Oral Answers to Questions
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Last week, the Minister talked about climate as a driver of poverty and hunger. He knows that I agree. Sadly, however, his Government lack the ambition to drive forward a net zero transition and they give succour to climate deniers on their own Benches. My hon. Friend the Member for Cardiff North (Anna McMorrin) is right that new coal and oil licences are being granted. The odour of hypocrisy hangs over us in Kinshasa and Pretoria and Beijing. Are those Tory internal divisions the reason that our climate leadership is frankly so lacking?
Mr Mitchell
I do not think there are any climate deniers on the Government Benches. I am extremely flattered that it seems that more than one person on the Opposition Front Bench has read my Chatham House speech from last week. I point out to the hon. Lady that the Government have made an unprecedented commitment to spend £11.6 billion by 2025-26. We are focusing an enormous amount of effort on our technical expertise and, although the international community has promised to double adaptation spending by 2025, Britain has promised to triple it.
Hunger: East Africa and the Horn of Africa
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray, and I thank the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) for securing the debate. All of us here will recognise that the debate is sorely overdue. In parts of east Africa, people are desperate following almost three years of severe drought: 22 million people are in acute food insecurity, 16 million have inadequate access to water and almost 10 million livestock animals have died. Those numbers are simply staggering. Some 5.1 million children are acutely malnourished. Their health has been severely weakened and they are vulnerable to disease. Many, should they survive, will experience lifelong impacts owing to stunting. The UN has estimated that, in Somalia alone, 43,000 people died because of hunger last year. More than half were children under the age of five.
We are now in the middle of the sixth rainy season since the drought began, and the limited rainfall so far is not enough. Recovery will take many years, so we need to look at extended support and partnerships to build resilience for when the rains inevitably fail in future. We must remember that the impact of food insecurity is not limited to hunger.
Zala had to drop out of school. Her parents could not afford to continue feeding her and her younger siblings. Things got worse and it seemed obvious that Zala would have to marry an adult man simply to survive. That would have put her at risk of early and unwanted pregnancies and all the dangers of giving birth as a child. It would have trapped her in a cycle of powerlessness and poverty.
Thankfully, a small intervention provided Zala with the means to put food on the table. She now has a future to look forward to, but other girls in the same village were not so lucky—girls whose much older husbands treat them as lifelong, unpaid servants; girls who are not allowed to leave the house; girls with bruises all over their bodies; girls who simply have no hope left. That is what food insecurity can mean.
I want to approach today’s debate country by country, because each country is different and needs targeted and sustainable solutions. I want to start with Sudan because the humanitarian consequences of the conflict are simply dire. Within Sudan, as we know, hospitals are being attacked. Supplies are being looted, including from humanitarian stocks, and people are running out of the basics. Even before the conflict began, Sudan had a hunger crisis that was linked to flooding and the political deadlock caused by the 2021 coup. Can the Minister say what plans are being made to respond to the forced displacement that we will see across the borders? That will obviously include South Sudan, where the humanitarian situation is already truly appalling.
In reality, conflict in South Sudan has never stopped, with frequent intercommunal and political violence and the use of atrocities, including mass rape as a weapon of war. Aid workers are killed with awful frequency. We see that in Sudan, too. I pay tribute to the brave aid workers killed in the past week and those who are still struggling to get aid to the most needy in the most desperate situations.
In South Sudan, repeated serious flooding destroys roads and clogs rivers, making humanitarian access really difficult. The floodwaters are mostly generated not by local rainfall but by rains hundreds of miles upstream. In many areas, crops can be destroyed by drought and by flooding—too much water and too little—almost side by side. Conflict, corruption, flooding and drought combined mean that an estimated 1.4 million children under the age of five are expected to suffer from acute malnutrition this year.
This is a bitter irony. From the conversations that I have had, the agricultural potential of South Sudan is massive. If there was sustained peace, and investment in irrigation and water management systems to safely distribute and conserve the Nile waters, food security could significantly increase. There would be no need for the people to be dependent on food aid or vulnerable to such recurring crises. Can the Minister tell us what approach he is taking to enable greater humanitarian access and sustained improvements in food security in South Sudan?
In Ethiopia, as we know, people face severe challenges in different areas of the country. In Tigray, although humanitarian access has significantly improved, it remains limited in more outlying areas. In parts of Oromia, hunger continues to be exacerbated by terrible conflict. Across the eastern regional states, the situation is similar to that in Somalia and north-eastern Kenya, with a brutal drought destroying livelihoods on a vast scale.
As we have heard, the hunger crisis is most intense in Somalia, where the Government’s efforts to combat al-Shabaab risk being totally undermined, if they cannot secure benefits for the people in recaptured areas. Even Kenya, a middle-income country, is struggling. Last month, I heard from a Kenyan NGO leader, who set out a truly dire picture. Even where women and girls are able to remain in their communities, they are having to walk all day for clean water, from 5 am to 6 pm.
As colleagues have already said, we need to recognise that this crisis is being exacerbated by climate heating. Last year, the Met Office published a climate risk report for the east African region, which says that in rural lowland areas, temperatures
“are already reaching the upper limits of human habitability”.
The paradox is that the average rainfall could increase over coming decades. There is more than enough water for the societies of east Africa to develop, but there will be more frequent heavy rainfall events, and more variability in rainfall from one year to the next. Without drastic improvements in water management, that will simply mean more deadly flooding, more soil erosion, more contamination of drinking water, and more deadly droughts.
