Sudan: Protection of Civilians

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Anneliese Dodds

Thursday 30th October 2025 Commons Chamber

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

(Urgent Question): To ask the Secretary of State for Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Affairs if she will make a statement on the UK’s activity to promote the protection of civilians, following a reported massacre at El Fasher’s Saudi maternity hospital.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Stephen Doughty)]

With your permission, Mr Speaker, before answering my right hon. Friend’s question, I will say a few words about Hurricane Melissa, which is currently a category 1 or 2 hurricane. It is passing through the Bahamas’ outer islands and is impacting our British overseas territory, the Turks and Caicos Islands. I have been in touch with the Governor and Premier in the last day. We have deployed response teams to the region and mobilised £2.5 million in emergency humanitarian aid to help Jamaica rebuild in the wake of this disaster, the full scale of which is only now becoming clear. I am sure that the House will concur with the words of His Majesty the King and all those who have sent their support and solidarity to all those affected, and will be thinking of those who have lost their life, not just in Jamaica, but in Haiti and other countries across the region.

My right hon. Friend is absolutely right to ask this question. She will know of my keen interest in this issue over many years, including during the time in my career when I was working with Oxfam in her constituency on these issues, and with our late close friend, Jo Cox, on past atrocities and appalling situations in the conflict in Sudan. The reports of mass atrocities against civilians, and of the forced displacement caused by the Rapid Support Forces advances in El Fasher, are horrifying and deeply alarming. The scale of suffering is unconscionable. What is happening is often based on people’s ethnicity. Women and girls face widespread sexual and gender-based violence, and there is evidence mounting of defenceless civilians being executed and tortured, with aid workers also being targeted as they try to reach the most vulnerable communities facing famine.

As the United Nations Security Council penholder, we have called an emergency council session later today to maintain the spotlight on this situation, and to build pressure on the RSF to de-escalate, in line with UN Security Council resolution 2736. Yesterday, the Foreign Secretary issued a statement condemning the killing of aid workers, including the executions reported in the Saudi maternity hospital, which was one of the last functioning facilities in El Fasher. That followed her statement on 27 October, which called on the RSF to protect civilians and urgently facilitate safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access.

As the third-largest donor, we are mobilising £23 million of the £120 million announced in April to support the emergency humanitarian response in North Darfur. That will support those facing sexual violence, and go towards the delivery of lifesaving food and health assistance by partners such as the International Committee of the Red Cross, the Sudan Humanitarian Fund and the Cash Consortium of Sudan.

As the Foreign Secretary said, the RSF leadership are responsible for the actions of their forces. All parties to the conflict must urgently act to protect civilians and facilitate safe, rapid and unimpeded humanitarian access. I can confirm that our special representative has been in contact with the RSF and Tasis to press for restraint and respect for international humanitarian law, and they are pressing for a call with Hemedti now.

[Anneliese Dodds]

Mr Speaker, I am very grateful to you for granting this urgent question. The scale of suffering in Sudan’s war on civilians is almost impossible to comprehend. A population the size of Australia’s are living in acute hunger. A population the size of London’s have been forced to flee their home. There are consistent reports of conflict-related sexual violence, and consistent warnings that if the international community do not act, we will effectively see a slow-motion Srebrenica. The Minister set out the reports of what may have happened at El Fasher’s maternity hospital yesterday evening; 460 people could have been slaughtered in a maternity hospital—patients, their companions and medical staff. This surely must be a turning point in the war, and for the international community’s focus on it.

The Minister talked about the special representative’s contact, but what specific conversations have the Foreign Secretary and Ministers had with their counterparts, particularly in the Quad countries—the United States said it wanted to take a leadership position on these issues—but also in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and the United Arab Emirates on the issue of civilian protection?

Secondly, I was pleased to hear that an emergency session of the Security Council has been called. What will the UK Government press other countries in the UN to commit to at that session? Thirdly, are the Government confident that the arms control export regime has been robust in this case, given recent reports?

