time. The fact that he and other prisoners know that we are monitoring their situation gives them some hope and, I hope, lets the regime know that we are watching. Specifically, will the Minister arrange for our ambassador in Minsk to request a visit by an official from the embassy to Stepan in prison, to report back on his condition and whether and when he is to be charged? I hope he will deal with that in his reply.
As the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, said, we need to go further collectively to help all the prisoners, journalists and opposition activists. We also need to get new, fully democratic elections in Belarus, as was in fact demanded by another of our colleagues, the noble Lord, Lord Blencathra, in his report to the parliamentary assembly.
Along with other Peers, including the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, and Members of Parliament I have written to the Chancellor, urging stronger financial sanctions on the Lukashenko regime. We should be using our position on the IMF board to veto the billion dollars due to be allocated to Belarus. As the noble Lord, Lord Balfe said, the IMF previously denied funds to the Maduro regime in Venezuela, so there is clear precedent for taking such action.
In spite of Brexit, London remains one of the key financial centres, so our Government should look at further ways that we can bring pressure on Lukashenko to move quickly to accept the inevitable, because it is inevitable that he will have to go. I support the proposal in the name of the noble Lord, Lord Balfe, that we should join with the French, the Germans and the United States to pressure Russia to accept that there must be new elections in Belarus. But we also need to take our own action, individually and collectively here in the United Kingdom, to put pressure on the Lukashenko regime. I hope that we will get a positive response from the Minister on that action too.
Belarus: Roman Protasevich
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Foulkes of Cumnock
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what representations they are making to the government of Belarus regarding the emergency landing of a Ryanair flight in Belarus and the subsequent arrest of journalist Roman Protasevich.
The Minister of State, Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park) (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Belarusian authorities’ forcible landing of a Ryanair flight in Minsk to arrest a journalist, Roman Protasevich, is an appalling attack on human rights, media freedom and civil aviation. Yesterday, we summoned the Belarusian ambassador to express our deep concerns, suspended permits for Belavia flights to the UK, and advised UK airlines to avoid flying over Belarusian airspace. We are co-ordinating our response with allies and calling for the International Civil Aviation Organization council to meet urgently.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that there was already great concern about rigged elections and the appalling treatment of hundreds of illegally detained political prisoners in Belarus? This state-sponsored piracy and the arrest takes it to a new level. While we welcome what the Government have already done in response to this, as the Minister has told us, particularly on air transport, much more needs to be done to get the release of Roman Protasevich, who is clearly being intimidated, and to stop the growing tyranny in Belarus. Will Her Majesty’s Government work with the European Union, the United States and other Governments to get strong, effective financial sanctions on Belarus and its sponsors in Russia, so that we hit them where it really hurts and where the City of London plays a key role?
Lord Goldsmith of Richmond Park (Con) [V]
My Lords, the Government agree and we are co-ordinating our response with all our allies and partners, including the US, the EU and other countries. The Foreign Secretary has discussed Belarus directly with the French, German and Lithuanian Foreign Ministers, and with the former Secretary of State and Vice-President of the US during his visit to Washington in September. The Minister for European Neighbourhood and the Americas has had extensive contact with Ministers in the Baltic states and Scandinavia and with state secretaries in the US and Germany. As noble Lords can imagine, those discussions have escalated dramatically in recent days.
Nepal: Covid-19 Vaccine Request
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(3 years, 6 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
I defer to my excellent colleague and noble friend Lord Bethel, who can respond more effectively to the noble Baroness’s question. However, we are working with the developing world to ensure we meet its requirements as well.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
Did the Minister note that when the Prime Minister of Nepal realised he had made a mistake, he resigned? Is it not indicative that he has more honour than the Prime Minister here?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I know our Prime Minister. I worked with our Prime Minister when he was Foreign Secretary. I have seen a side to our Prime Minister that perhaps other noble Lords have not seen. This is a Prime Minister who went through the challenge of Covid-19 himself and when he returned to the office—the noble Lord shakes his head, but it is important—we saw it, we heard it and we delivered on it. The first priority, the first thing he spearheaded, was the response to the Covid-19 challenge, not just in the UK but across the world. He was instrumental in setting up the COVAX facility, which is benefiting more than 92 developing countries around the world. That is the fact. I know our Prime Minister personally and well, and he has led from the front on this agenda.
St Vincent: Volcanic Eruption
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock Excerpts(3 years, 7 months ago)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, I always welcome gentle reminders from my noble friend. I assure him that we recognise the importance of biodiversity, especially in the context of climate change and our chairmanship of COP26. He made some notable suggestions and recommendations and I certainly look to take them forward.
Lord Foulkes of Cumnock (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, the Minister mentioned Montserrat. When Montserrat was devastated by that volcanic eruption, I was the Minister at DfID dealing with it and we sent out emergency relief teams immediately to help. Why is that not being done now? We also committed long-term help, not of thousands of pounds but of millions. Are these poor people going to be the first victims of the cuts in DfID assistance?
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Con)
My Lords, while I also welcome the valuable insights of the noble Lord, first and foremost, I assure him that we have given an immediate response, as I said to the noble Lord, Lord Boateng. What we have announced thus far is immediate support. The reason we are not sending out direct support is because we have invested, since 2017—I can speak with some insight and expertise—in CDEMA and in the structures in the Caribbean and the region to ensure that the response can be as effective and co-ordinated as possible. The noble Lord talks about Montserrat, which I continue to support. Indeed, it is this Government who have provided close to £30 million of capital spending to continue to help Montserrat. We are also supporting, through the Caribbean Development Bank, specific projects including roadbuilding in St Vincent. That kind of long-term infrastructure support will also continue.