Covid-19: Freedom of Religion or Belief
Debate between Stephen Doughty and Nigel Adams(4 years, 1 month ago)
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Nigel Adams
I understand where the hon. Member is coming from. This is a bigger point. This is not something that needs to be rushed. There will be a replacement, but by no means are we stepping back from our commitment to this role. We know how crucial it is for liaison with the all-party parliamentary group for international freedom of religion or belief. However, the hon. Gentleman must forgive me if I cannot give a commitment on whether the appointment will be made this side of Christmas, however welcome that would be.
My hon. Friend the Member for South West Bedfordshire is a long-time champion for freedom of religion or belief. He rightly highlighted a wide range of countries where there are serious concerns about the ability to worship freely. We will always condemn any form of discrimination. We will always raise our concerns directly with the countries. He focused on China and the Uyghur population. We are deeply concerned about the human rights situation in Xinjiang. We all know about the so-called re-education camps. Our diplomats have visited Xinjiang periodically to observe that situation, because first-hand access is not easy.
We have repeatedly taken an international role in holding China to account on the issue, including statements at the UN Human Rights Council in June and in the UN Third Committee last October. At the time, the UK was the only country to have led a joint statement at the UN. On 6 October, the UK and 38 other countries made a statement at the UN Third Committee in New York, expressing our deep concern about the situation in Xinjiang, including the mass detention of Uyghurs. This reflects our diplomatic leadership internationally, including the personal involvement of the Foreign Secretary, in raising the issue with a wide range of partners.
On 25 September, we devoted our item 4 national statement to human rights issues in China at the UN Human Rights Council. That was only the second time the UK has dedicated its national statement to a single country—the first time was in 2018, on Russia, following the Salisbury poisonings. In July, the Foreign Secretary raised Xinjiang directly with his Chinese counterpart, Foreign Minister and State Councillor Wang Yi. I raised my concerns directly with the Chinese ambassador in March.
As usual, my hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Imran Ahmad Khan) spoke eloquently on a subject that is very close to his heart. His experience of the discrimination that he has suffered as an Ahmadi Muslim makes him uniquely placed to comment on these injustices. As my hon. Friend the Member for Devizes (Danny Kruger) said, we all look forward to being able to worship to some degree in the UK after 2 December, in all places of worship. Collective worship is clearly preferable to services via Zoom, but that is a step in the right direction at least.
My hon. Friend the Member for Devizes also talked about his personal experience in Iraq. The suffering of Christians and many other groups in Iraq is a matter of serious concern. We are firmly committed to protecting members of religious minorities in Iraq and providing assistance on the basis of need, irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity. We have committed £261 million in humanitarian support to Iraq since 2014, which will provide a vital lifeline of food, shelter, medical care and clean water for the most vulnerable, including the Yazidi and Christian minorities. We have also contributed £23.15 million to the UN development programme funding facility for stabilisation, which works to restore vital services across liberated areas of Iraq, and is heavily committed to areas that are home to minority communities—principally, and historically, those are Christian areas.
The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) brings great experience in this area to his role as Opposition spokesman, and it is always good to see him across the Chamber in these debates. He rightly raised the issue of the reduction of the development assistance budget from 0.7% to 0.5%, but the pandemic has had a huge and severe impact on our economy, which has fallen to the worst levels in 300 years. That has forced us to take an incredibly tough decision to spend 0.5% of our national income on global poverty reduction next year, rather than the usual 0.7%. That was a very difficult decision to make, but it is a temporary one. We must protect the economy during the pandemic, but we intend to return to 0.7% as soon as possible.
Of course, we remain one of the most generous G7 donors: proportionately, we will spend more than the United States, Japan, Canada or Italy. In real terms, that means more than £10 billion to fight poverty, improve global health and achieve our UN sustainable development goals.
Stephen Doughty
I take the Minister’s sincerity, but those are political choices that the Government have made in breach of their own commitments. A lot of organisations, particularly those working on the crucial issues that we have debated, want some of the granular detail on which programmes will be cut, suspended, changed or altered. The Foreign Secretary just mentioned in the main Chamber that there will be another review over the next couple of months. When can we expect detail and confirmation of funding for the critical programmes that we have discussed?
Nigel Adams
The hon. Gentleman is right to ask. All aid will be focused on seven global challenges where we can make the most difference: covid and global health security; girls’ education; science, research and technology; conflict resolution; humanitarian preparedness and response; trade and economic development; and, of course, climate change and biodiversity. The Foreign Secretary will decide the allocation of aid to other Departments in line with those objectives. All the projects will be assessed through a new management process, led by the Foreign Secretary with input from Ministers about their geographic and departmental responsibilities. That will be laid out, although I hate to use this term, in due course. The hon. Gentleman will have heard the Foreign Secretary’s commitment on that.
Stephen Doughty
The Minister has made that point, and the Foreign Secretary tried to do the same earlier. When they resort to such personal points, it reflects a Government in wider difficulties. The reality is that in 1997, ODA was at something like 0.21%, and by the end of the Labour Government it had come close to 0.6%. There was a steady increase throughout the period after the Thatcher Government, the Pergau dam scandal and many other things.
