Yemen

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Thursday 12th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I thank the hon. Members for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg) and for Warwick and Leamington (Chris White) for securing today’s important debate through the Backbench Business Committee.

The humanitarian crisis in Yemen continues to worsen, despite all the parliamentary time we have spent over the past months discussing it. The situation is continually deteriorating, despite all the reassurances from our Government that millions of pounds is being spent on aid. There seem to be no end in sight for the suffering of the Yemeni people in the near future. Meanwhile, according to figures from Oxfam, some 14 million are food insecure, with about 7.5 million on the brink of famine. Unless something changes radically, the situation is set only to worsen in 2017. Yemen was heavily dependent on food imports prior to the conflict, and the war has had a devastating effect on food security. Not enough is making its way into the country to meet daily demand.

The country’s decimated infrastructure is making it impossible to get food to all who need it. It is not just roads that have been destroyed; ports have been targeted by the Saudi-led coalition. As a result of air strikes on the port of Hodeidah, only one of the six loading cranes remains functional. Prior to that, aid groups had complained that the coalition naval blockade prevented relief supplies from entering Yemen. There is further evidence to suggest that aid agencies are not being given proper opportunity to deliver aid.

About a year ago, Oxfam and other NGOs were sent a diplomatic note stating that if they were delivering aid anywhere remotely close to where Houthis were operating, they were doing so at their own risk. In effect, the Saudis were saying that they would not take responsibility for bombing aid workers if they were near Houthis. That diktat, which was surely a breach of international humanitarian law, has meant that civilians in need of aid are unable to receive it. Hunger should not be used as a weapon of war. Famine Early Warning Systems Network warns:

“To mitigate severe, ongoing food insecurity and prevent Famine over the coming year, the international community and local actors must protect the ability of private traders to import staple food”,

that

“more resources are needed to support the continuation and expansion of humanitarian response”

and that traders and humanitarian actors must have access to conflict zones.

The UK needs to play its part and heed these recommendations. The Saudis are a key ally of the UK, and we should be working to ensure that it is acting responsibly in the conflict. Such responsibility includes military operations—actions should be proportionate to the military threat—yet we continue to hear reports that would suggest that this is not the case. Serious questions need to be asked of the Saudis about their targeting. There are too many documented cases of indiscriminate bombings leading to thousands of needless civilian death and injuries, including of many children, as we have heard.

As we have also heard, the conflict is certainly not one-sided, but the fact remains that we are a key ally of the Saudis and have licensed £3.3 billion-worth of arms sales since their intervention in Yemen. We cannot shirk responsibility. That is particularly the case where UK-supplied weapons are being used in the conflict. Too many questions remain improperly answered around the use of BL755 cluster munitions. I have pursued the Government on this issue since last June, and I am sick of their cluster bluster. Members deserve nothing less than full transparency and disclosure.

Last June, I asked the MOD, by way of written question, when the UK had last maintained cluster munitions held by Saudi Arabia. The Secretary of State delivered a succinct and blunt response, saying:

“The UK has never maintained cluster munitions held by Saudi Arabia.”

Yesterday, I got sight of a response to a freedom of information request submitted to the MOD by Amnesty International. Contained within is confirmation that up until 2008 there was contracted manpower support in place for the maintenance, handling and storage of these cluster bombs. I will be seeking urgent clarification from the MOD on this. I seriously hope that I have not been misled by the Department.

Furthermore, it is revealed in the freedom of information response that the MOD offered to replace all of the Saudi stocks of BL755s with Paveway III precision-guided bombs as recently as 2010 but that the Saudis continually refused this offer. The MOD must provide answers to the House urgently as to why this offer was allowed to be declined without repercussion. Why have subsequent arms export licences been issued without question when the Saudis have so resolutely refused to give up their stockpile of UK-produced cluster munitions?

