Afghan Refugees: Deportation from Pakistan

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 17th April 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)(Urgent Question)]

To ask the Secretary of State for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office if he will make a statement on the deportation of Afghan refugees from Pakistan to Afghanistan.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

The United Kingdom has a long-standing and close relationship with Pakistan. We engage regularly with the Government of Pakistan to advance key priorities and interests, including those relating to human rights and adherence to international law. We are closely monitoring Pakistan’s policy on the deportation of Afghanistan’s citizens, and we are working with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees and the International Organisation for Migration to ensure that Pakistan adheres to its human rights obligations with respect to those affected.

We understand that the recently elected Government of Pakistan intend to resume their programme of deportations from mid-April following a winter pause, although that has not yet been formally announced. While we respect Pakistan’s sovereign right to control its borders, the UK, alongside the international and donor community, is urging Pakistan to do so in accordance with its international obligations.

The UK has committed £18.5 million to the International Organisation for Migration in Afghanistan to support vulnerable undocumented returnees from Pakistan and Iran. As part of that work we have been engaging closely with the Government of Pakistan on these measures, and they have assured us of their support in relation to preventing the deportation of Afghans eligible for resettlement in the UK under the Afghan relocations and assistance policy or the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme. Since the formation of the new Pakistani Cabinet, the Foreign Secretary and the British high commissioner have received assurances from Foreign Minister Dar, during discussions on 25 and 28 March respectively, that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs will support our relocations work.

We continue to work closely with UNHCR and the IOM to ensure that all Afghans who have been found to be eligible for resettlement in the UK under the ARAP or the ACRS—including eligible family members—have been provided with the necessary documentation to verify that, and to prevent their deportation.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Saying that Afghanistan is not a safe place is something of an understatement. Nearly two thirds of the Afghan population were in need of humanitarian aid by the end of last year, and, in the words of the United Nations high commissioner,

“Human rights in Afghanistan are in a state of collapse”.

The restriction on women and girls amounts to nothing less than a gender apartheid.

Afghanistan is not a safe place for anyone, but it is particularly unsafe for the Afghans who worked alongside western forces and diplomatic efforts—for civil society advocates, for women who formerly held high-profile political or legal roles, for members of the LGBTQ community, and for the many others who were forced to flee when the Taliban took control. Many of those who fled to Pakistan are desperately awaiting resettlement to safe countries, including the UK. Yesterday, reports suggested that Pakistan had embarked on the deportation of Afghans back to Afghanistan, and resettlement, the hope of safety and of being reunited with families, is now at risk of being completely lost. For some of those waiting to come here the routes are open, but the process is achingly slow. Many await family reunion, which it was promised would start this spring, while others believe that they will be eligible to apply to come to safety in the UK under ACRS route 3 pathway 2, as yet unopened nearly three years after the fall of Kabul. I urge the Minister’s Home Office colleagues to act in this regard.

Pakistan’s decision to deport the migrants whom they deem to be illegal is deeply worrying. During the first round of deportations in October last year—which was the subject of an urgent question from the hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss)—there were news reports of Afghans eligible for resettlement here being arrested during immigration enforcement. There is every reason to believe that that will happen again, and, indeed, this round puts even more people at risk. Afghans in Pakistan are meant to hold a Pakistan-issued Afghan citizen card, but there are reports of long delays in the processing of applications leaving people undocumented through no fault of their own. More worryingly, it has been reported that the latest round of deportations will even include those carrying cards. Effectively, that puts every Afghan in Pakistan at risk, regardless of their reasons for being there.

The UK has a responsibility here, not just to those Afghans whom we promised safety but in relation to the region as a whole. We can all understand the desire to flee from persecution, but we also understand the difficulties of support systems in Pakistan in responding when those who are fleeing reach their borders. If we want to show that the UK is a global power and a global force for good, we must act. What steps is the Department taking to ensure that all individuals eligible for resettlement or reunification in the UK are able to register themselves as being legally in Pakistan, what steps is it taking to prevent the deportation of Afghans in Pakistan if they are likely to be eligible to settle in the UK, what steps is it taking with our foreign allies to encourage Pakistan to halt these repatriations, and what steps can the UK take to help Pakistan support the refugee population? People are being sent back to Afghanistan now, with all the dangers that that entails. We must act.

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

It is good to have the opportunity to discuss this issue, and the hon. Lady has raised important questions, but I can repeat the assurances that we have now received from the newly elected Pakistani Government, who have themselves repeated the assurances that we received from the previous Government that all Afghans who are eligible for our various UK schemes will be exempt from deportation. There have been two instances of temporary detentions when the British high commission has intervened, and that has gone well. Since November, all Afghans eligible for resettlement in the UK have been provided with identification in the form of a letter from the British high commission, and that is being considered acceptable by the Government of Pakistan. None of those people have been detained or deported as a result of the letter, which constitutes our assurance, through the high commission, that we are committed to ensuring that those Afghans who are eligible to come to the UK are under our umbrella of protection.

Israel and Gaza

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 27th February 2024 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Returning to the recent ICJ ruling, as I understand it one of the problems is that no country has ever responded to a call for pre-emptive steps when the court has made such a ruling. Part of that challenge is that no clear criteria have previously been set out for any country to meet. Can the Minister have discussions with his counterparts about agreeing a set of steps that would be made available to countries in the future, so that everyone can meet their obligations?

[Mr Mitchell]

The hon. Lady makes an interesting theoretical and legal point, and I suggest that those discussions might go on usefully between theorists and lawyers.

Afghanistan: UK Government Policy

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Wednesday 10th January 2024 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

It is a pleasure to be here this afternoon, Dr Huq. I congratulate the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) on securing the debate. Like him, I look forward to hearing what the Minister has to say as it has been some time since we have had an update on his Department’s policies on Afghanistan. I am aware that the newly appointed Foreign Secretary responded to some questions in the other place at the start of December, but considering the dire situation we know the Afghan people continue to face, I hope the Minister can provide something more concrete in his responses this afternoon. I am sure that he will.

As one of the co-chairs of the all-party parliamentary group on Afghan women and girls, I often link in with networks of Afghan women both here and living in their country, including in preparation for today’s debate. Shortly before today’s debate, I spoke to one who will be listening in to hear what the Minister has to say. In fact, I know that they will all be listening with interest, anxious to hear about an action plan. The reality is that women in Afghanistan are living in what can best be described as gender apartheid. Over the past two and a half years, there have been discussions and meetings at different international levels and with different partners, but nothing has improved. Indeed, I would argue that it has got worse.

