Colombia

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 15th July 2021 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

I am genuinely grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Jarrow (Kate Osborne) for securing the debate and for introducing it so skilfully. What she outlined matters; it matters to anyone who respects things such as the right to peaceful protest or even the most basic human rights. What has been going wrong in Colombia in recent months is shocking, even for a country that is used to shock.

The demonstrations against Government policies have, in sheer scale, been unprecedented over the many years that I have known Colombia, and yet those demonstrations have been overwhelmingly peaceful. That has been acknowledged by the United Nations, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights and the European Union. Even the Colombian Government have accepted that they were, overwhelmingly, peaceful demonstrations.

As my hon. Friend said, however, that was met by the Defence Minister calling the demonstrations a “terrorist threat” by “criminal organisations”. That is not simply ludicrous, but dangerous, because that has led to the death toll following the protests, which my hon. Friends talked about, and to the arbitrary arrests and use of massive levels of violence by the Colombian police who, frankly, have been out of control. That included 28 sexual assaults on people held in custody, as my hon. Friend pointed out, including the sad case of 17-year-old Alison Melendez who was raped by the police and then went home to commit suicide. Nothing can bring back Alison or undo that damage to her family. It matters, and it matters to those of us who care about Colombia, as we should.

The peace accords in Colombia were a wonderful step forward, but as we have seen in the use of violence by police against the demonstrations, we have seen in effect in a denial for those who gave up guerrilla warfare: 278 members of FARC have been murdered since the peace accord was signed and there has been a lack of progress on land reform and on things such as funding those who give up the growing up of coca leaf for manufacture into cocaine. Those are deliberate policies of the Colombian Government and, being deliberate, they are sabotaging the peace effort.

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hemsworth (Jon Trickett), I must say to the Minister, I have seen condemnation from different sources—the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has condemned such levels of violence recently and even in the United States, there have been calls for restraint—but few words from Ministers in the British Government. The Minister must stand up and make it clear that we denounce the kind of violence we are seeing from the Colombian police and military.

We need to look at our relationship in terms of police reform. Yes, it is right and proper that we push for police reform and, as penholder at the UN, the British Government have a unique role in bringing forward verification missions to see that that takes place. However, the big prize has got to be that we look at the capacity under the democratic clause in the UK-Andean pact, which makes it clear that human rights violations trigger certain consequences. It is about time that our Government looked at that human rights clause and considered whether now we have got to trigger it.

British Council

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 8th June 2021 Commons Chamber

[Nigel Adams]

I think my hon. Friend is referring to the Connecting Classrooms through Global Learning schools programme, which builds long-term relationships between schools, communities in the UK and developing countries. The Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office will continue to fund that programme for 2021-22.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

There is unanimity across the House on the values of the British Council going way beyond narrow commercial ones. This is about the values that we have as a nation, and the kind of world in which we want to live. Even in hard commercial terms, the British Council pays back to this nation what it costs, and in considerable excess of that. What consultation is there with other Government Departments, such as Education, International Trade, and Business, Enterprise and Industrial Strategy, for example? All those Departments and others would have an interest in making sure that we do not lose up to 20 British Council posts worldwide. That kind of information would allow us to assess whether the Government’s credibility is real on this issue.

[Nigel Adams]

May I just correct the record? I may have said Stewart McDonald was the incoming CEO. I was confusing him with one of our colleagues; it is Scott McDonald who will be the new chief executive. [Interruption.] Two of our colleagues! Crikey. I am sorry to disappoint the two in question. Anyway, Scott will do a fantastic job leading the British Council.

The hon. Member for Rochdale (Tony Lloyd) makes a good point. Of course we talk across Government—across all our network. We have BEIS employees in posts where there are British Council employees around the country, and we will continue to do that. We want to support the Council in continuing its brilliant role in ensuring that our United Kingdom soft power is enhanced through its work overseas.

Belarus: Interception of Aircraft

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 24th May 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

I commend my right hon. Friend for raising the issue so tenaciously, as she always does. I have had positive discussion with opposition leader Svetlana Tikhanovskaya, whom I spoke to in February. The Europe Minister, my hon. Friend the Member for Aldridge-Brownhills (Wendy Morton), has also spoken to her. We will continue that engagement, which is very important. We make the case for free and fair elections as soon as possible according to international standards. We certainly support, as we did at the outset, not just the Moscow mechanism, but the implementation of Professor Benedek’s recommendations on the need for elections and his findings in relation to human rights abuses.