We also need concrete answers from the Saudis on how many of the BL755 bombs have been dropped on Yemen and absolute transparency on the targeting data of such air strikes. Furthermore, will the UK Government take sole responsibility for ensuring that any and all UK-produced cluster munitions dropped in Yemen are cleared, working alongside national de-mining institutions, including the Yemen Executive Mine Action Centre, and increasing the direct funding it receives from the UK as necessary? In short, I am asking the Government for an undertaking to clean up their own mess and show an appropriate level of responsibility. Our foreign policy needs to put the innocent civilians of Yemen first and foremost, now more than ever. Our efforts can help to avert a full-scale famine, but the time to act and help secure a ceasefire is now.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 10th January 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

It is very important to recognise that the Turkish state—the Turkish Government—was the victim of a violent attempted coup in which hundreds of people died. It was entirely wrong of many Governments in the EU instantly to condemn Turkey for its response rather than to see that, again, there is a balance to be struck. Turkey is vital for our collective security; the last thing we need to do is to push it away and push it into a corner.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Last month, a UK Government spokesperson told Sky News that the Government are

“aware of reports of an alleged airstrike on a school”

in Yemen

“using UK-supplied weapons and are seeking further information regarding the incident.”

Can the Minister update us today on progress on that?

[Mr Ellwood]

I know the hon. Lady follows these events very closely. I do not know the details of that particular Sky report—I have not seen it. I am very happy to meet her outside the Chamber to discuss it. I can give her a reply in due course, or I can give her a public reply in the now much-vaunted and much-publicised debate we are having on Yemen on Thursday.

UK Nationals Imprisoned Abroad

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 20th December 2016 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Flello. I thank the right hon. Member for Carshalton and Wallington (Tom Brake) for securing this important debate. I do not disagree with anything he said. I declare an interest as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on human rights and chair of the all-party parliamentary group on democracy and human rights in the Gulf. I have tabled written questions on Andy Tsege, and I am thankful that we have now been afforded the opportunity to debate his case.

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Dundee West (Chris Law), who is a vocal campaigner for Andy’s release and has worked closely with Andy’s family and Reprieve over the last six months. Unfortunately, my hon. Friend is unable to attend today’s debate, but I hope that my party colleagues and I are able to convey many of the points he would have intended to make.

As we are all aware, Andy’s situation is very worrying. Ethiopia is a country where tensions are high, where the human rights situation was described only last month as “dire” by a representative of Amnesty International, and where the recent elections in 2015 were held against a backdrop of reported political intimidation of opposition parties. Evidently, Ethiopia is a country fraught with problems, and it is concerning that Andy is currently languishing there.

Since his incarceration, the Ethiopian authorities have continued to peddle the myth that Andy is a terrorist and that his political party, Ginbot 7, is a terrorist organisation. Frankly, that could not be further from the truth and as his partner, Yemi Hailemariam, has said, he is a “politician, not a terrorist.” Ginbot 7, despite sustained pressure from the Ethiopian Government, has not been proscribed as a terrorist organisation by any other Government and, indeed, the UK is yet to be provided with any evidence of Andy’s supposed terrorist activity. It is appalling that Ethiopia is taking that line, and I truly hope that the UK Government have been vocal in rebuffing those claims to their counterparts.

I would be grateful if the Minister outlined whether the Ethiopian authorities have recently tried to provide any evidence against Andy and, if so, what the Government have said to the Ethiopian authorities in response. As per an answer provided by Baroness Anelay of St Johns on 1 December, Andy has now been visited by UK officials on 12 different occasions. That is in addition to the efforts of the Foreign Secretary and the UK ambassador, who regularly raise Andy’s case with the Ethiopian authorities.

Despite those prolonged and sustained efforts, Andy remains locked up in prison. The Government’s representations are welcome, but the Foreign Office must go further and call for Andy’s immediate and unconditional release. We keep hearing from the FCO that Andy has access to legal advice, but that simply does not go far enough. Reprieve has argued that any legal access is effectively pointless, as the Ethiopian Government have already said that there is no legal route by which Andy can be allowed to contest his death sentence.

The UK Government have repeatedly claimed:

“Britain does not interfere in the legal systems of other countries by challenging convictions.”