As the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East said, it is a privilege to be a Member of this place and to serve our constituents. I know that it is a rare and special opportunity to have this occupation. However, I do not often stop in awe at my mere ability to have a job, that I went to university or that my daughter recently completed her secondary education; that I have been able to travel from my home in Fife down to London this week unaccompanied by my husband or father; that when I served in the police, we were not arresting people for having the wrong type of clothing or belief or even for visiting public places; and that when we brought people into custody they did not routinely experience torture and sexual abuse. Sadly, that is life for so many women in Afghanistan, with the obvious exception that there are no women in the police either.

Girls are banned from education after primary school. That is fundamentally wrong and I know that the Government—in fact, all of us here—agree with that. Yet the question is, what are we going to do about it? How will we put pressure on the Taliban to get girls back into classrooms? Again, the right hon. Member for Bournemouth East pointed out that we know the hypocrisy of senior Taliban members, who send their own daughters to be educated overseas. With the growth of segregated madrassahs, how will we ensure that all students, but especially girls, get access to sufficient secular education?

The continued restrictions on women working are not just a serious abuse of their human rights but a financial disaster, particularly for female-headed households, in the context of an economic and humanitarian catastrophe. There are continued reports of women being arrested and imprisoned without charge, from both formal channels such as the recent UN Secretary-General’s report and the networks I hear from through the APPG. One explanation the Taliban have given for that is that mass arrests are clearing beggars from the streets. Even if that is true, we know that groups of women are being forced to beg because of the dire financial situation they find themselves in, having been excluded from the labour market.

There has been a total crackdown on protests and dissent, and it is clear that a number of arrests are purely politically motivated. It is notable that the Taliban’s own statistics show the prison population in Afghanistan to be well on its way to doubling in size since they took power. Sadly, that is again somewhat inevitable given that it is illegal to shop, work, beg, go to the park, speak an opinion or engage in any way in civil society. I was told in the run-up to this debate that last week women were arrested simply for wearing the wrong type of hijab.

I do not want the Minister just to say that this is obviously wrong—and I am absolutely sure he will not—because we all know it is. I want him to use his time to set out how the Government plan to put pressure on the Taliban. The right hon. Member for Bournemouth East said we should be engaging but, at the very least, what minimum standards should we ask to have met before engagement takes place in the backest of back rooms? I do not see anything that suggests that there is a desire to change. I hope the Minister will confirm that there will be a continued, and hopefully elevated, aid package to the region, but how can aid be used to incentivise those basic standards?

I opposed the merger of the Department for International Development and the Foreign Office, and indeed secured an urgent question on the issue back in 2020, but its stated purpose when it took place was that the UK’s presence on the international stage would be more effective when both foreign and international development policy worked together. I hope the Minister can demonstrate that they are and prove the initial doubts wrong.

For some Afghans, however, it is not possible to stay in their home country, such is the risk of persecution. Some two and a half years since the fall of Kabul, people are still hiding in fear of their lives in an unsafe third country, waiting to be told they can travel to safety. I welcome the restarting of flights from Pakistan in the light of the threat of expulsions from that country, but it feels like the threat of expulsions was what got things moving again.

Why is it that, after all this time, applications still do not seem to be being progressed? Barely a week goes by without MPs receiving emails begging us to take up the cases of people who feel abandoned by the British Government. They are not our constituents, and without a scheme like Homes for Ukraine, which provides a local link, there is simply very little that we can do. Most recently, I received one yesterday, as I am sure many other Members did, from a young person who said they acted as an interpreter to the British Army. Why are they still waiting, and what are the Government doing to speed things up?

My concern, and that of many, is that the Afghan relocations and assistance policy has purposefully or inadvertently minimised the number of people able to seek safety by limiting automatic eligibility to those who were directly contracted by the British Government or armed forces. The use of local contacts or contracts is not uncommon, and just because the Government might want to say, “Well, they didn’t directly work for us, so we deem them not to be at risk,” that does not mean that the Taliban will not see such an individual as somebody who assisted us and seek reprisals. I am also told—I hope the Minister takes this away and passes it on to his colleagues—that the process to apply for assistance under ARAP’s case-by-case consideration is complicated and opaque, and narrow in who it covers. A review of its effectiveness and, at the very least, how it is communicated, would be very welcome.

I want briefly to touch on two more resettlement issues before concluding. First, will the Minister provide an update on when the second phase of the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme pathway 3 will open? Without a meaningful timeframe, the scheme has in practice stopped. If that is the case, the Government should be honest about that to the House.

The second issue is the campaign of the Linda Norgrove Foundation to bring over a group of female medical students to finish their studies in Scotland. I have spoken to the foundation, and I am sure other Members have too. Securing visas that will allow those students to enter the country but crucially, given their financial circumstances, pay home student fees is the final hurdle to getting those women over to Scotland. That is not just the right thing to do to send a signal about how serious we are about girls’ right to education; it is also deeply practical. The UN’s most recent report warned of a medical brain drain out of Afghanistan. If we think long-term, we only win by helping to equip future generations of doctors, particularly female doctors.

Finally, I turn back to the APPG on Afghan women and girls. It was set up a little over a year ago to help lift the voices of women being silenced at home and too often left out of the conversations about them elsewhere. Government policy about Afghan women has to include Afghan women, and it must include a range of Afghan women from all regions and tribes. I have had the privilege of meeting some of those women, and I am grateful to them for giving up their time to me. What can the Minister say about committing to an inclusive political process in which the Government use the expertise available to them here and their influence at an international level to make sure Afghan women are included in high-level negotiations? That must go beyond round tables where they have input; it must be more collaborative than that.

We are here to consider the Government’s policy on Afghanistan, but I want them to think instead about their policy in relation to the people of Afghanistan—to women, children, the LGBTQ community and the Afghans who worked for British or NATO forces or in the former Government. Too often, Foreign Affairs is abstract—the time and energy involved is a zero-sum game with new crises taking away official focus, as the people of Afghanistan know too well—but the gender apartheid, the gross human rights abuses and the humanitarian and economic disaster faced by the Afghan people are not abstract. I urge the Government to put that at the centre of their response.

--- Later in debate ---

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Mr Andrew Mitchell)]

It is a tremendous pleasure to serve under your benign sway today, Dr Huq, for the first time, I think. I am extremely grateful to my right hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Bournemouth East (Mr Ellwood) for securing this debate and demonstrating to the House the extent of his knowledge and understanding of Afghanistan.