My right hon. Friend asks the key question, which is how we can go from sanctions supporting civil society to encouraging some form of democratic transition. I have to say that the Lukashenko regime looks very dug in. It has the protective umbrella from Moscow and I think that what we saw over the weekend was a symptom and a sign of it. I think it incumbent on the international community to keep up the very robust pressure as far as we can, increase it wherever we can and use every mechanism at our disposal. The key difference from what we have seen previously is that the actions of the Lukashenko regime are targeted not just at its own people, but at attacking an international common good that is reflected in the Chicago convention. That gives us at least the ability, with our allies, to work to apply pressure in that forum. We will continue to do that.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

It is not surprising that the Lukashenko regime operates with a belief in its impunity, but this state piracy is most definitely a new step that requires a response that is seen to be proportionate. In that context, could the Foreign Secretary return to the question of the Belarus state’s use of subsidiary companies operating in the United Kingdom and whether we can apply pressure on them to prevent the state from having access to resources that come through this country of ours? In doing so, can we co-ordinate with our European Union allies? That is something that the Belarusian opposition most certainly wants to see: tough action against a leader who has lost all credibility and legitimacy.

[Dominic Raab]

I totally agree with the hon. Gentleman’s instincts. I am not sure that it is correct that there are businesses taking advantage, but I reassure him that amid the panoply of measures that we are now considering, we will look very carefully at what further pressure we can apply. That will include any further tightening of restrictions on access to the UK or other financial markets for what we see passing through London.

ODA Budget

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Madam Deputy Speaker (Dame Eleanor Laing)]

Order. I have to say that it is not fair to the Minister if people ask the same question over and again, so he feels obliged to give the same answer again and again. I can now say to the Minister that he has given many answers very strongly and emphatically and he does not have to feel bad about saying to Members now, “I refer them to the answer I gave a few moments ago,” because at this rate not everyone will get in.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

Yemen, we believe, will suffer some 60% cuts in our development assistance, yet it is a country where the world’s failure to stop a brutal war means that children are dying of preventable disease and now of starvation. Would the Minister seriously say to a mother or father nursing a dying child that this is all about the economy and the economic recovery of this country?

[James Cleverly]

The UK remains one of the largest aid donors to Yemen. But alongside that, we are also giving support to Martin Griffiths, the United Nations envoy. We are liaising directly with the Houthis, the Government of Yemen and other parties in the region to try to bring about a resolution to that conflict. The best gift we can give to the people of Yemen is peace and that is what we are pursuing. While pursuing that, we are also maintaining our commitment to support people, feed people and try to keep them alive until peace comes to that country.

Global Anti-Corruption Sanctions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Monday 26th April 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right. We give an increasing proportion of our aid to operate in countries via third parties, whether they are NGOs or other partners, rather than direct to Governments. There is a case for both, for all the reasons that my hon. Friend suggested, and I totally agree with him that the approach to official development assistance should complement and supplement what we are doing in the law enforcement space, including through these sanctions. I would be interested to hear any ideas he has for fusing the two and making them even stronger, and Ministers would be keen to meet him.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

I congratulate the Foreign Secretary on the statement, which is an important step forward. In respect of Belarus, where the President is propped up by senior people in the military and the police complex, will the Foreign Secretary work with other interested countries—not only Belarus’s neighbours but those throughout Europe—so that we are prepared to look at the evidential trail more broadly than just what our own investigatory authorities can determine? That could make a material difference in challenging the Lukashenko regime.

[Dominic Raab]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right. We very much led the way in relation to Belarus and the human rights sanctions regime—the Magnitsky sanctions—and instituted human rights sanctions before the EU, but we were in constant dialogue with the EU about the names, evidence and individuals. It is important to have that systematic approach, partly to have more effect but also to be on surer ground when sanctions are imposed. Belarus is also a good example, raised by Members from all parties, of where, at the same time as we have imposed sanctions, we have provided extra support for civil society, including opposition groups, not directly but through NGOs, journalists and the support for the media and the open society agenda that we have been talking about as part of the integrated review.