I know the Government are playing a supporting role around access to climate finance for adaptation, and the new loss and damage mechanism. I hope the Minister will say more about how we can make those systems really work for the worst affected east African states because, frankly, the bureaucracy involved is insurmountable for many. I firmly believe that we need to think about resilience and development, not just about humanitarian aid, but this current crisis is far from over, and the continued support for nutrition, health and livelihoods is essential.
We now have confirmation of UK support for a pledging conference, which is sorely needed. Funding was forthcoming last year, primarily from the US, as we have heard, but stakeholders desperately need commitments for the next period. We know that, thanks to uncontrolled Home Office spending, the ODA budget for east and central Africa is set to fall yet again. Our pledge is now set to be £390 million for the entire, massive region. During 2017, the Government provided £861 million, which was just to the countries of Somalia, Ethiopia, Kenya and South Sudan.
I know that the Government will advocate strongly for others to step up, but frankly we need to step up too. We need to support real solutions in partnership, working with the countries and communities most affected. We need to stop writing a blank cheque out of the ODA budget to prop up our failing asylum system. Otherwise, we will fail to play our part and fail to support the peoples of east Africa, just when they need our solidarity the most.
Sudan
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I thank the Minister for advance sight of his statement and for keeping me informed over the weekend. The shadow Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Tottenham (Mr Lammy), is returning from Kenya this evening; he continues to discuss developments with African leaders there.
I join the Minister in paying tribute to the bravery and professionalism of our armed forces involved in the operation to evacuate British diplomats and their families from Sudan. On behalf of the Labour party, I thank the 1,200 UK personnel involved in that very difficult mission, including those from 16 Air Assault Brigade, the Royal Marines and the RAF.
Our relief at the success of the mission does not alleviate our concern for the several thousand British nationals who are still trapped in Sudan amid growing violence. Many will be frightened and desperate to leave, but uncertain of their next move and of the assistance that the Government will be able to offer. What they need to hear is a clear plan for how and when the Government will support those who are still in danger and communicate with them.
While we maintain the unified international pressure for a permanent ceasefire, we are clear that the Government should be evacuating as many British nationals as possible, as quickly as possible. None of us is any doubt as to the complexity of the task or the difficulty of the situation on the ground, yet we know that our partner countries have evacuated significant numbers of their nationals already: 700 have been evacuated by France and Germany, 500 by Indonesia, 350 by Jordan, 150 each by Italy and Saudi Arabia, and 100 by Spain. African partners, including Nigeria, Ghana and Kenya, are also planning action, and France included UK nationals in its airlift. We thank it for that, but it raises some serious questions.
Can the Minister address why partner countries have been able to evacuate sizeable numbers of their nationals so far, as well as diplomats and their dependants, but the UK has not? Can he confirm whether the Government have evacuated any UK nationals who were not employees of the embassy or their dependants? Can he confirm how many UK nationals have been evacuated by our international partners? Were the embassy staff able to complete a full and proper shutdown, including dealing with any sensitive material? Given the communication difficulties, how can we effectively co-ordinate a second phase of the evacuation?
Naturally, questions will be asked about whether the Government have learned the lessons of the chaotic Afghanistan withdrawal. We need to understand why the international community and the UK Government as Security Council penholder were seemingly wrong-footed by a conflict that we know was a clear and recognised risk. Can the Government give us a current assessment of Wagner’s role in supporting the RSF?
The immediate priority, however, must be to give our nationals a way to escape violence that is not of their making. We should remember that this conflict is not of the Sudanese people’s making, either; the responsibility for it lies squarely with a few generals who are putting personal interests and ambition above the lives of fellow citizens. The resistance committees are organising mutual aid despite terrible risks. People fleeing Khartoum by road are being sheltered and supported in the villages they pass. People who only want peace, justice and democracy are showing again their solidarity and extraordinary resilience.
Will the Minister detail the steps that the UK will be taking with partners to address the looming humanitarian crisis that this conflict is driving? The international community, including all our partners, needs to send a clear and united message. The generals cannot secure any future that they would want through violence. The fighting needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.
Mr Mitchell
I thank the hon. Lady very much for her comments, particularly about the work of the armed forces. She is entirely right about the bravery with which they executed this operation so well, and about its incredible difficulty.
The hon. Lady asked about the British nationals who are trapped in Khartoum and in Sudan more widely, and I can tell her that we are looking at every single possible option for extracting them. She acknowledged that this had been a complex area, and I can only say to her that it certainly was.
The hon. Lady referred to our partner countries. As we know, when the French were seeking to evacuate their diplomats and some people from the wider French Government platform, to whom she referred, they were shot at as they came out through the embassy gateway, and I understand that a member of their special forces is gravely ill.
The hon. Lady asked why the UK diplomats were evacuated. That was because we believed they were in extreme danger. Fighting was taking place on both sides of the embassy, which was why the Government decided that it was essential to bring them out. We have a duty to all British citizens, of course, but we have a particular duty of care to our own staff and diplomats.
The hon. Lady asked about the destruction of material, and I can tell her that there was time for all the normal procedures to be adopted in that respect. She asked about our role as the penholder at the United Nations. As she will know, we have already called a meeting and will call further meetings as appropriate, and we are discharging our duties as penholder in every possible way.
The hon. Lady mentioned the comparison with Afghanistan, and asked whether we had learned lessons. We most certainly have learned lessons from Afghanistan, but the position in Sudan is completely different. First, in Afghanistan there were British troops on the ground; there are no British troops on the ground in Khartoum, or in Sudan as a whole. Secondly, in Afghanistan the airport was open and working, whereas the airport in Khartoum is entirely out of action. Thirdly, there was a permissive environment in Afghanistan. We had the permission of the Taliban to take people out. There is no such permissive environment in Sudan and its capital city.
