UNESCO: 80th Anniversary
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(1 week, 5 days ago)
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Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
It is an honour to serve under your chairmanship, Mr Dowd. I congratulate my hon. Friend the Member for Mid Derbyshire (Jonathan Davies) on securing the debate.
We will hear a lot today about UNESCO world heritage sites across the UK, from the Giant’s Causeway to Saltaire and the Palace of Westminster itself. Magnificent as those examples are, I stand here today with the honour of representing the only part of the country with double UNESCO world heritage status for both cultural heritage and the surrounding natural environment. St Kilda, or Hiort, the remote archipelago, some 40 miles west of my own archipelago into the Atlantic, are the most westernmost islands of the UK apart from Rockall—perhaps its most taciturn Atlantic outcrop. It is not easy to get there—it takes a stern four-hour crossing on a high-powered boat into an Atlantic swell—but the reward is magnificent.
Torcuil Crichton
Even in the summer.
The sea cliffs of St Kilda are among the highest in the UK. When you crane your neck up from the deck of what feels like a very small boat below those cliffs, it feels as if someone has dragged New York’s skyscrapers midway across the Atlantic. The sea stacks teem with bird life, giving an otherworldly atmosphere, and the power of that ocean, in summer and winter, below your feet—that relentless swell—makes you feel as if these islands are on the edge of the world. It is the surrounding ocean environment that gives it its UNESCO natural heritage status, but it is the human footprint—the two millennia of human inhabitation of the main island of Hirta, along with Boreray, Soay and Dùn, where people grazed sheep and hunted seabirds—that exert such a pull and give it its heritage status.
People lived there for two millennia, eking out a very tough life harvesting seabirds and breeding sheep, but modernity, contact with the outside world, depopulation, emigration and illness brought that chapter of human habitation to a close. The final 36 St Kildans requested assistance from the British Government and were evacuated on 29 August 1930, bringing that chapter of inhabitation to a sudden and sad end. Although the community dispersed and the voices faded, you still get an echo of the human habitation and the people when you go there. I last visited with the late Norman John Gillies, the last of the male St Kildans. He left when he was five years old, but he still had an umbilical link to the island. To stand with him outside his family home in Village Bay, and to hear him switch from his English Norwich accent into what that place evoked in him—his native Gaelic voice—was to walk across the bridge of time. It was quite a privilege.
The remarkable story of St Kilda has been told and retold, from Tom Steel’s “Life and Death” to Roger Hutchinson’s “A People’s History”. There are about 700 books on St Kilda. We know more about the St Kildans than we know about the kings of Scotland. That is why we go back time and again: because when we walk in their footsteps, we feel for ourselves what it was like to live in a pre-industrial, communal, remote and co-dependent community as our ancestors must all have done.
While St Kilda remains attractive, tourist traffic is increasing vastly. Cruise ships now go there and the light-touch tourism that is essential for UNESCO world heritage sites is hard to achieve. Ionad Hiort, the St Kilda Centre project, aspires to construct a world-class visitor centre in Ùig, on the west coast of Lewis. It would offer visitors an opportunity to encounter St Kilda from afar. UNESCO has adopted the project as an exemplar of remote access to world heritage sites, many of which are already physically inaccessible or fragile.
Funding is formidable, and a £7 million package has been put in place, but prices are increasing as time is flowing, and there is a considerable funding gap. I appeal to the Minister and the UK Government to deploy the muscle of Government to fulfil their obligations not just as a custodian of this double world heritage site, but by using projects such as Ionad Hiort to show the potential of remote viewing, contain untrammelled tourism and breathe new economic life into remote communities like mine. I urge the Department, the Minister and colleagues in the Department for Culture, Media and Sport to take the proposal seriously, to show how the UK can inform and lead the rest of the world—from the edge of the world—when it comes to world heritage sites.
