Britain's Place in the World

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 15th October 2019 Commons Chamber

[Keir Starmer]

I do not know how many times I have stood at this Dispatch Box pressing amendments for a permanent customs union and single market alignment, and for a level playing field on workplace rights, environmental rights and consumer rights. Every time I have done so, all but a handful of Conservative Members have promptly gone into the opposite Lobby to me to vote against. We have now reached a point—[Interruption.] I was asked a question, so I am just going to complete the answer. The five propositions around which we could see a deal emerging were set out in the detailed letter from the Leader of the Opposition to the then Prime Minister just before the cross-party talks started, so it may well be that people disagree with what that deal should look like but the idea that we have not set it out is not a fair one. Having got this far, having had two and a half years of failed deals and division, the only way now to break the impasse is to put whatever the deal is back to the public so that they can make a simple decision: do we want to leave on the terms on offer or would we not rather remain and break the impasse? I do not think this House is going to be capable of breaking the impasse without it.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

In the spirit of positivity, I wish to probe the right hon. and learned Gentleman slightly further on the point he has just made. Is his position now that he would accept some of the level playing field points that were made in the cross-party talks if they were in the political declaration or is that no longer the Labour party position? Is he committed to a second referendum in all circumstances?

[Keir Starmer]

At this stage, any deal that comes back from this Government ought to be put back to the public for them to decide whether those are the terms they want to leave on or not. I came to that position slowly, because I thought that if consensus was built over the two to three years since the referendum, there might have been a deal we could agree, along the lines I have suggested. But that consensus was not built, time has gone by, the deal has not gone through and now we are in a position where we cannot break the impasse without going back to ask that question. I hope that question is asked on the basis of the “best deal” that could be negotiated, by which I mean the one that does least harm to the economy and best protects the Good Friday agreement. Those are two extremely important red lines as far as I am concerned.

Hong Kong

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 22nd July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Dr Murrison]

I think that is very harsh. It is clearly our endeavour to work with the Chinese Government, and it would be bonkers not to do so, wouldn’t it? The hon. Gentleman is tempting me down a road that would cause all sorts of difficulties in trying to advance the human rights issues that he and I both hold dear.

We will be critical of China, if we think it appropriate, but the important thing is to insist on the tenets of the 1984 joint agreement and hold China’s feet to the fire as a co-signatory. We respect that agreement, and I know China will want to respect that agreement if it wants to continue working with the UK on a range of issues and common interests. On that basis, I hope we will move forward.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Does the Minister agree that the rule of law is essential to the economic stability of Hong Kong? Does he also agree that our definition of the rule of law—the definition generally understood by the international community—is not the one that China always understands?

Resignation of UK Ambassador to USA

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 11th July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I seem to recall that that was one of the kinder words that I used yesterday. [Laughter.]

There is one thing that I have omitted to say today, which I hope I can say now in response to the hon. Lady’s comments. Sir Kim Darroch’s career is not over. I hope the House will recognise that although this is a difficult moment, it does not mean that that is the end of his career, and I hope that the Foreign Office and the entire apparatus of government will look after him, appreciate his merits, and ensure that he can be redeployed somewhere else for the benefit of our United Kingdom.

As for the hon. Lady’s somewhat more party political questions, again, I think I would prefer to concentrate on the specific details of the question put by the right hon. Member for Wolverhampton South East (Mr McFadden), and to concentrate on the merits of Sir Kim Darroch rather than the—merits of anyone else.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

I thank my right hon. Friend for what he said earlier about the critical importance of the impartiality of the civil service. I do not feel that he needs to add to those comments, so may I ask him instead to expand on how he sees the special relationship going in the next few weeks?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

Swimmingly.

I commend to Members Henry Kissinger’s book “White House Years”. Among the many thousands of pages of his memoirs is, as I recall, a remarkable description of the special relationship. In essence, he says that the relationship is not just that between two people who are Heads of State, or Heads of Government. It is really about how, on so many layers and in so many areas—security, culture, business—so much between our two countries works, from day to day, on an assumed foundation of trust. That will continue, and that is why the web of affection and activity between our two countries will never be destroyed by a difficult moment such as this.

I think that I can, in all honesty, answer my hon. Friend’s question by saying that the relationship will remain special—that a relationship between two English-speaking nations with histories that are so entwined, and friendships and activities which will never be destroyed, will continue. I hope that it does continue, and I hope that both countries thrive and flourish.

