Oral Answers to Questions

Tracy Brabin Excerpts

Tuesday 27th March 2018 Commons Chamber

[Boris Johnson]

My hon. Friend makes a very important point, which is made repeatedly by Members across the Chamber but cannot be made often enough. Our quarrel is not with the Russian people. We hold out the hand of friendship to the Russian people. They are not ringed with enemies. Our dispute is with the Kremlin as it is currently managed and the currently disruptive manner of Russian policy.

[Tracy Brabin (Batley and Spen) (Lab/Co-op)]

T8. As my hon. Friend the Member for Liverpool, Walton (Dan Carden) said, yesterday was the third anniversary of the rising escalation of the conflict in Yemen, and the rainy season is almost upon us. Yesterday, UNICEF warned that another cholera outbreak is impending and it is bemoaning the fact that it has to spend valuable time negotiating with warring factions to get vital vaccinations and medicines to the people whose lives it could save. Can the Secretary of State reassure us that he will use all his diplomatic effort to ensure that vaccines get to those who need them?

[Alistair Burt]

It might help if I say that I keep speaking to the World Health Organisation in relation to the availability of vaccines, and we are pretty confident that the vaccines are there. I also spoke yesterday to UNICEF about the ability to get them through. We are pressing for the consolidated plan that it needs to do that. There is a conference on Yemen coming up shortly, but we press every day to make sure that the cyclical issue of cholera is indeed dealt with.