Oral Answers to Questions

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Wednesday 29th April 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

May I thank the hon. Gentleman and say how appalled I am at the tragic case in his constituency? I pay tribute to the frontline emergency responders, and I, absolutely in total solidarity with the hon. Gentleman, pass on my condolences to the family in that terrible case; it sounds absolutely appalling.

The police have been very clear that they will pursue perpetrators and anyone in immediate danger should call 999. We are going through the coronavirus challenge, which has put pressure on the police, but they are there to do that incredible job that they do day in, day out. We have the national domestic abuse helpline, which is staffed 24 hours a day, and we are supporting charities and others supporting victims of domestic abuse with £750 million. The hon. Gentleman makes interesting points about what more we could do; we are constantly looking to reinforce and strengthen the response to domestic abuse, and he is right that there is a specific issue in relation to this crisis. The Domestic Abuse Bill had its Second Reading yesterday; that will help to take our response to the next level and offers an opportunity for him to make further proposals in due course.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

May I join in the congratulations to the Prime Minister and Carrie Symonds on the birth of their son?I was recently speaking with a lady who, very sadly, lost her husband in hospital to covid-19. She spoke of the fantastic care given to her husband by the NHS staff, but she also spoke of the incredible support she and her family received from those same NHS workers. Will my right hon. Friend join me in congratulating NHS staff not only on caring for those who are ill, but on the wonderful support they give to their loved ones?

[Dominic Raab]

First, may I pass on my very deepest condolences to the widow in my hon Friend’s constituency? I, along with other Ministers, have the grim task of reading out the total death toll at the press conferences, and I always walk away ashen-faced at what this must mean for individual families up and down the country. He is right to pay tribute to those in the NHS, who are doing an amazing job, and I think all of us across the House paid tribute to them and the care workers, particularly with our minute’s silence yesterday. My hon. Friend is absolutely right also to say that they are not just there to treat the physical condition, whether coronavirus or otherwise; they do an amazing job as providers of emotional support for patients and their families, and that is too easily overlooked as we come through this crisis.

Iran

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right on the various points that she made. She poses a good question, but we are absolutely clear: we are leaving the EU; we are not leaving Europe. This is a good example of where we can engage just as intensively, if not more so, with our E3 partners. I know, having spoken to my French and German opposite numbers, and indeed to Josep Borrell, that that feeling is shared on all sides. So we plan to regularise the meetings that we have on the issue of Iran but also on the wider range of foreign policy challenges that we all share.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend assure the House as to the assistance that is being given to the families of the victims of the Ukrainian International Airlines flight and give an assurance that the Government are doing all they possibly can to help and assist them?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Our hearts go out to anyone who has come into this new year and has to face up to the loss of life of a close friend or member of their family. We are doing everything that we can, working with our international partners, to be able to repatriate the victims so that the families can have that solace of paying their last respects. We are also making sure that we work more generally to get an independent investigation with credibility, transparency and an international component so that those families get the answers to the questions that they must be going over in their heads over and over again.

Britain in the World

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Monday 13th January 2020 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is right: those three areas remain a priority. There is a huge amount of diplomatic work. We talk to our international partners, including not only our traditional partners—the Europeans, Americans and Canadians—but those in the regions of the different conflicts, about not just the importance of getting peace, but the kind of reconciliation that can come only with some accountability for the worst human rights abuses. Bringing into effect the Magnitsky regime is our opportunity to build and reinforce that at home.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Will my right hon. Friend give way one more time?

[Dominic Raab]

For my hon. Friend, I will—one more time.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

I am most grateful. Does the Foreign Secretary agree that one of the United Kingdom’s assets is the diversity of its population? For example, within the UK, we have some 1.5 million people of Indian origin, who provide a living bridge in terms of our contact and help to strengthen our relationship with India. Likewise, there are other communities here who provide a strong link with other countries. Does he agree that as we seek to strengthen our role on the global stage, that can only help us?