However, Reprieve categorically disputes that rebuttal. It is of the opinion that the former Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Runnymede and Weybridge (Mr Hammond), personally intervened in the case of Karl Andree, who was released from a Saudi Arabian prison in 2015. As such, will the Minister clarify why it seems that the Government’s approach to Andy is different from their approach to Mr Andree?

Furthermore, what is the Minister’s position on the comments made by the right hon. and learned Member for Beaconsfield (Mr Grieve) that, as Andy was kidnapped and sentenced to death in absentia, the Government should be calling for his release? Last Wednesday marked two years since Yemi and Andy’s children last held a conversation with their father—two full years in which he has had minimal contact with the outside world and has been stuck in a prison dubbed “Ethiopia’s gulag”. Andy now faces the prospect of another Christmas behind bars, without seeing or hearing from his beloved wife and three children.

In closing, I would like to draw a parallel with the situation of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe. Only last week, I met her husband Richard. After speaking with him, I could not stop thinking about how their family’s Christmas will not be celebrated. Nazanin and Richard have a young child, Gabriella. It is absolutely heartbreaking to think what they are all going through. The hon. Member for Hampstead and Kilburn (Tulip Siddiq) has been a great advocate for her constituent, and I hope that the Government can assist further with the case. At a time when families around the world are coming together, the families of Nazanin and Andy could not be further apart. The Government must do more for them, and they must be willing to demand their immediate release.

[Robert Flello (in the Chair)]

I remind hon. Members that I will call the Front-Bench speakers at 10.30 am.

Aleppo

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Monday 28th November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I agree with what the hon. Lady says. It is important that we keep the House updated. I, the Foreign Secretary or the Secretary of State for International Development will endeavour to do that on a regular basis.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I thank the Minister for his statement. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 225 civilians have been killed, including 27 children, since the latest assault started on 15 November. The Government must do all they can to assist those in Syria now. However, they must also do more to help those who have managed to flee the conflict. Will the Minister please commit to pushing his Cabinet colleagues to accept more refugees from that war-torn country?

[Mr Ellwood]

I touched on that earlier. There is a choice: whether we look after refugees in this country—as we have done for the thousands that are coming this way—or we provide support in the region. The price of looking after one refugee in the UK equates to looking after around 20 refugees in the region. Different standards, absolutely, but I hope the hon. Lady recognises that with £2.3 billion-worth of support, we are playing our part in the region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 22nd November 2016 Commons Chamber

[Mr Ellwood]

I absolutely concur with my hon. Friend. However, there are some Israelis who believe that the Palestinians will never accept the Israelis’ right to live in peace in a Jewish state and that they are teaching hate and glorifying terrorists. They think that the west bank will simply be turned into Gaza. On the other side, there are Palestinians who believe that the Israeli Government will never give them the state that they are working towards. We need to bury those myths. That is not what the people of Israel or the people of Palestinian actually want.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

10. What representations his Department has made to the Government of Bahrain on charges brought against Ebrahim Sharif for conducting an interview with Associated Press in November 2016.

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

I met my counterpart, the Foreign Minister Khalid al-Khalifa, this weekend, and our ambassador in Manama raised the case of Ebrahim Sharif on 16 November. We will continue to monitor the case very carefully indeed.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The US State Department has defended freedom of expression and explicitly called for the charges against Ebrahim Sharif to be dropped, whereas the Foreign Office has merely expressed concern. Does the Minister believe that such prevarication will convince the Government of Bahrain to drop those charges?