Afghanistan remains a priority for the Government and is of enduring importance to UK interests in the region and far beyond. We want to see a sustainable peace and stability in Afghanistan, and we remain committed to a leading role in the humanitarian response. I will seek to address all the points made in what has been an extraordinarily good debate with many knowledgeable and experienced contributions. My noble Friend the Minister for South Asia would have been delighted to take part in this debate, but as he resides in the other place, it is my pleasure to respond on behalf of the Government.

As I said, my right hon. and gallant Friend spoke with experience and knowledge. He made it very clear that the Taliban is not a monolithic movement, and I will come back to that point. He spoke with great eloquence about the sacrifice made by those who served, including members of his regiment, and we remember their suffering and that of the families and loved ones of those who took part and paid the ultimate price in the service of our country—a point that the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green (Catherine West) and others picked up and that we will all want to echo. He spoke with wisdom about the work of Lord Ricketts, with whom I served on the National Security Council when I was Secretary of State for International Development something of a decade ago when these matters were very much more acute and sharp than they are today. He spoke about the engagement and means of progress of the Government and the Foreign Office, and I will reflect very much on what he said about that.

My right hon. Friend drew a firm difference between the rulers of Afghanistan and the people of Afghanistan, as did the hon. Member for North East Fife (Wendy Chamberlain), and spoke about the importance of education as a significant bulwark against terrorism. He also spoke about the ups and downs of political life. He, I and others in this debate have known both, and I thought he spoke with great wisdom on that point.

The hon. Member for North East Fife spoke about the gender apartheid. She is entirely right to make that point. She spoke about the merger and said she hoped that development and foreign policy were marching in step in Afghanistan. She will have seen the words of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Cameron, yesterday to the Foreign Affairs Committee and noted his and my determination to achieve that effective result.

My right hon. Friend the Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis), who chairs the Intelligence and Security Committee, spoke with his usual wisdom and asked me about the resettlement schemes, as did the hon. Member for North East Fife. I want to make something clear about the Afghan citizens resettlement scheme, to which I think my right hon. Friend referred; he asked me whether this was effectively closed. He will understand that it is a Home Office scheme, but I am advised that although stage 1 is closed and in the first year the Government considered for resettlement only eligible at-risk British Council contractors, GardaWorld contractors and Chevening alumni, stage 2 will be broader but is not yet open. My right hon. Friend also mentioned the many difficulties for ordinary Afghans as a result of the nature of Taliban rule.

My hon. Friend the Member for Strangford (Jim Shannon) advised us of the experiences from within his constituency of those serving in Afghanistan and made, as he often does, an eloquent and highly effective plea on behalf of Christians, who are suffering so much in the way that he described. I will specifically refer his comments to my hon. Friend the Member for Congleton (Fiona Bruce), who, as he will know, is the Prime Minister’s envoy on these matters.

The hon. Member for Glasgow Central (Alison Thewliss) spoke about the importance of those who are seeking to study in Scotland, and I will refer what she has said to the Home Office. On the subject of Pakistan and deportations, which she and others raised—

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Mitchell]

Will the hon. Lady just hang on a moment? Since September 2023, we have committed £18.5 million to the International Organisation for Migration in Afghanistan to support vulnerable undocumented people returning from Pakistan and Iran. We are monitoring the situation in Afghanistan, including the humanitarian and human rights implications, and we note the Taliban’s creation of a refugee commission to aid the resettlement of people returning. The Pakistan Government have given verbal assurances that Afghans under UK settlement schemes will remain safe while they await relocation to the UK. Letters have been distributed to every eligible family, I am advised, to ensure that the authorities are aware that those individuals are under our protection. Eligible families are advised to take sensible precautions and made aware of how to respond if approached by the police.

The hon. Member for Argyll and Bute (Brendan O’Hara) set out the appalling basis on which women are being treated and the effect of the ban on their own humanitarian situation as well as the wider situation, and paid a tribute to the work of Baroness Helena Kennedy, to which I would like to add the work that is carried out by Lady Fiona Hodgson.

If I may, I will come to the points made by the Opposition spokesman, the hon. Member for Hornsey and Wood Green, before I return to the substantive points I want to make. I thank her for her words about our servicemen and women. She raised with me the particular issue of malnutrition. I draw her attention to the work of the global food security summit, which took place at the end of November and where I announced an additional £10 million to this year’s spending in that respect. The humanitarian spend next year will rise by nearly 50% to £151 million. Of course, in addition to our bilateral spend, we work through the agencies that are engaged with Afghanistan. She also spoke about the BBC World Service, and I completely agree with her about its effectiveness. The Foreign Office and the Government remain very strong supporters of the BBC World Service, for the reason she set out.

If I may return to the—

[Wendy Chamberlain]

Will the Minister give way?

[Mr Mitchell]

I will give way, but may I make some progress first, in case I run out of time? I want just to say a word or two about the current situation. No one should be in any doubt that since the Taliban seized control of Afghanistan in August 2021, the country has faced a catastrophic humanitarian crisis. Despite continuing international efforts, of which Britain is a part, 36% of the population are expected to experience crisis or emergency levels of food insecurity this winter. Since 2021, the Taliban’s increasingly repressive policies have had a devastating impact on women and girls. They can no longer support their families through work or fulfil their potential through study. They are no longer free even to walk to the park. Limitations on women’s rights to education, work and freedom of expression have taken a terrible toll on the hopes and dreams of millions of Afghans. As was set out eloquently during this debate, women’s suicide rates have surged. Alison Davidian, the country representative for UN Women, characterised Afghanistan as being

“in the midst of a mental health crisis precipitated by a women’s rights crisis”.

Rights have been rolled back elsewhere, too: minority groups such as the Hazara people face discrimination and attacks.

The position of the United Kingdom is that the UN security resolutions have consistently set out the basic expectations of the Taliban. These include preserving the rights of women and minorities and ensuring that Afghanistan will no longer be used as a base for terrorist activities. Our senior officials speak regularly to the Taliban, including to secure the release of four British national detainees last October. Officials also visit Kabul when the situation permits, including a visit last month from the British chargé d’affaires to Kabul, where he met a wide range of senior Taliban figures. Regardless of the complexities of the relationship, the UK Government have helped to lead the way in securing the Afghan people. In respect of the right hon. Gentleman’s plea about the embassy, we will note what he has said and keep that very much under review.

