Human Rights in Hong Kong

Debate between Tim Loughton and Layla Moran

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton]

I will come to Jimmy Lai. I was not aware of any policy statement that the Labour party may have made, but the particular point about Jimmy Lai is that he is not a dual national: he is a British citizen. My right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and I, with others, have espoused that argument in this Chamber on numerous occasions and have got absolutely nowhere with Ministers, until recently with the new Foreign Secretary, from whom, I am glad to say, we have at last had the admission that Jimmy Lai is a British citizen—end of story. As such, he is entitled to all the consulate and other protections to which any other British citizen being persecuted against all natural tenets of law is entitled. I will come back to the Jimmy Lai trial.

There is no greater symptom or expression of the oppression that is going on in Hong Kong than the mass exodus of its citizens on a daily basis. Since the introduction of the national security law in 2020, Hong Kong residents have felt the strangulation of their freedoms. As a consequence, many have chosen to leave what has been their home for decades and generations, to escape persecution under that draconian law.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

The hon. Gentleman is making a powerful speech and he is a doughty campaigner on this issue. It is fair to say that those who have come over on British national overseas visas have made an extraordinary contribution to our society; for example, the Liberal Democrats are really proud of Councillor Ying Perrett, who was elected to Surrey Heath Borough Council just last year. However, for those who are already here, their children are not allowed to come here on BNO visas in the same way; they have to apply through the Chinese consulate and have to go back to Hong Kong. The hon. Gentleman mentioned a change in tone from the Foreign Secretary. Has he had any words with the Home Secretary about a change in the rules, so that the children of Hongkongers who want to be here longer term do not have to go through that rigmarole?

[Tim Loughton]

Without being as parochial as to mention every one of the 191,000 applications for the BNO visa route so far, this is a subject that has been raised. It was also raised in the Home Affairs Committee, which I sit on, and we had a private session with people from Hong Kong who were escaping the clutches of the Chinese Government. I am well aware, and have made representations, that we need to ensure that people who technically have not been included in that net, although it has been broadened, can be given those protections as well. The hon. Lady makes a valid point, but I cannot comment on her particular district councillor.

The mass exodus has amounted to over 500,000 residents leaving Hong Kong since the beginning of 2021. As I have said, there have been 191,000 applications for the BNO visa route. According to the Home Office, 144,500 Hongkongers have already moved to the UK, and that last figure is rising as we speak. Hong Kong’s population has therefore experienced a net loss since the introduction of the national security law and is in decline for the third year in a row. Hong Kong used to be a colony that was ever-expanding and where everybody wanted to go to have an exciting future, but it is now shrinking; it is a shadow of its former self.

Since the implementation of the NSL, Hong Kong has seen a marked decrease in various world rankings of liberty—most noticeably in Freedom House’s global freedom ranking, where it has dropped 17 places. Hong Kong has seen significant declines in the rule of law, freedom of expression and freedom of assembly, with think-tanks citing China’s increasing restrictions on civil liberties as a factor. After Myanmar, Hong Kong experienced the steepest drop in such rankings. It ranked 140 out of 180 locations for international press freedoms, according to Reporters Sans Frontières, which leaves it trailing behind Colombia and Cameroon.

We have also seen the forced closure and hounding out of many civil society organisations, non-governmental organisations and charities. It has been calculated that as of December 2023, no fewer than 800 such organisations had been forced to close, with over 285 people arrested—172 of whom were prosecuted for allegedly endangering national security.

In 2021, Amnesty International had to close two of its offices in Hong Kong. The Apple Daily Charitable Foundation was removed from the list of Hong Kong registered charities. The New School for Democracy, which was founded by Wang Dan, an exiled student leader of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, has had to move to Taiwan following the implementation of the national security law. The Global Innovation Hub—a German think-tank that was expelled from China in 1997—has moved from Hong Kong to Taiwan, also citing the national security law.

The Hong Kong Confederation of Trade Unions was dissolved in 2021; the Civil Human Rights Front, a pro-democracy group that organised some of Hong Kong’s biggest protests, said it had no choice but to disband; and human rights lawyers based in Hong Kong are fleeing abroad amid China’s effort to cleanse the city of dissent. In 2021, the Progressive Teachers’ Alliance, Hong Kong’s largest teaching union, was disbanded; that same year, the Hong Kong Alliance in Support of Patriotic Democratic Movements of China was among other unions dissolved amid national security fears; and recently the 4 June vigil to commemorate the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre has been banned.

