Sudan

Lord Kerr of Kinlochard Excerpts

Friday 13th September 2024 Lords Chamber

[Lord Kerr of Kinlochard (CB)]

My Lords, I join those thanking the noble Lord, Lord Collins, for securing this debate and pay tribute to his long and sustained personal interest in Africa.

I feel that we ought, as a country, to acknowledge some responsibility for the ongoing disaster in Sudan. For half a century, we were the colonial power. I was taught at university by a former governor of the Blue Nile province. He was a splendid man, but clearly we had failed to embed the structures of a stable society, because the disasters that followed our departure have been wholly home-grown. They did not and do not result from invasion, non-domestic terrorism or economic warfare; they are home-grown. Therefore, they are, to some extent, our fault. We really should not look away, because history means that we now host the largest diaspora community of Sudanese outside Africa. We should not look away because we are the lead at the UN on how to stir the world to live up to its responsibilities under Resolution 2417: how to stop the killing and the starving and how to find the 60% of the 2024 humanitarian aid pledge that has still not been funded? Rapid deployment of the full £89 million we pledged would set a very good example.

We must not look away despite all the difficulties of getting the Security Council into action. I doubt whether the Russians are proving very helpful. In Sudan, they now seem to be supporting both sides. For a long time, they supported the RSF. They have now, as the noble and gallant Lord, Lord Stirrup, pointed out, done a deal with the SAF, securing a Red Sea military base at Port Sudan. Their interest is in chaos, distraction and disruption. Conversely, we need to demonstrate to the global South that we care as much about saving lives in Khartoum as in Kyiv.

I am grateful for the Minister’s account of what we are doing in New York, but I share the view of the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, that the Security Council really must be more active. I have four suggestions for what could be done. The first is to secure a ceasefire. The August Geneva attempt by the Americans, Swiss and Swedes failed. Is it now our turn to try, perhaps with the French? Secondly, the arms embargo needs to be widened so that it covers all Sudan, and of course it must be properly enforced. Thirdly, I hope we are using our lead role in the Human Rights Council to get the fact-finding mission’s mandate renewed. Reported atrocities really need to be investigated. Fourthly, the noble Baroness, Lady Amos, spoke about Chapter VII, and the noble Lord, Lord Alton, has proposed that there should be an international intervention force under UN or African Union auspices. Should we not at least be exploring that idea with our European and American friends? The Russians might resist, but why not put them on the spot?

Despite all that, I of course accept that by far the most urgent priority for British policy must be to seek to stop the Sudanese starving. We have heard the numbers—25 million, half the population, currently going hungry; 13 million children; 4 million under five; three-quarters of a million, as the noble Lord, Lord Oates, has just said, facing imminent starvation—so securing humanitarian access has to be the paramount task. Of course, operating in a war zone without a ceasefire has huge risks, but the world cannot wait. The work of trying to save these people cannot hang fire until a ceasefire is secured.

I am not sure that the scale of the disaster is fully understood in this country. The forced mass migration is now actually greater than what central and eastern Europe saw in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War. What is going on is the largest child displacement anywhere in the world: 13 million people are fleeing their homes, chased out. Two million of them are seeking sanctuary abroad, three-quarters of a million in South Sudan, with nearly 3,000 joining them every day, 1,000 crossing into Chad every day and 1,000 managing to reach Libya every day. The problems for host countries make it a regional crisis, with regional assistance programmes needed. I am very glad that we announced in July that we would help Sudanese refugees in Libya, but £2 million is not a great deal.

To pick up on what the most reverend Primate said, I will consider how this should affect our immigration policies. I have three suggestions. There are currently 5,293 people from Sudan in the asylum backlog queue in this country; 2,129 of them arrived in small boats in the last year. Given that they are fleeing horrific ethnic cleansing, murder and starvation back home, it is not surprising that 99% of asylum cases—when eventually heard—result in the applicant’s claim being accepted and asylum being granted.

It is astonishing to me that the last Government wanted all small boat arrivals made inadmissible—automatically and in perpetuity—and wanted them all deported instantly. Apart from the illegality and immorality, that policy ignored the practical reality: because of the diaspora community here, the Sudanese who are granted asylum tend to settle in rather well once they are allowed to work. Given that, and the 99% acceptance rate, could we not fast-track the Sudanese in the queue?

Secondly, while 2,000 came in small boats, only 19 came in the official way via the official resettlement scheme we run with the help of UNHCR. Stopping death in the channel means providing safe and legal routes. Should we not tell UNHCR that we would take more? Back in 2019, the previous Government told it that we would take a global total—coming from anywhere and everywhere—of up to 5,000 a year. Last year we took 485 and, of them, only 19 were from Sudan. That does not quite match the scale of the crisis there, and I hope the new regime at the Home Office is having another look.

Thirdly and finally, perhaps the new regime could also look at the family reunion visa rules. About 600 family reunion visas are issued each year to the Sudanese. Given the size of the diaspora here and the horrors out there, one would expect rather higher numbers. Need the rules be applied quite so restrictively?

The big point, which all in this debate recognise, is that we in this country have responsibilities and must behave responsibly. We cannot say that Sudan is a far-off country of which we know nothing. We cannot wash our hands and look the other way; no one should, but this country certainly cannot.