International Day of Education

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 23rd January 2025 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Sir Desmond. I am grateful to the hon. Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing this debate.

Education is what we think of when we want to invest in the future. So much of what we discuss in Parliament is about conflict, aid and the present, but education is investment in the future. As we mark the United Nations International Day of Education tomorrow, I want to highlight the case study of Sudan.

The United Nations has warned that over 19 million school-age children lack access to education in Sudan. To put that into context, we have about 14 million children in the UK, most of whom are receiving some sort of education and most of whom are in school. The 19 million who are not receiving education in Sudan makes this one of the worst education crises in the world. Schools there have been destroyed, teachers have fled and classrooms have become shelters for displaced families. According to UNICEF, 171 schools are now being used as emergency shelters.

The conflict has also brought on the awful concept of the child soldier, and child recruitment into armed groups is rife. An entire generation is growing up without education. The war in Sudan, like many other global conflicts, will have some lasting consequences. These ongoing attacks, some of which are on children, persist, as warring factions violate one of the most basic principles of the law of armed conflict: protecting children. With schools often targeted or repurposed, learning is being disrupted not just for those who are child soldiers or involved as combatants, but for others. The loss of education will have profound, long-term repercussions for those individuals, including reduced incomes, poorer health outcomes and limited opportunities. For the society of Sudan as a whole, it will lead to cycles of poverty and instability in the future.

According to the United Nations, the education crisis in Sudan is

“the worst education crisis in the world”.

When schools close, children become vulnerable to various risks, including exploitation, forced recruitment and abuse. The psychological toll leaves many children unable to resume their normal schooling, even when schools reopen. As of December 2024, over 14.8 million people have been displaced in Sudan—11.5 million of them internally displaced. This is the largest displacement crisis in the world, and over 53% of those displaced individuals are children. With school buildings converted into shelters, children have now gone 22 months without education. The educational facilities themselves have been attacked; they have been destroyed, looted or occupied. Children who once attended school every day are instead working in markets, polishing shoes and performing manual labour to survive. That forced separation from school, as well as from their fellow school pupils, is making it increasingly unlikely that they will return to school even when the conflict abates. The chance that these children who are exposed to violence go on later to perpetrate violence themselves is greater, and, even if they do not do that, they are more likely to underachieve or drop out.

I will focus on the work of a small charity because I want there to be a note of optimism in this otherwise pessimistic window on what is going on in Sudan. Windle Trust International has operated in Sudan since 1999. It provides educational opportunities for refugees and internally displaced people. Before the current war, the organisation ran eight schools in Khartoum and two for Ethiopian refugees. It supported 426 refugees from Chad, the Central African Republic, South Sudan, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Yemen, Somalia and Syria, and partnered with 42 universities to offer higher education scholarships. It provided 558 university scholarships, supported more than 68,000 girls to stay in school, and trained nearly 9,500 teachers.

The effect of the war on Windle Trust International is that it has had its offices in Khartoum looted, its staff scattered and its operational funding curtailed. This has caused the closure of programmes and the ending of staff contracts. None the less, it is still able to operate a presence in Blue Nile State, where a smaller field office supports Ethiopian refugees in a camp that hosts approximately 12,000 people, 58% of whom are of school age. Windle Trust International does receive some funding from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, but that is barely enough to cover two schools, teachers’ salaries, uniforms, education materials and training, so it is a pretty dire circumstance for a small NGO operating in-country.

The Sudanese Government at federal and state levels can no longer adequately sustain their own education system. Teachers have gone unpaid for 22 months and reports indicate that 10,000 children have been recruited into armed groups. Education in conflict zones is their way out. Beyond imparting academic skills, schools can provide routine, security and hope. Where education is withheld, children suffer harm, lose future opportunities and lose the recovery prospects of their country as a whole. If Sudan fails to educate a generation of its children, its path towards development—and, ultimately, a growing economy—will become increasingly difficult.

I want to close by thinking about financial support for organisations operating in country, and education that is provided through what was the Department for International Development and is now the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. We have had a cut in the development budget in the UK from 0.7% to 0.5% in the last few years, and that is currently being exacerbated by the use of official development assistance funding. The UK’s Independent Commission for Aid Impact, or ICAI, has oversight of that funding, and it has pointed to how £4 billion of it is being spent on asylum hotels, for example, when it could go so much further if it were spent in country on such things as education. The purchasing power that we would have by spending overseas as opposed to in the UK would be so much greater. Other countries do not do things this way; Sweden limits its in-donor refugee costs to a maximum of 8% of its aid budget, and Austria and Luxembourg declare no asylum costs as official development assistance. This is a choice that the UK Government are making right now.