Rightly—and I have credited them for it—David Cameron, the right hon. Member for Sutton Coldfield (Mr Mitchell) and others stuck with the commitments and the increases, because there was cross-party consensus. It is a great regret that the Government, and the Chancellor in particular, have chosen to break that consensus. It is deeply regretted by many on the Minister’s side of the House, as he knows.
Nigel Adams
It is regretted right across the ministerial team, but such measures have been forced on us by the pandemic. It is a temporary measure.
Oral Answers to Questions
Debate between Stephen Doughty and Nigel Adams(4 years, 2 months ago)
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Nigel Adams
I thank the hon. Lady for raising a very important issue. I do not have those terms and conditions in front of me, but I am more than happy to meet her to discuss what sounds like an incredibly serious point that she has raised.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
Of course, what the Minister forgets is that the reason we are getting a seat on the UN Human Rights Council today is that the seat is uncontested. We actually have no representatives—a historic low—on any of the main committees of the 10 United Nations human rights treaty bodies and we have already failed to get elected to the International Court of Justice for the first time since world war two. Human rights barrister Amal Clooney resigned as a UK envoy, saying that it was untenable for her to urge other states to respect and enforce international obligations when the UK declares that it does not intend to do so itself. With so many crucial human rights abuses that we should be rightly taking leadership on, does the Minister accept that we undermine our position when his fellow Ministers undermine the rule of law and our commitment to human rights?
Nigel Adams
No, I do not accept that whatsoever. We have clearly set out our reasons for introducing the measures related to the Northern Ireland protocol. We need to create a legal safety net to protect the integrity of our internal market and ensure that we can deliver on our obligations. The UK Internal Market Bill is a defensive, precautionary and proportionate measure to safeguard the integrity of the United Kingdom.
Draft Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016 and the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-Avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2018
Debate between Stephen Doughty and Nigel Adams(6 years, 1 month ago)
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The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Wales (Nigel Adams)
I beg to move,
That the Committee has considered the draft Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016 and the Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017 (Consequential Amendments) Order 2018.
It is a great pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Pritchard, I think for the first time. It is also a great pleasure, and indeed an honour, to serve in my first debate as a Wales Office Minister. I am of course a proud Yorkshireman, as most people know, but at heart I know that there are many similarities between the great county of Yorkshire and the great country of Wales. Both have historically been centres of heavy industry, before transforming into modern, vibrant economies. Both are home to rich cultures, beautiful countryside and great county cricket clubs.
I assure the Committee that, regardless of where our constituencies might be, Conservative Members want to see a strong Wales within a strong United Kingdom—I am sure that Opposition Members feel exactly the same. I am determined to work with the Secretary of State for Wales to deliver just that.
The draft order makes changes to UK legislation arising from the National Assembly for Wales’s Tax Collection and Management (Wales) Act 2016 and its Land Transaction Tax and Anti-avoidance of Devolved Taxes (Wales) Act 2017. As the Committee will no doubt recall, the Wales Act 2014 implemented the vast majority of the recommendations of the Silk commission’s first report to devolve tax and borrowing powers to the National Assembly for Wales and to Welsh Ministers. That included powers to replace stamp duty land tax and landfill tax in Wales, as well as the creation of Welsh rates of income tax.
The Wales Act 2014 represented a significant moment in Welsh devolution, enabling the Assembly to legislate to establish the first specifically Welsh taxes in almost 800 years—a land transaction tax and a landfill disposal tax—and the Welsh Revenue Authority to collect and manage the new devolved taxes. I am pleased to note the positive collaboration between the UK and Welsh Governments to manage the transition to the devolved taxes, which came in on 1 April. The Government continue to report annually on that work, and the fourth report on the implementation of the financial provisions of the Wales Act will be presented to Parliament next month.
The 1 April was also significant as the date on which the new reserved powers model of devolution for Wales, put in place by the Wales Act, came into force. The Act further demonstrates the Government’s firm commitment to devolution. Alongside the new model of devolution, the Act devolved further powers that can make a real difference to people’s lives in areas such as elections, transport and natural resources.
Stephen Doughty (Cardiff South and Penarth) (Lab/Co-op)
The Minister is talking about a significant date, 1 April—indeed, it could be—and about the Welsh Revenue Authority. Obviously, the new authority will have to make financial predictions based on a whole series of measures, including the taxes in the draft order. Does he therefore find it extraordinary that the Welsh Government have not been given sight of the Brexit withdrawal agreement, given the impact that it will have on Welsh finances and the Welsh Revenue Authority’s ability to raise revenue?
Nigel Adams
The Welsh Government are not the only organisation not to have had sight of that documentation as yet. I am sure that they will be brought into those discussions at the earliest opportunity.
Stephen Doughty
The Minister says that, but today we were told that the Chief Minister of Gibraltar has been given sight of the agreement. Is that not extraordinary? The Minister talks about a commitment to devolution, but the Welsh and Scottish Governments have not received a briefing.