Commonwealth Day

Preet Kaur Gill Excerpts

Tuesday 21st March 2023 Westminster Hall

[Preet Kaur Gill (Birmingham, Edgbaston) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Gray. I thank the right hon. Member for Basingstoke (Dame Maria Miller) for securing the debate and I am sorry that she could not be here. She has been a strong advocate for women and girls around the world, and we hope that the UK and all Commonwealth nations can live up to those aspirations.

We have heard much today about the power of the Commonwealth—its strength, size, diversity and vitality. We have also heard great examples, from the hon. Member for Rochford and Southend East (Sir James Duddridge), my hon. Friend the Member for Stockport (Navendu Mishra) and the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon), of the work and collaboration that the Commonwealth fosters through the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association. Members have made significant contributions on topics including promoting democracy across our Commonwealth nations, economic prosperity, human rights, and connectivity. It is wonderful that my friend the hon. Member for Strangford even mentioned the Commonwealth games.

However, the past year has been another of great disruption and loss. I must start by remarking on the sad death of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II. This year has been the first in 70 years that she has not been the Head of the Commonwealth. During those remarkable 70 years, the Commonwealth has changed beyond all recognition. Then, it was made of only seven members; today, there are 56 members, representing more than 2.5 billion people. Her Majesty will be remembered as a symbol of the links between our many nations. As she put it,

“the Commonwealth is an example of multilateralism at work”.

That is a poignant reminder of the significance of today’s debate. This is not a cosy members’ club, but an important vehicle for global co-operation and change, and that work is not yet done. I take this opportunity to express my welcome to His Majesty the King taking his seat as the new chair of the Commonwealth. I am sure he will carry on his mother’s legacy with distinction.

I consider myself a child of the Commonwealth. To me, nothing serves as a greater reminder of our place in a global community of nations than my own family story and home. Birmingham is a Commonwealth city; the diverse heritage of my constituents span from Pakistan to Sri Lanka and Somalia to India, from where my family came. There are Brummies who can trace their roots to every corner of the Commonwealth. As a city, our diversity is our greatest strength, and that shone through in every moment of the Commonwealth games last summer.

The Birmingham 2022 Commonwealth games were Britain’s most successful ever, beating our previous record medals total in Glasgow 2014 by two. They were also the most streamed games ever, outstripping the previous record sixfold, and represented the character and diversity of our country and Commonwealth tremendously. Our city was proud to have hosted and celebrated a games worthy of Her Majesty. We should not play down the powerful message of inclusion and diversity that the games sent to the millions watching around the world, nor the hundreds of millions in investment they brought to some of the most deprived patches of Birmingham, and the deepened and renewed connections across borders that we helped to forge. It is a great example of the benefits that Commonwealth membership can bring.

This year, Commonwealth Day marks the 10th anniversary of its charter, which gives expression to its defining values: peace and justice; tolerance, respect and solidarity; care for our environment, and for the most vulnerable among us. His Majesty summarised those values perfectly last week, saying:

“In this we are blessed with the ingenuity and imagination of a third of the world’s population”,

and that our shared humanity contains an immensely precious

“diversity of thought, culture, tradition and experience. By listening to each other, we will find so many of the solutions that we seek.”

Nowhere is this more urgent or relevant than in our environment. As I am sure all Members present know from our own constituencies, young people are demanding action on climate change. Across the Commonwealth, the futures of 1.5 billion people under the age of 30 will be defined by this issue. Yesterday, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change issued its synthesis report, which was a warning shot: we can still achieve 1.5° this decade, but humanity is on thin ice. Our sovereign has been a committed advocate for action on climate change for many years, and Labour shares that sense of mission and common purpose. That is why we have committed to our green prosperity plan to decarbonise electricity by 2030, phase out dirty imported energy and legislate to ensure that climate flows into every aspect of UK development policy and spending, just as gender does. We recognise that this issue that will define this century, and we have only seven short years to take the action needed.

To their credit, the Government reaffirmed their commitment to the 1.5° Paris agreement goals and nationally determined contributions at the Heads of Government meeting last year. However, it is now a matter of delivering. Can the Minister therefore update Members on the progress made to develop an implementation plan for the call to action on living lands that was promised in Kigali last year? Can she update the House on the progress she has made towards delivering the £11.6 billion of international climate finance that the Government have promised? Does she see a greater role for networks such as the Association of Commonwealth Universities in catalysing innovation and collaboration to tackle shared global challenges? I had the pleasure of meeting the ACU last year. With 500 member universities across 50 countries, it is uniquely placed to develop international policy at scale and pace. We have great institutions; we must not forget to nurture and make use of them.