On the subject of aid, since 2021 we have disbursed more than £600 million in aid for Afghanistan, and we remain one of the most generous donors to the humanitarian response. Our aim is that at least 50% of people reached by UK aid will be women and girls, and we have supported 125,000 Afghan children, two thirds of whom are girls, to access education in the last year. On the subject of human rights, the Taliban’s repressive actions have been rightly condemned by the international community. The UK Government closely monitor the human rights situation in Afghanistan, and we work with international partners to press the Taliban to respect the rights of all Afghans in the face of attacks and discrimination. Afghan women and minority groups continue to demonstrate incredible perseverance, fortitude and courage. My noble friend Lord Ahmad regularly meets Afghan activists and provides a platform for women to speak out, advocate for their full inclusion in society and promote their rights to access essential services.

We are now at an important moment internationally. The UN special co-ordinator presented his independent assessment of Afghanistan to the Security Council in November. Following this, the Security Council adopted resolution 2721 on 29 December, taking positive note of the report recommendations and requesting the Secretary-General to appoint a new UN special envoy for Afghanistan.

I recognise that my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East visited Afghanistan last year and made a strong plea for re-engaging with the Taliban. Our intention since August 2021, as I mentioned, has been to re-establish a diplomatic presence in Kabul when the security and political situation allows. We do not believe that is the case at the moment, but officials continue to visit and will keep this under close review. We are clear that we must have a pragmatic dialogue with the Taliban. However, that does not amount to recognition. We are some way off moving to recognise the Taliban, and we need to keep the pressure on them to change their approach. That does not stop us from having an impact on the ground and directly helping the people of Afghanistan in a pragmatic way.

In conclusion, I would once again like to thank my right hon. Friend the Member for Bournemouth East very much for securing this debate. I look forward to engaging further on this issue with Members across the House. Afghanistan remains a pressing priority concern for this Government and we will continue to play a leading role in catalysing international aid efforts.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 12th December 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

We are doing everything we can to help the hostages to whom she referred and to ensure that they come home. We do that through negotiations, not least in Qatar, and through the overflights, which I referred to earlier. The hon. Lady may rest assured that the Government take precisely the same view as her on what should be achieved.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

14. Whether he has had discussions with his counterpart in the Philippines on the case of Leila De Lima.

[The Minister of State, Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office (Anne-Marie Trevelyan)]

We welcome the release of Leila De Lima on bail, which is a positive step for human rights and the rule of law. The UK’s ambassador has repeatedly raised this case with the Philippines Government, and visited her during her detention.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I agree that it is good news that Senator De Lima has been released on bail after nearly seven years of detention. What representations are the Government making to their counterparts in the Philippines, via the ambassador, about resolving all the other charges against her, which are believed to stem from her vocal opposition to thousands of extrajudicial killings in connection with former President Duterte’s war on drugs, and about a meaningful investigation into those killings?

[Anne-Marie Trevelyan]

The UK Government regularly engage with the Government of the Philippines on the full range of our human rights concerns. We welcomed the 2020 UN Human Rights Council resolution, which proposed technical co-operation on human rights between the Government of the Philippines and the United Nations. The resolution resulted in a three-year UN joint programme, which commenced in 2021, to which the UK has contributed £400,000. We will continue to work alongside them.

Israel and Hamas: Humanitarian Pause

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Monday 27th November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

As my hon. Friend will be aware, we are extremely careful about how British aid is distributed and do it only through trusted partners of whom we have long and detailed experience. This is perhaps the most observed and scrutinised aid programme of any that the British taxpayer and British Government pursue anywhere in the world.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

In Home Office questions, I raised the case of a constituent on a student visa whose five-year-old daughter is in southern Gaza, and I am hoping for a similarly positive response from this Minister. Were that visa to be granted, would that young girl be allowed to travel with her grandmother into Egypt with the FCDO’s support so that they can be reunited?

[Mr Mitchell]

It is unwise and difficult for me to give granular advice on that specific situation from the Dispatch Box, but I will happily speak to the hon. Lady immediately afterwards and ensure that we do the best we can.

International Development White Paper

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 21st November 2023 Commons Chamber

[Mr Mitchell]

I pay tribute to my hon. Friend for the work he does as chair of the Westminster Foundation for Democracy. He will know that the team that put together the White Paper looked carefully at what the WFD does, and recognised the unique contribution it makes, supported as it is across the House and in the other place. I am very glad that, following the public accountability process—which, as my hon. Friend knows, is going on at the moment—we expect to be able to substantially reinforce the funding for the WFD.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

Like my hon. Friend the Member for Oxford West and Abingdon (Layla Moran), our foreign affairs spokesperson, I welcome many aspects of the White Paper. However, as co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on Afghan women and girls, I was interested in the case study in the paper that stated that the Government

“will invest further to support women’s full participation in all political dialogue”.

I place on record my thanks to the Foreign Affairs Select Committee for inviting former Afghan MP and Deputy Speaker Fawzia Koofi to appear before it. What steps is the Minister going to take to ensure that full participation? Is he speaking to Afghan female leaders here and in Afghanistan, and how is that happening in the context of budget cuts in the region?

[Mr Mitchell]

As the hon. Lady knows, next year, we will increase bilateral funding to Afghanistan to £151 million. We are able to do that because the budget is much more carefully targeted and is now properly cultivated to deliver results. On the subject of education and of the treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan, which is absolutely abhorrent, we do everything we can through various mechanisms, including the Afghanistan World Bank trust fund, to boost those important objectives. As the hon. Lady would expect, we focus on trying to win results with that money—which is paid by the British taxpayer—in the best way we possibly can.

Council of Europe

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 8th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[John Howell (Henley) (Con)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the work of the Council of Europe.

It is a pleasure to see you in the Chair, Madam Deputy Speaker, since you are yourself a former member of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe.

When I look back at my time as leader of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe, my hope is that the future will judge us on the basis of more than that the approach we have adopted was just a pleasant idea, and then we can all slip back into anonymity.

At the Reykjavík summit of the Council of Europe, the final declaration said:

“We will work together to protect and promote the three fundamental, interdependent, and inalienable principles of democracy, rule of law and human rights, as enshrined in the Statute of the Council of Europe and in the European Convention on Human Rights.”

It spoke of how fundamental the values and aims of the Council of Europe are to us as a country, and how they influence every level of government. The UK willingly signed up to that declaration. It is partly to make that very point that after every plenary session of the Council in Strasbourg I submit a list of written questions on each of the debates we have had, to make sure that they are discussed and known to Government Departments, and that those Departments have the chance to respond. As the Prime Minister said in his speech at the Reykjavik summit,

“the UK may have left the EU, but we have not left Europe. We remain a proud European nation and we must work together to defend the values we all hold so dear. The Council of Europe, with its huge reach, has such a vital role to play.”