[Mr Ellwood]

The hon. Lady touches on a matter on which I feel I am developing a relationship with the Scottish National party. The United Kingdom and the United States have different relationships with Bahrain in terms of the style, the approach and the strategy that we use to influence countries in the Gulf and to advance the democratic process. We have a closer relationship with Bahrain, in which we can have frank conversations. We might not have put out a press statement on this matter—we might not have made the headlines in that sense—but I can assure her that we are having frank conversations with the aim of improving policing, the rule of law and democratic rights. This is happening; the hon. Lady just does not see it all the time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Boris Johnson]

As my hon. Friend will know, the Secretary of State for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs has been taking the lead in Hanoi in urging the international community to take tougher measures against elephant and rhino poachers. The figures are heartbreaking. In the late 1990s, there were 1.2 million elephants in the world. In Africa, the figure is now down to 300,000. In fact, it has gone down 120,000 since 2010. It is a catastrophic loss for Africa and for the world, and the UK is leading the fightback. We will be holding a summit on the conservation of endangered wildlife in London in the next couple of years.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

T8. The Prime Minister will attend the Gulf Cooperation Council leaders’ summit next month as a guest of honour. Does she intend to use the opportunity to push for greater information-sharing with the UK from Saudi-led coalition operations in Yemen so that UK defence personnel are able to form a complete understanding of the coalition’s regard for international humanitarian law?

[Boris Johnson]

We are very honoured that our Prime Minister is the first female Prime Minister to be invited to attend the GCC in the Gulf. It emphasises the very strong relations that we have with that area. This Government are doing everything they can to satisfy themselves of the compliance of Gulf countries, notably of Saudi Arabia, with the principles of international humanitarian law.

Centenary of the Balfour Declaration

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Wednesday 16th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Catherine West (Hornsey and Wood Green) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to contribute to the debate under your chairmanship, Mr Chope.

I begin by congratulating the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Caroline Ansell) on securing the debate as part of the commemorations marking the centenary of the Balfour declaration. As we have heard, the 1917 declaration signalled the beginning of Britain’s official support for the establishment of a national home for the Jewish people.

Even before the famous letter from Lord Balfour to Walter Rothschild, the Labour party supported that commitment. The war aims memorandum, which was adopted by the inter-allied Labour and socialist conference in 1918 and quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Bury South (Mr Lewis) today, stated:

“Palestine should be set free...in order that this country may form a free State, under international guarantee, to which such of the Jewish people as desire to do so may return”.

Labour’s first Cabinet Minister, Arthur Henderson, outlined his support at the time of the war aims memorandum, stating:

“The British Labour Party believes that the responsibility of the British people in Palestine should be fulfilled to the utmost of their power. It believes that these responsibilities may be fulfilled so as to ensure the economic prosperity”—

that picks up some of the points made earlier—

“and spiritual freedom of both the Jews and Arabs in Palestine.”

That support for the state of Israel has been at the core of the Labour party’s foreign policy since those early days. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Wavertree (Luciana Berger) alluded to, between 1917 and 1945 support for Zionism was expressed at Labour party conferences on no fewer than 11 occasions. We stand in solidarity as we mark the 100 years, and we stand firmly against anyone who questions Israel’s right to exist.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

Both Israel and Palestine have a right to exist. Does the Minister agree that the UK Government should now join the 70% of the other member states and recognise a Palestine state?

Red Wednesday Campaign

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 15th November 2016 Westminster Hall

[Chris Green (Bolton West) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the Red Wednesday campaign against religious persecution.

It is a pleasure to speak on this very important subject under your chairmanship, Mr Flello. All over the world, thousands of people are persecuted because of their faith, through false imprisonment, physical and mental torture, rape, slavery and, more subtly, discrimination in education and employment. For some, their faith can cost them their lives.

In partnership with the charity Aid to the Church in Need, on Wednesday 23 November Westminster abbey and Westminster cathedral will be lighting up their iconic buildings in red. Other faiths will join in that act of solidarity as a tribute to the people worldwide who are suffering injustice and risking their lives for their faith. I have written to Bolton Council to ask it to join this movement and light up Bolton’s historic town hall in red on 23 November to promote solidarity with those who are suffering. Aid to the Church in Need is also encouraging smaller, more personal acts of recognition on that day that everyone can take part in—for example, simply wearing red for Red Wednesday or using the hashtag #RedWednesday on social media to raise awareness of the plight of others. Having greater awareness and understanding will help to ensure that we never take our freedoms for granted.