It was fitting that, in Her Majesty’s jubilee year, the Heads of Government meeting was hosted in Africa—the very continent where she became Queen 70 years ago. I was delighted to see Gabon and Togo join the Commonwealth of nations, and Labour welcomes our newest Commonwealth siblings. Their participation shows that our association is based on not only our shared history, but our shared aspirations for a better future. They are both remarkable countries. Gabon is one of the few countries on earth that absorbs more carbon than it emits, owing to its rich ecosystem. The future of Gabon and Togo can be bright, and Commonwealth membership could help in shaping a positive path. Will the Minister say what efforts she is making to support Togo, along with our other Commonwealth partners such as Ghana and Nigeria, in addressing the increasing threats they are facing from instability in the Sahel?

It is a cause for celebration that the Commonwealth continues to grow, because we hold dear its values of human rights, democracy and inclusion. The eligibility criteria for Commonwealth membership states, among other things, that:

“an applicant country must demonstrate commitment to: democracy and democratic processes, including free and fair elections and representative legislatures; the rule of law and independence of the judiciary; good governance, including a well-trained public service and transparent public accounts; and protection of human rights, freedom of expression, and equality of opportunity”.

We hope that Zimbabwe can turn a new page in its history and evidence the progress on the requirements needed to rejoin the Commonwealth soon. I would be grateful if the Minister provided an update on its progress and the role that the UK is playing to support that.

I am sure that Members will join me in celebrating the progress made by Commonwealth countries. In recent years, India has passed legislation on maternity leave, to the benefit of over 600 million women. Last year, four of our fellow members—Antigua and Barbuda, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Barbados and Singapore—repealed anti-LGBT legislation. The UK must acknowledge the legacy of discrimination and laws it helped to create in some of those countries. We must do more to support member states wanting to lead reform.

As we see the sad roll-back of rights and norms in many countries around the world, the Commonwealth can provide a leading example. As every member agreed in the joint statement issued before the Human Rights Council in Geneva in 2020,

“the full social, economic and political participation of all…is essential for democracy and sustainable development to thrive.”

Continued progress and practice in support of human rights, democracy and inclusion is a core Commonwealth principle—something that we must all strive to achieve.

I will end with a few remarks on the future of the Commonwealth and the UK’s role within it. Our country’s ties of history, kinship and commerce with many of the other member states goes very deep. For countries in the global south, many in Africa, the past few years have been an onslaught—covid, climate, conflict and the cost of living. It is essential that the UK plays its full part in supporting them. It is in Britain’s interests to support a safer, more stable world. That is why developed countries have been rightly united in opposition to Russia’s brutal war on Ukraine; the war has drawn many countries in the west closer together as a result.

At the same time as the world’s poorest countries struggle, this Government have given the global south the cold shoulder. Many in the world’s poorest countries look at Britain and are losing faith in us as a partner that they can work with and rely on. There has been a damaging departmental merger, as well as promises made and repeatedly not kept, and successive cuts to aid programmes, as the Government divert money to firefight crises of their own making. We ignore the global south at our own cost. Many of those countries have rapidly growing economies, and will be increasingly important in a post-Brexit, multipolar geopolitical era. Together, they are geographically, culturally and economically diverse; the Commonwealth could be one of our most important multilateral institutions, as Her Majesty the Queen said.

Does the Minister think that it right that the Commonwealth received only two passing mentions in the integrated review refresh? Has she given any thought to improving Commonwealth operations out of London, to improve and better reflect the institution’s diversity and global representation? Does she agree that the UK should be playing an active and ambitious role in the shared agenda agreed in Kigali last year? Does she share my concern about the disproportionate impact of the aid cuts on Commonwealth partners in the last few years?

There is so much to be proud of in our Commonwealth membership and relationships. It is crucial to our mutual interests in relation to development, trade, security, climate change, human rights and democracy. It is a great institution that has, at times, been neglected when it needed to be nurtured. The past few years is a prime example of that. I hope the Government will act to correct their course; Labour certainly would.