[Dominic Raab]

I entirely agree. The Indian community make an incredible contribution and help us to sell UK plc abroad not just in India, but around the world, as do many other communities. The point that was made by my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker) is that we need to not just respect and safeguard the interests of those communities, but be proud of them and enable and empower them to champion the UK on our behalf. My hon. Friend the Member for North West Cambridgeshire (Mr Vara) makes an excellent point.

From our brave armed forces serving on the frontline to the diplomats nurturing our relations with nations around the world, and the aid workers providing life-saving support to those who need it most, British foreign policy will of course serve the citizens of this country, but we are also proud of our ability to make a difference to the poorest, the oppressed and the most vulnerable around the world. We will continue that effort every day of every week, because that is our calling as a country and that is the mission of this Conservative Government.

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I start by welcoming my new Front-Bench colleagues, my hon. Friend the Member for Manchester, Gorton (Afzal Khan), who brings a wealth of experience and passion on foreign policy issues, and my hon. Friend the Member for Brighton, Kemptown (Lloyd Russell-Moyle), who has been a thorn in the side of the Government over unlawful arms sales. He is now even closer to the Mace—should the urge ever take him again.

I am, however, deeply sorry to lose from the Front Bench and our Parliament our good friends Helen Goodman and Liz McInnes. They were both fabulous constituency MPs and very well liked Members of the House, and their contributions on foreign policy from this Dispatch Box and in Westminster Hall were always constructive but forceful. Whether it was Helen’s brilliant work in forcing the Government to introduce the Magnitsky sanctions or her campaigning for the Uighurs in China or Liz’s passionate efforts to draw attention to the plight of civilians being attacked by their own Governments in Cameroon and Sudan, they both made a great contribution to the public discourse and will be sadly missed from those debates.

On a personal note, may I also say how delighted I am to be facing the Foreign Secretary today? In the national hunt season, it is apt to say that both of us got away quickly in our respective party leadership stakes. I joined him in making it over the first fence. I hope that, unlike him, I do not fall at the second, but I do hope that whoever wins, the outcome on our side will be better for the country than the outcome on his. I found myself at the weekend looking through some of my old exchanges with the Prime Minister at this Dispatch Box when he was Foreign Secretary and thinking about the chance of taking him on in the future. I want to read to the House one of the responses he gave to me in March 2017 when I asked our future Prime Minister about the Trump Administration’s reported desire to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement. I say this just to reassure every Member, especially the newer ones on both sides, that our country is in the safest of hands and in the care of the most insightful of minds. This is what he said in response to my concerns about Donald Trump, the Paris agreement and other issues:

“With great respect, I must say that I think the right hon. Lady is again being far too pessimistic…. We were told that the JCPOA”—

the nuclear deal with Iran—

“was going to be junked; it is now pretty clear that America supports it.”—

supports it!—

“We were told that there was going to be a great love-in between the new US Administration and Russia; they are now very much…in line. As for climate change, I think the right hon. Lady is once again being too pessimistic. Let us wait and see. We have heard the mutterings of the right hon. Lady; let us see what the American Administration actually do. I think she will be pleasantly surprised, as she has been, if she were remotely intellectually honest, in all other respects.”—[Official Report, 28 March 2017; Vol. 624, c. 116.]

That was the strategic genius who is now in charge of our country, the intellectually honest politician, who, to be honest, clearly has no intellect. After all, as I have just recounted, in the space of just one answer to one question from me, he made four catastrophic and careless misjudgments on foreign policy issues—and that is before we get started on the hopeless faith in Trump’s son-in-law to negotiate a middle east peace deal, his horribly reckless treatment of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, his craven attempts to champion monsters such as Crown Prince Salman and President Sisi, his disgraceful jokes about clearing dead bodies to make way for golf courses in Libya, his leading role in the unlawful sale of arms for use in Yemen and his shameful inaction on holding Myanmar to account for its genocidal treatment of the Rohingya.

So we now have a Prime Minister in place for the next five years with no heart when it comes to human rights and civilian deaths, no brain when it comes to Donald Trump and the fate of jailed Britons and no courage when it comes to taking on tyrants overseas. When it comes to foreign policy, he is the Tin Man, the Scarecrow and the Cowardly Lion rolled into one, and he hasn’t got Dorothy to help him; he just has a pair of Dominics.

