Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 12th March 2024 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

There are things that we want the Israeli Government to do in that respect. We want them to release frozen funds, halt settlement expansion and hold to account those responsible for settler violence, which is why Britain has sanctioned four extremist Israeli settlers. Let me be clear: as I understand it, the Israeli Government are not against Palestinian statehood but are against unilateral recognition without bilateral negotiations. That was the burden of a vote in the Knesset on 18 February this year.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

The wider discussion of a two-state solution outside this place is being misrepresented. Restaurants are being boycotted for selling Coca-Cola, because people think the company supports Israel. The Coca-Cola factory in the west bank is actually owned by a Palestinian franchisee, so we need to educate people. To get back to the discussion of a two-state solution, we clearly need a ceasefire and the hostages to be released by Hamas. Will my right hon. Friend detail what discussions he is having in that regard?

[Mr Mitchell]

Those discussions are going on all the time with our friends and allies, with the regional powers, at the United Nations and, indeed, directly with Israel. As I said, the Prime Minister and the Foreign Secretary talk regularly to Prime Minister Netanyahu, and we will continue to do so. My hon. Friend eloquently set out the reason for the Government’s policy of trying to create a pause to get the hostages out and aid in, and we will continue to pursue that objective.

Human Rights in Hong Kong

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I will be brief. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham (Tim Loughton), not only on securing this debate, but on his powerful and excellent speech, which brought home everything that needs to be said about this issue. I will not repeat it.

My hon. Friend mentioned that 182,000 or so Hongkongers have come to the UK under the BNO visa. Over the last few years, some 4,000 have come to Sutton, because it is a borough open to communities fleeing either democracy-related oppression or conflict. For example, some 25 or 30 years ago, Tamils made their home in south-west London because of the civil war in Sri Lanka. These people came to Sutton because of the schools and because it is a great place to bring up families—being half Burmese, I always talk about the Asian equation: good family networks, great education and hard work bring the best chance of prosperity—but also because there is a sense of community.

I pay tribute to Richard Choi, who drove a lot of that movement. He surveyed many Hongkongers deciding to go to London and asked them about what they wanted, where they were going to settle, and what kind of housing, schools and businesses they wanted. I have been watching Sutton Bei Bei on YouTube, an influencer who talks about the wi-fi speeds in Sutton flats, parks, and those kinds of things. They buy their food from SMart Oriental, a supermarket at the top of the high street, and eat at a business run by a new Hongkonger at the bottom of the high street. However, it is not about all those fantastic things. It is about the contrast between what they find in the UK and what they have just left in Hong Kong.

On 5 August 2023, the Hongkongers got together in Sutton library for a children’s workshop named after “Sheep Village”, a series of books. The five authors of those books were jailed in 2022 for 19 months each. They were really worried at the time, because of social media posts by former Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying, who was making pointed comments from the other side of the world. We did not take photos, out of respect for their safety, but the fact that that event was allowed to go ahead quite happily that day for those children and their families; the fact that I could speak to the Minister, to the then Foreign Secretary, my right hon. Friend the Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), and to the Minister for Security; and the fact that the Hongkongers could speak to their democratic representatives—all these things were very important. I brought some of the Hongkongers here for a tour, and as we got close to the doors of the Public Gallery, which were open to the Chamber, one of the more elderly members of the group was in tears because the fact that he was so close to the Dispatch Box watching the proceedings of this open democracy, had had a tour from his Member of Parliament and could have an open exchange with him was in such contrast to what he had seen his homeland descend into.

It is really important that we continue to speak about this. This year is the 40th anniversary of the signing of the Sino-British declaration. That is a lifetime ago for some people, although not for me. It came into effect in 1997, so there are still 33 years to go, but it is clear that it is just not lasting the distance, following the adoption of the national security law in June 2020 by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress in Beijing. The declaration made it clear that the Hongkongers’ high degree of autonomy, rights and freedoms at that time would remain unchanged for 50 years, but that has just not happened. The national security law been used as a tool to curtail freedoms and punish dissent rather than to keep public order, as is its stated intention. That means that, for all the stories we have heard—the alternative voices, whether they are in the media, like Jimmy Lai, or the Hong Kong 47—all the sham trials are curtailing democracy and silencing voices. We have heard about the economic, social and population impact on Hong Kong. What is left is basically conformity, and I suppose, in post-cultural revolution China, conformity is effectively all they have.

I am glad that the trial of Jimmy Lai has rightly caught the attention of special rapporteurs of the special procedures of the UN Human Rights Council, the largest body of independent experts in the UN human rights system, because it is important that we mobilise the international community. My hon. Friend the Member for East Worthing and Shoreham is absolutely right that it is really important that we lead on this, as the UK Government and UK parliamentarians with a special responsibility and duty of care, given our past relationship with Hong Kong.

I want to pay tribute to someone who is leading on this. We have mentioned several advocates, but I make special mention of Hong Kong Watch and of Benedict Rogers in particular. It was no surprise to me when Benedict Rogers co-founded Hong Kong Watch. We have known each other a long time. I travelled to Burma with him—as I said, I am half-Burmese—and having seen the work he did there, I am not surprised that he has brought the same zeal, dedication and moral outrage to the crusade and campaign on Hong Kong. I absolutely condemn what he has had to suffer, with the attempt to traduce his reputation here in the UK. Whether it is harassing his neighbours and his family or targeting him at a previous Conservative party conference, as we have heard, such things should not be happening on UK streets in this country. We absolutely have to act.

The Minister will rightly say what the Government have done about Hong Kong. Members have asked, as I will, about what the Government should be doing. The fact that the Government extended the UK’s arms embargo on mainland China to Hong Kong soon after the imposition of the national security law, that they suspended the UK’s extradition treaty with Hong Kong, that they introduced a new immigration path for BNO passport holders to make the UK, including Sutton, their home, and that the Foreign Secretary brought in the Chinese ambassador in the formal diplomatic démarche on 13 July are all to be welcomed. But we will always take a slightly different approach from the US, because we have a different relationship with China in relation to trade. Our soft-diplomacy approach to China is important, but we have heard why we must act now and look at sanctions. I also make a plea for us to call out the mandatory provident fund issue, because the Hongkongers who have settled here need to be able to settle themselves economically as well.

[Derek Twigg (in the Chair)]

I intend to call the Front-Bench spokespeople just before 25 minutes to 4. I call Fiona Bruce.

Sri Lankan Tamils and Human Rights

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

A number of councillors—Councillor Param Nandha and Councillor Jay Ganesh—and Nick Rogers of the London Assembly have pushed local authorities to celebrate Tamil Heritage Month next month. This will allow children to celebrate speaking Tamil, the oldest language still in use—there will be Tamil songs, dances, poetry and so on—but part of their heritage is this awful chapter. My hon. Friend talked about these resolutions, as did the hon. Member for Linlithgow and East Falkirk (Martyn Day), who opened the debate. Does my hon. Friend agree that rather than waiting for a third resolution, the first of which was backed by Sri Lanka, we can actually take some action, rather than having to keep renewing and taking no action?

[Elliot Colburn]

I am very grateful to my hon. Friend, my predecessor as chair of the all-party group, for that intervention. He is absolutely right.

The last action that the Government must urgently consider is sanctions, especially against those credibly accused of war crimes, particularly General Silva, but many others as well. It has been said already that we are lagging behind the US and Canada, which have already implemented such sanctions. It is time the UK followed suit and imposed them without any further delay.