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I am hugely encouraged to hear the hon. Gentleman’s rhetoric and about the work he has done. The only country to have left the Council of Europe is Russia. There is talk on the Government Benches about leaving the Council of Europe and indeed the European convention on human rights. Does he agree that Russia is not company that the UK should look to keep?

[John Howell]

I agree with the hon. Lady, and if she waits a little, she will hear some other excellent news from that summit.

Talking of the spirit of freedom in Europe, the PM went on to say:

“The Council of Europe has nurtured that spirit for three quarters of a century.”

We are proud to offer it our support, and we are proud that the UK has signed that declaration. I thank all who have served and all who do serve as members of the UK delegation to the Council of Europe. As one Cabinet member put it, we do a lot of the work without fanfare and with no praise, to the extent that in this country few have heard of the Council of Europe, and those who have mostly think it is part of the EU. How sad that for much of the UK, Europe has come to mean nothing more than the EU, and not the wider Europe of 46 countries.

Afghan Women and Girls

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 6th June 2023 Westminster Hall

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered support for Afghan women and girls.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship this morning, Mrs Latham.

“We are deeply concerned about the apparent perpetration in Afghanistan of gender persecution—a systematic and grave human rights violation and a crime against humanity.”

Those are the words of the UN special rapporteur on the situation of human rights in Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, and the chair of the UN working group on discrimination against women and girls at the end of a visit to Afghanistan last month. Because of the gravity and extent of the issues that we are debating today, I hope Members will allow me to spend a short time outlining the events of the last 22 months in Afghanistan.

In August 2021, Kabul fell to the Taliban; within two weeks the UK had withdrawn from the country, ending a 20-year presence. There was a promise that women would not suffer under the Taliban’s regime. That was viewed with suspicion, which has proven to be correct. In March 2022, girls in Afghanistan were barred from attending secondary school—they have not returned. Shortly thereafter women were barred from travelling more than 48 miles without a male guardian, and that requirement in May 2022 was extended to any time a woman leaves her home. Despite that rule, men and women could not mix and were banned from dining out together or attending public spaces such as parks at the same time. That de facto ban is now formalised in all public recreation spaces.

In December last year there were a series of assaults on the ability of Afghan women to work. They may not attend university, teach or work with non-governmental organisations. They may not undertake any public office. The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has been disbanded and replaced by the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice. Women are required to wear a full body veil. Women and the men who are suspected of opposing the Taliban are harassed, kept in arbitrary detention, tortured and killed. I am sure that we have all received correspondence in our role as MPs that confirms those facts. Such a crime against humanity is so big and so appalling that it is tempting to look away. Those of us here today know that we cannot and that the Government must not.

On a basic level, millions of people are in dire need in Afghanistan. According to the World Food Programme, nearly 25 million Afghans are living in poverty, and the UN estimates that two thirds of the Afghan population will need humanitarian assistance this year. To put it another way, in evidence to the all-party parliamentary group on Afghan women and girls, which I co-chair, a representative from Save the Children told us that only 3% of families can currently meet all their basic needs, including food and shelter.

It is true that Afghanistan was facing difficulties prior to the fall of Kabul and the return of the Taliban. Economic conditions were deteriorating and droughts were increasing poverty and food insecurity. There are serious questions over the approach taken in relation to UK aid, but I know that the International Development Committee is doing excellent work examining that, so I will not consider it in detail today. What is irrefutable is that the economy and the provision of the most basic services have declined significantly in the past two years.

Expelling half of working-age adults from the workplace inevitably damages an economy, with businesses closed because of lack of staff, lack of customers, or both. It becomes a self-perpetuating cycle, and an expensive one. The World Economic Forum has found that the bans on women working will cause a loss of $600 million to GDP in the short term, while restrictions could lead to a further $1.5 billion loss of output by the end of next year. Meanwhile, a lack of aid, limited by many countries in the wake of the Taliban’s violent seizure of power and the exclusion of women from public life restricts access to public services, including, critically, healthcare. That is simply a perfect storm for many women. Following decades of fighting, many households are headed by women, who make up the majority of NGO workers. Those families are hit hardest by the Taliban’s edicts. The evidence from networks of Afghan women heard by the APPG is that women and children are commonly seen in groups begging. They face extreme poverty. Children are being sold, and child marriage is rising. This is in no way abstract.

When the APPG has heard from organisations that have been able to resume some kind of service, usually in nutrition or health, that resumption has taken place only region by region when exemptions from the edict banning women from working with NGOs have been agreed. The exemptions are obviously not secure, and are at constant risk of being revoked by the Taliban.

I accept that none of that is straightforward, particularly when the outcome is a decision not to provide fundamental assistance, but evidence from NGOs on the ground is clear: the women who need the most assistance are less likely to be reached by all-male teams. In any case, accepting the restriction would set a precedent and suggest that the Taliban’s rules were being accepted.

I am sure the Minister is concerned about the operation of NGOs on the ground in Afghanistan and about the need to try to prevent the humanitarian disaster we see unfolding. I hope he will use his time in the Chamber today to update Members on conversations the Government are having with NGOs and the approach the Government will take to the provision of aid to regional actors.

Will the Minister update Members on the breadth of NGOs with which the Government are engaging? This is a constant theme for the APPG and one to which I shall return, but it appears that only limited interests are being listened to by the Government. We need to ensure that we hear a wider range of voices, and that those voices are amplified and listened to. For example, a lesser-known organisation that has given evidence to the APPG is the Aseel phone app, which provides a digital platform that gives humanitarian aid directly through connected citizens, rather than incurring the bureaucracy and overheads of larger organisations. How can we here support such innovation by those who are in the country?

[Liz Saville Roberts (Dwyfor Meirionnydd) (PC)]

The point the hon. Lady has made about the potential of technologies as ways to send money directly to citizens who are suffering under the tyranny of organisations such as the Taliban is significant for the UK Government. Obviously, we need to ensure that the security is tight, but technology offers a non-traditional way to get support directly to people who would otherwise suffer.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the right hon. Member, who is my APPG co-chair, for that intervention, and yes, I agree entirely. The Aseel app is innovative in that it allows people out of or within the country to send money to buy food and other essential goods and services that are provided by people in-country. That money is not just aid or a handout; it is providing work in the Afghan economy.