In any comprehensive response to Sudan’s crisis, education must be prioritised as long-term development, not just the conflict aid we think of, such as food, shelter and healthcare. Small NGOs like Windle Trust International are doing their very best to facilitate that, but they could do so much more if the west—and the UK Government, for example—were to step up in support.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister for Development (Anneliese Dodds)]

It is a real pleasure to speak in this debate with you in the Chair, Sir Desmond. I am grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green (Bambos Charalambous) for securing this important debate on the eve of the UN International Day of Education. I am grateful to all hon. Members for the important points that they have raised during our relatively short debate. We have heard some illuminating speeches and I will do my best to respond to the many important points raised.

As many hon. Members have said, although there have been many improvements, such as in the absolute number of children able to access education, we know that education overall is in crisis. Globally, 250 million children and counting are not in school. As we have heard, poverty, gender, disability and lack of schools or teachers, particularly trained teachers, all play a part in that.

The climate crisis and conflict are now disrupting the education of more than 220 million children and counting every single year. Last year alone, extreme weather events meant that children in low-income countries missed out on 18 days of school. As I discussed with some young people in South Sudan, the children who are flooded out of their schools during the rainy season are the same children who are not able to learn because it is too hot during the dry season. That means that in many of those countries, some children are missing up to a whole month of school. Millions of the children who are in school are not learning effectively, including the 70% of children in school in low and middle-income countries who are still unable to read a basic text by the age of 10.

Young women and girls are disproportionately affected by all that, so I am grateful to the Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), for raising the situation for women and girls, as she has done frequently. That particularly applies when it comes to access to higher and further education. If we look at sub-Saharan Africa, for example, only 7% of eligible women are enrolled in universities and colleges, compared with the global average of 42%. I am pleased that the right hon. Lady also mentioned the role of the UK’s higher education sector in this context, because it is incredibly important to bring in that expertise. We are seeking to build that; I recently met Baroness Smith and other experts to talk about the UK’s international education efforts.

When we consider that every additional year of learning provides a 10% increase in later earnings annually, it is clear that education has a key role to play in tackling poverty and supporting resilient, long-term growth. The hon. Member for Esher and Walton (Monica Harding) ably set out how important education is not just economically, but for so many other things, such as stability, security, healthcare and other outcomes that we need to see. She has considerable expertise in this area, given her previous roles with the British Council. However, we know that the financing gap for education in low and middle-income countries is an estimated $97 billion every year. More than 60% of that gap is finance that would be provided by the Governments of those countries.

When we look at the overall contribution of official development assistance to education, we see that it makes up 3% of education budgets. As was mentioned rightly by my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green, who is really passionate about this issue, some 3.3 billion people are now living in countries that are spending more on servicing their debt than they are on the health or education that would underpin long-term, resilient and inclusive growth. All of that comes at a time when populations are on the rise in sub-Saharan Africa.

In short, we need the kind of massive global effort that many Members have said is necessary during this debate, to ensure that people are provided with a quality education. Over the last six months, I have been making the case for action around the world, from South Sudan to the General Assembly of the United Nations in New York, and at the World Bank in Washington and the COP29 climate summit in Baku. I also met the young people from across our country who have been championing global education in schools when they came to Parliament —perhaps other Members also met them; they were incredibly powerful advocates.

The UK is determined to work in genuine partnership with like-minded donors, multilateral organisations and countries and communities across the global south, so that we address the global learning crisis effectively and efficiently. Consequently, today I will highlight four areas that correspond to points raised by hon. Members.

First, we are making foundational learning for all a priority. That means using the best available evidence to support reforms and helping Governments to provide all children with the building blocks for their future. That work uses UK expertise to focus on foundational mathematics, and I saw how it made a huge difference when I was in Malawi. It involved moving away from rote learning, which often does not teach children the skills they need. Such work is important not just for numeracy, which I mentioned, and literacy; it is also important for the development of social and emotional skills, so that we can prepare children and young people to navigate a rapidly changing world.

Of course, we also need to target the most marginalised groups, including those living in poverty or conflict, refugees, those caught up in crisis, and girls; we seek to do that. The Opposition spokesperson, the right hon. Member for Aldridge-Brownhills, mentioned the international women and girls strategy. She will know that where the previous Government aimed to make sensible reforms, my approach and the Government’s approach is not to put those plans in a drawer and not enact them. We are determined to make progress speedily. Of course, we must ensure that the strategy is up to date. However, we will not say that the main tenets of those reforms—especially those around education for girls, which we have been discussing—should not be held to in the future. We really want to enact those reforms—it is the key thing for us—and to embed long-term progress.

My hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green rightly mentioned disabled children, and Myanmar was equally rightly mentioned by the Opposition spokes-person. This morning, I met—virtually, obviously—some education specialists based in Myanmar. As the Opposition spokesperson rightly said earlier, given the regime in Myanmar and how it operates, I cannot go into a huge amount of detail about exactly which organisations are involved. However, I am really proud of the fact that the UK is working directly with local communities and local experts, so that children, including disabled children and children who have had limbs amputated because of landmines or because other problems have befallen them, can access education. That is really a case where, as my hon. Friend said, education is not just a privilege but a right for children, including disabled children.

I should also inform the Chamber that in October, we announced that the UK will launch a global taskforce to tackle sexual and physical violence, and psychological harm, in and around schools. Horrific abuse, both within schools and outside them, devastates lives, and it accounts for about 5% of school drop-outs and lower attainment worldwide. My hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green rightly raised that issue. We have to make sure that schools are safe. We are determined to advocate for that, which is in line with the fact that the UK is of course a signatory to the safe schools declaration. I am grateful to the previous Government for signing up to that declaration; it was right that they did so.

Of course, safety also has to be provided when it comes to freedom of religion and belief. I was grateful to the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) for raising that issue, which he always champions, and I thank him for his kind words. It is absolutely right, as he said, that education provides dignity, and that a lack of literacy, numeracy and other skills disempowers people and prevents them from being able to make the choices that they might need to make for themselves and their families.

The hon. Gentleman also talked about the schoolgirls abducted in Nigeria. I have talked to schoolgirls in Zambia and I remember that they get up at 5.30 am to clean the place where they live. They were young—some as young as 13—but they do all the cooking for the household. They get ready to learn and they learn all day. They are thirsty to learn; they are determined to learn. We must always ensure that they have the safety that is surely their right, wherever they are in the world.

Secondly, we are scaling up finance for education around the world and seeking to make it smarter. We are sharing our trusted research and evidence to encourage philanthropic organisations to collaborate more and maximise our impact. We are pivoting away from funding education directly and towards helping Governments improve the way they support the sector for the long term, particularly with partners across the global south.

We are making the most of UK expertise and our diplomatic reach to champion innovative new ways to mobilise finance. The UK plays an important role in developing the international finance facility for education, which provides a sevenfold return on investment—it really is an incredible instrument and provides exactly the kind of multiplying effect we need to have on the funding available. We are now calling on others to join us in backing it. Together, we can unlock $1 billion in additional affordable finance for lower and middle-income countries’ Governments. Thirdly, we are determined to ensure that more children are safe and able to learn; that includes those, mentioned by many hon. Members, who live through conflict and in communities affected by the climate and nature crisis.

As Members have also mentioned, even with the welcome ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, the impacts of that conflict remain devastating for education. In Gaza, 95% of schools have been damaged or destroyed. So in addition to our funding for the UNRWA core budget, the UK is contributing £2 million to Education Cannot Wait and £5.6 million to the Global Partnership for Education, to improve access to education for hundreds of thousands of children across Gaza and the west bank as they start to rebuild. I was pleased that the hon. Member for Esher and Walton and many others mentioned that.

The case of Afghanistan was also rightly mentioned. Appalling measures have been adopted by the Taliban—particularly in relation to girls’ secondary education, but also medical education and so many other areas in that country where women and girls are seeing their rights systematically stripped away. The UK Government are determined to play our part. To support girls in Afghanistan, we are ensuring that at least 50% of our education funding is going to support their education; we are determined to ensure that. We are also advocating more generally for girls and women in Afghanistan. I was recently pleased to announce in this Chamber that the UK is now one of the countries that is politically supporting the case when it comes to Afghanistan on the basis of the convention on the elimination of all forms of discrimination against women.

In November, we announced £14 million for education programmes in Sudan and for Sudanese refugees, where, as has been mentioned, 17 million children have had no access to education since April 2023. I was grateful for the words of the hon. Member for Honiton and Sidmouth (Richard Foord) in that regard. In some areas 90% of children are now out of formal schooling in Sudan. The hon. Member, like the Government, has been determined to not just raise the profile of that appalling conflict, which is the worst displacement crisis in the world, but also to advocate for measures that will directly support Sudanese people; he knows that we have doubled the UK’s support to Sudan and to Sudanese people who have been displaced. We are using every avenue to push for an end to the hostilities and to ensure that international humanitarian law is upheld. Like him, I pay tribute to organisations such as the Windle Trust that are so critical for the education of children in Sudan. I am very proud that it is based in my constituency. It really does impress me that an organisation based in Oxford is having such an impact all around the world.

The role of faith-based organisations was rightly mentioned by the hon. Member for Strangford, because they so often have a huge impact for communities all around the world. I thank him for mentioning that. The use of schools as shelters, which was mentioned in relation to Sudan, was also a problem in Lebanon when there was the crisis there. The UK was determined to ensure that we were playing our part for the children no longer able to go to the schools being used as shelters, and that they would get the emergency education that they needed.