Counter-Daesh Update

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 4th March 2021 Commons Chamber

[Dominic Raab]

My hon. Friend is absolutely right: it is not just a strategic danger; we also have to think of the vulnerable people who are at risk. We are working closely with all our partners. Of course, those camps are a target not just militarily but for the warped propaganda and narrative that Daesh and others seek to sow.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab) [V]]

The Foreign Secretary is entitled to ask for and get the support for the military operations against Daesh, but does he agree that we also have to make sure that we challenge the conditions that allow for the rise and the existence of terror, wherever that is? That is not just about humanitarian assistance; it is also about investment in education, health, the economy and the civil institutions that make nations work. What is he doing to lead an international coalition that guarantees support in those areas, as we have successfully done with the coalition to challenge Daesh militarily?

[Dominic Raab]

I agree with the hon. Gentleman: there is a whole range of international collaboration that goes on. I have to say that the principal cause is not some sort of underlying, opaque set of socioeconomic conditions; it is the fact that there is a tyrant in Syria, Daesh is feeding on the instability, and Iran is promoting proxies and militias in the region.

Oral Answers to Questions

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 13th October 2020 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

The normalisation of relations represents a move towards peace in the region, and the UK strongly welcomes that. We encourage other states to choose the same path, but, ultimately, there is no substitute for direct talks between the Palestinians and Israel, which is the only way to reach a two-state solution and a lasting peace. We do hope that normalisation can encourage dialogue between the parties and the UK stands ready to support such efforts.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

What the Government's policy is on promoting human rights, democracy building and the rule of law internationally, following the merger of his Department and the Department for International Development.

[The Minister for Asia (Nigel Adams)]

The UK is committed to the promotion and protection of human rights, democracy and the rule of law acting as a force for good in the world. The UK is one of the longest standing members of the Human Rights Council, and we are aiming to maintain that record at today’s election. Another good example is our recent activity at the UN on China, which shows our commitment to defending human rights in Xinjiang.

[Tony Lloyd [V]]

I welcome the Minister’s words, but may I refer him and his words to the situation in Colombia where, since the signing of the peace deal in 2016, we have seen hundreds of human rights defenders, civic leaders, trade unionists and former FARC—Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia—members murdered, and where the fragile democratic process saw the FARC move from the armed struggle to the political process. Will the Minister commit to making Colombia a priority for this Government and will he or one of his colleagues commit to meeting a small delegation of MPs who are concerned about Colombia?

Burma

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Thursday 15th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

To be candid—again—I am not sure exactly what work is being done, but I am sure that World Vision is working with many other non-governmental organisations on the ground, and that those concerns will have been raised with the Bangladeshi authorities. If that turns out not to be the case, the hon. Lady will have been able to raise the matter on the Floor of the House, and I will ensure that it is raised at the highest level.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

I welcome the Minister’s statement. I especially commend his point that returns must be voluntary, but that, of course, means that they are very unlikely to happen. It is unrealistic to suggest that 700,000 traumatised people could be told, “Please go back to face the guns and the rapists that sent you away in the first place.”

There will be pressure—the Bangladeshi authorities, who I think have behaved admirably, will understandably want to see returns—but should it not be recognised that if there are to be returns, there must be security guarantees, and that those guarantees must be properly underwritten? They will not be for the short term; they will be for decades to come.

[Mark Field]

The hon. Gentleman is absolutely right: we would not seek for returns to be anything other than voluntary, so we must be patient.

It is also worth pointing out that the Foreign and Commonwealth Office has been engaged in a concerted effort of lobbying other nations. Certainly since the Foreign Secretary arrived back, this is an issue that we raise not just with ASEAN states, but with countries such as China, Japan, Australia and New Zealand, to make it clear that we need collectively to work—potentially as a matter of great urgency—both on the humanitarian side, which is where I think the urgency will be needed, and on the diplomatic side, where we will have to be in it for the long haul. That is not being pessimistic; I am hopeful. I want things to work and I would love to see solutions sooner rather than later, but the hon. Gentleman makes the valid point for the whole House that this issue will, I suspect, be high profile for many years to come before there are the voluntary returns that we all want.

International Disaster Relief

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Tuesday 6th February 2018 Westminster Hall

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

As ever, it is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Betts. I congratulate the hon. Member for West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine (Andrew Bowie) on securing this excellent debate. We have a great deal of consensus in this debating Chamber, and it is important for the Minister to know that, although we can always argue about the refinement of processes, there is nevertheless an overwhelming view that the commitment to 0.7% of GDP as a national objective is one that is shared. In any case, the overriding national consensus supports what all Governments have done in this area.