On the subject of NGOs and aid spending, I urge the Minister to use this opportunity to pledge a reversal of the spending cuts in Afghanistan. This is simply the worst time to withdraw funds. Not only is every pound desperately needed, but for each pound spent two more are now required to achieve the same impact, owing to the expense involved in operating safely in Afghanistan.

If the Minister is unable to make such a pledge today, I hope that he will return to his colleagues with the message not only that more funding, not less, is needed, but that spending must at least return to three-year cycles to allow for forward planning. Reducing funding allocations to a limited annual basis might have been understandable as a temporary measure at the height of the pandemic, but those days have passed. Meanwhile, the Independent Commission for Aid Impact is clear that there will be both operational and reputational impacts for the UK aid programme if the one-year cycle is maintained.

A specific way in which Afghan women and girls need support is through education. Secondary school girls have been kept at home and away from learning for more than a year, with no hope of a return in sight. Those girls might have reached their adolescence, but they are children, and their future is being stolen from them. Research by Save the Children has found that 25% of care givers believe that the teenage girls in their care are chronically depressed. No matter what political situation unfolds in Afghanistan in five, 10 or 15 years, there are millions of girls who arguably will always struggle to support and advocate for themselves, and to know their worth, as a result of the trauma and the restrictions under which they currently exist.

[Munira Wilson (Twickenham) (LD)]

I thank my hon. Friend for securing this really important debate. On her point about depression and mental health, she might have seen a powerful report on the BBC last night from Yogita Limaye, who reported on the epidemic of mental health and suicide among women and girls. Indeed, the son of one woman stuck in Afghanistan—the son happens to be my constituent—said to me that his mother said to him, “Please pray for me to die in peace before the Taliban do anything to me.” That is amplified everywhere. Does my hon. Friend agree that one important step the UK Government could take, particularly for women and girls, is to provide some sort of bespoke, safe and legal route for them to come to this country?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank my hon. Friend for highlighting the report last night. I recently attended Glasgow Afghan United in the constituency of the hon. Member for Glasgow North (Patrick Grady), and I spoke to a woman there who is currently pregnant, but her toddler is back in Afghanistan. I do not know how someone deals with that, to be honest, from a mental health perspective, so yes. I know that the Minister responding today is not from the Home Office, but given that the Government have made some commitments under their Illegal Migration Bill to look at safe and legal routes, I am certainly sure that all of us speaking here believe that safe and legal routes for Afghan women and girls are a priority, and certainly should be.

A return to formal education is the long-term goal. If the Government can provide any update on their strategy in that regard, it would be most welcome. In the meantime, as the right hon. Member for Dwyfor Meirionnydd (Liz Saville Roberts)—hopefully that was okay—said, we know that the internet is a fantastic resource for education and technology, for reading, learning languages, maths and science.

[Vicky Ford (Chelmsford) (Con)]

I thank the hon. Member for raising this really important topic. I apologise, as I cannot stay long. On the subject of education, a point made to me by a number of Afghan women when I was at the UN Commission on the Status of Women conference is that it is utterly shocking that girls are banned from leaving their homes and going to school in Afghanistan, but, in the meantime, senior members of the Taliban take their own daughters and send them out of the country to schools in other countries. Does she agree that one of the things the international community could do is try to tighten up the sanctions against those family members to prevent that?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the right hon. Member for that powerful intervention. Yes—is it not always interesting how repressive regimes, particularly when they are repressive in relation to women and girls, take a different approach when it comes to their own children and families? We need to call out that hypocrisy, and I am grateful to her for doing so.

I will turn again to the technology aspect of education. The APPG learned in evidence from women in Afghanistan that electricity and internet blackouts are making access to education more and more difficult. The suggested solution is the distribution of wi-fi dongles that connect to third-country satellites but, as someone recently pointed out to me, the UK, USA and NATO cannot have spent the best part of two decades carrying out an operation in a country without putting infrastructure for communications in place. I am keen to explore how we can utilise what is already there. We need to find a way to spread that access to those who need it. An alternative is the design and funding of education spread through radio or offline applications. Again, I hope that the Government are engaging with all such initiatives. While women and girls are prevented from accessing education, we need to do everything we can to help them to do so in a safe way.

For older girls and, indeed, for women, access to international universities is vital to continue their education and ensure that they are best placed to help in the eventual rebuilding of their home country. There are Members—I see some here—who attended the recent showing of the Alex Crawford Sky News documentary, which highlighted the fact that Afghanistan is a society; women provide healthcare to women, and men to men. If women are prevented from attending university in order to train to become doctors, we can absolutely see what the outcomes will be for women from a healthcare perspective.

Some universities in the UK are already offering scholarships to Afghan women, and I would be grateful for an update from the Minister on any support that the Government might be able to provide to universities in that regard. I know that visas, even for education, have been incredibly problematic. Indeed, I wrote to the Home Office about that recently, asking for the ban on accompanying family members to be waived, given the status of many Afghan women as sole caregivers for their children and the restrictions I outlined earlier. I appreciate those problems are not technically part of the Minister’s portfolio, but we need to strive to make the current system workable. It clearly is not, with so few successful applicants. However, as my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham (Munira Wilson) highlighted, we also need to expand visa routes for all vulnerable women who need to escape to safety.

[Munira Wilson]

My hon. Friend is being generous with her time. On visas and the criteria, given the challenges that women face in accessing education, patently the requirement to learn English needs to be waived, as does that of travelling to Pakistan to get biometrics. My hon. Friend is well aware of a case I have raised on the Floor of the House four times of five British children who are stuck in Kabul and whom I have been trying to get out for 18 months. They have British passports and four of them are girls, so they cannot go to school. The Minister for Immigration is willing to look at the case. Their Afghan mother cannot get a visa to come here and the latest is that she has been told she has to go to Pakistan to get biometric tests. She cannot travel to Pakistan without a chaperone, so I am being asked how she can get to the UK without a chaperone. That is the latest hurdle. I implore the Minister to take this message back to the Home Office: we need a sensible approach to visas for women and girls.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I have heard my hon. Friend’s impassioned plea for that family. What does it say that we cannot support British children to leave Afghanistan and what does that mean for those in the country more widely? It is clear that we need to take a sensible approach. We cannot use the Taliban’s restrictions as an excuse for not doing what we should for our citizens and those who are vulnerable.

[Afzal Khan (Manchester, Gorton) (Lab)]

I thank the hon. Member for giving way and for securing this important debate. I have a similar issue. My constituent, who was a former office manager for the British Council in Afghanistan, is eligible for the resettlement scheme, alongside three other members of his family. However, his 22-year-old son and 19-year-old daughter are not because they are over 18. Considering the Taliban’s restrictions on women and the danger a young lone woman in Afghanistan would be in, does the hon. Member agree that the Foreign Office must ensure that young women are not abandoned to fend for themselves in a country where they have no rights or freedoms?

