Counter-Daesh Update

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 15th March 2017 Commons Chamber

[Priti Patel]

The hon. Lady hits the nail on the head. We are working in a challenging situation. Basically, we need peace and stability to achieve the outcomes I described in my statement. We are using everything—every single ounce of capital we have—to lobby and influence, exactly as she would expect us to do. Our commitment to Syria has been substantial. Much of the £2.3 billion she referred to has been concentrated in the wider region, but we are also funding agencies and working with partners such as the World Food Programme and UNICEF, and the wide matrix of agencies, with which we have a strong working relationship, to provide life-saving support—food, water, shelter and medical supplies.

The situation is incredibly challenging. There are still people we cannot reach in besieged areas. Our No. 1 objective and priority is ensure that aid from the UK and from the whole international community reaches the people who have not seen any aid for not just weeks but months.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

Have the Government given any further consideration, since the House last debated the matter, to recognising the crimes against the Yazidis as a genocide? Are the Government willing to support a rehabilitation and recovery programme, such as the one that Germany has just launched, for Daesh survivors, particularly the Yazidis who are now resident outside Iraq? Following on from the question of the right hon. Member for Leeds Central (Hilary Benn), will the UK deploy its own forensics experts to examine those mass graves as soon as possible? It is not just about bringing people to justice; it is for the loved ones, from the Yazidi community and elsewhere, to be able to identify the bodies of those who have been killed.

[Priti Patel]

My hon. Friend raises important and significant points about the mass graves. We are already providing support to the investigations that are taking place. As I said earlier, the evidence collation is challenging and difficult. On genocide and the crimes of the persecution of Yazidis, we are working throughout the system to look into the horrors that have taken place. Of course, the term “genocide” comes up against legal definitions but, as I have said, we will look at all aspects of this. The only way that we can defeat what has happened and address the horrors is by taking all the actions needed to call Daesh out and take the necessary steps forward.

Foreign Aid Expenditure

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Monday 13th June 2016 Westminster Hall

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

At the risk of sounding like Mark Antony at the funeral pyre of Julius Caesar, I genuinely come here to praise international aid, but I come as a critical friend, in the knowledge that several hundred of my constituents signed The Mail on Sunday’s petition. As a general rule in politics, if we brush aside the fears of our constituents, it only damages the goals that some of us wish to further. I do believe in international aid. Today’s debate has been extremely good, but relatively few of us have acknowledged the views, if we are honest with ourselves, of millions of citizens of this country. If we believe in international aid and a 0.7% commitment, as I do, it is absolutely right that we try to acknowledge and address some of those concerns, so that the commitment remains for future generations to benefit from.

The concerns that I hear from my constituents fall into a couple of categories; we have discussed many of those concerns today. First, of course, are the concerns, some legitimate and some not, about waste, and the lack of scrutiny of some of the poorer decisions that DFID has made over the years, as well as the many good ones. There are also concerns about politicisation, as we have heard in relation to the Israel-Palestine conflict. We have already heard a lot of that debate, and time is pressing.

The other point I would make on behalf of some of those who are concerned about the 0.7% commitment is that the commitment may not be the best way to do government. Those of us who have pressed the Government to spend on particular projects know that, because of the 0.7% commitment, there is often a lower bar for getting a project approved in DFID than in any other Department; we all have to address that if we care about the maintenance of this public commitment. We have to be able to say to our constituents that this money is being spent as well by DFID as if it were being spent on the NHS, on education or by any other Department. One way of doing that is by measuring the 0.7% commitment not in one year, but over two or five years, or even over an entire economic cycle, so that we could be sure that projects were not being pushed through at the last minute, as we all know they frequently are, and that the quality of projects was sufficiently high to allow us all to stand tall at hustings and in conversations with our constituents, and to defend them, in the knowledge that they were furthering the cause of poverty alleviation across the world.

Oral Answers to Questions

Robert Jenrick Excerpts

Wednesday 18th June 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Prime Minister]

What I meant when I said we would protect the NHS is just that. We are spending £12.7 billion more on the NHS; Labour said that that was irresponsible. We have 7,000 more doctors in our NHS, 3,000 more nurses in our NHS, and over 1,000 more midwives in our NHS, but there is something we have less of in our NHS—we have 19,000 fewer bureaucrats, and that money has been piled into patient care, including improving primary care right around the country.

[Robert Jenrick (Newark) (Con)]

The people of Newark have enjoyed becoming better acquainted with the Prime Minister this past month.

I regret to inform the Prime Minister that last week the town of Southwell in my constituency was again flooded. Will he reaffirm his commitment to supporting my proposal that the parts of Nottinghamshire that were severely affected by the floods of 2013 receive similar grants to the parts elsewhere in the country flooded at the beginning of this year?

[The Prime Minister]

First of all, may I welcome my hon. Friend to his place in the House of Commons after what was a long and arduous but well fought and very positive by-election campaign?

My hon. Friend makes an important point, which is that there are parts of the country, in Nottinghamshire but also elsewhere, that flooded during the course of 2013 and were not eligible for some of the payments made subsequent to the flooding at the turn of the last year, with support for householders and farmers and other sorts of proposals. We are looking very hard at whether we can put back to the beginning of the 2013 financial year the eligibility criteria for that flood work. I will look at this issue very carefully and talk to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government to see whether we can resolve it for my hon. Friend.