Europe, Human Rights and Keeping People Safe at Home and Abroad

Tobias Ellwood Excerpts

Tuesday 24th May 2016 Commons Chamber

[Jo Cox]

We now have decades and decades of experience showing that early intervention to prevent human rights abuses and mass atrocities works. Does the Foreign Secretary feel that his Department, and indeed the whole of government, would benefit from a mass atrocity prevention lens being focused on all policies so that we intervene early and fast to prevent escalation?

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr Tobias Ellwood)]

Syria.

[Mr Hammond]

What the hon. Lady says is persuasive, but I am trying to think how to operationalise it in a way that is different from what we are already doing. As my hon. Friend reminds me, that is what we thought we were doing in Syria, but unfortunately we have not succeeded in preventing the atrocities that are still going on there. Let me consider further what the hon. Lady has said and perhaps write to her about it.

Under this Government, the UK is making a decisive contribution to the global agenda. We are leading reform in the European Union and, if the British people give their consent, we will continue to drive that reform in the future. We are standing up to Russian aggression, defending the rules-based international system that Russia seeks to undermine and providing military reassurance to our eastern allies who feel so threatened by Russia’s actions.

We are supporting human rights around the world, making it a core part of every diplomat’s work, strengthening the values-based, rule-of-law system upon which our prosperity, our security and our freedoms depend. In an ever-more complex and dangerous world, our diplomats, our military, our intelligence and security services, our police, our border force and many others work tirelessly, day in, day out, to keep us safe. Their achievements often go unsung; the risks they take often go unnoticed, so I want to end by thanking them, on behalf of the whole House and the British people, for the work they do and the remarkable results they deliver.