Department for International Development

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Monday 1st July 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mr Robertson]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for that intervention. He has expert knowledge of this issue. We had a meeting before this debate and it could have gone on a lot longer because we discussed so very many things. Where this spending goes does matter, and it does matter that there is accountability and transparency. That is the important point.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

What concerns me is the issue of which partners we use to deliver our aid. DFID has great relationships with large trusted partners, but I am always concerned that smaller, more effective organisations operating in the most dangerous places, such as the Hands Up Foundation, do not get the funding and support from DFID that they need. Does my hon. Friend agree on that?

[Mr Robertson]

My hon. Friend raises a good point. It is very important to consider the partners we use. Accusations are made that some of the partners—the intermediaries—might take too big a chunk of the money before that money gets to ground level, and there are concerns about that. With multilateral aid, who we deal with is certainly one of the issues. Sometimes these bodies do not have the same priorities as we have.

[Victoria Prentis]

rose—

[Mr Robertson]

If my hon. Friend will allow me, I will deal with this immediately. The bilateral aid of DFID was 62.6%, as against multilateral aid of 37.4%, and this has remained steady over the past few years. However, that is still a lot of money going on aid that we do not fully control. There are some good projects out there. The World Food Programme is an excellent example of multilateral aid that saves lives. The hon. Member for Cardiff South and Penarth (Stephen Doughty) mentioned the money going to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria, and today we had the announcement of this being £467 million a year. As I understand it, that is multilateral aid, so there are some excellent projects we are involved in, but there are delays in reporting by the multilateral agencies, which impedes our ability to analyse the work they do.

Yemen Peace Process

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Thursday 23rd May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

It is a great pleasure to follow so many distinguished gentlemen who are very knowledgeable about Yemen, led of course by the right hon. Member for Leicester East (Keith Vaz), who is originally from Yemen. I do not pretend to be an expert on Yemen, but for the reasons that have been very ably set out, I have become increasingly interested in Yemen following my original interest in the Syrian area. I do feel, as the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes) just told us, that the powder keg worry is very real, which was why I wanted to take part in the debate. I will, however, confine my remarks to the plight of civilians in Yemen, especially children. It is important that we focus on what it is really like to be a child in Yemen today.

As we have heard, it is now four years since hostilities escalated in Yemen, and the suffering of millions of children and their families has grown worse and worse. Millions of Yemenis are malnourished, with an estimated 85,000 children under five—that is as many people as I represent in my constituency—who may already have died from hunger or famine. About 360,000 children under five are currently suffering from severe acute malnutrition for which they require treatment. Those are eye-watering numbers and it is important that we stop and try to imagine the level of suffering, which has been exacerbated by the denial of access to humanitarian and commercial goods, the destruction and shut-down of much of the country’s medical and educational facilities, mass cholera and diphtheria outbreaks, and almost four years of still-escalating conflict.

The situation is estimated to be causing a child to die every 10 minutes—that was what I read, although the right hon. Member for Leicester East said it was every 12 minutes—from a completely preventable cause. It should be said that because there is so little infrastructure and because, in certain areas, so little notice is taken of who is dying and what is happening to them, the figure could be much higher. More than half of all health facilities are closed or only partially functioning. Preventable diseases are flourishing, with cholera cases increasing in recent weeks. About 1,000 children are being infected with cholera every day. In the last two weeks of March, 40,000 children contracted cholera.

Yemen has seen the emergence of swine flu for the first time. That is not something to be dismissed, because those of us who got swine flu when we had the outbreak in Britain know just how difficult that disease can be, particularly for the young. My daughter was desperately ill with swine flu. We need to think back only to what happened to a weakened population after a serious conflict of our own, the first world war, to know what flu in its worst state can do widely across weakened populations.

Long-term conflict has other implications. In the worst-affected areas of Hodeidah, only one in three children go to school and less than a quarter of the teachers that are needed are still in post. The closure of schools creates an exploitation crisis as child marriage, child labour and military recruitment—several hon. Members have mentioned this—fill the void that schools should be taking up in children’s lives. It also stores up a very real problem for the future, as we will not have educated a whole generation of Yemenis.

In 2018, a fifth of all armed violence casualties were children and nearly half those casualties were from airstrikes. Several hon. Members have mentioned that two months ago, a hospital in Kitaf was bombed. Five children were killed; the youngest was eight. This was almost certainly an airstrike and it was not an isolated incident. It is comprehensively estimated that a fifth of all armed casualties are child casualties.

