Select Committee on International Development

Richard Burden Excerpts

Thursday 18th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Stephen Twigg]

I thank my hon. Friend, the hon. Gentleman who Chairs the Foreign Affairs Committee, and I pay tribute to that Committee for the report it published late last year. We sought to develop and supplement that report, rather than repeat it, and the work of that Committee in describing this crisis as a crime against humanity was an important contribution to the debate. He is right: this crisis is important in its own right, but there are enormous lessons for situations in other parts of the world, including in parts of Africa where there is a massive displacement of people, and the world seems incapable of getting its solutions right.

[Richard Burden (Birmingham, Northfield) (Lab)]

I congratulate my hon. Friend on the powerful way he introduced the Committee’s report. Does he agree that one of the most tragic things for many Rohingya who have fled Burma is the fact that their relatives have simply disappeared? Paragraph 138 of the report suggests that the International Commission on Missing Persons should get involved in Burma and Bangladesh and use their data-matching techniques to try to identify the remains of those who have disappeared, and—hopefully down the line—to ensure proper accountability for these crimes.

[Stephen Twigg]

My hon. Friend is an active and valued member of the International Development Committee, which he rejoined having previously served on it in a predecessor Parliament, and he is right to draw attention to our recommendation on that important issue. Understandably, in a crisis that has moved so quickly and at such scale, there has been a focus on immediate humanitarian relief, but it is vital that those questions of justice and accountability are also addressed. The report by the Foreign Affairs Committee addressed those issues in some detail. Our report contains an important addition, and I thank my hon. Friend for reminding the House of that.