What is the Government’s assessment of claims that El Fasher appears to be at the start of a systematic and intentional process of ethnic cleansing of Fur, Zaghawa and Berti indigenous communities, through forced displacement and summary execution? Finally, what are the Government doing to prevent what is happening in El Fasher from also happening in Tawila, to which so many thousands of terrified civilians have fled?

[Stephen Doughty]

I share my right hon. Friend’s outrage and horror at the reports we are receiving. We have made repeated calls for restraint on all sides in this conflict. We have shown leadership as the UN penholder, as one of the largest donors, through our work with partners, including those in the Quad, and through the work of our special representative. I know that she reflects the concerns of many Sudanese living in the United Kingdom, including in my constituency, about what is happening.

My right hon. Friend asked some specific questions. We are in regular contact with our partners in the Quad and engage with all the countries regularly at both ministerial and official level. Senior officials, including the special representative, are speaking on an ongoing basis and asking all parties to show restraint and to refrain from activity that prolongs the conflict.

My right hon. Friend asked about the situation in Tawila. We want to ensure that people are supported, particularly those who have fled. As I said, we have mobilised £23 million to support the emergency humanitarian response. I am happy to come back to her with further details.

My right hon. Friend asked about the position that we will take at the Security Council. It will be very much in line with the position we have taken throughout, which is to call for an immediate end to the violence and to ensure that international humanitarian law is respected and upheld, that sexual violence is brought to an end and that we protect civilians in line with international law.

It is crucial that we continue to support accountability efforts for such atrocities, particularly as evidence emerges. We support the Centre for Information Resilience and non-governmental organisations looking to collect evidence of atrocities. We will not rest until all evidence has been collated and action is taken to hold people accountable.

We recently supported, for the third year running, lobbying efforts to secure the mandate renewal of the UN fact-finding mission at the UN Human Rights Council on 6 October. That is the only UN mechanism investigating human rights violations and abuse in Sudan. As hon. Members will be aware, it has not been allowed access by either side in the conflict, so it is incredibly difficult to establish what is happening, but we are looking carefully at all the evidence.

My right hon. Friend asked about the importance of our export control regime. I confirm that we continue to emphasise to all parties the importance of refraining from actions that prolong the conflict. Indeed, we want to see people come to the negotiating table to seek a political resolution. We take seriously any allegation that any equipment may have been transferred to Sudan in breach of any of our arms embargoes or conditions. I assure her that I am in contact with our officials on these matters. We must absolutely ensure that nothing is getting in that could facilitate these horrific scenes. We share my right hon. Friend’s horror and will continue to play a leading role, including at the United Nations Security Council later today.

Legislative Definition of Sex

Debate between Stephen Doughty and Anneliese Dodds

Monday 12th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Anneliese Dodds (Oxford East) (Lab/Co-op)]

It is a pleasure to speak in the debate with you in the Chair, Sir George. I am grateful to everyone who signed both petitions and to my hon. Friend the Member for Gower (Tonia Antoniazzi) for the respectful way in which she began the debate.

The two petitions that form the subject of the debate and the large numbers of people who signed them make it clear that views on the issue are strongly held. It is vital that the Members of this House set an example on such matters, engaging in constructive, respectful and polite discussion of them. This discussion is important, because as well as the engagement on the petitions, many people relatedly seek clarity on the Conservative Government’s plans for the Equality Act. That includes my party, the Labour party, the party of the Equality Act. As many have remarked, it is now 13 years since my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Camberwell and Peckham (Ms Harman) piloted that landmark legislation through this place, introducing a legal framework against discrimination by employers, businesses, schools, public bodies and many other institutions that many countries lack and still seek to learn from.

[Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)]

My hon. Friend is making a powerful point about the Equality Act. I agree that it has been protecting people for 13 years in a whole range of areas, including in relation to not just gender identity, but race, age, breastfeeding and disability. Does she share my concern that the Conservative Government have a wider agenda here? The Prime Minister said that the Equality Act was

“a Trojan horse that has allowed every kind of woke nonsense to permeate public life.”

Does my hon. Friend agree that the wider agenda is to remove all the protections that we all enjoy?