[Mr Vara]

As the right hon. Lady is in full flow in criticising colleagues, will she take this opportunity to criticise the present leader of the Labour party for his antisemitism and for presiding over a party that has done very little to rectify the issue? Will she also criticise her leader for his friendship with Hamas and other terrorists who have been directly involved in attacking British citizens?

[Emily Thornberry]

I have made it perfectly clear that it is my belief that our party has not dealt with antisemitism in the way that it should have, but I know my right hon. Friend the Member for Islington North (Jeremy Corbyn) and he is not antisemitic. I have nothing—[Interruption.] If the hon. Gentleman will stop heckling me, I will move on to the second half of—

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Vara]

rose—

[Emily Thornberry]

I am not giving way to the hon. Gentleman again, so he can sit down.

Oral Answers to Questions

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Wednesday 2nd October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

The Government have been very clear: we will respect the law—[Interruption.] We will respect the law, but we are not going to extend beyond 31 October. I would ask all hon. Members who signed up to that shoddy legislation to reflect on whether—with the fact of the multiple conditions, the £1 billion a month that it would cost the UK taxpayer and undermining the position of the UK Government to get a deal in Brussels—they are actually courting the no-deal scenario they pretend they want to avoid.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

May I join in the tributes paid earlier to the right hon. Member for Hackney North and Stoke Newington (Ms Abbott) for her historic achievement today?

Today marks the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi. Does my right hon. Friend agree with me that Gandhi’s message of non-violence, religious tolerance and greater rights for women is as applicable today as it was in his lifetime?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. I would go one further and tout the words of Martin Luther King, who said that we—I think on all sides of the House—should believe in a society where you are judged on the content of your character, not the colour of your skin, let alone your gender. That is why we on this side of the House are proud of our record of record levels of BAME communities in employment and children from BAME communities taking more rigorous GCSEs. We have the first Asian Chancellor, the first female Asian Home Secretary and I am proud to be in the most diverse Cabinet in history.

Oral Answers to Questions

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Tuesday 3rd September 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I know the scale of the community that my hon. Friend has in Wycombe—I believe it is over 10,000. I understand how keenly this is felt among Kashmiris in Wycombe but also right across the country. The issue of human rights is not just a bilateral, or domestic issue for India or Pakistan; it is an international issue. He is absolutely right to say that we should, with all our partners, expect internationally recognised standards of human rights to be complied with and respected.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

Following the action by the Indian Government in Kashmir, on 15 August, Indian independence day, a group of British Indians gathered outside the Indian high commission in London, but they were attacked by members of another community. Will my right hon. Friend confirm that the violence and abuse targeted towards the British Indian community on that occasion are completely unacceptable, as they would be against any community on the streets of the UK?

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. Any violence is deplorable. It should not be conducted in this country, or anywhere else for that matter, against any individual communities. We now need to try to reduce these tensions but also, on a positive side, to build confidence-building measures to allow proper dialogue between the communities in Kashmir but also between India and Pakistan.

Persecution of Christians Overseas

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Thursday 18th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Andrew Griffiths]

I absolutely agree with what my hon. Friend says. He is a true example of somebody who is living a Christian life, and he is absolutely right when he says that the UK was the first country to establish human rights such as freedom of religion. It was we who established this, and spread it around the world—to America, and to Australia and New Zealand. It was in 1547 that the freedom to read the Bible in public was first established, and it was 1559 when we first had the freedom to interpret the Bible without Government interference. There are centuries of examples of Britain leading the way in protecting religious freedoms of all kinds, and certainly in standing up for Christianity.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

At the outset, my hon. Friend mentioned that we had cross-party support for this motion. May I gently add that that support is not only cross party but multi-faith among the Members of Parliament here?

Does my hon. Friend agree that Britain has a significant role on the global stage—we are a permanent member of the UN Security Council, head of the Commonwealth and a major economic power—and that we use our influence on the global stage for a whole variety of reasons and causes, and should ensure that the protection of Christians is put high on the list and that we use our influence for that purpose as well?