As we approach the 15th anniversary of the end of the war, I hope that the Minister can give us some reassurances that the UK will continue to stand in solidarity with the Tamil community in demanding justice and accountability. The diplomatic efforts and the internal efforts in Sri Lanka have not brought about meaningful change or any lasting peace. The Tamil community’s quest for justice and peace must not be deterred. It is time for us to follow the international community, impose sanctions and continue to lead the way in standing up for the rights of Tamil people.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 25th June 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I remember our conversation across the Floor of the House and look forward very much to receiving the hon. Gentleman’s helpful ideas. It is vital that the parties to the Sochi ceasefire are mindful of the obligations they signed up to in September. The events of 6 May and subsequently are deeply regrettable and stand the very real risk of causing a huge further humanitarian crisis with further internally displaced people. We have to avoid that at all costs. I therefore gently suggest that the parties get back around the table and ensure that as a safe first step they stop their hostile activities in north-west Syria.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I have just returned from seeing Richard Ratcliffe, who is on the 11th day of his hunger strike in support of his wife Nazanin, who still languishes in a prison in Iran. Given the current increased tensions with Iran, what more can we do to keep Nazanin at the forefront of the profile and make sure the message to get her released is not lost among the other discussions we must have?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for visiting Richard Ratcliffe, who is a very brave man. I met him the weekend before last, and he is doing a remarkable job. I know that the whole House is thinking about Nazanin, about her five-year-old daughter and about that family. Our message to Iran is very simple: whatever disagreements you have with the UK, do not punish this innocent woman. It is not her fault. Let her come home.

Sri Lanka

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 23rd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Hunt]

The hon. Lady makes an important point. The Home Secretary was with me this morning when I briefed the Cabinet on the situation in Sri Lanka, but I will take up the specific concerns that she has raised.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Social media in this country was used on Sunday by members of the Tamil diaspora with whom I work closely to give me real-time updates and to share their horror and despair. Social media was also used in Sri Lanka to encourage people to donate blood because of the shortages in the hospitals there. The people of Sri Lanka are now unified in their grief, whether they are Sinhalese, Tamil, Hindu, Buddhist, Muslim, Christian or of any other faith or none. What more can we do to work with the Government of Sri Lanka and the international community to cement that universal solidarity as that island moves forward?

[Mr Hunt]

It is early days, but I spoke to Foreign Minister Marapana yesterday, and our Prime Minister is due to speak to the Sri Lankan Prime Minister this afternoon. Our offer is there to support them in any way possible, but one of the things that we can do is what this House is doing this afternoon. We have had a nearly full house of people from all political parties wanting to show their solidarity with our friends in Sri Lanka, and I think that that is something of which we can be rightly proud.

Exiting the European Union (Sanctions)

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 9th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I want to let the Minister wind up, so this is a perfect time for you to come back into the Chamber, Mr Speaker, and for me to talk about Burma for just one minute, because I know it is dear to your heart.

We are obviously still concerned about oppression in Rakhine, Karen, Shan and all the other ethnic states. Everyone welcomes the ceasefires called by the military since last year, but there are still concerns that those ceasefires allow the military to build up its defences and militarise areas of those ethnic states.

In my role as trade envoy, I am only too aware that there is a holistic approach. I am glad the Minister talked about targeted sanctions, because for the ordinary people who are being oppressed, persecuted, raped, mutilated and killed, we know that the only way through this, apart from our action with the international community, is through growth and prosperity. We must give them that growth and prosperity through trade, support and infrastructure building, which is why we need to target the sanctions at the military. Let us make sure that we do not leave the ordinary people of Burma behind in a fuller set of sanctions.

Rohingya Refugee Crisis

Paul Scully Excerpts

Thursday 20th December 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

I congratulate the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali) on securing the debate. Yes, the debate has been delayed, but it is always timely and it is always important to ensure that we raise our voices for the Rohingya people. I commend her powerful speech and the powerful speech from my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main). We have attended Cox’s Bazar and we have seen the camps together—more on that in a second. I also commend the very measured and sensible approach, as always, of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg), who chairs the International Development Committee. It is a pleasure and honour to serve alongside him.

Why is it important that we talk about this issue now and keep on talking about it? As I have said many times, it only takes something to flare up in Syria or the news we had this week in Yemen—never mind the pantomime we had in this place yesterday—to take the focus off what is such a huge humanitarian crisis in such a small part of the world. It is a niche area that many people, especially in this country, simply do not understand or appreciate. Burma was closed for 70 years, so there has not been the opportunity for people to find out much about it. If we ask people in this country outside this place what they know about Burma, they will say two things: Aung San Suu Kyi and Rohingya Muslims. That is about all.

My hon. Friend the Member for St Albans talked about the definition of genocide. Burma has form on this. For a number of years, since before I was elected, I have been going to meetings of the all-party group on Burma. I remember the days when Mr Speaker chaired the group. We had a chap—it must be nearly a decade ago—called Jared Genser, a human rights lawyer, then of DLA Piper. Before Burma opened up into the fledging transitional democracy that we sort of see struggling at the moment, he made the case that of the seven or eight conditions that one can ascribe to genocide, Burma was the only conflict post-war that matched every single one. Rwanda and Srebrenica matched some of them, but Burma matched every single one. Now we can see the past masters of this heinous crime are using all those instruments time and time again. It is time that we acted.

I want to set out the context of why we have got to where we are. I am half-Burmese and my first question, when I was elected to this place, was on what we then described as the Rohingya boat people. In 2015, people were being pushed out into the seas in fear of their lives, trying to find a safe haven. It was cyclone season and there was a horrendous number of deaths. If we fast forward to 2017, my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans joined me and my hon. Friend the Member for Colchester (Will Quince) as, I think, the first Members into the refugee camps at Cox’s Bazar just weeks after the latest exodus. At the time “only” 400,000 people had crossed the border. By the time we left, a week later, there were 500,000 people. We are now at 700,000-plus people who have joined those already there.

The Kutupalong camp is the biggest refugee camp in the world. It has been there for 30 years, expanding and expanding significantly. We went to the Gundam border crossing where, as my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans said, we spoke to people who had been driven across the border chased by helicopters shooting at their ankles and the backs of their legs to hurry them towards the landmine-strewn border. We saw video and photo evidence of people who had had their legs blown off by landmines just four days before we got there. They were being searched by Burmese guards using drones, which were looking at the no-man’s land area where there were 5,000 people in a tiny little area on a curve of a river—they did not want to go to the refugee camps in Bangladesh because at that time they did not know or trust what would happen to them.

We saw people who were dead behind the eyes. These were the people, let us not forget, that the Burmese Government had accused of being terrorists. I saw a 60-year-old lady, who had seen her children genitally mutilated and her son-in-law slaughtered in front of her, and whose house was then burned down. To accuse her of being a terrorist was just fantasyland. As we sat there in Cox’s Bazar airport, Aung San Suu Kyi was on telly saying that nothing else was happening—that there were no fresh attacks. Fast forward a couple of hours and we were back on the Gundam border, and we smelled and saw the smoke from burning villages. It is no surprise that the intransigence we are seeing now is a continuation of the denial—the “hear no evil, say no evil, see no evil” —that we observed then.

Because the Burmese people are largely in favour of the exodus of the Rohingya, and because of the whipping up of the nationalist interests of those people, the military in particular are able to hide behind the populist uprising and say, “We have been accused of acts of terror, but that is just western propaganda.” We must cut through that very clearly. We must say, “Look, we will always help you when it comes to democratic support. We will continue the support that we have given in this place over the last few years to enable you to build up the rule of law and democratic structures in your Hluttaw”—the Burmese Parliament—“and we will not tell you how to run your country. But we will always call you out when you are breaking, in every sense, every international norm relating to human rights.”