Finally, the hon. Lady asked about the humanitarian crisis. She is right: humanitarian workers have been shot at, five of them have been killed, and, prudently, those involved in the humanitarian effort are withdrawing their people. This is a total and absolute nightmare of a crisis, in which 60 million people are already short of food and support, and—as the hon. Lady implied—it will only get worse unless there is a ceasefire and the generals lay down their arms and ensure that their troops go back to barracks.
Religious Minorities in Nigeria
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
It is an absolute and genuine pleasure to serve under your chairship, Ms Nokes. My thanks go, as ever, to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing this debate. I will echo much of what he said.
Nigeria is an important partner for the UK. We have such vibrant connections through our diaspora communities, thriving trade and cultural links. We have a clear, common interest in reducing insecurity across the Sahel and west Africa, and in supporting democracy in a region where military coups have sadly become frequent. As we heard in the debate last June, the days when religious violence was largely about Boko Haram and concentrated in the north-east are long gone. Violence and kidnappings connected to religious and ethnic differences are now common in the north-west, the middle belt and parts of south Nigeria too.
Much of that violence is utterly horrific, including the attack on St Francis Catholic Church in Ondo state. Today we remember the victims of that terrorist atrocity: 41 innocents killed during a Pentecost mass. We express again our solidarity with the people of Nigeria for those terrible losses. The fact that the church was filled with worshippers again on Easter Sunday demonstrates the inspiring resilience of that community. So many communities right across Nigeria are showing that same resilience, and a true commitment to peace and working together across differences.
Reports suggest that increased activity by Nigeria’s security forces in the run-up to the elections led to a decrease in killings and kidnappings, but clearly the violence has not stopped. Just two weeks ago, on 5 April, at least 46 people were killed in conflict between farming and herding communities in Benue state in the south-east. Many attacks by armed groups are accompanied by mass kidnappings for ransom, with hostages subjected to horrific brutality. Villages are emptied as people flee, putting even more humanitarian pressure on a country where over 3.1 million people are displaced already.
Some of the violence is clearly targeted at Christians, while in other cases the motivation is less clear. It could be financial gain from ransoms, land seizure, revenge or a political dispute. Many victims of violence by armed groups in Nigeria are Muslim and from many ethnic groups. It is a really complex picture. We must be careful, because generalisations could fuel dangerous narratives about a religious war. As we all know, that can only play into the hands of extremists.
In last year’s debate, I made it clear that greater priority and a change in focus is needed for our security partnerships with Nigeria. We need to better complement efforts to provide security to communities across the country, and our partnership needs to work in harmony with regional efforts to tackle the cross-border drivers of insecurity in Nigeria. We need to understand how interlinked security problems have been growing across the wider region, which means the Sahel and, increasingly, other coastal west African states, including our Commonwealth siblings Ghana and Togo, as well as Côte d’Ivoire and Benin. Without concerted action, insecurity may increase further, so I hope that the Minister can tell us today about the work being done across those borders. What are we doing to tackle the supply of weapons to armed groups? How are we supporting peacebuilding between pastoralist and agricultural communities? I would be grateful to know what progress the Minister thinks is being made on the Accra initiative, and whether she knows of any discussions about future Nigerian involvement in the initiative.
Jim Shannon
The hon. Lady is right to highlight the issue of weapons. My understanding is that that part of middle Africa is awash with illegal weapons, which supply many terrorist organisations across the middle of Africa, as well as in the north and south. Could the Minister say what is being done to try to address that?
Ms Brown
I will just say to the Minister that I can only imagine what it is like to sit there and face questions she was not expecting, so I am happy to have written responses to any question to which she does not have the answer at her fingertips.
In the past year, there have been repeated reports of human rights violations by Nigerian armed forces, including extrajudicial killings and mass forced abortions, despite our security partnership’s engagement on human rights. I hope that the Minister will help us to reflect on the lessons that have been learned, and I would be grateful to know if there is a date yet for this year’s security partnership dialogue, and how we are navigating the difficulties caused by the contested election. As we know, religious freedom in Nigeria is not just about armed groups; state institutions can also bear responsibility. Last April, Mubarak Bala, president of the Humanist Association of Nigeria, was sentenced to 24 years in prison because of blasphemous posts on Facebook. I hope the Minister can update us on the latest developments in Mr Bala’s appeal.
Sadly, the massive cuts to international development funding will have had an impact, and will limit support for new programmes where the Nigerian people need them most. Bilateral aid to western and southern Africa has fallen from £1.12 billion in 2019 to just £345 million in the last financial year. It is a scandal. Thanks to incompetent and uncontrolled Home Office spending, our aid budgets will fall even further to just £256 million across the whole of western and southern Africa. A cut of almost 80% in just five years will clearly block our ability to respond.
But let us face it: the problem is not just the lack of international aid. Sorting this out requires governance that responds to the Nigerian people’s needs and demands. Sadly, turnout in February’s presidential election hit a new low, and with legal challenges ongoing, the process is not yet complete. I strongly welcome the commitment of the candidates who are challenging the presidential result to rely on only the courts. While that legal process continues, we need to engage with all political forces and civil society to inform priorities for our partnership over the next years.
In February, this Opposition joined the Government in supporting sanctions against anyone who organised to disrupt peaceful, fair and free elections. There have been credible reports of violations, both in the presidential election on 25 February and the gubernational elections on 18 March. There were several documented incidents of violence around polling stations during the presidential vote and still more reports of violence and intimidation aimed at voter suppression on 18 March.
The issue is wider still: the technologies that were supposed to provide transparency and credibility failed on a huge scale. That has understandably led to even greater distrust in the electoral system from Nigerian voters. The UK provided support for these systems, so, surely, there are questions to be answered about why they failed.