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I thank the hon. Member for bringing that case to light. There is no doubt: right from the outset of the fall of Kabul, our failure properly to support our British Council colleagues working in country was quite shameful. We need to do more. They are people who should come under existing routes. We talk about needing new routes, but the existing ones are woefully inadequate and are not doing what they were designed to do—indeed, what we were all assured they would do when we were told about them on the Floor of the House.

In relation to visas, I want to focus the Minister’s attention on one issue and I hope he can update us on this today: the ability of women, as referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Twickenham, to reach third-party countries—I am concerned that could be used as an excuse not to do what we should be doing—and their support and safety in those countries before visas are approved. I had an email from a former female judge who is now stuck in Pakistan. Women have very specific limited mobility. They cannot just leave their homes and head to the border. Pakistan is not necessarily a safe country for vulnerable women to be spending time without family and resources. We have to acknowledge that. I am no expert on what the solution might be, but there are many at the Government’s disposal in the region and in security. The UK must be a safe haven for Afghan women and any visa route must be designed with those women and their specific needs in mind.

I have touched on the very real issues where the UK Government can and should provide support: aid, education, healthcare, infrastructure and safe passage. As I conclude, I want to turn to the Government’s strategic priorities in Afghanistan. This year has seen the publication of the UK women, peace and security national action plan and the international women and girls strategy. It is not clear how they apply to the Government’s actions in Afghanistan. The Minister will know that strategic objectives for his Department under the action plan are to increase women’s participation, leadership and representation in decision making; to prevent gender-based violence; to support the needs of women and girls in crises, and ensure that they can participate and lead in responses; to increase the accountability of security and justice actors to women and girls; and to ensure they respond to the need of women and girls as part of their approach to transnational threats.

[Liz Saville Roberts]

The hon. Lady is being generous with her time. One thing completely within the Government’s power is the steps they take with the integration of Afghan refugees to the United Kingdom. My office has been working with a young woman called Mah through Urdd Gobaith Cymru, which is much engaged with the integration of Afghan refugees at its centre in Cardiff, which has been recognised as an exemplar.

Surely we should look to prepare women and girls for the possibility of going back to Afghanistan, and ensure that they have every opportunity through education and skills gaining. We should also recognise the way that dynamics work in Afghan families in the UK. I hope to work with Mah to set up a toolkit to support women and girls as they arrive in the UK from Afghanistan, but I sincerely believe that this is something the Government should be leading on, showing what they can do within their powers in the United Kingdom.

[Wendy Chamberlain]

We have to remember these people come to the UK fleeing conflict in Afghanistan. Many of them, if the situation changes in Afghanistan, want to go back to help and support. I think about the judges that the hon. and learned Member for Edinburgh South West (Joanna Cherry) works to support, and about those who are former MPs or have worked for NGOs. These are women who care passionately about their country and want to return to make it better, when and if they can, and we should look to do anything we can do to help them maintain that while they are here in the UK.

The women and girls strategy sets out the principles by which the Minister’s Department will be governed: standing up and speaking out for women’s and girls’ rights and freedoms; emboldening and amplifying the work of diverse grassroots women’s organisations and movements; targeting investment towards the key life stages for women and girls; acting for and with women and girls impacted by crises and shocks; and strengthening the political, economic and social systems that protect and empower women.

Those are all excellent ideals and I am sure that everyone here, regardless of party, can get behind them, but I want to ask the Minister what they actually mean for women and girls in Afghanistan. What can I tell the networks of Afghan women who give evidence to our APPG about what the Government’s concrete plans are? I will be quite honest, Minister: they are not feeling very positive about the UK and its role in relation to Afghanistan. How are the Government standing up and speaking for their rights and freedoms? How are the Government working with the whole spectrum of women’s organisations? How are the Government supporting Afghan women’s leadership? How are the Government investing in women and girls? How are the Government preventing gender-based violence, which is institutionalised across Afghanistan?

I will give the Minister a simple starting point, as I conclude. Will he today join the UN in naming the atrocities in Afghanistan for what they are—a gender apartheid? Every point here is vital; everything needs addressing by the Government. Frankly, it should not need me and this debate for the Government to hear the voices of Afghan women. The APPG has heard from women with a wide variety of perspectives and experience, yet the Government have so far declined actively to engage. Let me state that more clearly. These women are here—the secretariat of the APPG is here today—and they are experts who want to share their expertise, but the Government seem to block them from the rooms where the decisions about them are being made. Engaging with a small number of stakeholders is not good enough, and it is not representative.

It is not often that politicians want to make themselves obsolete, but in this case I really do. I urge the Government to make my role as an intermediary obsolete, and to engage directly with all the Afghan women and regional experts who are at their disposal. They may be silenced in their home country; that cannot persist here.

[Several hon. Members rose—]

--- Later in debate ---

[Wendy Chamberlain]

I am very grateful to you for your chairship, Mrs Latham.

Sixteen MPs have been in this Chamber either contributing to the debate or chairing it, and if the Taliban had their way more than half of us would not have been here, nor would the two female civil servants and two female members of House staff. We need to think in stark terms about what has happened to women and girls in Afghanistan. That is why it is important that we resist the Taliban narrative, and even more important that we listen to women and girls.

I am hugely grateful to everybody who contributed to the debate. We speak passionately because we care, and we care because this is a matter of life and death for many of the people we have engaged with, and we feel a degree of responsibility to them.

There are clearly key things that we want the Government to consider, and I am grateful to the Minister for committing to several of them. I hope he will take away the APPG’s request that the Minister of State, who is the International Development Minister, meet our group—not just the MPs but, importantly, the experts we engage with. That is a very important message for him to take back.

It is clear that the existing schemes are not doing what we want them to do. I echo the comments of the right hon. Member for New Forest East (Sir Julian Lewis): we should do something similar to what we did for Ukraine. Politics is all about making difficult decisions. There is never a right or a wrong answer; there is usually just a less wrong answer, and sometimes not making a decision sends a message. I agree with the hon. Member for Oldham East and Saddleworth (Debbie Abrahams) that choosing not to do for Afghanistan what we did for Ukraine sends a message. I have had people ask me directly to my face: “What does this say? Why are we different?” I suspect we know why the Government are not doing that.