Along with the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby, I went back to Cox’s Bazar six months after that first trip. It was rewarding to see some of the improvements that had been made thanks to UK Aid, DFID funding and a number of other countries that had come together—and, indeed, thanks to members of the public in this country, who had raised £27 million through the Disasters Emergency Committee appeal. Worshippers in mosques and churches and charities around the country came together in a spectacular way, first to raise the money, and secondly to do what we are trying to do here: to keep the voice of the Rohingya in our minds. We saw a huge improvement in the registration camps. It had taken my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans and me perhaps 40 minutes to cross areas that could now be crossed in 10 minutes because of the tracks and roads that had been built over those six months.

I think that landslides and cyclones posed a risk to about 200,000 people. Fortunately, as the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby said, our worst fears were not realised; none the less, people are still suffering in the makeshift camps, which are cleared jungle. It is the only hillside in Bangladesh: there is pretty flat land below sea level, but they managed to find the only slopes. The area is on an elephant migration track, and unfortunately when people walk around the landslides, some of them are trampled by elephants travelling back and forth on their normal annual path. So there is plenty more for us to do.

I was the rapporteur for the Rohingya report that we produced a few months ago. It is my job to follow up developments and ensure that we are keeping the Government and all the agency and non-governmental organisations on their toes, and that they are fulfilling our recommendations, to which DFID agreed. We could return to some of the stuff that we have talked about before, and discuss how we can prevent crises in the future, but that is for other debates and other crises not yet known. We need to empower the affected people. That means building up leadership structures through DFID and NGOs, but it is also up to the all-party parliamentary group on the rights of the Rohingya, which is chaired by my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans, to ensure that we in Parliament can start to speak out. This is not just between the Bangladeshi and the Burmese Governments. Stakeholders—those people, those women, those children—must be at the heart of any decision making, so that if they are able to go back they will be repatriated in a dignified way, when it is safe for them to do so and when they have agreed to do so.

This is at a slight tangent, but there is one particular thing that I think our Committee needs to do. I appeal to any women Members, if they so choose, to put their names forward when there is a vacancy. Women and Equalities questions took place earlier today, and we have had plenty of debates about women’s equality, but this is at the heart of what we need to be doing. The Committee currently has just one female member, my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Mrs Latham). One of the limitations when we are investigating what is happening in the camps is our inability to go into some of the health clinics and see people who are traumatised by the rape, the violence and the maiming that they have seen. It is impossible for the likes of my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans and me to go there, and even if we did, we would not get the information out. If Parliament is to do its job, it is fundamentally important for the Committee to have a better gender balance in future.

Many Members have mentioned gender-based violence, which is mentioned in one of our recommendations. How can we build up justice, and establish accountability for what has happened? We have clearly said that the military cannot act with impunity, feeling that they can do what they like and get away with it. They must be held to account. The next stage is reconciliation. How can we start to bring the different factions back together? That does not just mean dampening down military control in the country. If the Rohingya manage to return to their homes, they will need to be able to live side by side with the other members of the Rakhine community, who have been whipped up into a nationalist frenzy and pushed into perpetrating some of the violence alongside the militia.

The Rohingya communities were farming some of the land and harvesting, but as people have been pushed into Bangladesh, that has gone to pot, and many of the villages that were burnt have started to turn back into jungle, which is beginning to affect the community as a whole. The entire state is suffering badly, not just the million people who have been pushed out. DFID has done a very good job so far in providing medicine, vaccinations, food, shelter and trauma support, but we need to do much more. This is not just about helping the people who are there. Yes, we can continue to help them, but surely the best way we can help them is to bring an end to the conflict and allow all of them to return safely and in a dignified way, and that means that the citizenship laws must be overturned.

When I first went to Burma in 2016, I met a young lady called Wai Nu, who is now campaigning around the world—in America, in this country and back in Burma. She had been in prison for seven years, and she was 29. She had served a shorter jail sentence than anyone else I had met, purely and simply because she was so little. She had been imprisoned predominantly because of her father, who was a former Member of Parliament for the area. Now, because of those citizenship laws, not only could he no longer be a Member of Parliament, but he could not even vote. He could not even be a citizen of the country in which he had lived for his entire life, which is painfully ridiculous. This is a fundamental issue. We must press for change if the Rohingya are to have any comfort in the knowledge that they will be able to return to their country.

I welcome the fact that the Foreign Secretary and the Minister—who is always very proactive when it comes to matters relating to Burma and, indeed, the whole region, and with whom I have worked very closely—have been far more robust in recent weeks and months in respect of the possibility of a referral to the International Criminal Court. The work that is being done at the United Nations with the international community is extremely important.

We must think about what more we can do to target the military with sanctions. As I have often said in this place, I do not think that we should target the whole of Burma in a “blanket” way, because that would adversely affect so many people who are not in the midst of the conflict and who desperately need our help. We need to target the military so that they cannot feel that they can get away with this with impunity.

We need China’s influence as well. Yes, it has its trading links, but if it wants to be part of a wider trading partnership with the international community, it must realise that it has responsibilities as well. I do not care if ASEAN countries do not come out and say that publicly, as long as they are saying it when they are having conversations with the Burmese military, with whom many countries in the surrounding area are reasonably friendly. They can have private conversations that may bear fruit in the long run. They can say to Burma, “You need to tackle your responsibilities if you want to return as an open member of the international community.”

Finally and briefly, I want to broaden my speech and talk about why I have always believed we need a holistic approach. The hon. Member for Stroud (Dr Drew) talked about the other conflicts, and it is important that we have an understanding of them here, by looking at the Christians in Chin state who are still persecuted, and at northern Shan and Kachin where there is still conflict going on; airstrikes were reported only a few months ago, and there is open fighting. A bomb was found in Shan state just last month. There are also the Reuters journalists who have been put in prison, and a British national, Niranjan Rasalingam, who is in Insein prison serving a 17-year sentence on what many believe are trumped-up financial charges. We need to look at that, and address it by asking, even though many political prisoners have been released, what more we can do to make sure people whose charges might be fake or trumped up are judged under the open rule of law.

Without stopping too much DFID aid around the country, we do need to make sure we provide for the healthcare and educational needs and the democratic structures, so that when Burma finally decides to re-join the international community it has the capacity to do so in its Hluttaw—its Parliament.

I am the trade envoy to Burma and, finally, I want to say that the economic development of Burma is very important. We must build on prosperity and bring people into that, because if they feel the benefit of involvement with the wider international community, through improved facilities and services, micropayments, FinTech solutions for the smaller villages and so forth, that holistic approach will help to drive them back into the wider family of the United Nations.

--- Later in debate ---

[Imran Hussain]

I partly accept what the Minister says. Of course condemnation alone does not go the length, but it is absolutely a starting point. Regrettably, the Minister did not condemn at that point—he knows that he did not use the word “condemnation”—and did not strongly condemn the Burmese Government for their actions at that point, perhaps because he wanted to pursue more diplomatic channels. There are times for diplomatic channels, but perhaps condemnation is more appropriate when genocide and ethnic cleansing is happening.

Those on the fact-finding missions to Burma saw for themselves the horrors that have led to the creation of one of the biggest refugee crises ever seen. So great was the crisis, and so brutal the violence, that the weekly outflow of refugees fleeing Burma rose to a level unseen since Rwanda in the 1990s, as many Members have mentioned. Yet although the refugees, having fled across difficult and even hostile terrain that saw many die on the journey, have escaped the boot of the Burmese military, they are not safe in Bangladesh. The conditions in the camps in which they reside are on the edge of inhumane.