On sanctions, I say very gently that the Government’s record on the killings at Lekki, where no action was taken despite calls from across this House, does not inspire huge confidence. Although I know the Minister cannot comment on any specific sanction designations, I hope she will confirm that the Government are prepared to back their words with action, because what happened in the Nigerian election matters for religious freedom and for security in Nigeria. It matters because incitement to hatred and violence based on identity was used as a political tool, but equally, if the Nigerian people lose trust in their Government, I fear the violations we are discussing will only worsen. It is clearly in the UK’s interest to support security, human rights for all and an inclusive, prosperous and sustainable economy in Nigeria.
Nigeria’s path forward is critical for the future of the region, so I hope that the Minister will set out how she will secure the stronger partnership, backed by long-term commitment and resources, that the UK and the people of Nigeria so urgently need.
Oral Answers to Questions
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
Across east Africa, 48 million people are facing crisis levels of hunger, yet east Africa has been taken out of the integrated review. Even the Minister’s own colleagues understand that the fundamental issues in east Africa are climate adaptation and real partnership. What are the Government going to do to address the fundamental causes of this cycle of crises?
Mr Mitchell
The hon. Lady is wrong about it being taken out of the IR, and if she has the chance this weekend to study it in detail, she will see that that is the case, but she is right to say that an estimated 72 million people will require humanitarian assistance in 2023 due to conflict, drought and flooding. On all those issues, Britain is working with its allies across the international community to do everything we can to stop it, recognising that this is the fifth consecutive season of failed rains across the horn of Africa.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am enormously grateful, Mr Speaker. Nigeria is a fast-growing country and connections between our communities are flourishing, so if Nigerians lose trust in their political institutions, it will affect our prosperity and security too. Yet the Government’s development support for Nigeria has been slashed, our offer is lacking and our voice is weak. Surely we need to develop a strategy for partnership in Nigeria and across the whole of Africa. How is the Minister going to deliver on that?
Mr Mitchell
We are working incredibly closely with all our partners across Africa, none more so than Nigeria. We have been heavily engaged in recent events. We note that the gubernatorial elections have been rescheduled for 18 March, but the Government have congratulated President-elect Tinubu. We look forward to working with his Administration and dealing with exactly the matters that the hon. Lady has so eloquently raised.
Human Rights and Religious Minorities: Sudan
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
It is an absolute pleasure to serve under your chairship, Sir Robert. I am truly grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing the debate, because a debate about democracy and human rights in Sudan has been a long time coming, as the hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) rightly said. There has been genuine but limited progress on these issues following the Sudanese revolution in 2019, but the 2021 military coup put many of the advances on hold and into sharp reverse, and serious abuses continue. Like the hon. Member for Strangford, I will start by focusing on freedom of religion and belief.
The law against conversion from Islam was repealed in 2020, and many guarantees made in the draft transitional constitution before the coup are repeated in the recent political framework agreement, which is a very positive sign. The fifth of the proposed general principles specifically guarantees freedom of belief and religious practices. However, as we have heard, abuses continue—some are very recent indeed.
On 16 December, a church that reportedly had been standing since 1991 was burned to the ground. The community has very little confidence that justice will be done, particularly because the person suspected of the arson is a soldier. As we have heard, that is not the only incident. I have been really fortunate to hear directly from Sudanese people with expert knowledge of the situation since 2019. I am told that the official estimate of the number of Christians in Sudan is 5 million, but the true figure could be more than double that. Only 150 churches are officially recognised, although there are possibly around 2,000. Of those 150, just 30 new churches have been recognised over the past 67 years, and attempts to rectify that before the coup were thwarted. The fact that the vast majority of churches are regarded as illegal makes it more likely that they can be subjected to arson or violence with impunity.
I have also been told that inequality before the law is widespread. That applies to many communities, including Christians, Baha’is, Jews and Muslim minority groups such as Shi’a Muslims and the Republican Islamic Movement. Mosques are offered services, such as electricity and water, for free; churches are not. The Koran is exempted from import taxes; Bibles are not. Blasphemy laws are used solely to prevent criticism of Sunni Islamic figures and beliefs.
We know that widespread discrimination nurtures a culture of inequality: it gives extremists and those who seek to benefit from increased division the cover that they crave. However positive the guarantees in constitutional declarations, obtaining genuine protection for religious minorities will require sustained action. We know the issue of human rights in Sudan goes far wider than freedom of religion and belief, and Sudanese people from the Sunni Muslim majority are regularly targeted. Since the miliary coup in 2021, more than 100 protestors have been killed, and deaths continue with no accountability. On 9 February, a 15-year-old boy was killed while taking part in a protest. Terrible intercommunal violence continues across parts of Sudan, including in Darfur. The UN estimates that 991 people were killed in that violence during 2022 alone.
Meanwhile, over the full year, the UN’s humanitarian response received just 43% of the funding it needed and it called for. That unmet need, in and of itself, creates circumstances for continued conflict between communities, but progress on the humanitarian needs of the people of Sudan will not happen without the advancement of human rights, justice and democracy.
Rape and sexual assault, in common with many other forms of violence, have been constantly used as a political weapon to intimidate activists and officials. Just last month, on 6 January, I understand a 15-year-old girl was kidnapped, raped and thrown under a bridge in Khartoum. Sudanese women’s groups believe she was targeted because her father had worked on the committee to dismantle the corruption of the former al-Bashir regime. That is just one of the many horrifying cases of targeted sexual violence to shut down women’s voices and participation. It must not succeed and we must not under-estimate how determined some in Sudan are to hold on to their unaccountable, corrupt wealth and power at all costs.