Since the escalation of the conflict in March 2015, the Yemen Data Project has counted around 19,000 air raids—one every 102 minutes for almost four years. Approximately half the known targets have been against non-military sites, which usually include places where civilians are, such as hospitals, schools, markets, factories and farms. While the ceasefire in the port means that the situation is perhaps better than it was, there has been an increase in violence in other parts of the country. Last week, four more children were killed by an airstrike in Sana’a. Across the country, children continue to be killed and maimed by shelling and mines.

We must make sure that there is humanitarian access into Yemen so that aid and commercial goods, including food, medicine and fuel, get into the country and to everyone who needs it. Children do not ask to be involved in these conflicts, and we should do everything we can to ensure that they get the protection that they need. It is our obligation to protect them.

The Stockholm agreement was the first diplomatic breakthrough and the first real source of hope. Of course, the agreement needs to be implemented, as many people have said across the House, so that the UN can continue to conduct its role in monitoring and facilitating it. I praise the Secretary of State and the new Minister for the interest that they are taking in this region and for the work that they are doing. I look forward to hearing about the Minister’s plans later this afternoon.

It is simply not acceptable that children face these risks. Charities and doctors do their best to pick up the pieces, but it is incumbent on Governments around the world to prevent the atrocities from happening in the first place. The UK Government have taken a welcome first step by promising to review our protection of civilians strategy—something that has been widely called for across Parliament and by the UN. Updating the strategy and urging our allies to follow suit presents an opportunity to consider the changing nature of warfare. As conflict inevitably becomes more complex and more urban, we must update our policies, practice and global norms to protect civilians. Of course, terrorists may not read that review, but we still must continue to take the lead on it and to encourage our allies to follow suit. We can start by introducing new measures to protect children, such as ending the indiscriminate use of explosive weapons in populated areas. More than that, we must champion the protection of children globally, demanding that the UN and our allies do more to uphold the international rules-based system.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 14th May 2019 Commons Chamber

[Robert Halfon (Harlow) (Con)]

7. What recent assessment he has made of the security threat posed by Hezbollah to (a) Israel and (b) the middle east.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

18. What recent assessment he has made of the security threat posed by Hezbollah to (a) Israel and (b) the middle east.

[The Minister for the Middle East (Dr Andrew Murrison)]

The UK remains deeply concerned about Hezbollah’s actions and behaviour in the region. As the Home Secretary outlined in February, Hezbollah’s destabilising role in the middle east led to our proscription of the group in its entirety. We continue to condemn Hezbollah and all armed militia groups for seeking to amass illegal weapons and arms, and for putting the security of Lebanon and Israel at risk, in direct contradiction of UN Security Council resolution 1701.

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my right hon. Friend for his generous words, and I share his concerns about this matter. We condemn Hezbollah—we could not be clearer than that—and have gone further than most countries in doing so. However, we consider the Golan Heights to be occupied territory, which is contrary to international law. We do not believe that the Golan Heights are part of the territory of the state of Israel.

[Victoria Prentis]

I too congratulate the Minister on his new appointment.

I welcome the Government’s recent decision to proscribe the whole of Hezbollah, but will the Minister tell me what more we are doing to confront people in this country who encourage the group’s terrorism?

[Dr Murrison]

I am grateful to my hon. Friend for her comments.

We have proscribed Hezbollah, so it will not be able to demonstrate and spread its message of hate, contrary to the interests and values of this country. I do not think we could have done much more, immediately, to make it clear that the organisation is beyond the law and that people who campaign for or show support for it are committing a criminal act.

Saudi Arabia: Mass Executions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 24th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sir Alan Duncan]

I will be discussing this with the Foreign Secretary, and he will be calling his counterpart, the relatively new Foreign Minister in Saudi Arabia. The hon. Gentleman makes a serious point that we should all take on board: the broader picture gives growing cause for concern. We can look at those who have been executed and their number—Shi’a, minors and those whose crimes we do not know, as well as the Khashoggi incident—and I am sure that we will be robust in our embassy and Minister-to-Minister representations. It is important that the regime in Saudi Arabia appreciates that the voice of world opinion can only get louder in its condemnation.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

The King of Saudi Arabia is reported as being interested in ensuring that there is prison reform in his kingdom. Will my right hon. Friend reassure me that prison conditions will be on the agenda next time he raises human rights with the Saudis?

[Sir Alan Duncan]

This is an important agenda. When I was a Minister at the Department for International Development, I always wanted prison visiting and access to be a condition of any aid that we gave to a country, although I did not exactly succeed in my objective. My hon. Friend illustrates the important point that when people are hidden and no one can get to them, we do not know what is going on. The ability for decent people to inspect prisons and visit prisoners, as is the case in this country, is a very important aspect of any judicial system and the human rights that ought to go alongside it.