Many hon. Members, including my hon. Friend the Member for Bethnal Green and Bow, have described graphically the conditions in the camps. I will not repeat what has been said, but I want to highlight the really important point made by the hon. Member for St Albans about the children born in Cox’s Bazar. What is their future? What are the thoughts of the young people living day to day in those squalid conditions? Let us all reflect on that.

[Paul Scully]

The hon. Gentleman makes a powerful point about the children born in the refugee camps. Does he agree that the 13,000 children who were orphaned and then crossed the border on their own face an equally grim future?

[Imran Hussain]

The hon. Gentleman makes an important point. It is massively important that safeguards are put in place to protect those children. Again, the international community must do more to ensure that we protect the children, whether they are born in the camps or whether they have been orphaned.

Despite those conditions—and we have heard graphic descriptions—many Rohingya would still rather stay in the camps than be repatriated, against their will or with false promises, to the country that tried to kill them. That is a powerful point. Let us be absolutely clear that they are not being relocated back to their villages, which have long since been burnt to the ground, erased by soldiers who are equally keen on erasing the existence of the Rohingya themselves. Instead, they are being relocated to holding camps; camps surrounded by fences and barbed wires; camps that are a prison, not a new home. In these camps the Rohingya are easily identifiable to the Burmese Government, easily located, easily persecuted and easily killed. When the same Government and military who forced them out of their homes, and killed their husbands, wives, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, sons and daughters, are in power, and when there are no guarantees of their protection other than the word of the same Burmese Government, then safe return is a fiction.

The Rohingya would not be safe. Indeed, they would be even more at risk. We cannot expect them to return to Burma willingly. To guarantee as great a level of protection as possible for the Rohingya and to stop this genocide ever happening again, we need to hold the Burmese Government to account. We need to hold them responsible, and we need to hold them to their commitments and promises to Bangladesh and to the international community. The first real step—the Minister is listening—that the Burmese Government can take, if there is an ounce of will to move in the right direction, is to give immediate and equal citizenship—not a passport to citizenship or a route to citizenship, or any other scheme, but an immediate right to citizenship. Promises and gestures will not do. Only hard action and a firm stance will work, because that is the only language the Burmese Government seem to understand.

The first action we should take is to refer the Burmese Government and the leaders, military and civilian, who are responsible for the Rohingyan genocide to the International Criminal Court. That point has been made, and made well. Those who commit grave crimes against humanity do not belong in power; they belong in The Hague, on trial for their actions. The Government occasionally argue back that any referral to the ICC would be vetoed by China, but I say, let them veto it. Let it be known that they did nothing to stop the persecution of innocent civilians. But we should not let it be known that the UK did not even try, that we shied away from our global responsibilities and that we ran in fear of a veto. The Government have nothing to lose from pushing for a referral and building an international coalition of support for such a measure across the UN General Assembly, but we have our dignity, respect and, above all, our humanity to lose by staying away.

We should not stop there. We must take further action. We need to create a deterrence to prevent this from ever happening again, and we can do that only by creating a serious impact on the Burmese Government. We therefore need to look again at the sanctions that can be imposed on the Burmese military and the companies that are owned by or profit through the military. Some will say that sanctions are dangerous and that they would lead to the toppling of a democratic Government. That may be their concern, but I am concerned that the Government in Burma are no longer democratic or representative anyway, and that Aung San Suu Kyi, the de facto President of Burma, is just as culpable for the genocide. She may not have issued the orders, but she was part of the persecution campaign against the Rohingya.

Sanctions will not topple the democratic Government in Burma and will not lead to a military coup. That is just a myth, because those in the Burmese military already have everything they want. They have control over the legislature and the key Government Ministries. They have made reforms that are acceptable to the international community while barely sacrificing an ounce of their power, so why would they rock the boat now? Their violence and genocide against the Rohingya may have gone unpunished so far, but it is certain that a military coup would not be. To believe in the military coup is simply an excuse, and the Government need to propose measures on how they will respond to the UN report’s findings and impose sanctions on those involved in the genocide that it describes.

Before I finish, I want to stress the importance of ensuring that those who can escape to the UK—those who can legally reside in this country—are able do so. Many Rohingya in Burma have close family in the UK—indeed, my constituency houses the largest population of Rohingya in Europe—but Home Office hoops and legal hurdles mean that they cannot escape the hell in which they find themselves and join their family here. To enter the UK, the Home Office requires an English language test and a tuberculosis test, both of which must be completed at the British consulate in Dhaka. It is impossible for the refugees trapped in Cox’s Bazar to fulfil those criteria, because they are unable to leave. I have spoken with DFID staff about this matter and sought contact with the Home Office, but I have thus far been ignored. I will be grateful to the Minister if he states what further action he can take to allow the tests to be done in the camps. Will he press upon the Home Secretary and the Immigration Minister the importance of lifting restrictions that refugees cannot fulfil?

The Rohingya in my constituency have made a rich contribution to Bradford, and I put on the record my thanks, gratitude and appreciation to them for the positive contribution that the Rohingya community has made to the great district of Bradford.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Asia and the Pacific (Mark Field)]

I am grateful to the Backbench Business Committee for allowing this debate, and to Members for their heartfelt and emotional contributions. One difficulty of standing at this Dispatch Box is that although I have heard the poetry, there may now be a little more prose as I try to give a realistic assessment of what is achievable. As we know, politics is to an extent the art of the possible, but it is also the art of aspiration, and I hope to touch on a few issues that have been raised. I shall try to respond to all the points raised, but I hope hon. Members will forgive me if I revert to writing to a number of specific points. The hon. Member for Bishop Auckland (Helen Goodman) will accept that it is better I do it that way, rather than try to give a glib answer that then begins to unravel.

I take this opportunity to condemn on the record the political violence that we have seen in Bangladesh in recent days, which has, and will have, a big bearing on these matters. Whenever I visit Bangladesh, I am struck—as I am sure other hon. Members are—by the absolute determination of its people to get on and prosper, and we all know that political instability and violence will not help them to do either of those things. Much can be said, of course, for many in the British-Bangladeshi diaspora

I am concerned by reports that some civil society organisations in Bangladesh are being prevented from observing the election. Independent domestic and international observers have a crucial role in helping to support a free and transparent process for the elections in 10 days’ time. We urge all in Bangladesh to refrain from further violence, to deliver a democratic election, to give Bangladeshis a properly representative Parliament that can propel their country to greater economic prosperity, and—to reflect the words of the hon. Member for Liverpool, West Derby (Stephen Twigg)—to reflect on their ongoing responsibilities for the situation in and around Cox’s Bazar.

I now turn directly to the subject of this impassioned debate. The plight of the Rohingya people rightly concerns many hon. Members—many more, perhaps, than are in the Chamber today. Like me, several colleagues have made the journey to camps in Bangladesh to meet refugees and heard their distressing testimony for themselves. When I travelled to Cox’s Bazar in June, I could see the immense scale of the suffering. The refugee situation is heartbreaking, notwithstanding the immense generosity being shown to them by the Government of Bangladesh, who have given shelter to nearly 1 million people. Those whom I spoke to said that they wanted, in time, to return to their homes in Burma, but only if they could be certain that they would no longer be persecuted and discriminated against.