[Anneliese Dodds]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right to point out that there is huge confusion about the Government’s position. We heard those comments from the Prime Minister last summer. In 2020, we heard the then Minister for Women and Equalities, the right hon. Member for South West Norfolk (Elizabeth Truss), criticising what she claimed to be a “focus on protected characteristics” and saying that that had led to

“a narrowing of the equality debate”.

A similar position has been maintained by her successor, the right hon. Member for Saffron Walden (Kemi Badenoch), and yet, confusingly, we have also had the Prime Minister claiming to back the protections that the Equality Act contains for women. To listen to him, one would not think that those protections had already been enshrined in law for 13 years—a law that, of course, his party opposed repeatedly as it was being passed.

That is important context, because we cannot understand the Government’s intentions when we have a Prime Minister who will attack the Equality Act one day, only to cast himself as its defender the next. Today, I can be very clear that Labour remains committed to protecting and upholding the Equality Act, including the public sector equality duty, its protected characteristics and its provision for single-sex exemptions.

I ask the Minister to be clear in her remarks. Does she support the Equality Act? Does she agree that statements attacking it from her colleagues risk eroding public confidence in its protections? And will she commit to explaining to her colleagues, including the Prime Minister, that the overwhelming consensus view of the British public is in favour of those protections and of greater equality and fairness?

On the specificities of future changes that many have talked about during the debate, as the party of equality Labour wants trans people to be treated fairly and with dignity and respect. Labour also supports the protection of certain spaces that are for biological women, such as refuges for vulnerable women, which are provided for by the single-sex exemptions contained in the Equality Act. Indeed, it is thanks to Labour’s Equality Act that it is possible today for service providers to create and maintain single-sex services where that is a proportionate means of achieving a legitimate aim. That system has been in place for well over a decade, and many of the service providers I speak to tell me that it provides an effective and robust framework for dealing with what are often difficult decisions around service operation. We can see that in codified form in, for example, the guidance of Women’s Aid Federation of England on these matters.

The Equality Act protects everyone, which is why any changes to it need to be carefully thought through and why clarity on these issues is important. Labour believes that we need to have a common-sense approach that provides clarity for service providers for different circumstances—both those in which trans people should be included and those in which excluding trans people is a proportionate means to a legitimate end. The problem is that the Government have provided no indication of how they would provide that clarity, aside from leaning into the idea of amending the Equality Act—something that contradicts their written response to today’s petitions. I hope that the Minister can set the record straight on that. It is especially important given that we have heard contradictory statements on the subject from different parts of her Government.

Some colleagues have already referred, I think helpfully, to the recent exchange of letters between the Government Equalities Office and the Equality and Human Rights Commission. The chair of the EHRC made it clear that any potential future changes to the Equality Act could bring clarity to some areas but potential ambiguity to others. That is why the Government need to urgently explain what future changes, if any, they are in the process of identifying and set out whether they agree with the EHRC that such changes could bring greater ambiguity to other areas, and if so what the impact of that would be on anyone with a protected characteristic.

Detailed policy and legal analysis is clearly required before the UK Government can effectively respond to the EHRC’s letter, so can the Minister confirm whether that detailed policy and legal analysis is being carried out? If so, will she commit to publishing it so that the House can scrutinise the Government’s position, and will she confirm whether the Government plan to reply to the EHRC? When the Government come forward with any proposals out of all the rumours that we have heard in the press, Labour will respond accordingly. The last Labour Government did more to advance the cause of equality than any other in history. The next will put equality at the heart of their policies, and break new ground for women and for LGBT+ people.

I associate myself with the remarks made by my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Yardley (Jess Phillips) in relation to recent votes on legislation, and I have to broaden her point. We have seen extensive engagement from those on the Government Benches on the issues that we are discussing today. We need to discuss them—politely and in detail—but I wish that we had seen over the last 13 years the same level of engagement from those on the Government Benches while so many women got poorer and poorer, while so many women saw their health deteriorate, with maternal mortality now increasing, while so many women and girls have become increasingly unsafe, and while impunity for violent men has in many cases increased.