Press outlets have also been closed down, and not just Apple Daily—Jimmy Lai’s paper, which we hear so much about—and its sister publication, Next Magazine: Stand News closed after being raided by police, and senior staff were arrested; Citizen News was forced to shut down amid the Government crackdown; and FactWire, an investigative news outlet, closed down, with its leaders citing safety concerns for staff.

Many of the guardians of free speech in Hong Kong have been arrested, prosecuted and jailed, if they were not able to flee. We particularly think of those, like Jimmy Lai, who stayed and made an honourable and brave stand to face up to the intolerance. That led to the prosecution that is going on now—the biggest pantomime in the far east.

Before 2019, the number of political prisoners went from nought to 1,775. Hong Kong now has one of the fastest growing political prisoner populations in the world, rivalling authoritarian states such as Cuba, Myanmar and Belarus. Further, Hong Kong has the highest number of female political prisoners in the world, at approximately 1,347. Many famous people have been incarcerated along with Jimmy Lai. They are, undoubtedly and without dispute, political prisoners in a place that used to boast of freedom of speech, democracy and all the liberties that we in this country take for granted.

--- Later in debate ---

[Tim Loughton]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend and fellow China sanctionee. I am not sure whether I should have declared that at the beginning; it is not a quite a registered interest, but it is certainly an interest that many people register these days. We remain censored for, I think, coming up to three years. I agree absolutely with my right hon. Friend, because this trial has gone beyond just Jimmy Lai, as I will mention. There are other people mentioned who are closer to home physically.

The prosecution rapidly named several foreign politicians and human rights activists, including the former consul general mentioned by my right hon. Friend, with whom Mr Lai had been in contact in recent years, and showed headshots of them. Among them are Hong Kong Watch co-founder and chief executive, Benedict Rogers, and the executive director of the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China—IPAC—Luke de Pulford, both of whom I call friends. They have done so much for the cause of liberty for those people within China.

Also named are the US consul general to Hong Kong, Ambassador James Cunningham, who chairs the board of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong; Bill Browder, the human rights campaigner, with whom we are all familiar as the pioneer of the introduction of Magnitsky sanctions worldwide; the former member of the Japanese Parliament, Shiori Kanno; and the former British consul general, as my right hon. Friend mentioned.

[Layla Moran]

I want to add my admiration for all those who have been sanctioned, including the hon. Member and other Members of this House, because they choose to speak out; we ask ourselves what more we can do so that we can join that list. Does it not stick in the hon. Member’s throat that the Chief Executive, John Lee, has yet to be sanctioned by this Government in any way? Bill Browder himself has called for Magnitsky-style sanctions on him. Is this not the time?

[Tim Loughton]

The hon. Lady is leaping ahead. If she will exercise a little patience, I will come to endorse entirely that point, and beef it up a bit.

In response to those being named in the trial, six patrons of Hong Kong Watch—including other fellow sanctionees Baroness Kennedy of The Shaws and Lord Alton of Liverpool—wrote to the Foreign Secretary, urging him to take action, and calling on the UK Government to implement Magnitsky-style sanctions on the Hong Kong Chief Executive, John Lee, including asset freezes and a travel ban; the hon. Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran) was very prescient. To quote Lord Alton,

“It is simply an assertion of Chinese Communist Party authoritarianism. It makes a mockery of the rule of law. The only conspiracy is that which is being organised by opponents of justice, democracy and human rights. This show trial should be ended forthwith, and the UK Government should say so loud and clear.”

To add to that, the Minister will know that two British citizens are named conspirators with Jimmy Lai on his third charge of colluding with foreign forces to undermine national security. Those citizens are Bill Browder and Luke de Pulford. To my knowledge, this is the first time that foreign citizens have been formally connected to a national security law offence in Hong Kong. Legal advice that I have seen is that this means the prosecution in Jimmy Lai’s case wish to make those British nationals criminally culpable. That being the case, why has the UK not said anything about it yet? Perhaps when she comes to respond, the Minister can specifically address that point.

I have several asks of the Government, as put forward by some of those who have briefed us. First, we call on the Government to continue to reaffirm their support for Jimmy Lai and urge the Prime Minister to call for Jimmy Lai’s immediate and unconditional release. It would be nice for the Prime Minister to say that loudly and openly in reference specifically to Jimmy Lai. Secondly, the UK Government should swiftly issue a strong statement in response to the Hong Kong Government’s targeting those three British citizens—Benedict Rogers, Luke de Pulford and Bill Browder—during the trial. Thirdly, the UK Government should implement Magnitsky-style targeted sanctions on Hong Kong Chief Executive John Lee, including asset freezes and a travel ban to protect Hongkongers in Britain and around the world. Fourthly, the British Government should urge like-minded Governments to specifically mention the case of Jimmy Lai in their recommendations to China at today’s periodic review.