I very much agree with the sentiments of the hon. Members for West Ham (Lyn Brown), for Bishop Auckland and for Bradford East (Imran Hussain): the citizenship issue is critical. If we do not get that right, it will be pointless for the refugees to return. But the situation is difficult: we cannot impose that but must work with the international community to make the case to the Burmese authorities. The UK Government will continue to work with international partners to press for the creation of conditions in Rakhine allowing for a voluntary, safe and dignified return of refugees. However, there is clearly no appetite for such a return at the moment.

[Paul Scully]

As the Minister says, at the moment there is no appetite for going back. There is also a sense of hardening opinions. Whereas a year ago refugees wanted to go back if it was safe, the refugees I spoke to six months ago felt that hope was being lost.

[Mark Field]

I agree with my hon. Friend, who has been to the camps on several occasions and has probably seen the degradation of process in that regard. I say again that, for the reasons set out by the hon. Member for Bethnal Green and Bow (Rushanara Ali), we absolutely oppose plans for moving any Rohingya to Bhasan Char, the island in the bay of Bengal. We do not feel that that would be a safe or feasible place, for the reasons that she set out. Any location or relocation of refugees has to be safe, dignified and in accordance with international humanitarian principles, standards and laws.

As colleagues will know, the Governments of Bangladesh and Burma were preparing to start a refugee repatriation on 15 November. I spoke as a matter of urgency by telephone with Bangladesh’s Foreign Minister and I spoke with both the Bangladeshi State Minister of Foreign Affairs and Burma’s Minister for International Co-operation in advance of that day. I was absolutely clear with each of them that the UK Government shared the assessment of the UN Refugee Agency: that insufficient progress had been made to enable safe returns to northern Rakhine.

Our concerns were also borne out by the fact, brought up by many hon. Members today, that no Rohingya refugees volunteered to return. I believe that international pressure at that point was a key factor in halting any involuntary repatriations. I welcome the Bangladeshi Government’s subsequent reaffirmation of their commitment to exclusively voluntary returns, but we all know in the international community that we will have to remain vigilant about that point.

I can reassure Members that the UK will continue to play a full part in supporting Rohingya refugees as a leading donor to the international humanitarian response, to which we have so far donated £129 million.

Oral Answers to Questions

Paul Scully Excerpts

Tuesday 30th October 2018 Commons Chamber

[Harriett Baldwin]

I pay tribute to the hon. Gentleman’s work as vice-chair of the all-party parliamentary group for Sudan and South Sudan. This is a serious situation. We continue to advocate the freeing up of political space and the freeing of political prisoners, as some of the cost-free things that the Government of South Sudan could do to show willing in terms of the peace process declared on 12 September.

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

While the nation and the international community rightly focus on the situation in Rakhine state in Burma, I recently met people from Karen and Chin states, and they told me some horrendous continuing stories. I am also hosting a delegation from Kachin and Shan states—

[Mr Speaker]

Order. The hon. Gentleman is a busy man—we are all well aware of that—but what is the question?

[Paul Scully]

Will the Foreign Secretary tell me what we are doing to tackle the situation in the whole of Burma?

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for his interest, and he is absolutely right. The fact-finding mission said that there were mass exterminations and mass expulsions in the Kachin and Shan areas as well, and we raised all those issues with Aung San Suu Kyi when I saw her.

Ahmadiyya Muslim Community

Paul Scully Excerpts

Thursday 24th May 2018 Commons Chamber

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

Salaam aleikum, Mr Deputy Speaker. That means “peace be upon you”. It is seemingly inoffensive and is a very traditional and heartfelt greeting in all parts of the Islamic world. I can say it here and the Ahmadiyya community can say it here in the UK. When I go to Bangladesh, I say “Salaam aleikum” as a mark of respect to Bangladeshi friends and people I meet for the first time. I could do that in Pakistan, but unfortunately people in the Ahmadiyya community who live there cannot. As we have heard, they cannot have a call to prayer or self-identify as Muslims.

I have spoken a lot in this place about the Rohingya situation. Before that situation exploded last August and people were persecuted and pushed out into Bangladesh, as part of what people have described as ethnic conflict, the first identifiable thing that people raised about the taking away of the Rohingya people’s citizenship was their inability to vote. In Burma, I met the daughter of a former MP. Not only was he no longer an MP but he could no longer even vote in his own country. When that seemingly fundamental and simple right is taken away, there is a real risk of it leading into something so much worse.

We have already heard about the attack by a violent mob on the 100-year-old mosque in Sialkot in Punjab during the night. The house next door was damaged. Local administrators, police and journalists were all at the scene when it was going on, but they were powerless to do anything other than stand by as spectators while people ran around and continued unabashed with the destruction of the Ahmadiyya property. We have also heard about how the violence and lack of any sense that an Ahmadiyya Muslim could even be human, frankly, has come to this country, with the murder of Asad Shah. Someone actually drove from Bradford to confront a Glaswegian shopkeeper and stab him on the doorstep of his own shop—how can that possibly be humane in any sense?

I often mention my right hon. Friend Minister for the Middle East talking about the fact that when people are in effect considered sub-human, there are no depths to which their persecutors will not go to punish, hurt and damage them. I really hope that this is not the thin end of the wedge and that we do not see at some point in future an extension of this persecution—that it does not go so much further, like some of the violence we have seen elsewhere in the world.

The Ahmadi Muslims are fantastic advocates for what is going on around the world. They are a very tight and aware community. The all-party group is doing fantastic work, and I pay testament to the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden (Siobhain McDonagh): not only for her speech and for securing this debate, but for her work and leadership. I am absolutely delighted to serve alongside her on the all-party group, particularly in respect of the important work we are doing to take that testimony.

The most recent report of any great length of which I am aware was done by the International Human Rights Committee, which specialises in Ahmadiyya affairs. The foreword to the report talked about

“the systemic nature of their persecution”

and

“Pakistan’s draconian blasphemy laws”.

The report goes on to quote Prince Charles, who said:

“The scale of religious persecution around the world is not widely appreciated. Nor is it limited to Christians in the troubled regions of the Middle East. A recent report suggests that attacks are increasing on Yazidis, Jews, Ahmadis, Bahá’ís and many other minority faiths.”

We must keep having these debates and we must keep these conversations going, because it is so important that we make people aware of what is happening to these people around the world, including in this country.

The key findings of the International Human Rights Committee report include the fact that anti-terror laws are being used—or misused—in Pakistan against the Ahmadis and other religious minorities. We have heard that educational texts provoke intolerance and hatred, particularly the syllabus for religious education, and that nationalised schools and colleges of the Ahmadis have still not been returned to the Ahmadiyya community in accordance with the Pakistan Government’s policies.

Effectively, the constitutional amendment of 1974, designating Ahmadis as non-Muslims, laid the foundation for many, many years of hardship and persecution. Such behaviour is now entrenched in Pakistan, so, as the Minister has said, we must use not megaphone diplomacy, but every lever that we have to ensure that this important community around the world, but particularly in their homeland of Rawabi in Pakistan, can feel free to express themselves and worship in the form that they feel appropriate.

We have heard some of the fantastic and wonderful things that the people of the Ahmadiyya community do. I remember going up to Trafalgar Square, just after the Westminster attack: the first people that I saw were from the young Ahmadiyya community. They were holding a big banner saying, “Love for all, hatred for none.” They were there right at the forefront, showing solidarity with us after what they had seen.