A number of Members raised the issue of funding, including my hon. Friend the Member for Southgate and Wood Green, who asked about overall funding. I confirm that, as well as supporting Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education, we have a number of bilateral programmes that focus on promoting learning. We are currently the top bilateral donor to the Global Partnership for Education, and the second largest bilateral donor to Education Cannot Wait. I had the privilege of being at Education Cannot Wait’s annual general meeting. Gordon Brown, the former Prime Minister, is a strong advocate for the organisation and is achieving incredible things with it. We are in the middle of a spending review process and we will, of course, bear in mind hon. Members’ powerful comments about the importance of education as we develop our allocations and decisions for that spending review, both for the immediate future and the longer term. We will update the House on that as soon as is practicably possible.

There are three reviews at the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, one of which, being undertaken by Baroness Minouche Shafik, is specifically focused on development capability and capacity in the FCDO. It comes after many years of a lot of turbulence around the UK’s approach to international development—in particular a huge amount of financial turbulence, which was not helped by the untrammelled growth of in-donor refugee costs in ODA. There was not a consistent approach but we are determined to have a consistent approach for the future. I hope that Members see that in the way that we are facing up to these issues.

On the point about teachers, I am sure that the National Education Union is keen to link its important work with work by Education Cannot Wait and the Global Partnership for Education. Education Cannot Wait provides a lot of support for teachers, including direct financial support, support around recruitment and psychosocial support when teachers are operating in dangerous environments. There is an over-representation of fragile and conflict-affected states in the countries that receive the UK’s contribution to the Global Partnership for Education—60% of our funding to GPE goes to such states. There is a lot of work in this area and I am sure that the NEU will want to engage with it. I would, of course, be very happy to discuss that with the union if that would be useful.

Finally, we are investing to make education systems more resilient to the climate crisis and better able to help students thrive beyond their school years.

[Richard Foord]

Does the Minister agree with the Chair of the International Development Committee, who called the use of official development assistance for hosting asylum seekers in hotels “a spectacular own goal”?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I have enormous respect for the Chair of the International Development Committee and I have had a lot of discussions with her and other members of the Committee on this subject. The decision to count in-donor refugee costs within the overall category of overseas development assistance is, of course, a statistical decision taken by the OECD.

Different countries have had far lower levels of overseas development assistance going into those in-donor refugee costs. They have not seen the untrammelled increases that we saw under previous Governments. As I said, the current UK Government are determined to have a longer-term approach to the issue, and to get the costs down. In fact we have been doing so, as has been reflected in the decision taken by the Chief Secretary of the Treasury to increase the yearly ODA just after the new year. Part of that was from the reduction in in-donor refugee costs. It is a priority for the Home Secretary and the whole Government to ensure that we are dealing with those issues, so I am grateful to him for raising that point.

We are investing to make systems for education more resilient. At COP28 in Dubai, the UK helped to launch a new global declaration on the common agenda for education and climate change, through which 90 countries have now committed to action on climate that helps protect education. Ahead of COP30 in Brazil this year, we are working with our partners to prioritise the role of education in combating the climate and nature crises and to secure further action to protect children, including when they are learning, from extreme weather.

In response to the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for Norwich North (Alice Macdonald), who is no longer in her place, I should say that she is right to underline the relationship between education, water and sanitation. That is important because children should be able to do something as basic as go to the toilet when they are at school; it is particularly important when it comes to girls’ education, because when there is not access to water that poses a particular problem for menstruating girls.

When it comes to resilience, we must ensure that we join up the UK’s strength in artificial intelligence and education technology, and harness their power responsibly so we can support marginalised children, tailor learning to students’ needs and boost the capacity of teachers, enabling them to reach children who cannot join them in the classroom. We are determined to ensure that more children can gain the skills they need to make the leap into higher and further education and employment. Once again, many thanks to all Members who have taken part in the debate. It has been an incredibly important one, and I look forward to the closing remarks.

Sudan: US Determination of Genocide

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

The reality of the situation so far is that, although there have been very significant population movements, they have been into the countries neighbouring Sudan, particularly Chad, but also South Sudan, and many people have travelled to Egypt and further afield. Their situation has been very difficult in many cases. I have talked directly to those pushed out of Sudan because of the conflict into South Sudan when I was there last year. The UK will seek to do all we can to protect those individuals.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

Twenty years ago, the Save Darfur coalition was one of the biggest international social movements of its time, but today the campaigning voices of charities and NGOs on the conflict in Sudan are not being amplified in quite the same way, certainly not by Governments. Why does the Minister suppose this is, and what more can the British Government do to amplify the appeals for support from humanitarian organisations?