This year, I joined colleagues from both sides of the House on a visit to northern Iraq to meet persecuted Christians fleeing the terrorist group Islamic State. In Mosul and elsewhere, Christians have been systematically targeted and the noon symbol, the Arabic equivalent of the Latin N for Nasara or Nazarene, has been daubed on their homes. They have been given the grim choice of paying the jizya tax, converting to Islam or being put to death. Many chose to flee, especially when their money had run out and they could no longer pay the extortion. That persecution, along with that of the Yazidi and many Muslims, led last April to the debate, granted by the Backbench Business Committee and led by my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), on recognition of the genocide perpetrated by ISIL in the region.

The Christian community in Iraq is one of the oldest in the world, dating back to the first century. There were thought to be 1.5 million Christians in Iraq before the invasion in 2003. However, that number is reported to have fallen now to about 230,000. Although many people have been persecuted and have fled the region, that figure shows the targeted nature of the persecution and, if it carries on in that direction, we will soon see the end of Christianity in much of the middle east.

We know that there is a civil war in Syria and Iraq, but sometimes the religious context is overlooked or obscured by more dramatic events. When we met His Holiness Ignatius Aphrem II, the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch of Antioch, he gave us a sense of how overlooked many people feel. He used the example of the protection given to eight frogs in Australia. The pond in which the frogs lived was the subject of a huge local campaign, and a small fortune was spent to save them. He said that, in comparison, many Christians in Iraq felt ignored. Of course we have to protect our natural environment, but I am sure that many colleagues would be as concerned as I am about the scarcity of letters and emails on religious persecution compared with, say, badgers and bees.

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I congratulate the hon. Gentleman on initiating this timely debate. Is he aware of the persecution faced by the Ahmadiyya Muslim community in Pakistan? Since they faced criminalisation in 1984, hundreds of Ahmadis have been murdered in sectarian hate crimes. Does the hon. Gentleman agree that the Government must continue dialogue with countries such as Pakistan to better promote religious tolerance?

[Chris Green]

I agree wholeheartedly with what the hon. Lady has said. It is so important now to reflect on the effects of increased globalisation. What goes on in one country, especially if endorsed by the Government—I am thinking of the Ahmadiyya community no longer being recognised as Muslim and being proscribed from describing themselves as such—is transmitted around the world as an idea and does not help to foster community relations here, so the hon. Lady makes a superb point.

In October 2016, Archbishop Sebastian Shaw of Lahore, Pakistan, told a Foreign and Commonwealth Office conference about his niece’s first year at school. That Christian girl was required to memorise a lesson that she was a Muslim and all non-Muslims were infidels. He spoke about how some textbooks in Pakistan’s schools foster prejudice against members of religious minorities, including Christians, Hindus, Jews and Sikhs.

Studies of the problem have been carried out both by the Catholic Church in Pakistan’s National Commission for Justice and Peace and by the United States Commission on International Religious Freedom. The report, which covered the Punjab and Sindh provinces, noted more than 50 hate references against religious minorities in those provinces’ textbooks. That is a very important example of religious persecution not always being about death and destruction. It can be found in all kinds of other measures, including ones that normalise the sense of persecution in schools. That kind of literature or information and that kind of understanding can be developed in schools and the wider community. I would be grateful if my hon. Friend the Minister included in his reply what steps the Government are taking to stop that happening, particularly in nations that receive British aid to provide not just education but security in the region and beyond. I think that that is an aspect of what the hon. Member for Rutherglen and Hamilton West (Margaret Ferrier) was highlighting.

Oppression of religious communities is not always due to conflict between religions; it can also be part of state oppression, particularly in the remaining communist countries. North Korea is perhaps the most notorious, but we can also see the oppressive treatment of Christians in Cuba and of Muslim Uyghurs in western China.

Britain has her own problems with religious persecution, so it is not just an international problem. The case of Nissar Hussain from Bradford is a particularly shocking example and has gained widespread public attention only after 20 years of suffering following his conversion from Islam to Christianity. Violent punishment for apostasy has no place in any society.