However, I want to strike a marginal, discordant note. I do not think we have to begin by talking about the national interest. There is a profoundly moral case around disaster relief. I have sat with refugees in Macedonia and Albania who were fleeing the conflict in Kosovo. In Lebanon, I have seen people fleeing over the border from Syria. Most recently, in Bangladesh, we have seen refugees from Myanmar. I cannot look them in the eyes and believe that this issue is only about national interest, because it is not. The British people, generally speaking, are much bigger than that. It is important to make the moral case.

There is also a pragmatic case. At the time of the conflict in Kosovo, we saw refugees flooding into this country. I have constituents who came into this country as refugees from Kosovo—ditto Syria and so on. We know that whenever disaster arises around the world, it has repercussions. There is a profound case—hon. Members have mentioned this—for arguing that the real precursor to disaster relief is having long-term sustainability, to prevent disasters in the first place. That is not always possible. Some of the things that we anticipate are easy, but the unknown unknowns are problematic. Climate change is still producing unknown impacts, particularly in Africa. With the growing population and the capacity for climate change to disrupt whole communities, we might see disaster. That will almost certainly produce a tide of refugees who will look north to Europe for support and shelter.

Some hon. Members mentioned Ebola. We must be alive to the fact that there could be some as yet unknown pandemic that will hit this world of ours. It will be a global problem; it will not be about national interest. It will be about us working collectively together, as we did in the case of Ebola, but possibly on diseases as yet unknown that could have massively more dramatic consequences. And, of course, sadly, war on this planet is still something that we do not entirely control.

When a disaster takes place, the British are massively good-hearted. Some Members have already commented on that—the hon. Member for Stirling (Stephen Kerr) made that very point. We have a good-hearted nation. We see money going to charities, as well as action from our Government.

In the most recent case, of the Rohingya in Bangladesh, the British Government behaved admirably with respect to disaster relief. It was important, however, that that was co-ordinated by the Bangladeshi authorities, and particularly the Bangladeshi army, which was important in making sure that the camps were stable. There was of course also a plethora of agencies from all over the world. When I was in Bangladesh—I should point out my declaration in the Register of Members’ Financial Interests, having travelled there recently—I met people from the Canadian Red Cross and aid agencies from around the world. All that immediate action requires some degree of co-ordination.

Immediate disasters are not simple to deal with—they are massively complicated—but because such action has been needed on a number of occasions over the years, there are now structures that can quite quickly get operations moving. Sometimes the challenge is what happens post-disaster. I know from exchanges on the Floor of the House that the Minister has thought about what happens next for the Rohingya in Bangladesh. It is not so much a question of transferring people back; that is a considerable way off. It is more about the fact that up to 50,000 women will give birth in the coming months and there is still not a clean water supply or sanitation system to sustain a population that may be living on a small patch of land for a considerable time to come.

The problem, of course, is that the world begins to move on. We saw that, to an extent, at the global level. Britain was a major contributor to the global efforts to provide assistance to the Rohingya in Bangladesh, but those funds are still undersubscribed. This is not about us being morally superior, but it sometimes helps to say we have played a significant part.

We do need people to stay for the long term. If we do not stabilise them into the long term, populations on the scale of the Rohingya in Bangladesh can be a hotbed of disaster. That can mean disaster for the population itself—through criminality, child prostitution and all the evils that can take place in such a community—but there is also the capacity for radicalisation, as has happened in other parts of the world. We must deal with disasters in the long term, not just the first weeks and months.

Several hon. Members mentioned Syria. If it gets to a post-conflict situation, the reconstruction of what was once, if not a first-world country, then certainly not a disaster case, will take decades—perhaps two generations. I think it was the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady) who made the point about the relative amounts spent on conflict and on post-conflict stabilisation. That applies to Iraq, Afghanistan and many different parts of the world. Even our country has not put as much into the post-conflict situations as into the creation of the conflicts.

A number of Members pointed out the need to develop local partnerships. The capacity to work with local partner agencies is fundamental for both immediate disaster relief and the second phase. Often, large international agencies, however well intentioned they are, do not have the sophistication to get down to almost street level, which makes a material difference to people on the ground. There are problems with that approach, because as the hon. Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) said, we have a duty to steward the pound that we spend. That is right and proper, but it is also important that such stewardship does not mean we miss the trick of getting the resources where they can do people maximum good. That often means working with local partner agencies.