There has been another outrage that completely undermines all the principles of international law involving those who have fled to the UK for safe haven from Hong Kong: the use of bounties on pro-democracy activists—a particular affront to international law. On 14 December 2023, the Hong Kong Government issued arrest warrants for five exiled Hong Kongers who now live and advocate for democracy in the US or the UK, with bounties of 1 million Hong Kong dollars. Among those five is 33-year-old Simon Cheng, who founded Hongkongers in Britain, the largest UK-wide Hong Kong diaspora organisation. He is charged with allegedly inciting secession and collusion between August 2020 and June 2022. Those five arrest warrants followed the arrest warrants and bounties issued for eight overseas Hong Kong pro-democracy activists in July 2023. Those warrants were condemned by Hong Kong Watch, as were the many instances of the Hong Kong Government targeting their families and colleagues in Hong Kong. They also target families beyond the borders of China and Hong Kong, which is particularly chilling. We have seen examples where they freely intimidate families of those people who have escaped from Hong Kong, even on the streets of the United Kingdom.

In response to the issuance of the arrest warrants and bounties in December 2023, the Foreign Secretary said:

“I have instructed officials in Hong Kong, Beijing and London to raise this issue as a matter of urgency with the Hong Kong and Chinese authorities.

We will not tolerate any attempt by any foreign power to intimidate, harass or harm individuals or communities in the UK. This is a threat to our democracy and fundamental human rights.”

Hear, hear! I entirely welcome those words, but what is being done about it? The Chinese understand only the threat of actions with consequences, and that is the problem. Tough words do not usually cut the mustard with China, unless there is a reasonable expectation that those tough words will lead to consequences, and we need to see consequences.

I again have some asks of the British Government. Following the welcome statements that I have just quoted, the British Government should press the Hong Kong authorities to withdraw immediately the 13 arrest warrants with bounties on Hongkongers in the UK, the US and Australia. Secondly, will the Government introduce measures to protect the rights and freedoms of Hong Kong activists in exile, particularly those who have been granted asylum and have faced past and current threats from Beijing? Thirdly, will the Government urge like-minded Governments to suspend the remaining extradition treaties between democracies and the Hong Kong and Chinese Governments, and work towards co-ordinating an Interpol early warning system to protect Hongkongers and other dissidents abroad who may fall within the tentacles of the Chinese authorities? Fourthly, will the British Government urge like-minded Governments to raise these arrest warrants and bounties again at the periodic review, which is happening today?

Again, we have seen no sign of sanctions against any Hong Kong officials, while seven parliamentary colleagues, including myself and my right hon. Friend the Member for Chingford and Woodford Green, remain sanctioned. We now hear that the Foreign Secretary wants to visit Hong Kong. The last Foreign Secretary, the right hon. Member for Braintree (James Cleverly), went to China and took up the case of Jimmy Lai, and the case of those of us who are sanctioned, but I am afraid came back with nothing. So quite why the new Foreign Secretary thinks that he wants to go to China—and presumably will take up the case again—and can come back with something, I do not know. Surely there are other platforms available to him, where he can make those calls on China without having to go and be seen to be paying court to the Chinese Communist Government in Beijing.

The Hong Kong Government’s Security Bureau recently put forward article 23 of the Basic Law to be discussed by the Legislative Council within its 2024 session. It is highly likely that that locally legislated national security provision will be passed and implemented by the end of this year. Article 23 aims to

“prohibit any act of treason, secession, sedition, subversion against the Central People's Government, or theft of state secrets, to prohibit foreign political organisations or bodies from conducting political activities in the Region, and to prohibit political organisations or bodies of the Region from establishing ties with foreign political organisations or bodies.”

Since the enactment of the Hong Kong national security law, which was passed by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China in 2020, these draconian laws have devastated the civil society and caused widespread chilling effects among the people of Hong Kong. This will only make that worse and embed it in the tyranny that is now engulfing Hong Kong.

I will briefly touch on the question of the financial pressures that the Chinese Government are bringing on Hongkongers. The Mandatory Provident Fund is a compulsory retirement savings scheme for the people of Hong Kong. For most Hongkongers it is their main pension pot, as the state pension is very low. Hongkongers can withdraw their entire MPF savings only if they make a declaration that they have departed Hong Kong permanently, with no intention of returning.