Organisations such as Aid to the Church in Need and Christian Solidarity Worldwide have done a huge amount of work to improve the lives of the persecuted across the world, but we are looking for long-term solutions and, especially for the middle east, one that does not lead to the disappearance of Christianity or other religious groups.

I encourage colleagues and people watching the debate to take part in Red Wednesday next week, to read the report, which will be released on 24 November, or to write to their local council to turn a local monument red. The importance of raising awareness of this issue cannot be overstated.

Yemen

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Wednesday 26th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

It is almost five months since I successfully secured a Westminster Hall debate on human rights and arms sales to Saudi Arabia. Part of my speech focused on the situation in Yemen, and since then that situation has gotten progressively worse. There is a massive humanitarian crisis as the country heads into winter, and it is also careering towards a famine. Millions of people urgently need food assistance, but unfortunately they are not receiving it due to the lack of unhindered access.

I appreciate that the Government have been making efforts to ensure that aid starts to get through—that has certainly helped the situation—but the war-related damage to Yemen’s infrastructure means that essential supplies are still not getting into the country. Onerous restrictions on humanitarian access have resulted in 1.3 million children under five suffering from malnutrition. Is it going to require images of dead children to make us do more? There will soon be no shortage of them—that fact is heartbreaking and infuriating.

The Department for International Development will no doubt argue that we are already doing our fair share, and of course it is only right that we do so. I am afraid, however, that handouts cannot make up for us arming the forces that are causing a lot of the damage to the country’s infrastructure. Make no mistake: although we are not coalition partners, we are willing accomplices.

[Dr Lisa Cameron (East Kilbride, Strathaven and Lesmahagow) (SNP)]

rose—

[Margaret Ferrier]

A lot of Members want to speak, so I am sorry but I am going to continue.

I have been calling for the suspension of the sale of arms to Saudi Arabia for more than a year, and I have heard many excuses for not doing so. First, the Government insisted that the Ministry of Defence had conducted assessments of the situation in Yemen and determined that there was no evidence of breaches of international humanitarian law. That was as recently as June, when the then Foreign Office Minister, the right hon. Member for Aylesbury (Mr Lidington), insisted, in response to me in a Westminster Hall debate, that that was the case.

There was then a climbdown when the Government admitted that the MOD had not, in fact, conducted any assessments. The new refrain is that the Saudis should be responsible for investigating themselves, and that is what has started to happen. Although the joint incidents assessment team has investigated relatively few incidents, even it has been forced to admit that the Saudi-led coalition has indeed broken international humanitarian law. That still does not seem to be enough to shame the Government into action. Even the coalition airstrike in Sana’a on 8 October was not enough.

The UN panel of experts on Yemen has condemned the airstrike. It said that the coalition had “violated its obligations” under international law and that it

“did not take effective precautionary measures to minimize harm to civilians, including the first responders”

on the scene. When I tabled a written question to the Foreign Office in June to ask for an assessment of an extensive report published by the panel of experts in January, it responded:

“The UK has supported, and continues to support, the work of the panel of experts commissioned by the UN, but we do not always agree with their conclusions.”

What is totally shameful about that response is that not once have I seen any evidence whatsoever that the Foreign Office has ever disagreed with the conclusions of the Saudi authorities, let alone questioned them. Why is it that the Government seem content to take the word of a participant in the war at face value, yet disregard so readily the findings of the UN panel?

We need to stop arms sales to Saudi Arabia, and we need an independent investigation. It is time for the Government not only to come clean about their role in the conflict, but to start putting things right.

Aleppo and Syria

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Commons Chamber

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

I, too, thank the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) for bringing forward this debate, and I thank you, Mr Speaker, for granting it. As I rise to speak today, I am mindful that it is little under a year since the vote on whether the UK should join the US-led coalition airstrikes against Daesh in Syria. SNP Members did not support the military action, and any case for airstrikes that the Government believed to exist has now completely fallen apart.