Oral Answers to Questions
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(2 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Matt Turmaine (Watford) (Lab)
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
Dr Rosena Allin-Khan (Tooting) (Lab)
Mr Lammy
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend for raising this issue. Diplomacy, not bloodshed, is how we get security for both Israelis and Palestinians, and getting to a ceasefire is the immediate priority. I will be in the region again in the coming days, discussing with them the Prime Minister’s framework for peace, which is the only plan, and how we govern Gaza and move forward once we get to that ceasefire, building a consensus around a sustainable end to the conflict.
Torcuil Crichton
I reiterate the concerns raised last night by my fellow journalist and hon. Friend the Member for Earley and Woodley (Yuan Yang) in highlighting Gaza as the deadliest war for journalists. Over 189 have been killed since October 2023, despite reporters being categorised as protected civilians under international law. Israel seems set on a deadly campaign to silence journalists in Gaza while refusing entry to other international journalists. Can the Secretary of State join me in condemning that strategy and in paying tribute to those who are risking their lives to get news out of Gaza, and also commend our own domestic broadcasters—including the much-maligned BBC—for keeping us informed on what is going on there?
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to my hon. Friend for bringing this matter to the House’s attention. I strongly condemn all violence directed against journalists, and call on the Israeli authorities to make every effort to ensure that media workers across the region can conduct their work freely and safely. Deliberate targeting of journalists is entirely unacceptable. International humanitarian law offers protection to civilian journalists during any armed conflicts, and those laws should be abided by. I call for all attacks to be investigated and for those responsible to be prosecuted.
Middle East
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(2 months, 4 weeks ago)
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Mr Lammy
I am very grateful to my hon. Friend. We believe passionately in a two-state solution and in keeping that dream alive. We believe in the inalienable right of the Palestinian people. That is why I set out what I did in the UN a few weeks ago.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I thank the Foreign Secretary for his statement and for his stamina over the past two hours. I assure him that the horror of the unfolding famine in Gaza and concern about the future of the hostages are felt just as strongly on the Atlantic coast of Scotland as they are on the shores of the eastern Mediterranean. International experts have rightly described what is going on in Gaza as a genocide. Anas Sarwar, the Scottish Labour leader, today described it as a genocide. Will such sentiments inform our next round of sanctions against Netanyahu’s Government?
Mr Lammy
I am grateful to my hon. Friend. I recognise what is being said by international scholars around the world. He will recognise the sombre decisions that we have taken in relation to international humanitarian law, in particular the suspension of arms sales.
Middle East
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(5 months, 1 week ago)
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Mr Lammy
From my discussions with the United States and with Secretary of State Rubio, that is not their intention; the right hon. Gentleman will have seen that from the thrust of the press conference held in the United States yesterday. He will also know that they are assessing now what has happened and they are hoping that it has been a targeted response and a single response. That is the thrust of what we are being told by the United States at this time.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
I understand the priority to evacuate UK citizens from Israel, but advice to our constituents in Qatar to shelter in place until further notice is hardly comforting. May I press the Foreign Secretary to outline what more detail will be provided for UK citizens in the wider region and whether there is a specific threat against them?
Mr Lammy
The message I gave earlier at the Dispatch Box is in the context of a fast-moving situation and advice that was given by the US shortly before I stood up. Of course we keep our advice updated, and we are on high alert right across the region.
Terminally Ill Adults (End of Life) Bill
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Kim Leadbeater
I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. That was a very powerful point, if slightly long. There are people who face these really traumatic and difficult decisions every day, including Louise Shackleton, who I believe is also with us today.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)
On a point of order, Mr Speaker. I thought this was a debate to discuss amendments, not a general debate.
Mr Speaker
It is, but I think this is the opening lead-in to the amendments. I will make that judgment call.
Oral Answers to Questions
Torcuil Crichton Excerpts(6 months, 2 weeks ago)
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Mr Lammy
On 22 April, I raised concerns with my Chinese counterpart on China’s supply of equipment to Russia and on the relationship with the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea—North Korea—and Russia and Iran. The right hon. Lady will know that I sanctioned Chinese entities that were supplying dual-use technology to the Russians, killing Ukrainians.
Torcuil Crichton (Na h-Eileanan an Iar) (Lab)