However, the Mandatory Provident Fund Authority, which governs the MPF, stated in 2021 that, because the BNO—or British national overseas—passport was no longer recognised as a valid travel document, those trying to withdraw MPF funds early could not use the BNO passport as proof of identity. As a result, BNO visa holders who leave Hong Kong continue to be denied access to their pension savings.

That is a punitive action by the Hong Kong Government, and Hong Kong Watch estimates that Hongkongers who fled to the UK on the BNO visa are being denied access to some £2.2 billion in savings. HSBC, headquartered in London, holds around 30% of the total value of all MPF schemes, and it is estimated that HSBC is currently withholding £660 million in savings from Hongkongers with BNO status who now live in the UK.

That is an official status recognised by the UK Government for those legitimately coming to seek safe refuge in the UK, and a company that is headquartered in the UK, and is subject to UK corporate and other laws, is withholding money from its rightful pensioners. The Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation needs to decide which side it is on—freedom and liberty and the international rule of law, or kowtowing to the tyrants who now have their footprints all over Hong Kong. Therefore, financial measures are just another way that the Chinese Communist Government are imprinting their tyranny on Hong Kong.

You will be relieved to hear that I have almost come to an end, Mr Twigg, but I have just some other examples of where we really must stand up to what the Chinese Government are doing. Yesterday, Ms Choi Yuk-lin, the Secretary for Education in Hong Kong, began her official visit to the United Kingdom and Finland. That official trip comes despite the UK Government’s acknowledgment that Hong Kong’s national security law, passed in 2020, is a direct violation of the 1984 Sino-British joint declarations—fine for the words, but again, where are the consequences?

Ms Choi Yuk-lin is known for her public support of the national security law. She has consistently asserted that post-secondary education institutions, including their staff and students, are bound by the law. However, under her watch the Hong Kong Professional Teachers’ Union—Hong Kong’s largest teachers’ union, with more than 95,000 members and representing 90% of the profession—was disbanded in 2021 after coming under fire in the Chinese state media. Mark Sabah, the director of the Committee for Freedom in Hong Kong Foundation, said:

“This is yet another example of the British Government seemingly ignoring all the violations of the Sino-British Declaration and all the attacks on free speech in Hong Kong and inviting a Hong Kong Government official to the UK, while a British citizen, Jimmy Lai, still sits in jail on spurious National Security Law charges”

and we remain sanctioned. He went on to say:

“There is no chance that Ms Choi is here to support Hong Kong students when she is personally responsible for tearing down academic freedom in Hong Kong across schools and university Campuses.”

She is not the first representative of the Chinese Government to be welcomed here in London, I am afraid, with the acquiescence of Ministers. I will not embarrass the Minister responding today by mentioning another photo opportunity, which she was involved with, by a particularly dodgy member of the Chinese Government responsible effectively for kidnapping the protesters and dissidents and taking them back to China to face unfair trials.

As we speak and as I have said, the universal periodic review of China is happening. However, the point is, will China take any notice? This is the first time it has happened since 2018. It is a unique process at the United Nations, whereby every single member state is scrutinised for its human rights record every four to five years. China’s last UPR was in 2018 and, as we know, a lot has happened since then; the problem is that it is not good. Since the last UPR, no region of the People’s Republic of China has changed more dramatically, significantly or rapidly for the worse than Hong Kong. Since 2018, it has transformed from one of Asia’s most open societies to one of its most repressive police states. It has gone from having a legislature with a significant number of elected pro-democracy members to a place where many of those legislators are now in jail; the entire pro-democracy camp is completely excluded from contesting any elections and both the legislature and the district councils are filled with pro-Beijing quislings, making them nothing more than puppet rubber stamps that are subsidiaries of the National People’s Congress. We have had the “Strike Hard Campaign against Violent Terrorism” against the Uyghurs and other Turkic Muslims since the last review. We have had the huge roll-out of surveillance technology since the last review. It has not responded to the criticisms in 2018 on women’s rights, where China failed to stem the trafficking of women and girls, including those from neighbouring countries. There has been a crackdown on freedom of expression, as we have heard. China received 346 recommendations from 150 countries back in 2018. It accepted 284 of them, but questionably many were just noted as accepted and already implemented—of course they were not.

Last week, the Minister responding today sent all colleagues a letter marked, “Dear colleague…A Year in Sanctions”. She started by saying:

“This Government has broken new ground on sanctions in 2023, continuing to lead the international effort to ratchet up pressure on Putin’s war machine, whilst deploying the UK’s autonomous powers in response to serious human rights violations and abuses, cyber attacks and serious corruption across the world.”