I am looking up at the plaque of Jo Cox. When she was murdered, many of us felt at a very low point—I certainly felt at the lowest point in my three years of being in this place. I felt that we were given great succour by the people in the Ahmadiyya community. They came together to pay tribute—metaphorically to put their arm around us to say that these violent, extreme attacks have no place in this country, or anywhere in the world. That is really the basis of the annual peace symposium at the Baitul Futuh mosque. Those peace symposiums are replicated in smaller Ahmadiyya communities as well. The Sutton Ahmadiyya community holds a smaller symposium in my local area; I am always pleased to go and listen to what they say and to share messages of peace with my neighbours.

People from the Ahmadiyya community were among the first to volunteer at Grenfell. They are so aware of what is going on. Going back to the Rohingya situation, the hon. Member for Mitcham and Morden mentioned their wonderful work raising money for charity. I went to the telethon at the Baitul Futuh mosque where they raised £140,000 in just four hours for the Rohingya community in Burma. They are driven by such situations.

We have heard a lot today about “Love for all, hatred for none”. Anyone just dipping in and out of this debate on television or in the Official Report may think that people are just coming up with a strapline, but it is so much more than that—it really is. That strapline is part of the beating heart of every single member of the Ahmadiyya community. There are no extremists in the Ahmadiyya community; extremism is anathema to their very being. Interestingly, Lord Ahmad, whom we have heard about today, was one of the first Ministers looking after the counter-extremism policy. That was a perfect choice at the time.

In conclusion, we must make sure that Pakistan does everything that it can to tackle the religious zealots in its country, because we have seen in other countries such as Saudi Arabia how often the Government, the people and the religious leaders work at different speeds. We must make sure that we help them, effectively, to align. They will, of course, fundamentally disagree with the beliefs of the Ahmadiyya Muslims as they believe that Muhammad is the last prophet and the Ahmadis do not. There is no way in which we can reconcile that, but that does not mean that the Ahmadi Muslims should not be able to celebrate their religion and live in peace.

Myanmar: Rohingya Minority

Paul Scully Excerpts

Monday 16th April 2018 Westminster Hall

[Paul Scully (Sutton and Cheam) (Con)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I congratulate the hon. Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones) on securing the debate, and on her powerful advocacy, which I thoroughly enjoyed and appreciated. She went through so many of the important aspects of this terrible situation.

It is a shame that more people are not here today— I know they would have been ordinarily, because every time this subject is raised in Westminster Hall or in the Chamber lots of people want to speak, get involved, share their views and keep the pressure on the Burmese Government. However, we all understand the situation in Syria at the moment. It is absolutely right that that terrible situation is being debated in the Chamber.

The situation faced by the Rohingya has been going on for many years. Kutupalong camp is the biggest camp in Bangladesh. It is now effectively Bangladesh’s fourth biggest city, because of how the camps have come together and how many people are there. It has been there for 30 years. My first question when I was elected to this place was about the Rohingya community. At that point, they were being pushed out into the sea and were making terrible boat trips.

In September last year, after the latest escalation, I was one of the first Members to go to the Kutupalong camp. I remember coming back and wanting to share the voices of the people I had met, and tell their stories, because I knew that world events would overtake what is going on in a part of the world that is relatively unknown to the west. I remember thinking at the time that something else was bound to happen in Syria that would take the world’s attention away from Burma and the Rohingya community, and indeed that is exactly what we risk letting happen. This is therefore a really opportune, important debate. Despite the fact that few of us are here, I know that the contributions will be well received by those who have been campaigning for so long for those people whose voices we cannot hear—the 680,000 people who are languishing in terrible conditions in Bangladesh, and the few who are left in Burma.

I have spoken in this place about what I saw in September 2017. The Burmese Government have called these people terrorists, but I have spoken at length about the 60-year-old woman I met who was dead behind the eyes after telling me about how her son-in-law had been stabbed and dragged away. Her 12-year-old grandson had been beheaded in front of her. Others had their genitals chopped off and their villages burned. People had gun wounds in the backs of their legs. People were describing how helicopters had been chasing them, and firing just behind them to push them across the border.

The hon. Member for Warrington North mentioned landmines. We saw videos of the landmines that had been planted, and we could track exactly where they were, because in the video that was shown to us we could see where we were standing. A lady had had her leg blown off just four days before. This is really gruesome stuff and one of the toughest things I have had to see, listen to and speak about. These people have suffered in ways that I, frankly, cannot imagine, but I must press on, as we all must, to share these stories.

As the hon. Lady said, in Kutupalong camp the people have found the one part of Bangladesh that has some hills. Bangladesh is a low-lying country, but because of its forestland the camp is on sloping ground. It has all been deforested. Effectively, a population the size of Liverpool is on an area 5 km by 5 km. The trees that were there have all been taken away; the land is just a series of mudbanks. When I was there, we spent an hour and a half walking through the camp, but we did not get anywhere near the end of it. We could not see the end, the camp is that big.

The rainy season is nearly upon us again, so we have gone full cycle. When I was in the camp recently with the International Development Committee, things had improved. There is now a registration camp with proper UN canvas tents where people can settle in, register, tell their story, be documented and get the vaccinations that they need. However, they then move over to the bigger camp, where there is still plastic sheeting, bamboo sheets and such things. The risk is of further landslides that will take their homes away from them.

Roads had also been built. Bricks had been broken up and hardcore laid. What had taken me 20 or 30 minutes to walk through now took me only five minutes, because the roads had improved that much. However, again, the person who was in charge of building the roads told us at length that when the rain comes it will all be washed away. All the work that has happened over the last six months is at risk of being undone by just one or two monsoons. That is before we even get to the cyclones. If the cyclones come, there will be severe devastation. Save the Children reckons that about 120,000 to 200,000 people will be affected. Many lives will be lost, and it is not a matter of if lives will be lost, but of when and how many. Unfortunately, this is now about mitigation, not elimination.

I am full of admiration for the Bangladeshi Government for what they have taken on. This is a country of 180 million people. During the Bangladeshi war of independence, just 47 years ago, so many of them were in refugee camps. It was Bangladeshi independence day just a few weeks ago. I could see how raw the emotion was for them as they told the story of their war of independence and the suffering that they went through. It is no surprise that they are so welcoming and so open to people going through the same process.

We need to work with the Bangladeshi Government to do more. The area that the Rohingya are in at the moment is far too small. We need to work out how we can encourage the Bangladeshi Government to disperse people. As the hon. Member for Warrington North said, if the Rohingya were treated as refugees they would have a right to stay and would be able to disperse through the country. The Bangladeshi Government are not too keen on that, because they expect to come to an agreement with the Rohingya people, and for them to move back to their homeland.

Originally, that is what many of the Rohingya I met wanted to do. However, the second time I went, I got a sense that there was a hardening of opinion among the people in the camps. Previously, they were really hoping that the world was coming to their aid, and that we might be able to reach a solution. As long as it was safe, they would go back to Myanmar and build a new life for themselves. I got that sense from the people I spoke to the second time around of a hardening of opinion, and, unfortunately, they do not see a light at the end of the tunnel.

The Burmese Government have started to change and make some moves under public pressure, but that is clearly nowhere near enough and they are failing to tackle the underlying issues. The Rohingya need surety; they must have the sense that they can stay. When they get back to Myanmar, they need freedom of movement, access to work and the ability to make a livelihood. Bear in mind that their villages and homes have all been destroyed, and I dare say that there has also been some land grabbing—other people have moved in and taken the best of what was theirs. The personal safety of the Rohingya must absolutely be guaranteed, but I get the sense that they feel it is drifting further away. To get all those things, they need a pathway to citizenship.

