Ugandan School Attack

Mary Robinson Excerpts

Tuesday 20th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

On the hon. Gentleman’s final point, we are deploying very large amounts of British taxpayers’ money in the area, as he suggests, and we are ensuring that we are light on our feet and using that to good humanitarian effect. If he looks at some of the programmes I have announced recently, he will see that they directly affect the humanitarian position, particularly for girls and women.

In respect of what Britain is doing to try to ensure greater security in the eastern DRC and on the border to which the hon. Gentleman refers, although we never discuss proscription and other security measures in advance, he may rest assured that the British Government are fully engaged, not least through the Nairobi peace process, in doing anything that we can to bring back stability to this very troubled part of the world.

[Mary Robinson (Cheadle) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for bringing this really important question before the House. It is a dastardly and awful attack—it is desperate—and the people living along that border will be fearful for their lives and living with a heightened sense of fear and danger. Could my right hon. Friend set out what measures we are taking across that border between Congo and Uganda to help those people who are living in fear every day?

[Mr Mitchell]

Britain has been heavily engaged through both the Luanda and the Nairobi peace processes in trying to tackle that very problem, and we will continue that engagement until we are finally successful.