It is a good record. It talks about Russia; it talks about sanctions for metals and diamonds and for oil; it talks about reconstruction efforts in Ukraine and who will pay for them. It talks about Hamas, Iran and cyber. Nowhere in this four-page letter does it mention the subject of China or Hong Kong or any possibility of sanctions against that country.

Many petitions to this place have been responded to by the Government. On 7 June 2021, there was a petition to sanction Hong Kong officials responsible for human rights violations, to which the official Government response was:

“We carefully consider sanctions designations. It is not appropriate to speculate who may be designated in the future or we risk reducing the impact of the designations.”

In January 2022, there was a petition urging Hong Kong to release all political prisoners. The Government responded:

“As a co-signatory to the Joint Declaration, we will continue to stand up for the people of Hong Kong, to call out the violation of their freedoms, and to hold China to their international obligations.”

How exactly? In August 2023 there was a petition to sanction individuals responsible for Sino-British joint declaration breaches in Hong Kong. The response sounds familiar:

“We keep all sanctions designations under close and regular review. We do not speculate about future sanctions designations, as to do so could reduce their impact.”

The problem is: there are no consequences. I started my rather too lengthy words speaking about our particular interest and obligation to defend the liberties and lives of the people in Hong Kong that we once had responsibility for directly. We have sanctioned people from across the world, most notably Russia, for their blatant warmongering, corruption and other issues. All of the crimes against humanity, the international rule of law, freedom, liberty and democracy are being waged in Hong Kong as we speak, yet not a single person in the Chinese Government in Hong Kong has been subject to any sanction by the Government.

Yemen

Debate between Tim Loughton and Layla Moran

Thursday 24th September 2020 Commons Chamber

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the situation in Yemen.

I am delighted to move the motion, and I am aware of the very great interest in this debate, so I will make my comments as quickly as possible. If people would not intervene, that would be helpful, and I do not propose to take the few minutes at the end to respond to give as many Members as possible the opportunity to come in. I thank the Backbench Business Committee for granting this debate. We have tried many times—it was aborted some six months ago because of lockdown—but now, at last, we are able to debate this situation.

The trouble is that the situation has not got any better. I am not surprised that there is so much interest in Yemen today, because it has become the victim of the most lethal and complex cocktail: an extended and ostensibly insoluble civil war with international ramifications; various other man-made disasters; numerous natural disasters and potentially catastrophic environmental ones; an economic meltdown; and now, on top of it all, a deadly pandemic that Yemen was least prepared and equipped to deal with.

There is also great interest beyond Parliament; I gather that more than 210,000 people have signed a petition calling for a ceasefire, and that that petition has been tagged to this debate. Alas, in the six months spent trying to secure this debate, the situation has deteriorated yet further on multiple fronts. It is vital that, despite all the distractions at home and across the world in dealing with the pandemic, we neither forget nor neglect the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, which Yemen remains.

I chair the all-party parliamentary group on Yemen, and I pay tribute to my predecessor, my hon. Friend the Member for Meon Valley (Mrs Drummond), who I am glad to see will be participating in the debate, and to the secretariat provided by Jack Patterson, who has kept members updated and arranged briefings, including just this Tuesday with the British deputy ambassador in Yemen, Simon Smart, the military attaché and representatives from Oxfam and Médecins Sans Frontières, which, with many other agencies, are doing such an amazing job in almost impossible conditions in Yemen. I pay tribute to all those agencies and workers

To deal with the political and military situation first, 2020 marks five years of a devastating conflict in Yemen and almost 10 years of chaos since the Arab spring in that country. Yemen desperately needs an effective and lasting ceasefire. Out of a total population of some 30 million, 24 million people rely wholly or partly on aid, and they desperately need protection now.

Yet ceasefires and peace agreements in Yemen have a reputation for being broken almost as soon as they are brokered. The comprehensive Stockholm agreement, brokered in December 2018, set out a comprehensive peace plan. It was backed in January 2019 by the United Nations’ unanimously adopting the UK-drafted resolution 2452, which established a special political mission and special envoy, Martin Griffiths, who has worked tirelessly to secure a settlement.

The agreement promised the withdrawal of Houthi and Government-led forces from Hodeidah, a large-scale prisoner transfer, UN observers and various other urgently needed measures. The United Arab Emirates, which had been very involved with the conflict, ostensibly stepped back and withdrew its troops from Yemen. The position has been complicated, though, by the emergence of the Southern Transitional Council, who have taken control of Aden, fragmenting the Government position in trying to present a united resistance to the Houthis.