Equally, there are some on the international stage that see obstructing the transition to democracy as being in their interests. We know Russia is actively seeking concessions, including a Red sea port, and there are credible reports that the Wagner Group is operating within the country. We see a pattern in other countries: Putin backs Wagner to offer a brutal form of internal security, and in return they plunder the gold and other natural resources in the country in secret.
Despite all the threats they face, the courage and resilience demonstrated by Sudanese people over recent years gives me so much hope that justice will eventually prevail. I believe we must continue to set out a clear position to all political forces in Sudan and in the wider region, because we are UN Security Council penholder on Sudan, which gives the UK a core diplomatic role. The UK must not support the unlocking of international finance and co-operation to the authorities until concrete progress is made on democracy and accountability, led by a civilian Government.
It is important to preserve unity with our international partners, which is why engagement and co-ordinated work with the African Union and our fellow members of the Troika, Quad and wider friends of Sudan group must be preserved. Sustainable peace and development in Sudan will not occur without action to make stated commitments to human rights a reality for all. Political prisoners need to be released, and the rights of Sudanese people who continue to protest against military rule need to be respected.
Finally, as I said in my speech this Holocaust Memorial Day, this year marks the 20th anniversary of the start of acts of genocide in Darfur. The work of the International Criminal Court continues to be obstructed; that must end. Impunity in Sudan has persisted for decades, which only underlines the importance of securing justice within the current transition. Supporting accountability requires focus and resources. In practice the only international capacity for monitoring abuses has been the UN in Sudan, but, like much of the international community, it has understandably been focused on securing transition rather than pressing for day to day progress on human rights.
I hope the Minister can tell us what is being done to support human rights monitoring with resources. Where progress is not being made and the perpetrators of human rights abuses are being protected by those in power, the Labour party believes that targeted sanctions should be used to prevent impunity. When it comes to the leadership of the central reserve police, that has not happened, so I hope the Minister will be able to set out how we are backing our support for the transition to peace, democracy and justice in Sudan with action. Will she take back to the Foreign Secretary our call for the targeted sanctions by the United States to be mirrored?
Sir Robert Syms (in the Chair)
I remind the Minister that Jim Shannon will need a minute or so to wind up at the end of the debate.
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
There are many moving parts. I will ask the relevant Minister to write to the hon. Lady with more up-to-date details so that she is appraised of the latest situation from the UN.
As I said, we will continue to press the authorities to protect human rights and, importantly, to hold those responsible for violations to account.
Ms Lyn Brown
I asked the Minister whether she would take back to the Foreign Secretary the idea of mirroring the sanctions against the central reserve police. Will she undertake to do that?
Anne-Marie Trevelyan
As the sanctions Minister, I absolutely hear the hon. Lady’s question, and we have indeed been using our sanctions tools to a degree, but I will take that back and discuss it with the Foreign Secretary. We obviously do not discuss how we might sanction in future, so as not to reduce the impact of sanctions, but I hear her question and will discuss it more fully with the Foreign Secretary in due course.
You were not here, Sir Graham, but my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton was kind enough to point out that FCDO Ministers are very busy with many challenges as we are out and about across the world. Indeed, that is why my right hon. Friend the Member for Sutton Coldfield is not in the Chamber today, but I assure my hon. Friend that FORB is a central part of all civil society discussions, wherever in the world, for all FCDO Ministers, whatever our brief. We consistently want to challenge and raise the issue, so that everyone knows that the UK’s position on it is absolutely clear. We will always stand up for freedom of religion or belief. We all very much take it with us in our pockets with our passports as we champion the UK’s values.
We hope that once we see signs that a civilian Government is back in place, we will be able to continue our support for a Sudan that protects the freedom, justice and peace that the Sudanese people are once again having to call for. I will ensure that the team replies to all the questions that I have not been able to answer today.
On one final point, we held our last freedom of religion or belief conference in July last year, and we had over 800 faith and belief leaders with us. I note the request from my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton for a roundtable on the Sudanese question. I will take that back to the Foreign Secretary to see whether we can draw that together, so that Members are fully apprised of this moving situation. The UK will continue to lead on championing FORB around the world and holding to account all those who do not.
Overseas Aid: Child Health and Education
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
It is an absolute honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Bone. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Reading East (Matt Rodda) for securing this important debate and for his absolutely excellent speech.
The past two years have shown us just how damaging and dangerous a short-term approach to aid can be. So many Government decisions have caused havoc with children’s lives, including slashing the aid budget, suspending so-called “non-essential” aid payments just last July, allowing the Home Office to consume £1 billion in aid in 2021—£1 billion going to the Home Office—and, let us not forget, the badly managed merger of the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development.
All those decisions will continue to cause catastrophic damage to children’s lives in some of the poorest parts of the world. The cuts have let down children in Yemen, where there are regular outbreaks of cholera and more than 9 million children lack access to safe water. They have let down millions of children in Bangladesh, where floods and cyclones cause devastation year in, year out. There have been impacts in so many other countries across the world, but I am the shadow Minister for Africa, so it will be no surprise that today I want to focus on that beautiful continent that has so much to offer.
Africa is home to 60% of the poorest people in the world, but aid budgets for the continent have been cut dramatically. African countries experience climate disaster, poverty, child malnutrition and conflict, but they were not spared from those cuts—and we know it is children who pay the biggest price.
