Burma

Stephen Twigg Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend speaks with great knowledge about this matter and I very much agree with him. Clearly the international community will have to work with the Bangladeshi Government on that issue, but we are focused on it. We have a good track record on disease prevention. We can be very proud of the work that we did to nip the diphtheria outbreak in the bud, but I am by no means complacent that similar diseases such as cholera, as well as diphtheria, will not be prominent in the months to come.

[Stephen Twigg (Liverpool, West Derby) (Lab/Co-op)]

I thank the Minister for his comprehensive statement and echo his words in describing this as a “humanitarian catastrophe”. I also reinforce what the hon. Member for Kettering (Mr Hollobone) said about the sheer scale of the camp—it is 10 times the size of the Zaatari refugee camp in Jordan and double the size of the city of Liverpool. I welcome the fact that the Minister is meeting the Bangladeshi Foreign Minister this afternoon, but we really need to say to Bangladesh at the most senior level that more needs to be done to prepare for the rainy season, cyclones and the monsoon. I urge our Prime Minister to ask the Bangladeshi Prime Minister, Sheikh Hasina, to take a personal lead, because otherwise that humanitarian catastrophe will be multiplied in the weeks and months ahead.

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for his words; he is absolutely right. I know that the International Development Committee, which he chairs, has done tremendous work. I only wish that it had been able to go to the other side of the border— that would have been very instructive—but the work it has done in Bangladesh is of tremendous importance.

We are both aware that the heavy rains and cyclones could have a severe impact on the nearly 1 million Rohingya who are already in Cox’s Bazar, as well as the host communities, because it is important to factor in the communities living in that part of Bangladesh. It is to the great credit of those communities and the authorities in Bangladesh that, hitherto, there have not been tensions between the two, but we cannot take that for granted. We are already working in great earnest with the Government of Bangladesh and humanitarian partners to improve preparedness. I will ensure that the hon. Gentleman’s concerns are passed on not just when I speak to our counterparts, but in our dealings with the Bangladeshi high commissioner to this country. I hope that he will feel able to play as strong a role as possible in making his robust case.