Disasters will occur again and again around the world. It is of course right and proper to reserve resources for disaster relief, including for stabilisation after the immediate disaster period. Nepal, for example, is still not back together after the disaster of some years ago. In the longer run, we should not pit disaster relief against investment in long-term infrastructure, because investment in education, agriculture or industry will make a material difference in stabilising the parts of the world in question. It will make them less prone to war and more resilient to climate change, and it will make them better partners, even if that is seen in terms of narrow national interest. In any case, to conclude as I began, there is a moral debate to be had in the end: we share this planet, and our fellow global citizens deserve something from us. We are good at this and should not be ashamed of what we do.

Refugees and Human Rights

Tony Lloyd Excerpts

Wednesday 24th January 2018 Commons Chamber

[Emily Thornberry (Islington South and Finsbury) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House believes that conflict resolution, climate change and the protection of human rights should be at the heart of UK foreign policy and that effective action should be taken to alleviate the refugee crisis and calls on the Government to lead international efforts through the United Nations and other international organisations to ensure that human rights are protected and upheld around the world.

We always welcome the wisdom of the Minister of State, Department for International Development, the right hon. Member for North East Bedfordshire (Alistair Burt) on these issues, but it is a great shame that although the Foreign Secretary has had time over the past week to act as Chancellor, as Health Secretary, and even as underwater construction engineer, he is not able to do his day job today. We hope that wherever he is heading on his travels, he is accorded rather more of a hearing than the Cabinet gave him yesterday.

The motion might be familiar to some, as it mirrors the words Labour used in our manifesto last June, in which we set out how we would tackle the causes of the refugee crisis—because some of us believe in our election promises. There is one more difference between our manifesto and the Government’s. No, it is not that ours was costed, nor that it was popular: it is that not a single one of the 25 countries that I will talk about in this speech was mentioned even once in the international section of the Tory manifesto last June—with, of course, one glaring exception: the United States.

We may differ in our attitudes towards the American leadership, but I am sure that Conservative Members would agree with me on some of the great figures of America’s past. It is fitting that this debate takes place 25 years to the day since we lost Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, who, over six decades, helped to dismantle legal discrimination in America and to put human rights at the heart of its jurisprudence. It is worth remembering that his legendary legal career almost never began. As a young man, he only persuaded his grandmother to let him study law on the condition that he also learned to cook. She thought that that was a better guarantee of long-term employment. I wish someone had given me that advice—not that I would have changed my career, but I would at least be able to cook a proper roast dinner, like my nan could.

Among the many other great pieces of advice that Thurgood Marshall left the world are these words, which stand at the core of this debate:

“The measure of a country’s greatness is its ability to retain compassion in times of crisis.”

That measure is similar to the Leader of the Opposition’s when he said in Geneva last month that the refugee crisis is one of

“the biggest moral tests of our time”.

Let us be clear: as a country, our greatness is currently being tested, but not all will agree with Justice Marshall or the Leader of the Opposition about the right answer. There will be those who say that amid grave economic uncertainty and domestic pressures, we need to focus on our own finances and public services, not on showing compassion to those in need elsewhere; there will be those who say that if we need global alliances to help to preserve trade and investment, that must come ahead of other considerations, including human rights; and there will be those who say that we have enough on our plate trying to manage Brexit, and that the rest of the world’s problems can be left to the rest of the world. But they could not be more wrong.

Our global leadership is needed now more than ever, not least because the five challenges that currently leave 65 million people in our world internally displaced or as refugees are getting only worse. Those challenges are: first, the state-led violence faced by minority groups in places such as Myanmar; secondly, the seemingly intractable wars in Yemen, Syria and elsewhere; thirdly, the cycles of division and violence in which Israel, Palestine and others are trapped; fourthly, the political instability that faces post-conflict countries such as Lebanon; and fifthly, the ever more stark realities of climate change.

Those five challenges may vary, but they all lead to one crisis: millions of vulnerable civilians, many of them children, left in desperate humanitarian need, either trapped, praying that relief and protection will come to them, or fleeing in the hope that they will find it elsewhere. Make no mistake: in the coming years those challenges will test the limit of our resources, the depths of our compassion, the strength of our global leadership and, ultimately, the greatness of our country.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

My right hon. Friend is making an excellent speech. Does she agree that one of the really big tests relates to our international agencies, particularly the United Nations, and the political paralysis that results from the lack of commitment from Russia, China and the United States? We have to get that commitment back. If we are going to lead, Britain has to make the United Nations central to the solution to the problems my right hon. Friend is outlining.

[Emily Thornberry]

I agree entirely with my hon. Friend. I will develop those arguments later and look forward to listening to his speech, if he gets an opportunity to be heard.