Only this month, we have seen reports that the funding cut to a climate disasters response programme has contributed to a major cholera epidemic in Malawi. The epidemic has so far killed more than 1,000 people, including 184 children, but it gets worse. Funding to prevent catastrophic levels of death by starvation has also been slashed. In 2017, UK funding to support people in Somalia and the wider region during the famine was £861 million. Late last year, one person was dying of hunger every 36 seconds in the horn of Africa due to drought. We now expect a sixth failed rainy season—the region’s longest drought in four decades. Millions of young children are badly malnourished, but I fear that the Government’s response has been truly abysmal: they are providing only a fifth of the support that they gave in 2017.
Hunger has an especially damaging impact on children. It is likely that thousands of children died of hunger last year in Somalia. It is not an easy death. Parents had to watch their malnourished babies die in agony, and then the exhausted mothers buried their children at the side of the road as they continued a frantic search for food and water. Even when children survive malnutrition, it marks them for life, causing permanent, widespread damage to their health and development. Hunger makes children more vulnerable to a raft of illnesses and diseases and can cause permanent blindness. Malnutrition affects brain development, and even when children manage to get to school in areas of mass hunger, hungry children simply cannot learn. A desperately hungry child is far more vulnerable to recruitment by armed gangs if those groups can offer them food, and much more vulnerable to child marriage—and we know where that can lead.
We have a moral argument for wealthier northern countries to help developing nations. Now, let us take that moral argument away, just for a while. It is so short-sighted not to understand that our prosperity as a nation and our ability to tackle climate damage are reliant on the economic growth of the African continent and on our partnerships with it. By 2030, nearly half of the world’s young will be living in Africa. African children will shape our future. Labour recognises that when we talk about development support. We know that overseas aid has to happen within a long-term and sustainable plan if it is to be effective. There is no room for opaque decisions or last-minute announcements, and no room for wasteful spending by the Home Office. It needs to get a grip. Labour will put an end to this chaos.
Mr Peter Bone (in the Chair)
Order. The shadow Minister knows that she has only five minutes. She has already run over to six, which reduces the time for the Minister. I am afraid that it is now the turn of the Minister.
Afghan Citizens Resettlement Scheme: Pathway 3
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
Because, to borrow a phrase from the Minister, this is a small but perfectly formed Westminster Hall gathering, we will start the Back-Bench wind-ups at 2.28 pm. Jim will do no more than 20 minutes and Debbie will do no more than five. The Minister has said—I think he will want to give a full answer—that if there is any chance we can squeeze out an extra two minutes for him, that would be good. I will manage the other three contributions, but just try to give the Minister a little extra time. I hope that is all right with the Labour Front Bench.
Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I am genuinely grateful to you, Mr Walker. It is an absolute pleasure to serve—
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
No need to worry, just some friendly heckling.
Ms Lyn Brown
Oh, really? I will remember that. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing about this debate and allowing us all to discuss it today.
Hon. Members have rightly raised some horrifying cases. Last week, the BBC highlighted the case of Zuhra, who talked of her pride at having worked for the British Council in a massively high-profile role as a teacher who starred in promotional videos about her work. Now, because the Government have failed to offer her a way out, Zuhra lives in fear, constantly moving with her family to avoid being identified and targeted, while stifled by ever-increasing restrictions on women’s freedoms.
Despite the lack of any news about her application to pathway 3, Zuhra still has hope. Tragically, she blames herself for the danger her family is in thanks to her work for the British Council, but she still believes the Government will come through for her and her family. Will they? All I can say, after all that has happened, is that I pray that Zuhra is right to have hope, still, in this Government.
Let us face it: the abandonment of the people of Afghanistan during and following the withdrawal of international partners continues to be a source of absolute shame for this country. I personally advocated, as many colleagues did, for a Chevening alumnus who had reportedly been placed on the Taliban kill list. In total, I wrote to the Government about almost 900 cases of people in dire need in Afghanistan, following heart-wrenching cries for help from family and friends living in West Ham.
The bitter truth is that the Government utterly failed to match the urgency of those desperate pleas for help. Our Government did not prove capable of the same openness that our communities demonstrated when offering a welcome to those in dire need. In the months that have followed, the Government have time and again reduced the offer of sanctuary. We now know that, as of last month, just four people had been resettled under pathway 2 of the ACRS since the withdrawal from Kabul. I fully appreciate that this is not an FCDO responsibility, but that figure is appalling, and it weighs heavily on our international reputation.
Today, we are discussing the Government’s failure to deliver on the promise of pathway 3 of the Afghan resettlement scheme, which covers British Council contractors, GardaWorld security contractors and Chevening alumni. What links those three groups of people is that they all worked closely with the Foreign Office as an institution. They helped the UK to have a positive and secure place in Afghanistan and supportive relationships with its wonderful people over many years. Their vulnerability to reprisals today is the direct result of that work for us, and therefore the FCDO, along with the Government as a whole, owes them a debt of protection. Labour strongly supports protection for the more than 200 people who helped the FCDO in Afghanistan, and for their families.
Scott McDonald, chief executive officer of the British Council, is calling for urgent action to ensure that all those invited to provide biometrics are granted safe passage to countries neighbouring Afghanistan. He is surely right, because, as we know, an offer of protection from the Government is just the first step; many people will not have the right travel documents and will have to risk their lives trying to get them. It is concerning that we have not had clarity about what the Government are doing, despite constant calls from Members across the House. My colleague and hon. Friend the Member for Leeds North East (Fabian Hamilton), the shadow Minister for peace and disarmament, has raised that point repeatedly since January last year. I also want to highlight the work of the chair of the British Council all-party parliamentary group, the hon. Member for Basildon and Billericay (Mr Baron), as well as that of all the other hon. Members present in the Chamber today.