Hong Kong: Pro-Democracy Activists

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 10th April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I think some of us get rather concerned by an independent Parliament, particularly members of the Executive at any one time, but that is another matter. I remember being on the Back Benches for many years, so I do not in any way criticise you, Mr Speaker.

I very much agree with the hon. Member for Ilford South (Mike Gapes). We need to do our level best to ensure that we stand up for our rights. I do not think that the Chinese are entirely unknowing of that. Of course, they know exactly what is going on and want to squeeze those rights. It is interesting, however, that in a significant number of areas they recognise the benefit of two systems, including commercially, where the idea of a settled rule of law will allow capital to go into Hong Kong. We need to do our level best to ensure that all aspects are maintained, and we shall do so.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Following on from what you said, Mr Speaker, I was heartened by the Minister’s earlier comments about the correlation between future free trade negotiations and our continuing pressure regarding human rights. Will the Minister confirm that, when we talk about the rule of law with Chinese interlocutors, we mean our international definition of the rule of law rather than theirs?

[Mark Field]

My hon. Friend is obviously trying to get herself on to the next trip that I take to Hong Kong. We need that matter explained in a much more succinct style than I am used to doing. None the less, she is absolutely right: we do recognise that at a time when—dare I say it?—the rules-based international order is coming under increasing threat, indeed from some unexpected quarters as well, we need to work together with many of our counterparts to ensure that we make that argument as robustly as we can.

Oral Answers to Questions

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Tuesday 2nd April 2019 Commons Chamber

[Martin Vickers (Cleethorpes) (Con)]

2. What steps his Department is taking to help tackle the persecution of Christians overseas.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

4. What steps his Department is taking to help tackle the persecution of Christians overseas.

[Alex Chalk (Cheltenham) (Con)]

17. What steps his Department is taking to help tackle the persecution of Christians overseas.

--- Later in debate ---

[Mr Hunt]

I thank my hon. Friend for mentioning the Open Doors report, which contains some stark statistics. It states, for example, that 80% of the people who suffer persecution for their religious belief are Christians. The most striking statement is that the vast majority are in the very poorest countries: this is not, on the whole, a problem affecting people who live in affluent countries.

My hon. Friend is right to mention that countries such as North Korea have been singled out. The purpose of the review is to ensure that we use all the UK’s diplomatic leverage to highlight these issues and put pressure on those regimes to change.

[Victoria Prentis]

The Open Doors report says that about 245 million Christians are suffering high levels of persecution in 73 countries. Where is the UK focusing our help?

[Mr Hunt]

I want to ensure that we exercise maximum influence where we have that influence. The striking thing about that report is that, notwithstanding the comments that my hon. Friend the Member for Cleethorpes (Martin Vickers) made about North Korea, some of the worst offenders are in the middle east, notably Afghanistan, Libya, Sudan and Somalia, where the population of Christians has fallen from 20% to around 5%. In many of those countries, we have big aid budgets and a lot of influence.

Jammu and Kashmir

Victoria Prentis Excerpts

Wednesday 27th February 2019 Commons Chamber

[Mark Field]

I thank the hon. Gentleman. As I mentioned earlier, we are working as rapidly as we can within all international organisations. If I may touch on a point I did not address earlier about the UN, we are working within the UN. This is a major issue, not least because of the fact that these are two nuclear powers. I suspect there will be a move to de-escalate and negotiate as far as possible. I know from discussions with our US counterparts that they are also expressing concerns. Ultimately, I believe it must be for the Kashmiri people to find a way forward. I appreciate that there is a lot of history. The worry is that a lot of things can be said and done now that could be very difficult to forget. The prize for the future is to try to achieve a more peaceable solution. Ultimately, that must come from the hearts of those who are in Kashmir, whether of Pakistani or Indian origin.

[Victoria Prentis (Banbury) (Con)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Wycombe (Mr Baker), I have many thousands of constituents who are very worried about family members in Kashmir. I was heartened by what the Minister of State had to say about his robust conversations on human rights with both sides. Does he agree that there is perhaps more we can do as a nation to help investigate human rights abuses and ensure that truth is brought to the forefront, rather than the great deal of misinformation we are hearing at the moment?

[Mark Field]

Yes, I very much agree with my hon. Friend. She will be aware that any allegations of human rights abuses are concerning and need to be investigated thoroughly, promptly and transparently. She will also be aware that our single biggest Department for International Development budget is in Pakistan. Human rights concerns are part and parcel of the money that is spent out there, trying to build up capacity and capability to ensure that such human rights issues are properly dealt with.