[Anneliese Dodds]

We have been seeking to amplify the voices of charities in this area. I have met them myself, and I have been particularly keen to ensure that I have heard directly from those operating in Sudan and those running the emergency response rooms. Those incredibly brave individuals, who are neutral in relation to the different warring parties in this conflict, are determined to support those who are suffering so much. The UK Government will try to ensure that their profile is increased in the weeks and months to come.

UK Leadership on Sudan

Richard Foord Excerpts

Thursday 28th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

My hon. Friend raises a really important point. We are indeed seeing a huge amount of misinformation circulating, and a lot of it is digital. That is why we have been determined to support the Centre for Information Resilience, a research body that is gathering open-source evidence about the ongoing fighting. Where the facts about what is going on are being manipulated, that is linked to fuelling violence, so it is important that we see continued support for reliable information and evidence in this context and also that we combat that disinformation, which has been so damaging.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

The war in Sudan is plainly appalling. I heard that 14 million people had been displaced, but 11 million is also an appalling figure. As I understand it, this started out as a war between the general in charge of the armed forces and the general in charge of the Rapid Support Forces militia. That makes me think that we need to get upstream of such situations, to try to prevent them happening again. The UK used to be involved in defence engagement: we were delivering courses such as managing defence in a wider security context at the Kofi Annan international peacekeeping training centre, teaching things like democratic oversight and democratic control of the armed forces. Will the Government look again at that training, and see whether we might deliver more such training for military officers and officials in those developing countries that are receptive to it?

[Anneliese Dodds]

I am grateful to the hon. Gentleman for his interesting and important question. The issue of conflict prevention is absolutely fundamental, not just for me as a Minister but for the Foreign Secretary and, indeed, the Prime Minister. We have been seeking to ensure that the UK does all it can to exercise leadership in relation to what are often described as fragile and conflict-affected states. That includes states that are not yet in conflict but where there are the ingredients for conflict to increase. Unfortunately, of course, the climate crisis is now often linked to some of those conflicts. We have made sure that there is a stronger focus on economic development, for example. We had some good results a few weeks ago from the World Bank, which is focusing on this in its International Development Association replenishment. I will ensure that the specific issue of defence training is raised with the Defence Secretary, and I will definitely be thinking about it myself.

Jailing of Hong Kong Pro-democracy Activists

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 19th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

In 2023 the Hong Kong police issued arrest warrants for eight overseas activists under the national security law. What are Ministers doing to challenge the extraterritorial reach of the national security law?

[Anneliese Dodds]

We were very clear, as were the previous Government, at the time of the passage of that law. We believe it is incredibly important that people in Hong Kong and beyond are able to exercise political rights and, indeed, to participate politically. All that the group of individuals who have just been sentenced were doing was exercising their right to political participation. We will resolutely defend that right, including in the UK and elsewhere.

Children’s Social Care

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 18th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

My hon. Friend is right to identify that, sadly, for too many care-experienced young people coming out of the system, their outcomes are just not good enough and the facts in terms of their life chances are stark. We are determined to change that. I am working closely with the Deputy Prime Minister as part of the care leavers inter-ministerial board, because actions across many Departments could make a big and meaningful difference to the life chances of care-experienced young people. As part of that, it was incredibly powerful to listen to the experiences of two young people who had just come through the system, and in all our discussions in this important area we must listen to the experiences and views of those who have direct lived experience of how the system has let them down, and what needs to change in future.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

Devon county council children’s services was assessed by Ofsted in April. It found that the children’s front door service was effective, after previously having been deemed by Ofsted to be inadequate. When the Secretary of State simplifies and consolidates the money available through the local government finance settlement, will she take into account the additional costs borne by rural local authorities?

[Bridget Phillipson]

We will look at all factors including the one identified by the hon. Gentleman, as well as at areas of good practice where many local councils, despite the many difficulties they face, are taking forward innovative new ways of working, and doing all they can to support children and families. There is much we can learn from good examples that exist across the country.

Higher Education Reform

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 4th November 2024 Commons Chamber

[Bridget Phillipson]

My hon. Friend brings real expertise on these matters to the House. While the Government ensure that we play our part in securing financial sustainability, I have been clear with the sector that it too must do more. That involves playing an expanded role in driving economic growth, including in towns and cities across the country. The sector ought to be considering how it can do more, including working with further education providers to look at different ways of delivering provision, especially for adult learners, who often need a different approach in order to upskill, retrain and take on new opportunities. I have seen some great examples of that and some fantastic practice around the country, but there is more that the sector should be doing.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

I welcome the Secretary of State’s announcement on increased maintenance loans and what that will do for equality of opportunity. I agree with her that the last Government did not properly value the contribution of international students. For more than 15 years, the much higher fees charged to international students have cross-subsidised British students, to say nothing of what international students do for British soft power. Will the Government remove international students from the net migration figures, so that that cross-subsidy can continue?