Despite those cross-party campaigns, rather than clarity, we have had corrections to the record. Last week, the Under-Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs, the hon. Member for Aldershot (Leo Docherty), told the House that half of the 190 former British Council contractors and their family members had been given the green light to come to the UK, but the Daily Mail has reported that just 47 have been invited to provide biometrics, and even those few will face extra security checks before they have any chance of coming here.
Then there was another correction. Last week, the Under- Secretary told the House that the figure of 1,500 was not “an upper limit” and that
“another cohort will be established from June”.—[Official Report, 11 January 2023; Vol. 725, c. 290WH.]
It now appears that 1,500 has been set as a maximum for pathway 3, and that any additional pathways that are opened will not be designed to help the same group of Afghans in need of protection.
If the Minister of State has any further details about future schemes that could be opened, and when, I am sure all of us would be very glad to hear about them today. However, if he cannot give us that, surely he can answer a very simple question: how many former British Council contractors are still stuck in Afghanistan, and when can we expect them to reach safety here? Will he also say whether he has had engagement with regional partners such as Pakistan to facilitate safe passage for British Council staff who are attempting to leave?
The Government need to face up to the consequences of their failure and recognise the true urgency of the situation. Former contractors continue to face daily beatings and intimidation from the Taliban because of their past work with the UK. Many say that they have heard nothing back from the Government about their applications for resettlement. The time this is taking, as a result of administrative barriers, is utterly unacceptable.
Meanwhile, the circumstances of life in Afghanistan have become even more desperate. As we know, the Taliban have implemented more and more of their brutal ideology, particularly on women and girls, and on religious and ethnic minorities such as the Hazara people, who continue to face targeted attacks. Frequently, it is former officials or workers who are targeted, regardless of the Taliban’s official statements that personnel from the former Afghan Government would not be persecuted.
Many of those promised an opportunity for protection in the UK following the Government’s disastrous withdrawal have been failed. What does that failure say to the many foreign nationals around the world who work closely with our embassies and programmes? What does it say about how we value the non-UK staff and contractors who are utterly essential to our diplomatic, consular and development services?
In responding to the urgent question last month, the Minister said repeatedly that this process is moving from the FCDO to the Home Office as the initial stage is complete. Frankly, that news will fill many with dread. I hope he will recognise that the fundamental responsibility for offering these vulnerable people protection remains with the FCDO. If—or perhaps when—the Home Office fails yet again to do its part, I hope that FCDO Ministers will keep a close eye and perhaps step in to unblock things.
This debate is about a duty that we, as a country, owe to the people in danger because of their work with us. It is about making good just a tiny part of the damage wreaked by the Government’s failures in Afghanistan. I hope that the Minister will provide concrete assurances today that the shameful abandonment of so many good people and their families will be remedied soon.
Sir Charles Walker (in the Chair)
I thank all colleagues for providing the Minister with additional time to answer their questions and take interventions.
International Development Committee
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Rotherham (Sarah Champion) for raising this issue so consistently. What could be more important in our foreign policy than working to prevent mass atrocity?
The UN reports that the M23 armed group killed at least 133 unarmed villagers and raped at least 22 women over just two days last November. A separate UN report alleges that Rwandan armed forces provided material support to M23. The US, France and Germany have all publicly recognised these horrifying findings and have spoken out, but our Government have failed to do so. Does my hon. Friend agree that a consistent approach to atrocity prevention requires the Government to start recognising and telling what will be, for them, uncomfortable truths?
Sarah Champion
I have been appalled at what is happening to the Congolese people. The main point of our report is that there is a national strategy. The hon. Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) mentioned recommendation 7 of the Truro report, which says the strategy must be “legal not political.” It is shocking that the UK Government have not called out what is happening in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and I am keen that the Committee looks into this further.
Conflict in Ethiopia
Lyn Brown Excerpts(1 year, 6 months ago)
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Ms Lyn Brown (West Ham) (Lab)
It is a real pleasure to serve under you as Chair, Sir Gary. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury (Rosie Duffield) for securing the debate and opening it so brilliantly. I thank all other right hon. and hon. Members for their contributions; it has been an excellent debate.
The devastating conflict in Ethiopia has lasted for two very long years. As my hon. Friend the Member for Canterbury stated, some estimates suggest that as many as half a million people have died, including hundreds of thousands of civilians. The ceasefire agreement could simply not come quick enough and Labour is deeply grateful to the diplomats who have worked to secure it, most of all the African Union and its representatives. We need to face the reality that the chaos in the Conservative party over recent months has weakened the UK’s international voice, but now we need to look forward. I hope the new Minister will tell us how the Government will deepen the UK’s support for African Union mediation, peacekeeping and peace-building work over the coming years.
East Africa was named a priority region by this Government in their “Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy”. Now we need to understand how that commitment will be implemented to support peace, security, inclusion and accountability. The first priority, as we know, must be to support humanitarian access for the people of Tigray. In August, 89% of the population in Tigray were assessed as food insecure, and 29% of children under five and half the pregnant women and breastfeeding women were malnourished. That situation will inevitably have worsened since then.
Over the past two years, many people have been descending into deeper desperation in the absence of aid. That in itself is sure to have fuelled the conflict, because if the only way people can eat and survive is by signing up to fight, why would they not do that? That desperation puts women and children at massively increased risk of abuse and exploitation, so what progress has been made with humanitarian access right now to all parts of Tigray? Let us face it: demand for assistance is extremely high in many parts of Ethiopia and across the region because of the terrible drought. Are we confident that aid agencies have enough resources to take full advantage to deliver life-saving help quickly?