Great importance has been placed on the Riyadh agreement, signed in December 2019 between the Yemeni Government and the STC, outlining a series of measures to bring peace to the south of Yemen; but the agreement broke after just eight months, although Martin Griffiths and others work hard to revive it. The fragile pause in the conflict in 2019 broke down in 2020 after an attack in northern Yemen. A unilateral ceasefire by the Saudi-led coalition in April 2020 in the light of covid-19 expired in May, but The Guardian reported that the Houthis had broken a truce no fewer than 241 times in the space of just two days.

I could talk about abuses on all sides: the 42 airstrikes in July alone, which particularly impacted and killed civilians; drones dropping grenades on civilian targets; and Houthi missile strikes on Riyadh in Saudi Arabia just earlier this month. The catalogue of abuse, devastation, destruction and mistrust on all sides goes on. As a result, 10 new frontlines have emerged since the beginning of 2020, with particularly intense fighting in the past four months, especially around the strategically important areas of Ma’rib, which controls access to the oilfields, Taiz and in the Hodeidah governate on the west coast.

Peace is as elusive as ever, yet death and suffering are worse than ever. More than 250,000 Yemenis, at least, have died since 2015, including 100,000 as a result of combat and 130,000 from hunger and disease. That is probably a very conservative estimate. It includes an estimated 1,000 civilians killed or seriously injured in the conflict in the first six months of this year, including 100 children. There are more than 2 million internally displaced people, with a majority in and around Ma’rib, which is currently under siege from the Houthis, who are throwing everything at that city, despite suffering very high casualties. Clearly they view the lives of their troops as cheap.

Some 24.3 million people need humanitarian aid—24.3 million out of a population of 30 million. That includes 12.2 million children. A total of 20.1 million people are food-insecure, and 20.5 million people lack clean water or sanitation. There have been more than 2.3 million cholera cases since 2017, as a collapsed health system has been woefully inadequate even before covid hit.

The exact impact of covid is unknown; the 1,000 cases reported in Sana’a is surely a woeful underestimate of the reality. We all saw the images on the news of mass graves being dug in the capital. The International Rescue Committee projects that the most likely scenario is that covid could infect nearly 16 million people and kill more than 42,000, making the fatality rate in Yemen one of the highest in the world. There is little chance of testing. We might think we have a problem with testing in the United Kingdom, but there are just 118 tests for every 1 million people in Yemen, compared with 41,500 in the UK. Just 0.01% of the population stands a chance of being tested, and there is no clue about how they will cope if they are hit by a second wave.

Since 2015, air raids have hit water and health facilities more than 200 times. Oxfam reports that those remaining often lack electricity and fresh water, and even if a hospital is operating, fuel is so expensive that people in remoter areas cannot get transport to hospital, and their conditions worsen untreated. Médecins sans Frontières, whose volunteers have done incredible work under fire, reports that many medical staff—if not most—have not been paid for years, and they struggle to survive and carry on their jobs in the most extraordinary circumstances.

The water shortage has brought big challenges for food supply, as farmers cannot irrigate their crops, and more than 90% of Yemen’s food is now imported. With a collapsing currency and an economy that has shrunk by 45% since 2015, UNICEF forecasts that the number of malnourished children under the age of five will grow by 20% over the next six months, to reach 2.4 million—2.4 million malnourished children.

[Layla Moran (Oxford West and Abingdon) (LD)]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for leading the debate; he is making it clear just how heartbreaking the situation is for the people on the ground in Yemen. Does he agree that that is why we should stand proud and firm by the 0.7% of gross national income that this country gives in aid to other countries? It is so sorely needed, especially during this pandemic.

[Tim Loughton]

I agree with the hon. Lady, and I will finish on the figures about the United Kingdom. We have been the third largest donor and are one of the most important donors at the moment. The reasons are obvious, and the results are so important.

To cap it all, ironically, recent floods in Hajjah and Amran have destroyed crops, and they have now been hit by swarms of locusts—truly a human tragedy of biblical proportions. Added to that, the Red sea faces a potential environmental catastrophe from the FSO Safer, a 45-year-old oil tanker loaded with more than 1 million barrels of crude oil, anchored 60 km off the rebel-held port of Hodeidah and left to decay for the last five years, with no agreement over access for engineers.

