Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Robin Walker and David Warburton(3 years ago)
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David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
The Minister for School Standards (Mr Robin Walker)
Local authorities must provide transport for children of compulsory school age to attend their nearest school if they cannot walk there because of distance, route safety or special needs. During the next spending review period, authorities will receive an extra £1.6 billion a year to maintain vital services such as that.
David Warburton
I am grateful for my hon. Friend’s reply. As a former teacher, I very much understand the value of education, but in the past few months I have been concerned to hear of constituents having difficulties getting children to school because of limited public transport and school bus places. I know that my hon. Friend will agree that it is vital to ensure that children do not miss out on learning, so I would be grateful to hear what steps are being taken to ensure that children in rural areas, particularly with limited bus transport, are able to attend school, and whether he has discussed this matter with colleagues in the Department for Transport.
Mr Walker
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. As he says, as a former teacher, he recognises the benefit of children being in schools. I can assure him that the Department regularly talks to the Department for Transport about school transport. Last year, we gave Somerset over £1.1 million of additional funding for school and college transport in response to the need for social distancing on public transport. I shall continue those conversations.
Daesh: Genocide of Minorities
Debate between Robin Walker and David Warburton(8 years, 7 months ago)
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David Warburton (Somerton and Frome) (Con)
I join others in congratulating my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce) on her tremendous efforts in securing the debate.
Words matter, and saying that Daesh is committing acts of genocide against Christians and Yazidis is not just a statement of fact, because it also forces us to realise that genocide is, unfortunately, an inherent part of Daesh’s depraved operations. The acts that have been mentioned today, including the assassination of church leaders, systematic torture and mass murder, mock crucifixions, sexual enslavement and systematic rape, which the hon. Member for Glasgow East (Natalie McGarry) spoke about in shocking, appalling and powerful detail, are genocidal not just by consequence, but by design. That distinction is clear in Daesh’s propaganda sheet “Dabiq”, the latest edition of which attacks any form of pluralism or tolerance as being in direct contradiction to its twisted view of Islam, stating:
“the death of a single Muslim, no matter his role in society, is more grave…than the massacre of every kafir on earth.”
The same article explicitly clarifies:
“Any disbeliever standing in the way of the Islamic State will be killed, without pity or remorse, until…governance is entirely for Allah.”
Such sentiments are incompatible with the presence of minority groups in Daesh territory, and we are seeing a concentrated effort by Daesh not only to obliterate any minority presence, but to deny the cultural history of the territory that it seeks to occupy.
The number of Christians in Syria has halved, and in Iraq it has dropped from 1.4 million to just 240,000. Perhaps even more striking is that the historical settlement of 60,000 Christians in Mosul has entirely disappeared. Along with that, there has been a targeted destruction of sites, including St Elijah’s monastery, historic libraries and any representational art. Edicts have instructed Daesh troops to engage in the wholesale destruction of any non-Islamic sites of worship.
Mr Robin Walker (Worcester) (Con)
My hon. Friend makes an important point, and Daesh’s ignorance and denial of the historical and cultural nature of the area is crucial. I studied the early caliphate, and in that period many leaders of the Muslim world described the classical world that they took over as a garden protected by their spears. Is it not tragic that Daesh’s perversion of Islam is so different from the vision set out by those early caliphs?
David Warburton
My hon. Friend is absolutely right. It is not only tragic but bizarre and unimaginable that Daesh has taken its own religion and turned it into something so distinctly different from what was intended.