Commonwealth Day

Maria Miller Excerpts

Tuesday 15th March 2022 Westminster Hall

[Mrs Maria Miller (Basingstoke) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship in this important debate, Mr Davies. It is absolutely right that we should hold this debate, secured by my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger), to mark Commonwealth day. Yesterday, in Westminster Abbey, we celebrated the rich diversity of the Commonwealth; today, we are hearing from right hon. and hon. Members from across the House about the important practical role that the Commonwealth plays. I declare a slight interest: I am a member of the CPA along with my hon. Friend, and a trustee of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy.

My right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) set out very clearly that one of the many values of the Commonwealth, and in particular the CPA, is in enabling Parliaments to talk to each other and work together to improve. I say “together” quite pointedly, because we have as much to learn as we have knowledge to impart, which is very important.

We live in an increasingly interconnected world. The situation in Ukraine shows that, as do the pandemic and, as my hon. Friend the Member for Stafford (Theo Clarke) said, climate change. Whether it is equality, opportunity or religious freedom, which the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) mentioned, so many issues are interconnected, and organisations such as the Commonwealth, but particularly the Commonwealth, can play such a powerful role.

The Commonwealth continues to resonate because it reflects that interconnectivity between 54 equal sovereign nations around the world—54 nations that share values that are fundamental to our way of life. We are free, democratic societies that want to live in peace and to prosper, and we take action to support each other in achieving those aims. My hon. Friend the Member for Stafford mentioned the Commonwealth games. Nothing embodies the Commonwealth more than athletes from across the Commonwealth coming together, as they will in Birmingham in July this year, to demonstrate the purposefulness behind the Commonwealth organisation.

Too often, when we speak about the Commonwealth, we talk about economic ties. They are important—the Commonwealth provides significant opportunities for global Britain to trade more freely, and the Government have been very successful in putting their words into action with the free trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand and Singapore and the ongoing negotiations with India, and by looking to boost ties with countries such as Canada. That is very real and important. However, for me, it is the democratic ties that are so important, as my right hon. Friend the Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale said.

We have opportunities to work together to improve our democracies. It has never been more important in this world for us to strengthen democracies, and for this Parliament, as well as Parliaments throughout the United Kingdom and the world, to understand their role and their obligation to strengthen democratic ties and, fundamentally, to strengthen our democracies.

Within the Commonwealth, it is astonishing to see the very practical ways that countries can work together at parliamentary and, indeed, Government level. We have 11 member states that are committed—as, I am proud to say, our own Government are—to 12 years of education for women. We have an alliance of 34 Commonwealth nations that have joined together to look at ways to reduce plastics in our oceans. Those are practical ways in which Commonwealth countries can come together on policy issues that really matter to the future of our world.

Like other Members who have spoken, I want to pay particular tribute to the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. When I joined Parliament, albeit it a number of years ago, I had not heard of the CPA, but over the ensuing decade and a half I have got to know it very well. I am deeply impressed by the way in which the CPA, not just here in Westminster but across the Commonwealth, is so dedicated to improving our democracy and the way democracies work, and to enabling us to learn from each other, as we are in this week’s Westminster Seminar. I am privileged to be leading a session on Thursday on how we can be better scrutineers of Governments. Having been a Government Minister and the Chair of a Select Committee, I am looking forward not only to talking about my experiences, but to hearing from other Members about how they effect good scrutiny in their jurisdictions.

As well as the CPA, Commonwealth Women Parliamentarians has a crucial role in a world where still only one in every four parliamentarians elected is a woman. We have a long way to go. In our own Parliament, there are twice as many men elected to the House of Commons as women, so anybody who thinks we have got this right needs to read some of the evidence; we still have a long way to go ourselves. By working together, Commonwealth women parliamentarians can share experiences, perhaps hold each other to account, and scrutinise each other on how we are trying to increase women’s parliamentary representation.

Across the Commonwealth, we are seeing significant action being taken. In the CWP Pacific region, women parliamentarians are using New Zealand as a crucial regional hub to increase women’s representation, and are highlighting notable role models. The Canadian region is working with civil society on non-political training for potential women candidates at provincial and municipal levels to encourage more women to stand for Parliament. That is something that our Parliament should be seriously considering, as we still have a real shortfall in the number of women who want to stand for election.

Curiously, our own region is called the British Islands and Mediterranean region. Basically, that is the United Kingdom plus a number of other quite scattered jurisdictions, as my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset set out. We are very focused on how we can use an important tool—gender-sensitive Parliament audits—to look at how good we are as a region at female representation. The research is clear that strong Parliaments are representative of their country’s people and, of course, more than 50% of people in our country are female. We can use gender-sensitive Parliament audits to identify how we can improve the way we encourage women to stand for election and retain them as elected representatives.

The States Assembly of Jersey implemented such an audit in 2018, and the Scottish Parliament has announced its plan to carry one out this year. I am hoping that we can do likewise here in the UK. I pay tribute to the work of the Women and Equalities Committee, which has looked at these issues in some detail. Indeed, four out of 13 Parliaments in our region have completed gender-sensitive Parliament audits.