When I first went to Burma in February 2016, I went through the country, including states other than Rakhine, talking about religious freedom and ethnic conflict. Many of the people I met had been in prison—it was a self-selecting audience, I suppose—and it seemed that there was a flat rate of 14 years for political sentencing. The shortest sentence I came across was seven years, and the only reason that woman—an amazing lady called Wai Wai Nu—had been in prison for seven years was that she was only 29. She is a Rohingya, and her father had been a Member of Parliament in Burma.

Imagine that—we are all Members of Parliament in this place, but within just a few years, that man was not only not a Member of Parliament, but was not able to stand for election. He cannot even vote or secure the basic rights to health and education for his family. His whole family was put in prison. What a change in a country in which we had—and I hope still have, although this is in the far distance at the moment—such high hopes. I have talked many times in this place about my Burmese heritage. My father was born there, so I am half-Burmese, and it absolutely breaks my heart to see what is going on in that wonderful country.

Will the Minister talk about his sense of what the Burmese Government are doing, even if it is in name only, to open up the visits that are allowed at the moment? In a recent speech, the new President, U Win Myint, talked about the rule of law and ethnic conflict, but he did not get anywhere near getting to grips with this situation.

I know this is a controversial issue; I talk about it here and in many other places. The week before last, I was lecturing at the Britain-Burma Society, an institution made up of expat Burmese—the Burmese diaspora here—including a lot of experts and academics. The issue is controversial with the Burmese diaspora here, never mind the people who are living to the parochial, closed news cycle in Burma, which transmits the hate speech of Wirathu, the nationalist Buddhist monk who heads Ma Ba Tha—a particularly pernicious group of Buddhists, which started a popular uprising.

People in Burma are largely behind pushing the Rohingya out, and as far as they are concerned, the Rohingya are not Burmese; they are Bangladeshis or Bengalis. People use disparaging names, calling them Bengalis and refusing to accept the fact that the Rohingya are a discrete community. I do not believe for a minute that they appreciate, know about or accept our description of the violence, mutilations, rapes and killings or the burning of villages that we report on. They say it is just western propaganda, but it is well documented. The Minister has been to Cox’s Bazar and spoken to people, and I have seen and smelled the smoke of the burning villages.

[Rushanara Ali]

Is the hon. Gentleman also concerned about how social media has been used for years, but especially last year? A recent report in The Guardian, based on analysis by Raymond Serrato, showed that the level of incitement to violence and hate on platforms such as Facebook is unprecedented.

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our Government need to take a broader international approach to how we monitor the activities of social media platforms, both in the UK and elsewhere, to prevent extremist groups from promoting acts of genocide and violence?

[Paul Scully]

I totally agree with the hon. Lady about the use of social media, which whips things up so quickly. I will leave it to the Minister to comment on what more the Government can do about the wider issue she raises. I am fortunate that I do not get anywhere near the level of abuse that other Members get on social media—especially female MPs—but I do get it every now and again from Burmese nationalists, and from Sri Lankans when I talk about Sri Lankan human rights. It is interesting that we get it from the other side of the world. As the hon. Lady says, the speed with which these things flow on social media is incredible, so it is difficult to tackle them.

I talked earlier about what the Burmese Government are doing. Also, seven Burmese soldiers were found guilty of murdering 10 Rohingya and got 10 years’ hard labour, but that is an imperfect approach. The two Reuters journalists who discovered the massacre that relates to the sentence have themselves been arrested. They have been in custody for four months so far and they face a full trial, which carries a maximum sentence of 14 years. How can it be that while the Burmese Government are carrying out show trials and putting a few people in prison—we are all desperate for them to open up transparency—two people who are just doing their job incredibly well and bravely are held up to the Burmese people as enemies of the state? That cannot be right. Effectively, the crime of those 10 soldiers was not murdering people; it was getting caught.

One of the petitions talks about the need to have hard-hitting financial sanctions. I must declare an interest: I am trade envoy to Burma. I think we need targeted sanctions. We must look at the military, because the commander-in-chief could stop this tomorrow if he so decided—if he called off the dogs and appreciated that the Rohingya are human beings with a right to stay in the place they have called home for decades, if not hundreds of years. We must target our sanctions carefully on the military and military-owned organisations, but an overall sanctions regime targeted on Burma would risk impoverishing people in other parts of the country, such as Kachin state and northern Shan state, where there is the risk of ethnic conflict opening up again. There have recently been air strikes in those states, so other people are suffering. None the less, the international community must come down as a whole on the escalation in violence in Rakhine state.

I am also trade envoy to Thailand and Brunei. I can go to those countries to further economic interests, and we can talk about what we can sell and buy, but there is no way we can do that in Burma at the moment. We need to talk about economic development, which is one of the pathways to showing Burma what it means to be a true part of the international community. Let us not have that country yet again close in on itself and go back to being reliant on China for its economy. In 2016, when I spoke to members of the Government and to civil society, they knew that relying on the Chinese economy was a very short-term view: it is soft loans, it is all about the money and there is no lasting interest in the country. Britain and other countries tend to have a lasting legacy: knowledge transfer and the building of secondary industries, which create jobs and prosperity. Hopefully, such moves can help the country—it is about the carrot, not the stick.

[Rushanara Ali]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that our Government need to be very clear about who we trade with? By all means, our businesses can trade, but they need to trade in an environment that respects human rights and is ethical, and they must not do business with the military. The military has huge interests in companies in that country. Does he agree that the Minister should look at whether there is such trade going on with our businesses in Burma and that, where there is, we need to take action to make sure that we are not complicit? For too long, our Government have bent over backwards, been willing to relinquish sanctions and did not use our leverage when we had those sanctions back in 2012. We need to make sure that that does not happen again.

[Paul Scully]

I could not agree with the hon. Lady more about the need to target properly and to make sure that those businesses are not trading with military-owned companies. That is the big difference between economic development and trade. A Burmese trade delegation came here—funnily enough, on the day that I returned from Bangladesh. I went to see them and I said to them, “This is what I have just seen.” The people in this country who might want to invest over in Burma know only two things about Burma: Aung San Suu Kyi and Rohingya Muslims. That is all they ever hear about in the press. There is no diaspora of any size over here that will champion Burmese interests, to tell them the other side of the story. Burmese businesspeople and Burmese Ministers—be they the Minister for commerce, construction or whatever—all have a vested interest in human rights in the rebuilding of their country, way before we even get to the point of asking, “Are you human yourself? Are you complicit in the suffering of 680,000 people who have been driven across the border into Bangladesh?” There are lots of practical reasons—it comes back to the carrot and the stick.

We need to take an holistic view of Burma, looking at each ethnic state and its economic development. We need to call upon the international community to do everything it can and make sure that the Burmese Government are continuingly put under pressure. I get the idea that they are starting to realise who will be held responsible when the rainy season starts and we start getting reports of deaths. Now is the time for us to redouble our efforts and make sure that they are doing something about it.

--- Later in debate ---

[Rushanara Ali]

Of course—I will come to that and the role our Government can continue to play. Although our Government have made generous contributions, we need other countries to do the same. In total, around $1 billion is required to support just the 1 million affected people in Bangladesh. We cannot expect a developing country to cope with that huge cost. There needs to be international support, and I hope Britain continues to play an international leadership role to ensure that that happens.

Others spoke about the important role that the people and the Government of Bangladesh have played in hosting close to 1 million people who have been forced out of Myanmar into Bangladesh in appalling circumstances. More than 600,000 were displaced last September, and hundreds of thousands were displaced following previous attacks led by the Burmese military. I echo the point that the hon. Member for Sutton and Cheam made about the response of the Bangladeshi population. I am of Bangladeshi heritage. I am acutely aware that the Bangladeshi public’s reaction has been positive because they have direct experience of seeking refuge in India during the 1971 war of independence. Many have experience of being internally displaced. Many of my constituents, and people across the country in other Members’ constituencies, also raise money to help, because that connection is well felt. However, this is not a sustainable situation for an emerging economy that itself has a high level of poverty, which is why it is so important that we step up and take urgent humanitarian action.