[Bridget Phillipson]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the important contribution that international students make to our country and the reach they give us around the world through soft power, influence and the business and trading links that they grow and develop, but I am afraid I cannot give him the answer he seeks on his wider question.

International Engagement

Richard Foord Excerpts

Monday 28th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

I absolutely will confirm that. I am so pleased that my hon. Friend has raised this issue. I think that people up and down the whole country are delighted that we will see the return of the Commonwealth games to Glasgow in 2026. I know that my right hon. Friend the Scotland Secretary is very pleased to be engaging on this matter with the Scottish Government and the people of Scotland, including those in my hon. Friend’s constituency. We need to ensure that the games have a lasting, positive legacy on health and on engagement in fitness and sports, and this new UK Government are determined to achieve that.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

I am grateful to the Minister for the update on the Commonwealth Heads of Government meeting. Next Sunday, volunteers will head to the beach when Sidmouth Plastic Warriors meet to prevent litter from ending up in the oceans. When they do so, they will want to be sure that their Government are encouraging other Governments to take action on ocean plastics. How likely does the Minister think it is that negotiations will be concluded on a UN global plastics treaty by the end of the year?

[Anneliese Dodds]

When the hon. Gentleman’s constituents take part in that activity, they are joining a global movement in which the Foreign Secretary himself was engaged with young people in Samoa. It is about ensuring that we all play our part in removing plastic pollution. The hon. Gentleman asks about the prospects for a global agreement. We all want to see that happen through the UN, but the fact that the Commonwealth came together in Samoa to agree on it is very exciting. It shows that there is a strong prospect of making headway on this very important issue.

Gaza and Lebanon

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2024 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds]

The UK Government look very carefully indeed at any reports suggesting that there has been a breaking of international humanitarian law. We have been particularly concerned about the situation of many healthcare workers. We have seen many of them being killed, and that includes UK and UK-linked personnel. We continue to look carefully at all these representations, including those that have come from the UN.

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

A moment ago, the Minister supported the current UN Security Council resolution 1701, which was established under chapter VI of the United Nations charter and relates to peacekeeping. The Chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee, the right hon. Member for Islington South and Finsbury (Emily Thornberry), said earlier that we could potentially deploy British troops to supplement UNIFIL. Will the Minister ensure that no British troops are deployed into that situation until there is a peace to keep, or, under chapter VII of the charter, peace enforcement?

[Anneliese Dodds]

The UK Government have been very clear that it is through diplomatic channels, and also through our humanitarian effort, that we are seeking to do all we can to promote de-escalation. Any decisions relating to any resolution would of course be taken very seriously indeed by our Defence Secretary and by the whole Government, but it has been through those humanitarian and diplomatic levers that we have been straining every sinew to de-escalate and improve the situation of the populations who are so badly impacted at the moment.

Security in the Democratic Republic of the Congo

Richard Foord Excerpts

Wednesday 4th September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Dr Huq. I am grateful to the right hon. Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) for securing the debate. He came from exactly the right position at the outset: it is about seeing the context from the perspective of the most vulnerable people in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. We all have our own statistics on the horror of what is going on. I have read that in 2022 more than 38,000 attacks against women and girls were reported in North Kivu province alone, and most of the women and girls were reported to be attacked by armed men and displaced men in camps for IDPs. What has been going on there is tragic.

The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) spoke about British policy. We should think about UK policy and the difference it can make. In 2018, the Conservative Government said that more than 2 million people had been lifted out of poverty in the DRC since 2005, thanks to UK international development aid. It is good that DFID in particular had a positive effect on the Democratic Republic of the Congo, but we should also think about how sometimes our support is conditional. Aid conditionality is not always beneficial to people on the ground.

We also have to think about how we support the neighbouring countries. The sanctions imposed on Rwanda by the UK and US Governments in 2012 were very effective in halting support by the Rwandan Government for the M23 militia group. Since 2021 we have seen the re-emergence of M23, but so far there does not seem to have been quite the same effort to put the brakes on Rwandan support for M23 in the DRC.

I am conscious that we should be thinking not just about international development, for which the Minister is responsible, but about joined-up government. In April this year, the then Government defended their so-called Rwanda plan: a transfer of £380 million to Rwanda for the so-called economic transformation and integration fund. No thought at all seems to have been given to what effect the Rwandan Government were having in the DRC with their alleged sponsorship of M23: if hon. Members want evidence of that, they need only watch the BBC “Question Time” clip in which the then Home Office Minister of State revealed that he was not even aware that Rwanda and the Democratic Republic of the Congo are different countries. Very plainly, some of the thinking in the Home Office was not joined up with the thinking in the FCDO or the thinking in relation to international development.

