Points of Order
Debate between Roger Gale and Alicia Kearns
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
First, the right hon. and learned Member will appreciate that that is not a point of order for the Chair. However, if he has something he wishes to raise directly with the Home Office, he should most certainly do so. He has already placed his case on the record in the presence of the Home Secretary.
Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
On a point of order, Mr Deputy Speaker, I would be grateful if you could advise those of us in this House who wish to pay tribute to the amazing Saxby-born Tony Roe, who is the BBC’s east midlands political editor. He has looked after our local democracies and our communities for more than 40 years, and this is his last week. We from the east midlands are very grateful to him for all he has done in serving local democracy and our communities. I would be grateful to know how you, Mr Deputy Speaker, can help me to make sure that is well known.
Mr Deputy Speaker (Sir Roger Gale)
The hon. Lady will be fully aware that that is also not a point of order for the Chair, but it might just be the subject of an early-day motion. I leave that to her judgment.
Bill Presented
Family Visas (Minimum Income)
Presentation and First Reading (Standing Order No. 57)
Mr Alistair Carmichael presented a Bill to prohibit any increase in the minimum income requirement for family visas; and for connected purposes.
Bill read the First time; to be read a Second time on Friday 21 June, and to be printed (Bill 165).
Ukraine Recovery Conference
Debate between Roger Gale and Alicia Kearns(1 year, 5 months ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I welcome the success of the Ukraine rebuilding conference. It is what we do best in the UK: convening our global partners and bringing them together to support an ally. In particular, I welcome the fact that we have announced that no sanctions will be lifted until Russia pays compensation, but can I push the Government to go one step further and say that no funds will be unfrozen until Russia pays compensation?
In my discussions this week with global private sector leaders, they are making three clear requests as we plan for peace. One is to create that regulatory framework and the environment that allows them to go and do what they want to do to support Ukraine. The second is the importance of judicial reform to give global private sector leaders the confidence that the rule of law will underpin their investments in Ukraine. Finally, they see a transition to a cashless society as pivotal to Ukraine reaching all the opportunities available to it.
I urge my hon. Friend that, in order to help us bring peace sooner, we need to develop and establish an economic Ramstein, whether it be on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly in September, the G20 or the G7. That is the way we make sure that we are supporting the military effort and strangling Putin’s financial foothold that is allowing him to continue to wage war.
Leo Docherty
I am grateful to the Chair of the Select Committee not only for her sustained interest and personal experience, but for her involvement in this conference and her questions today. She is absolutely right about the convening power of our country, which was on show at its absolute best yesterday, but we must deliver on the commitments made at the conference, and we will.
My hon. Friend made a pertinent suggestion about a similar approach to frozen assets, and we will take that away. She rightly outlined that the clear requirement and pre-condition for Ukrainian economic reinvention and renaissance is the improvement of the regulatory environment, the development of a truly independent judiciary and, ideally, the transition to a cashless economy. There is huge appetite across the Ukrainian Government—because they are forward-looking and tech savvy—for those sorts of developments and modernisations, which will allow investment to flow. We entirely support that kind of institutional development. The conditionality of a lot of private capital that now flows to Ukraine as a result of this conference will usefully have those conditions attached, and I entirely agree with her analysis.
My hon. Friend made a pertinent point about the notion of an economic Ramstein, as it were. Yesterday and today show that, in terms of matching our military effort, there is global will—especially among G7 major developed nations—to have a similar economic effort that can be leveraged and mobilised to ensure that while we are giving lethal aid we are also driving economic improvement, because that is what will make victory not just inevitable, but sustainable.
Sudan Update
Debate between Roger Gale and Alicia Kearns(1 year, 7 months ago)
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Alicia Kearns (Rutland and Melton) (Con)
I place on record my gratitude to the Foreign Office staff, those on the rapid deployment teams, those in the crisis centre, our armed forces and Border Force. May I also point out how unacceptable it is that some media have been outside not just the homes of civil servants who are not senior civil servants, but their parents’ homes? That is utterly unacceptable, and I urge the Foreign Office to make clear to the media that that cannot continue.
Moving back to the crisis on the ground, when the ceasefire was agreed, the clock began for how we would make sure that hostilities did not return from midnight tonight. What reassurances can my right hon. Friend give me that we will not see westerners removed and the Sudanese left to face appalling violence? The point was made just now about our criteria for evacuation, and I urge my right hon. Friend to please review them. The reality is that we treat children as dependents, but very elderly, sick parents should also be treated as dependents. On the specific case that was just raised, the family have made their way to the airstrip, after my suggestion that they travelled. The NHS doctor has had to receive emergency medical treatment at the airstrip under local anaesthesia because of how advanced the infection was following his having been shot. He has not been allowed on the flight that departed about three minutes ago, because he wanted to take his mother with him. I urge the Government that we have the ability to change the criteria. I cannot quite determine whether it is the Foreign Office or Home Office who have determined the criteria, but a key recommendation from Afghanistan was to recognise that dependents are also the elderly and not just the young.
James Cleverly
I am grateful to my honourable friend for echoing those words of support for our officials both on the ground and at home. It is completely inappropriate that people who have dedicated their lives to public service and have operated through incredibly intense situations should be hounded by the press in that way, and I call for responsible journalism in all respects.
I recognise that my hon. Friend has personal experience of some of the complexities of consular work from her life before politics and I always listen carefully to her suggestions and recommendations, which I know are all made with a genuine desire to improve the situation. There is a real challenge about extending the criteria for who we evacuate; we instinctively desire to be as generous as possible, but we must ensure that we discharge our primary duty to British nationals and the traditionally recognised dependents. I understand the point she makes about more elderly members of the family and of course we will look at what we can do to be as supportive as possible.
How many others we might be able to take is entirely dependent, as I said to the shadow Foreign Secretary a few moments ago, on whether we can get the ceasefire to stick and on our ability to continue the evacuation if the ceasefire collapses. We will keep all those decisions under review in the regular Cobra meetings that we hold.