There is a very clear need for a revised military strategy. It is needed urgently, and it must not ignore the extreme humanitarian situation in the country. When the former Prime Minister addressed the House on 26 November last year, he said:

“All these elements—counter-terrorism, political and diplomatic, military and humanitarian—need to happen together to achieve a long-term solution in Syria”—[Official Report, 26 November 2015; Vol. 602, c. 1492.]

Regrettably, it very much appears that these words have not been followed up with any coherent strategy that would have them realised. The humanitarian element is seemingly discarded when at the expense of a military agenda. I know that the response from the Government will be to inform us of how many billions of pounds have been spent, and will be spent on rebuilding Syria after the war. The great problem is that these words are presently meaningless to Syria’s suffering civilians.

According to the Syria Campaign, more than 100,000 children are being bombed in Aleppo, while figures from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights place the total number of children killed in the conflict at over 13,000. Since the ceasefire collapsed fewer than three weeks ago, more than 100 children have been killed out of a total of around 600 civilians. Please stop to think about that—it is the equivalent of a primary school class being slaughtered every five days.

The humanitarian crisis in Syria just continues to get worse. More than 400,000 people have already been killed since 2011. The UN estimates that more than half the country’s pre-war population of 23 million is in urgent need of humanitarian aid. Millions of people have been displaced: 4 million are living as refugees outside Syria, and at least 8 million more are displaced inside the country. Amnesty International estimates that for every hour of the conflict, 50 families have been uprooted from their homes in Syria. Humanitarian aid is being blocked by the Assad regime from getting to those who need it. Hospitals are being systematically targeted by Assad and Russia, while an estimated 382 medical facilities have been destroyed.

[Michael Gove (Surrey Heath) (Con)]

The hon. Lady is understandably painting a heart-rending picture of what is happening in Syria. It seems to me, having listened to two speeches, that the SNP’s position is to equate our military intervention with that of Vladimir Putin, and to argue that we should step aside from this carnage and hope that a unilateral act of disarmament on our part will somehow instil in Bashar al-Assad a spirit of generosity towards his own people that he has not yet shown. Does the hon. Lady not realise how absurd the SNP’s position is? Does she not recognise that it is only through both military engagement and humanitarian work that we will be able to bring relief to the suffering people of that country?

[Mr Speaker]

That is the gravamen of the point, for which we are grateful.

[Margaret Ferrier]

The right hon. Gentleman misses the fact that we are not denying that the brutality inflicted by Assad and Russian forces is beyond comprehension. However, the role that we can and should play is a humanitarian and diplomatic one. That, I believe, should be our role.

In an utterly shocking attack—one that possibly amounts to a war crime—a UN aid convoy was struck in an airstrike, which killed at least 20 people. The reality is that there is utter chaos on the ground and in the skies over Syria. Just last month, the MOD confirmed that the UK was involved in airstrikes that killed at least 62 Syrian Government troops. We have become part of the chaos.

Other Members have mentioned the work of the White Helmets, which I want to mention, too. They have saved thousands of lives, and continue to do so on a daily basis. They were recently nominated for the Nobel peace prize. As the bombs rain down, the White Helmets do not stop. They rush in to save civilians. They are the heroes in this conflict.

The UK Government need immediately to halt their airstrikes in Syria, and present Parliament with an alternative coherent plan. We need a sensible strategy—one that actually ensures that the humanitarian situation is not cast aside. We can make a difference in this conflict. We can play some part, no matter how small, in minimising the human suffering in this horrific war. However, it is time for the Government to admit that doing so will require a complete change of strategy.

Forced Organ Removal: China

Margaret Ferrier Excerpts

Tuesday 11th October 2016 Westminster Hall

[Margaret Ferrier (Rutherglen and Hamilton West) (SNP)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gapes. It is a privilege to be able to speak in this serious and important debate. I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for securing it; he is a committed human rights activist in this place, and I thank him for giving us the opportunity to consider forced organ removal in China.