Finally, it is very positive to see that the new Government have already been thinking about peace in the DRC. I read that Lord Collins, the new Under-Secretary of State for Africa, went to Angola in August shortly after the signing of a ceasefire agreement between Rwanda and the DRC as part of the Luanda process, so we have seen some positive steps in UK policy and support in recent months.

International Special Tribunal: Ukraine

Richard Foord Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2024 Westminster Hall

[Richard Foord (Honiton and Sidmouth) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the potential merits of an international special tribunal on crimes of aggression in Ukraine.

It is an honour to serve under your chairship, Mr Efford. The motion should refer to “the crime” rather than “crimes”. It should be singular because this debate is about the crime of aggression. I think it might have been amended to the plural by the Table Office, but I very much hope that we can keep the crime of aggression as the topic for this debate.

It is 15 months since we last had a debate on the crime of aggression and the potential merits of a special tribunal on Ukraine. On 9 May 2023, I opened a debate in this Chamber some 15 months after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russia in February 2022. It is easy to forget the shock that many of us felt two and a half years ago when we woke up on 24 February to discover that our intelligence agencies had been right all along in their forecasts and that the Kremlin had deployed more than 150,000—some think nearer 200,000—of Russia’s armed forces personnel across the border into Ukraine. It is that original decision and original aggression on which this debate should focus.

The crime of aggression is defined as

“the planning, preparation, initiation or execution by a person in a position effectively to exercise control over or to direct the political or military action of a State”.

It is called a “leadership crime”, because under the Rome statute criminal responsibility is limited to

“a person in a position…to direct the political or military action of a State.”

The key thing about the crime of aggression is that it is the original sin—the leadership crime from which flow other international crimes, including war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

If Members have looked at newspapers this week, they may have seen that there has been press attention on Putin’s visit to Mongolia and suggestions that Mongolia should heed an International Criminal Court arrest warrant to transfer Putin to The Hague. That arrest warrant relates to an alleged war crime: the unlawful deportation of children from occupied areas of Ukraine to the Russian Federation—like other war crimes and crimes against humanity committed in Ukraine, that would not have occurred had it not been for the original aggression.

When I addressed the previous Government 15 months ago, I said to the Conservative Minister that the special tribunal should be as international in character as possible, because a national tribunal based on Ukrainian law, or a regional tribunal, would not be sufficiently international in character for the personal immunities—which relate to Heads of State, Foreign Secretaries and Presidents—to be disapplied.

The preference of G7 members has been for the creation of a Ukrainian court using Ukrainian law but based in The Hague, but the problem with such a proposal is that if the special tribunal is part of a domestic legal system, none of the international elements of the tribunal will apply. As Head of State, Putin would have immunity in a foreign domestic court. Only Russia would be able to waive that immunity. Foreign Ministers and diplomats also have a similar personal immunity under the domestic courts of other countries, such as Ukraine.

With the Minsk agreements, we saw a willingness on the part of the Kremlin to accede to some demands only to row back on those agreements subsequently. In any future negotiation we cannot have some sort of bargaining or bartering away of personal immunities in favour of a political agreement that the Kremlin can then renege on, as it did before. Immunity applies to Heads of State and Governments for acts performed in the exercise of their functions, even after they have left office, and as such they should be dealt with by an international court at an intergovernmental level.

Fifteen months ago, the then Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office Minister stated that the UK Government did not have a definitive view about whether a special tribunal should be a Ukrainian court established with international support or a fully international court. They said at that time that all options were on the table. Previously, the UK has traditionally held the position that only the UN Security Council has the power to disapply personal immunities, but clearly that idea would not fly given that Russia has veto power over any Security Council resolution.

The Minister responsible for Europe, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), was present at the debate 15 months ago in his capacity then as a shadow Minister. He asked the Conservative Government about immunities and said they were a

“critical issue…that we would need to address in any model”—[Official Report, 9 May 2023; Vol. 732, c. 114WH.]

of a special tribunal.

In February this year, an international conference to consider a special tribunal took place just across the road from here, at Church House. The communiqué from the conference referred to the merit of a strictly international tribunal or a highly internationalised tribunal having key international features: an international agreement; reference to international law for the purposes of jurisdiction; significant international components, such as prosecutors, judges and venue; and firm international backing, where possible, from international and regional organisations. The communiqué said:

“We believe this would offer the best hope of disapplying relevant immunities and give a tribunal full legitimacy, and complement the ongoing work of the ICC (in investigating alleged acts of genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed on the territory of Ukraine).”