The Government are focused on small boats, and it is clear that there is no political consensus about that in this Chamber. They have talked about the reduction in the number of Albanians, but we know that, from the start of this year, the highest proportion of people coming in small boats are from Afghanistan. We know exactly why that is: the existing schemes do not work, and promises were made to people in Afghanistan who supported us and delivered the 20 years of progress that the Minister spoke about. We must do more; we cannot forget women and girls in Afghanistan.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,

That this House has considered support for Afghan women and girls.

Oral Answers to Questions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Tuesday 13th December 2022 Commons Chamber

[James Cleverly]

I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will wear that sanction designation as a badge of honour, because the point that he has made in standing up for the voice of the Iranian people who are being oppressed by their own regime is an important one. We take the protection of people here in the UK, whether British nationals or Iranians, incredibly seriously, and I will work with the Home Office to ensure that that protection is meaningful and strong.

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

We know about the draconian restrictions faced by women and girls in Afghanistan. The new all-party parliamentary group for Afghan women and girls, which I co-chair, has written to the Foreign Secretary and looks forward to his response. Will he commit that in any conversations or negotiations that he has with the Taliban, the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan will be prioritised?

[James Cleverly]

The protection of women and girls remains an absolute foundation stone of Britain’s foreign policy. We look upon the images we see coming out of Afghanistan, with humiliation and abuse meted out against Afghan women, and take our response incredibly seriously. I assure her that that will always be a firm point when we raise things with the Afghanistan Government.

Human Rights Abuses and Corruption: UK Sanctions

Wendy Chamberlain Excerpts

Thursday 21st July 2022 Commons Chamber

[Wendy Chamberlain (North East Fife) (LD)]

I congratulate the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green (Sir Iain Duncan Smith) and the hon. Member for Rhondda (Chris Bryant) on securing this debate and thank the Backbench Business Committee. I will not be taking part in the Sir David Amess Adjournment debate, so I want to place on record the thanks of my party to you, Madam Deputy Speaker, and to Mr Speaker and the wider team of staff, for all you do to support the House. I hope everybody has a good recess.

It is a sad fact that human rights abuses are taking place everywhere in the world, every day. As an MP elected in 2019, I find the information we get on this subject—the wide variety of places where it is happening and also what we hear from constituents—almost overwhelming. I am very grateful to my constituents in North East Fife for raising such issues with me. Like others, I want to refer to some of the campaigns and issues that have caught my attention.

First, I want to talk about political prisoners in Belarus, where there are currently 1,260 persons classified globally as political prisoners. These include bloggers to business owners, politicians to peaceful protesters—hundreds of people imprisoned in politically motivated persecutions, simply because they have exercised their right to freedom of expression and political participation. Through the #WeStandBYyou solidarity campaign, I am one of a number of godparents to one such political prisoner, and his name is Pavel Drozd. He was arrested on 3 November 2020 for alleged computer hacking and was tried earlier this year—a trial held behind closed doors without any due process. He has been sentenced to three and a half years in a penal colony. We sadly know very little about his welfare because his family, quite understandably, have distanced themselves from the campaign for his freedom. They are at threat themselves for speaking out, so I do have sympathy with their position.

Will the Minister say what steps the Government are taking to support political prisoners such as Pavel, and to put pressure on the Belarusian Government to free such prisoners and reinstate proper democratic practices? I would also like to invite the Minister, and indeed anybody else in the House as a whole, to join me in solidarity by becoming a godparent. I am happy to send over information to anyone who expresses an interest.

Like others, I would like to talk about Bahrain. I know that it was mentioned this morning and that concern for the plight of prisoners in Bahrain is shared across the House. Indeed, I highlight my early-day motion on the issue and thank Members who have signed it. Dr al-Singace is serving a life sentence for his role in the 2011 pro-democracy uprising in Bahrain. His trial did not meet any of the standards of fairness that we would expect. He has been tortured and denied medical treatment, despite having chronic medical conditions. His work, which was apolitical, has been confiscated and his calls to his family have been stopped. In response to the conditions that he and others are suffering, he has been on hunger strike and has refused to eat solids for over a year. One can only imagine the impact of that on his physical and mental health.

Last year I met with Ali Mushaima, who was on hunger strike outside the Bahraini embassy calling for the release of Dr al-Singace and his own father, Hassan Mushaima, who has also been sentenced to life imprisonment for his role in that uprising. Mr Mushaima is 74 and is in remission from cancer. For the past year he has been held in a medical facility, but the authorities continue to deny him medical care. These are men who are facing life in prison without health care and are being subjected to degrading treatment simply because they believe in democracy.

The Government have continued to hold high-level meetings with Bahraini officials, and Prince Nasser continues to freely attend high-profile events such as Royal Ascot. Just two months ago, it was reported that he met with the Prime Minister. I very much hope those discussions involved highlighting what I have just described. I hope the Minister will join me in denouncing the treatment of Bahraini prisoners, and indeed the anti-democratic rule of a country where freedom of speech and assembly is repressed and the torture of dissenters is widespread.

As I have said, human rights abuses are taking place all the time. As we have seen from the war in Ukraine, where there is the political will for sanctions, then they are applied; but as others have highlighted, for other countries and other places, this Government are strangely reticent. I am conscious that, just last weekend, the “Home of Golf” in my constituency hosted the Open. Golf is not a sport that has been devoid of controversies in this area. It makes it difficult for us to feel that we can make a stand and speak out about the support for potentially repressive regimes if the Government do not do things to support that.

More recently, the situation in Sri Lanka has been at the forefront of everyone’s minds, as the Rajapaksa Government force their country into crisis with unsound economic policies, corruption and draconian police powers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Kingston and Surbiton (Ed Davey) recently called in the House for an international arrest warrant to be issued for President Rajapaksa. I reiterate that call and hope that the Minister can respond to that point.

Finally, I want to highlight the fact that the Iranian hostage takers have failed to have any action taken against them through Magnitsky sanctions. We are all grateful for the release of Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Anoosheh Ashoori and Morad Tahbaz in March, but the Government’s refusal to use the sanctions regime available to it arguably emboldened their captors. All three went through unthinkably awful experiences before their release that could have been avoided if we had actually taken action. I hope that the Minister will explain to the House and to Nazanin, Anoosheh and Morad why that was not done at the time.

As the right hon. Member for Chingford and Woodford Green said in his opening remarks, tools are available within the FCDO. We must properly utilise the taskforce and Parliament must be fully sighted on this. On the last day of term, there is clearly an interest in this topic in the House—please act.