I hope it goes without saying that I condemn this reported practice in the strongest possible terms. I am certainly not the first Scottish National party politician to do so; my party colleague Bob Doris MSP is a long-standing campaigner on the issue. He has done a great deal to raise awareness, both over the previous parliamentary term and since the influx of new Members of the Scottish Parliament. Bob’s work has ensured that the Scottish Government continue to raise these human rights concerns when engaging with China. I put on record my gratitude to him for that. He is one of a number of politicians from all parties who have worked to raise awareness and encourage action. Many in this place, including the hon. Member for Strangford and the hon. Member for Cambridge (Daniel Zeichner), also deserve recognition for their work.

The European Parliament and the US House of Representatives have both passed resolutions expressing concern over

“persistent and credible reports of systematic, state-sanctioned organ harvesting from non-consenting prisoners of conscience”.

Those concerns are echoed by organisations such as Amnesty International and Tibet Truth. The conclusions reached in the report “Bloody Harvest”, updated and republished in June this year, make it clear why they deserve to be treated with the utmost seriousness. The report found:

“Organ transplantation volume in China is far larger than official Chinese government statistics indicate…The source for most of the massive volume of organs for transplants is the killing of innocents: Uyghurs, Tibetans, House Christians and”—

as we have heard today—

“primarily Falun Gong”.

It also called on all nations not to

“allow their citizens to go to China for organs until China has allowed a full investigation into organ harvesting of prisoners of conscience, both past and present.”

In a written answer to a parliamentary question recently tabled by the hon. Member for Strangford, the Foreign Office acknowledged that, although few British people are thought to travel overseas for such transplants,

“it is very difficult to prevent UK citizens travelling to less well-regulated countries”

to do so. When the Minister responds to the debate, perhaps he would care to elaborate on that, as well as on the various difficulties faced. What assessment has been made of any potential methods to restrict travel of that kind? I am sure he will also explain the diplomatic efforts to end the practice of forced organ removal in China. I would like to hear today an undertaking that such efforts will be stepped up. There are signs that the matter has fallen off the radar at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

[Dr Matthew Offord (Hendon) (Con)]

I am pleased that this debate is taking place. It is not only interesting but informative. I pay tribute not only to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), but to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) for her fantastic report, which I have read.

Does the hon. Lady agree that the UK Government’s policy of speaking to the Chinese behind closed doors—or behind their hands, so to speak—has not worked? We now need to speak publicly about the human rights abuses that are occurring in China to make them seek to change how they treat their citizens.

[Margaret Ferrier]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. It is interesting that we hear about conversations going on behind closed doors not only with China but with other countries, because of certain difficulties. We have to be careful how we deal with countries such as China. We do a lot of trade with China and with some countries in the middle east that unfortunately have poor human rights records. If talking behind closed doors is not working, it is time to bring things into the public domain. I hope the Minister will take that on board.

Although the FCO’s 2014 corporate report into human rights in China noted that the country

“announced in December that it would cease harvesting organs from executed prisoners by 1 January 2015”,

there is simply no mention whatever of the practice in the 2016 report. Will the Minister commit to taking action to demonstrate the Government’s ongoing commitment to tackling organ harvesting? Will he give an undertaking that the UK will make representations to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights on efforts to investigate forced organ removal in China?

As we have heard, thousands of religious prisoners in China have had their livers, kidneys and corneas ripped out while they were still alive. It is absolutely horrific to think of that. Will the UK use its position to push at EU level for high-level European action to address the practice? Forced organ donation is abhorrent. It is a practice that makes a mockery of even the most fundamental and basic universal human rights. As journalist Ethan Gutmann stated:

“We acknowledge a terrible atrocity only after it’s over.”

We have to change that and always speak out against what we know in our hearts is fundamentally wrong.

In closing, I shall quote Dr Martin Luther King, who said:

“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

Dr King’s words ring as true today as when first spoken. If human rights are truly universal, we must uphold them everywhere, and challenge violations wherever they occur.