As Members have pointed out, the monsoon season is imminent. Leaving aside the refugee crisis, Bangladesh often faces huge floods, during which half and sometimes two thirds of the country is underwater. It copes relatively well, but it is not able to cope with 1 million refugees who are not in decent accommodation. Its systems are not geared up to cope. The international community therefore must work hard to ensure that the Government of Bangladesh is open to help from international non-governmental organisations as well as domestic ones to scale up support, which is urgently required, and that in return Bangladesh gets the humanitarian assistance and funding that it requires. The situation is urgent. Lives will be lost—there will be a double catastrophe—if we do not act quickly to ensure that the Government of Bangladesh, with the support of international partners, are prepared for the monsoon season.

This week we host the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Although Burma is not a member of the Commonwealth, Bangladesh is, and other countries in the region have a vested interest in solving this crisis and ensuring that the situation does not get worse. I therefore hope the Minister can explain what representations our Government will make and what they will do to facilitate discussion not just with the Prime Minister of Bangladesh but with other Commonwealth Governments that can help to achieve a more positive result than the one we have now.

[Paul Scully]

The Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting is important, but does the hon. Lady agree that members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations—Burma’s direct neighbours—could also play a key role in trying to unlock the situation?

[Rushanara Ali]

I could not agree more. I hope the Minister will tell us what discussions he has had—and what discussions the Foreign Secretary has had, if he has had any—and the outcomes of those discussions. I hope the Minister will also explain what practical outcomes he and fellow Ministers have got from the European Council. He reported back to the all-party group, but some of the things that were reported were disappointing. I hope that he has persevered since that discussion, and that he has something more positive to tell us, particularly in relation to the arms embargo.

Although we have an EU arms embargo, our Government have not pushed for an international UN-mandated embargo. Will the Minister explain why not, and what he will do to try to get an international agreement? A number of countries—China, Russia, India, Ukraine and, until the end of last year, Israel—continue to sell arms to the Burmese Government, and there are reports that they did so even during the period of the attacks that displaced so many people. I hope the Minister recognises the urgent need to prevent the sale of arms, given that the military does not respect human rights despite Burma’s transition, albeit imperfect, to democracy. The international community continues to allow arms to be sold.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights described what is happening to the Rohingya people as a military campaign in which

“you cannot rule out the possibility that acts of genocide have been committed”.

The UN team stated:

“Brutal attacks against Rohingya…have been well-organised, coordinated and systematic”.

It added that the violence by the Burmese military has been perpetrated

“with the intent of not only driving the population out of Myanmar but preventing them from returning to their homes”.

A February 2017 report by the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights detailed the serious human rights violations committed by Burma’s security forces, including mass gang rape, killings, including of babies and young children, and brutal beatings and disappearances. The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights, Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein, said:

“The devastating cruelty to which these Rohingya children have been subjected is unbearable—what kind of hatred could make a man stab a baby crying out for his mother’s milk. And for the mother to witness this murder while she is being gang-raped by the very security forces who should be protecting her”.

We must arrest and prosecute not just those who perpetrated that horrific violence but those who gave the orders.

It is encouraging that Fatou Bensouda, the International Criminal Court prosecutor, has asked for a ruling on whether the mass deportations constitute a crime against humanity. The International Criminal Court should rule in favour of an investigation and begin proceedings. I call on the UK Government to do all they can for that to happen.

I hope the Minister addresses the recent development of the forced exclusion—deportation—of the Rohingya population into Bangladesh. As I stated earlier, we must ensure that the Burmese military Government are put under significant pressure, with both sanctions on the military and targeted economic sanctions on their interests as well as a UN-mandated arms embargo.

I hope the Minister heeds the warnings of over 100 parliamentarians who wrote to the Foreign Secretary calling on the UK Government to make a referral to the International Criminal Court. I recognise what he said on the act of making a referral, as other countries have done—because Burma is not a signatory, it needs to self-refer—but given the UK’s position and historical and unique responsibility to Myanmar as a former colonial power, we have a leadership role to play and we should hold the Burmese military to account for committing crimes against humanity, and certainly for committing ethnic cleansing and genocide, according to the United Nations.

I appeal to the Minister to continue the effort to ensure that the Burmese military are held to account and that the International Criminal Court referral takes place in whichever way is possible. Frankly, it is not good enough to revert to saying, “It is not possible for these reasons.” I want to know how he will make it possible. When the Burmese military are put under pressure —to ensure that action was taken, we put them under pressure through that correspondence with our Foreign Secretary, the Government and other Governments on the referral, and they had negative publicity—they finally feel the heat and start to pay attention.

I hope the Government start to take action on those grounds to hold the Burmese military to account. Otherwise, once again, the international community, including our Government, will have allowed them to get away with ethnic cleansing and genocide, and that is not acceptable.

--- Later in debate ---

[Helen Goodman (Bishop Auckland) (Lab)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Hanson. I commend the excellent speech made by my hon. Friend the Member for Warrington North (Helen Jones), who clearly set out the issues—the history and the main matters that need to be addressed. She reminded us all of the terrible situation faced by the Rohingya and the great urgency of the need to tackle it, both the immediate humanitarian crisis and the underlying political issues. It is significant that we have six petitions from the public that have triggered today’s debate, showing that the British people are extremely concerned about the fate of the Rohingya and that they will not be forgotten.

Colleagues have said that the monsoon is coming. My understanding is that the United Nations and non-governmental organisations last month issued a new call for a larger aid programme of $951 million. I would be grateful if the Minister reported on how that appeal is going and how much of that money has been raised.

Many of us are concerned about the proposal to put some of the refugees on the island of Bhashan Char. Will the Minister also give an update on that and tell us what representations he has made to the Bangladeshis about it? Of course, we all appreciate that the Bangladeshis are in an extremely difficult situation. Bangladesh is a very poor country, in receipt of aid itself, and it has had an overwhelming number of refugees to deal with, but the international community must look at whether this is the best way to deal with the immediate crisis.

[Paul Scully]

When we talk about the island, we should call it what it is. It is actually a sandbank—something that did not exist just a few years ago. It is quite extraordinary that it is being considered, but I take the hon. Lady’s point.

[Helen Goodman]

The hon. Gentleman is extremely well informed and makes a useful contribution to the debate and our understanding of this matter. I am grateful to him for that intervention.

Hon. Members have spoken about gender-based violence and the rape and abuse of women and children. It is clear that that is part of the Myanmar military’s strategy. Its strategy has been to kill the men from the villages and then rape the women and children. That is not some soldiers who are out of control; it is clearly a thought-through approach to terrorise the Rohingya people. We have debated that over the last eight months and we have repeatedly asked Ministers how many of our experts in dealing with sexual violence and trauma have been sent to Cox’s Bazar. I think I have asked the Minister about it four times now. He wrote me a long, very informative letter on 27 March, but he still has not told us how many of our experts have been sent to support the victims.

When the then Foreign Secretary, William Hague, announced that Foreign Office initiative, everyone was extremely pleased that we would have the capacity to deal with that kind of violence as crises arose. We have 70 people who can do that work, but the latest number the Minister gave us was that two people are there. I would like to have from the Minister today an update on that number.