The Minister has rightly said in response to my written questions that the UK stands ready to support the peace process—that is fabulous—so now I would be grateful to understand how. Will he tell us if discussions are ongoing with the Government of Ethiopia and the African Union? Like my hon. Friends, I have several constituents who have been agonisingly out of contact with their families in Tigray for many months now. Surely we can expect a rapid and final end to the communications blackout and the restoration of services.
Jeremy Corbyn
Like my hon. Friend, I have constituents from Tigray, Oromia and Ethiopia as a whole, and they are going through the most awful stress. There is a lack of communication, but they want to send help and aid in support. Does she think we could do more to facilitate information, to give the families some sense of security about what is happening to their relatives? The community in this country is also very keen to send whatever help it can.
Ms Brown
My right hon. Friend has known me long enough to know that I agree entirely with what he just said. As my hon. Friends the Members for Canterbury, for Dulwich and West Norwood (Helen Hayes), and for Edmonton (Kate Osamor), have highlighted, there have been many credible reports of repeated war crimes and potential crimes against humanity.
It is unacceptable that the UN-mandated International Commission of Human Rights Experts on Ethiopia has been so heavily restricted in its work. Despite those restrictions, the commission has set out damning evidence of horrifying abuses by all parties to the conflict. Because of the lack of access for journalists and human rights defenders, the violations we know about may well be only the tip of the iceberg.
It would be good to know how we are preparing for the Preventing Sexual Violence in Conflict Initiative conference in two weeks’ time. There have been many reports of women, children and men being subject to horrific sexual violence, including repeated rape and torture. Many seem to have been targeted, based on their identity, with sexual violence being used as a weapon of war. I hope that the Minister will tell us how the UK is working to support survivors through access to specialist services, including mental and physical health support, and access to justice.
For many of the survivors who have been displaced it is not currently safe to return home. Many are in camps in Sudan as well as across Ethiopia. I am sure we all understand that specialist support needs to get to where they are now, and quickly. I genuinely struggle to see how the enormous divisions in Ethiopia will mend without proper accountability. That is about security as well as justice for the victims.
I am struggling to understand how we can have confidence in a sustainable peace, if there is not healing and inclusion in Ethiopia. I hope that the Minister will tell us more about the approach that he will take to support credible accountability for the countless victims of abuses in this war. I want to ask the Minister about some of the pitfalls, as it would be devastating to the people of Ethiopia and damaging to UK interests if the agreement fails.
First, the agreement excludes Eritrea, and it is not clear how the rapid withdrawal of all Eritrean forces will be ensured. The Government have failed to mirror previous US sanctions against Eritrean entities involved in the conflict, so I hope that the Minister will consider that as a lever that he might have to deploy.
We know that there are significant border disputes, particularly around western Tigray. Many of the alleged systematic abuses, including ethnic cleansing, relate to that area. A pathway will need to resolve those disputes fairly and peacefully. The ceasefire does not end the need for close and consistent engagement by the UK—far from it. Let us be clear: the UK has much to gain from a just peace.
Ethiopia has made an enormous contribution to sustainable development and to the pan-African vision and its institution. The potential of the people of Ethiopia is even greater than their history. I believe that our partnership and collaboration could be much stronger if the UK supports the peace to hold, and if justice is done and seen to be done for the peoples of that very great country.
Sir Gary Streeter (in the Chair)
Just before I call the Minister, can I check, Rosie, whether you want to take advantage of time to wind up the debate ?
Mr Mitchell
If I may, I will come back to the hon. Gentleman’s comments later.
The presence and conduct of Eritrean forces in Tigray has fuelled the conflict and made its resolution more challenging. The Eritrean Government were not party to the peace agreement, but will inevitably be crucial to its success. We have consistently called on Eritrea to withdraw its troops from Tigray—I repeat that call today, and urge the Eritrean Government to support the peace agreement. We recognise that a durable peace in the horn of Africa depends on mutually acceptable security arrangements, which must include Eritrea, and we encourage those in the region to find solutions through dialogue.
I want to make a couple of points about our development assistance. Before the conflict, our development partnership with Ethiopia—one of the best in the world—had lifted millions of people out of poverty. Indeed, the results of spending British taxpayers’ money in Ethiopia were truly stunning, and helped Ethiopia to become one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. We want Ethiopia to return to more prosperous times, and the peace agreement calls on international partners to support its implementation, to help build infrastructure and to support economic recovery, although the UK will play its part in that. The UK Government have already provided 54 trucks to the UN World Food Programme in the region, and we are working with partners to remove the logistical barriers that prevent them from operating at full capacity. If the peace deal holds, we will encourage international financial institutions to support Ethiopia’s recovery.
Ms Lyn Brown
To my obviously amateur ear, that did not sound like an awful lot of aid for the number of people in need of support. Does the Minister think it is enough?
Mr Mitchell
If the hon. Lady, who knows a great deal about these matters, will bear with me for a moment, I will come specifically to the issue of money.
This may be a moment for optimism. There is an opportunity to end one of the world’s most destructive conflicts, but that opportunity must be comprehensive and nurtured by everyone. The prize is a return to peace and prosperity for a nation of over 100 million people, and the UK stands ready to do all that we can to assist with that.
I will comment briefly on a number of points that were raised during the debate. I thank my hon. Friend the Member for Tewkesbury (Mr Robertson) for what he said. He is one of the experts, having had a relationship with Ethiopia and its people for many years. The House benefits greatly from his expertise. The former leader of the Labour party, the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn), raised a number of important issues. He asked about the delivery of aid to the conflict areas. Yesterday, for the first time, two trucks from the International Committee of the Red Cross got through to Mekelle. Nothing has got through for so long, so I hope that that may be a significant breakthrough on which we can build.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Edmonton—