The effect of lifting immunities could relate to that most precious thing for any tyrant: their reputation. The late Paddy Ashdown visited Slobodan Milošević several weeks before NATO military action against Belgrade in 1999. Lord Ashdown commented that Milošević

“seemed more frightened by the threat of indictment by the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, than...of NATO bombing”.

Twenty years ago, at the height of liberal interventionism by what at the time we called rather grandly “the international community”, Lord Ashdown reflected on international justice in relation to war, writing that

“these new courts and tribunals, which the world has established in recent years...have the potential to become instruments not only for justice, but also for prevention, since they can represent a...warning to belligerent or tyrannical leaders.”

These days, there is far less talk of a “global village”, and terms like “international community” are used far less readily and do not strike a chord in the way they did 25 years ago. In February 2022, when the UN Security Council considered a resolution condemning Russia’s aggression in Ukraine, both India and China abstained. The Council of Europe is seeking to fill the gap. An international tribunal based on a treaty with the Council of Europe would be sufficiently international to overcome the personal immunities, if its founding treaty was open to any state to sign and it was ratified by at least 60 states. The involvement of the Council of Europe in the creation of a special tribunal, together with the potential accession of non-member states from outside Europe to the treaty creating such a tribunal, would contribute legitimacy to the effort to prosecute the crime of aggression committed in Ukraine.

Yesterday evening, I talked to someone else who participated in the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia. Sir Geoffrey Nice was the lead prosecutor of Slobodan Milošević for the UN, and he wrote the following to me after our conversation:

“No self-respecting lawyer—indeed, no self-respecting human—should have anything to do with any court premised”

on

“an immunity, granted by political agreement”.

I know that this issue is of genuine interest to the Minister, and I look forward to hearing any contribution from her or from other Members about whether the UK should have a stance whereby personal immunities should be disapplied. Surely, we cannot see immunities applying for President Putin, President Lukashenko, Sergey Lavrov and other senior architects of the aggression in Ukraine.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

I remind Members to bob in their place if they intend to speak in the debate.

--- Later in debate ---

[Richard Foord]

I am grateful to all hon. Members who have participated in the debate. The hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) took us back to first principles when he talked about freedom, liberty and democracy. It is a reminder that while we are talking about arcane legal matters, this is also a matter of the self-determination of the Ukrainian people and their ability to choose their own future. He also gave us the image of David and Goliath, and it is partly through the proposed special tribunal that it is suggested the international community could try to tip the scales in favour of David.

The hon. Member for East Londonderry (Mr Campbell), who is no longer in the Chamber, talked about the loopholes in sanctions. He was right to do so; I was informed earlier this week that oil services companies are still actively doing business with Russian energy companies. SLB, which has UK offices at Buckingham Gate, is one such company. Essentially, though inadvertently, it is contributing funds to Moscow’s war machine.

My hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), the Liberal Democrat spokesperson, reminded us of the important work of the core group of more than 40 states established in 2023. It is encouraging that the UK is part of that group, but we could be a more prominent voice were the Government to choose to go down that route. In addition, my hon. Friend talked about the spectre of a second Trump presidency. We know that Donald Trump regards himself as a dealmaker; he thinks of himself as someone able to broker a deal and get a compromise. When we are dealing with absolutes such as international justice and the crime of aggression, there is no room for that sort of grubby compromise, because on the line are the deaths of the 11,000 civilians that we have heard about this afternoon.

The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford (Alicia Kearns) talked about the rewriting of history by Putin, which we definitely need to be wary of. He tends to engage in historical revisionism. Even before the full-scale invasion, he was engaged in that in relation to Ukraine. In December 2019, he talked about how Poland was somehow responsible for the attack by Nazi Germany because it had laid itself open to attack by Hitler’s military machine. We need to make sure that the record of history is written correctly in relation to Russia and Putin.

The hon. Member for Rutland and Stamford also talked about UK support for Ukraine. I think that we should be very wary of getting into party political turf wars on that one. I see nobody from the Reform party in the Chamber, but that is the only political party in this Parliament not to buy into the consensus on UK support for Ukraine—long may the solid support between political parties continue. In the last Parliament, Grant Shapps, as Defence Secretary, announced an uplift in military aid for Ukraine from £2.5 billion to £3 billion, and that was welcomed automatically. We should not seek to score political points on this issue.

Finally, I am grateful to the Minister for her comments. I will continue to press the Government on the point about personal immunities that I led on, and I will talk to the Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office, the hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty), who I know is very interested in this matter, too.

[Clive Efford (in the Chair)]

For future reference, summing up is meant to be brief, but I was generous because we have plenty of time left.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered the potential merits of an international special tribunal on crimes of aggression in Ukraine.