I reiterate the comments made by my right hon. and hon. Friends about the status of the CPA. Its charitable status is becoming a real problem, and the Minister needs to take that on board. It is seen by many of our members as absolutely inappropriate. It does not sit well alongside the purpose of the organisation. The CPA needs to be recognised in the same way that so many other international organisations are recognised, and charitable status is not right. It would be such a shame, given the immense support that Ministers give to the CPA, if we could not resolve this rather administrative problem. I pay particular tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset, who is the chair of the CPA in the UK and, indeed, on a Commonwealth basis at the moment, for all the work he has done on that. A number of hon. and right hon. Members have paid tribute to the staff of the CPA, and I echo that.

In closing, I will make reference to a remark that Her Majesty made in her message on Commonwealth day. She said that Commonwealth countries should continue

“to be a point of connection, cooperation and friendship.”

Those words are absolutely right. For me, the Commonwealth is literally part of my family. Half of my family is Canadian. I am a proud mother of three Canadian children—joint citizens. It is those family ties, that connectivity, that binds us together—most importantly of all, under the leadership of Her Majesty.

[Steven Bonnar (Coatbridge, Chryston and Bellshill) (SNP)]

It is good to see you in the Chair, Mr Davies. I too am grateful to the hon. Member for Bridgwater and West Somerset (Mr Liddell-Grainger) not only for bringing forward the debate, but also for speaking with such great authority and knowledge on the Commonwealth.

As we have heard, the Commonwealth brings together 54 countries and 2.4 billion people around the world. It is a network connecting many of the fastest-growing nations on Earth, with strong ties in language, culture, values and mutual appreciation. Of course there are also the famous Commonwealth games, which is one of the few opportunities for athletes in Scotland to represent Scotland under the Saltire; I am sure that the right hon. Member for Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale (David Mundell) enjoys that just as much as I do.

The Commonwealth also has profound origins in colonialism and can be seen as a direct descendant of the British empire. Many critics of the Commonwealth have described it as an institute for Britain to forget about the British empire’s genocides, exploitation, dominance and oppression of post-colonial countries.

Today, Commonwealth countries are still waiting for an official apology for atrocities committed by Britain during its colonial rule of those countries. For example, there was the massacre at Amritsar in northern India in 1919, when British troops fired on thousands of innocent and unarmed men, women and children during a peaceful protest. Over 100 years later, Britain has still refused to offer an official apology, having only acknowledged that the massacre took place. This Government should offer India and the people of Amritsar the closure they deserve by issuing a formal apology—something they have requested for years.

Numerous aspects of the Commonwealth demonstrate it is not the welcoming body that we all hoped and imagined it to be. For example, take the Windrush controversy of recent years. Hundreds of Commonwealth citizens, many of whom were part of the Windrush generation, were wrongly detained, deported and denied their legal rights. For years, Caribbean Heads of Government tried to discuss this issue with this Government, only to be rejected. It was only when coverage of these individuals’ stories began to break in mainstream media that the same UK Government decided on a U-turn and abandoned their “hostile” immigration environment for the Windrush generation.

The UK has held the position of Commonwealth chair-in-office since 2018 and will continue to do so until June this year. To be honest, the UK Government have so far missed an opportunity to implement fundamental cultural change. In March 2020, my hon. Friend the Member for Glasgow North East (Anne McLaughlin) addressed this issue and stated that the UK Government must do more, considering the two years we have lost due to the pandemic, and that time was of the essence to make a positive impact. Such an impact has not been made. The Government need to do more to fully understand the Commonwealth and to ensure that its member states abide by the shared values of democracy, human rights and the rule of law that are enshrined in the Commonwealth’s charter.

The Commonwealth has an unimpressive record of not being sufficiently vocal in enforcing these core values, a situation which has become more challenging as the organisation has grown in size. Some members ignore international pressure to promote democracy and human rights. Also, the Commonwealth family took no action in January 2021 when Uganda’s President, Yoweri Museveni, clung to power after a deeply flawed election. Also, in 2013 President Mahinda Rajapaksa of Sri Lanka hosted a Commonwealth summit at a time when his Government stood accused of presiding over war crimes. In Nigeria, another Commonwealth member, there is a 10-year prison sentence for same-sex couples showing affection in public and a 14-year prison sentence for anybody having a gay marriage.

Also, the UK is withholding considerable aid funding from critical Commonwealth states, demonstrating that it is unconcerned about the Commonwealth. The UK Government have cut £4 billion from its foreign development budget for 2021-22 and according to Commonwealth Innovation Fund research the number of people living in extreme poverty in the Commonwealth will increase from 209 million in 2019 to 237 million by 2025.

[Mrs Miller]

The hon. Gentleman is making some important points about the Commonwealth, but will he not join me in paying tribute to the UK Government during their time as chair-in-office for supporting six Commonwealth countries to repeal and reform outdated legislation that discriminates against women, girls or LGBT communities? Is that not an opportunity that would not exist if the Commonwealth did not exist?

[Steven Bonnar]

I thank the right hon. Member for that intervention. She is absolutely right, and wherever we can pursue openness, democracy, fairness and equality throughout the world, we should take the opportunity to do so. I just feel that we have missed an opportunity to do that while we have been chair-in-office. Nevertheless, I thank her for her intervention.

In 2019, the UK provided approximately £1.8 billion in bilateral aid to Commonwealth countries, accounting for over 18% of total bilateral ODA. In 2021, the then Secretary of State for International Trade, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss)—who now serves as Foreign Secretary and Minister for Women and Equalities—signed off £183 million of cuts to education, gender and equality spending in the UK aid budget.