[Andrew Griffiths]

My hon. Friend speaks with great common sense, as always. I am very proud to represent a multicultural, multi-faith community. I have some 7,000 Muslims in my community, and they make a massive contribution to my society and it is a joy to be their Member of Parliament. He is absolutely right that we have this historical connection and historical influence with which we can do good. We can use that for the benefit of Christians, for the benefit of religious freedoms and for the benefit of democracy around the world.

In many respects, because of our history, we almost shy away from confrontation. Because of that colonial past, we are often too afraid to be seen to be interfering in the business of other independent nations. Actually, as we heard in the magnificent opening speech from my hon. Friend the Member for Croydon South (Chris Philp), whom I commend for securing this debate, we see that effect on a global scale, and it is only right for Britain to stand up and take its responsibility seriously.

I pay tribute to the Bishop of Truro for his brilliant, incisive work, but I hope that this is just the first step towards the Government standing up and taking religious persecution and the persecution of Christians very seriously. A bit like a stick of Blackpool rock, I want this to run through the middle of all our Foreign Office policy, aid and trade. We have the levers to change behaviour and save lives. When people are being victimised, persecuted, murdered, stabbed and bullied simply for reading the Bible and worshipping Jesus Christ, we must act. The Bible states that Christ said:

“And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end shall be saved.”

I absolutely believe that this motion is an important step forward in ensuring the safety of Christians around the world.

Jammu and Kashmir

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Speaker]

I was going to call the hon. Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), but he now seems very pre-occupied with—[Interruption.] We have already heard the fella. I should not have forgotten so quickly. I will remind myself of the eloquence of his contribution in due course.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

The Minister is taking a very fine line, trying to sit on the fence, effectively, mindful that there are diasporas from both Pakistan and India living in this country. He is treading a very fine line in his answers. However, where it is abundantly clear that the terrorists are living in one particular country, will he give an undertaking to this House that the British Government will make it absolutely clear to that host country that it should not be tolerating terrorists who are engaging in activity in another country and that they must face the full force of law?

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend will recognise that, as a diplomat or a Foreign Office Minister, sometimes the most effective way to make an argument to our counterparts is not through megaphone diplomacy. There are robust private conversations that will take place. I do not want to go into detail as to what they will say, but let me just say this. We do understand that there is a need and a desire for any country to act proportionately to secure its borders, people and military, but the idea that the UK should be seen to be robustly on one side of this battle rather than another would be entirely self-defeating. I think it is in the interests of us all to take a calm approach. Of course, we will not in any way do anything other than criticise terrorist organisations. That is one reason why the organisation Jaish-e-Mohammed has been subject to a UN listing for almost 20 years and has been proscribed in the UK for that period of time.

Draft International Development Association (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) (Amendment) Order 2017 Draft African Development Fund (Multilateral Debt Relief Initiative) (Amendment) Order 2017 Draft International Development Association (Eighteenth Replenishment) Order 2017

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Monday 20th November 2017 General Committees

[Rory Stewart]

It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Evans. The orders address two separate matters: a replenishment for the IDA—the International Development Association, which is part of the World Bank—and ensuring we deal with debt. With your permission, I shall deal with the two separately.

On the first matter, the draft International Development Association (Eighteenth Replenishment) Order 2017 will put £3.865 billion into the IDA. As right hon. and hon. Members will be aware, the World Bank is effectively divided into four parts. It was begun in the 1940s as an institution for lending to places such as France after the second world war, but different sections of it developed over time. The IDA was established to make concessional loans and grants to poorer countries, after it was discovered in the 1950s that the old instruments of the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, which gave loans at commercial rates, were not suitable for the poorest countries in the world.

It is the IDA that the draft order will replenish. The World Bank Group includes two other institutions that the Committee is not debating today: the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, which helps to make loans in the private sector; and the International Finance Corporation, a development bank that lends money, much as CDC does, and makes debt and equity investments in the private sector.