So we can see why the country is almost totally dependent on aid from the international community and the heroic efforts of aid organisations and their staff, who are working in extremely dangerous conditions as a result of conflict and disease, with the added challenge of getting aid in through blockaded ports under fire or via the main airport, which has now closed again, as well as the everyday problems of corruption and bureaucracy on all sides using access to aid as a military weapon. Indeed, the Houthis tried to impose a tax on aid supplies coming in. NGO buildings have been looted and aid workers arrested.

The aid itself is now seriously in question. So far this year, only 37% of the requested funding in the humanitarian response plan has been met, as some of the most generous donors previously—including the US, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait—have reduced or withdrawn their funding at the worst possible time. As the International Rescue Committee points out, it was that funding that narrowly prevented famine two years ago, but now more than 9 million Yemenis have seen their aid cut, driving them to the brink of starvation; 12 of the UN’s 30 major programmes have already been scaled back; and a further 20 programmes could be reduced or closed completely if funding fails to emerge urgently.

Yemen is facing a perfect storm of a crumbling economy, reducing aid, restrictions placed on humanitarian access by warring parties, the continuing impact of an intractable conflict and now the additional pressures of covid. Amid all this, the support and financial aid from United Kingdom has been a rare, but desperately needed, constant. We are the third largest donor behind the US and Saudi Arabia. The UK has committed nearly £8 billion of assistance since the conflict began, including £160 million at the recent pledging conference. UK support has met the immediate food needs of more than 1 million Yemenis every month. It has treated 70,000 children for malnutrition and provided more than 1 million people with improved water and basic sanitation. The new money in the latest round will provide medical consultations, train 12,000 healthcare workers, boost 4,000 crumbling health centres and help in the fight against covid. The Education Cannot Wait campaign has helped girls, especially, who are missing out on education and helped programmes against the rise in violence against women and girls in particular, and against child labour. These are all problems affecting Yemen, as if it did not have enough problems already.

As the penholder on Yemen at the UN Security Council, the UK is in a crucial position. It is leading the international community to do more to respond to the Yemen crisis, and Martin Griffiths is doing an extraordinary job. We have a proud record of support and I hope that when the Minister speaks, he will confirm that that support will continue. However, there can be no real progress without a sustainable ceasefire leading to peace talks that are broad and inclusive, not just with Government forces, the STC and the Houthis but with all aspects of civil society and with the support of the regional powers, who will hopefully return to the donor table. Again, I hope the Minister can update the House about the UK continuing to play a leading and proactive role to help to bring this about.

Yemen is the world’s worst humanitarian disaster, and the world’s preoccupation with fighting covid at the moment cannot be an excuse for sidelining the unfolding tragedy that continues to engulf the Arab world’s poorest nation. It is difficult to think of a more tragic combination of circumstances affecting a nation and its people quite as toxically and systematically as is happening now in Yemen, and it has been going on for far too long. It is time for peace. It is time for the world to put pressure on the warring factions and their backers, and time to rally around the people of Yemen to regroup, recover and rebuild. I am sure that the whole House will want to show its support for that.

School Funding

Debate between Tim Loughton and Layla Moran

Wednesday 24th October 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tim Loughton (East Worthing and Shoreham) (Con)]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend the Member for St Albans (Mrs Main) for securing this important debate, but there is a sense of déjà vu. Over the past few years I have participated in many debates in Westminster Hall and the main Chamber on school funding, and two years ago there was a debate specifically on school funding in West Sussex, which is what I will concentrate on today. As my hon. Friend said, progress has been made with the new funding formula, but for many of us that is just work in progress. It was a move in the right direction, but it has not yet reached the destination of genuinely fair funding.

West Sussex was able to secure an additional £29.8 million funding as part of the £1.3 billion that the Government added last year, but that must been seen in the context of pupil numbers that are up substantially and the funding pressures coming down the line, such as teachers’ pay, national insurance and the other points raised by my hon. Friend. We will all plead the case for our own areas, but West Sussex has consistently been at the bottom of the table. We were the second to lowest funded local authority in the country, and with the additional money we have now gone to being the eighth lowest funded per unit for primary schools, and the sixth lowest for secondary funding. We have gone from being at the bottom of the lowest decile to nearer the top of the lowest decile. There is still a long way to go, as the Minister will be only too aware, given that he, too, represents a West Sussex constituency.

There is great confusion about what has happened to funding in real terms. Many figures have been bandied around, with banners outside schools saying that West Sussex has lost x millions of pounds. Because of the funding formula and the complications of how the deprivation, prior attainment and rural sparsity factors work, we need greater clarity on exactly what we are getting and where the money is going.

[Layla Moran]

Does the hon. Gentleman agree that no one on the frontline is arguing that more money is coming into the coffers of local schools?