Why are we proposing an IDA replenishment, and why have we specified this sum of money? We believe strongly—I hope there is cross-party consensus on this—that the World Bank is a very serious and impressive institution. We are proud to have been a founder member of it, and to have partnered with it over the past 70 years. It is not a perfect institution—it has flaws, like any other—but anyone looking for an organisation with a critical mass of technical expertise and real understanding of some of the toughest development challenges in the world, particularly relating to infrastructure, public financial management and tax receipts, cannot do better than the World Bank. That is not just a claim; it is sustained by my Department’s multilateral development review, which marked the IDA very highly.

Let me give some examples of what the IDA does, and what we hope it will do, with the money. A single investment in public financial management in Burma increased the Burmese Government’s tax take by 2%, bringing in nearly £1.5 billion more a year for the Burmese Exchequer. That dwarfs what we put in through development aid, and is a really good example of how technical assistance can transform things.

We have specified this sum of money because it equates to approximately 13% of the IDA replenishment. That is roughly the same proportion that we have contributed over the past 15 years; almost every replenishment is at that level. That is the replenishment that we feel is appropriate, given the size of the British economy, and it is the amount of money we feel we should put in, as a founder member of the IDA. That does not mean, however, that we are not asking tough questions and using our money, leverage and position on the board to demand improvements. Recently, we have particularly focused on improvements and on encouraging the IDA to go to fragile, conflict-affected states that it has been reluctant to get into. We have encouraged it to focus on refugees and migrants.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

My hon. Friend has raised an important point, but I want some clarification. I accept that the money has to be given, and is used for good purposes, but to what extent is there monitoring of funds once they have left the bank? That is ever more important for us, given our local funding challenges, and media scrutiny of where the money ends up. If we are to increase our contribution, it is important that how the money is used is monitored much more carefully as well. What assurances can the Minister give me that that is being done?

[Rory Stewart]

The answer is that we focus very hard on this and improve all the time. As my hon. Friend points out, every year we realise more and more the complexities and risks in such investment. In the case of the IDA and the World Bank, there is often a very complex chain of intermediaries before the investment hits the ground. That means we need to look at everything: the tenders; the way that contracts are let; and implementation on the ground. We need to go beyond the numbers to look at the quality on the ground. The figures that the IDA and the World Bank have achieved on the ground are absolutely staggering. They are responsible for providing a water supply to nearly 100 million people, and for providing education to nearly 200 million children. The numbers that they are able to achieve are absolutely astonishing.

Where we need to get better, and what we are working on much more closely with the bank, is making sure that we focus on quality. What are the children actually learning in school? Do they emerge fully literate? Do they have the skills we want, rather than us just getting somebody into a seat? Secondly, can we get the bank to be more innovative? Can we get it to think more about economic development, or how to work for the private sector? Getting the right relationship between public risk capital and the private sector is critical, because it is the private sector that is likely to know whether the business that is being invested in is genuinely sustainable. Will those jobs be there in five or 10 years’ time? Are people being trained in a skill for which there is a market, as opposed to what has often happened in the past, whereby vocational training programmes and investments have been directed towards an idea of where the market is, without a real understanding of the business environment?

Zimbabwe

Shailesh Vara Excerpts

Wednesday 15th November 2017 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

The timetable has been well spelled out by my hon. Friend the Member for Rochford and Southend East (James Duddridge). We need to go forward now with the ZANU-PF conference and then the elections scheduled for next year. It is crucial that they should now go ahead and be free and fair. At this stage, it would not be right for us to speculate about personalities; what matters is that the people of Zimbabwe have a free and democratic choice.

[Mr Shailesh Vara (North West Cambridgeshire) (Con)]

I appreciate that events are very fast-moving, but will the British Government work closely with the African Union to try to get it to put pressure on Zimbabwe, both not to continue as an authoritarian state and to respect human rights, particularly of those from overseas, such as from Britain?

[Boris Johnson]

I thank my hon. Friend for that excellent point. The AU is an increasingly important and valuable interlocutor in Africa, and I have a good relationship with Mr Faki, president of the commission. I will be going to the AU summit in Abidjan in Côte d’Ivoire next week, and I have no doubt that Zimbabwe will be top of the AU agenda in Côte d’Ivoire.