[Tim Loughton]

Everybody is arguing that more money is coming into the coffers of local schools—that is plainly a fact. It is a question of how many pupils that money has to be spread across, increasing pressures on that funding, and what is left over to fund the basic education of children. It is no good saying that less money is going into schools; it is not. It is just not enough, given all those other factors.

In West Sussex we have the cumulative effect over many years of consistently being right at the bottom of the heap, so that all those savings have been used up years ago and many of my schools are running on empty. Despite that, many schools in my constituency are doing an outstanding job, such as Eastbrook Primary Academy in Southwick, St Nicolas and St Mary Primary in Shoreham, Shoreham Academy, Sompting Village School in Sompting, and Vale School in Worthing, to name just a few schools that have been consistently outstanding and good, despite all those factors. They are a mix of academies, faith schools and local authority schools—I give preference to no particular type of school, and indeed we have no free schools in my constituency. As has been said, there is a particular problem with special needs schools that are not covered by the new fair funding formula, although the numbers of pupils coming forward with severe educational needs has increased. Fantastic schools such as Herons Dale School in Shoreham are suffering huge pressures, and we are seeing the effect on pupils.

I want to concentrate on real examples, not just talk in the round. Last year I invited every head of every school in my constituency to a couple of roundtables to tell me exactly what was going on in their schools—it was not about fears of what might happen, but about what was going on and how they set their budgets there and then. This year I repeated that exercise with the chairs of governors from all schools in my constituency. As a result of those findings, I wrote a lengthy letter to the Education Secretary—I have just had a reply from the Minister—in which I gave real life examples.

There were many common factors, and in the consultation on the fair funding formula, 9% of 25,222 responses that the Department for Education received came from West Sussex. That hugely dis- proportionate figure shows how important this issue is in our part of the world. Common issues were that staffing costs, in some cases, were 90% of a school’s budget. Some years ago they would typically have been nearer 80%, and beyond that figure it becomes unsustainable for many schools. There have been many redundancies and fewer working hours, and non-returning maternity leave cases are commonplace. Senior leadership teams are covering classes to remove the need for supply teachers, and extracurricular activities and trips are being culled due to cost. Infrastructure investment and development is being delayed or ruled out completely.

Let me give a few examples from schools. One medium-sized primary school has reduced teaching assistant support by more than 200 hours and has not replaced its inclusion co-ordinator. It is unable to replace ageing and antiquated IT equipment. A junior school now has a deficit of £40,000, and will require an additional £220,000 for salaries over the next few years. Class sizes are typically 32 or 33 since 113 more pupils came into the school, yet there was an equivalent increase in full-time teachers of 0.8%. Schools are not losing funds because they are losing pupils; they are attracting pupils and yet they do not have the funds to get the teaching cover they need. The professional development budget was between £3,000 and £5,000, but it is now zero. The extended curriculum budget was around £20,000, but it is now £500. The learning resources budget was £120,000, and is now £35,000. There will be a deficit, and in that school 87% of expenditure is on staff salaries and overtime.

In a medium-sized primary school, non-qualified teachers such as high-level teaching assistants are being used to cover classes so that the school cuts the cost of supply staff, and numerous cuts to teaching assistant posts are creating greater workloads for teachers. Schools are unable to pay overtime. Counselling levels have fallen due to cutbacks, and that will be a soft target for further cuts in future. That is a particularly big worry to me because it will create greater pressures on those pupils who require greater attention and resources. They will then fall further behind at school, and they will not get the opportunity to make that time up if we do not deal with the issue soon. In too many cases the waiting list for counselling in school or beyond is many months, and during that time a condition can fester. I have many more practical examples. That is not scaremongering; this is going on now, and this is how governors and heads have to set their budgets to effect those constraints.

What can we do? I have three suggestions. First, the Minister absolutely must lobby as part of the comprehensive spending review and say that the shortfall in funding is a false economy in the extreme. Secondly, it was disappointing that the full teachers’ pay was not covered centrally—just the additional pay over that 1%, and there have been questions about some teachers not getting that full coverage over the 1%. Finally, I suggest that West Sussex, and other coastal areas where there are particular problems of deprivation and high costs, should have something like a coastal communities challenge fund, just as the London Challenge fund in 2003 addressed some of the difficulties in places where affluent areas mask areas of real deprivation, such as those found typically on the south coast, the Kent coast and other parts of the country. I ask the Government to look seriously at addressing the serious deficit in parts of the country such as West Sussex, because we are feeling the effects of it now.