Gulf States: Trade and Human Rights

Debate between Baroness Gustafsson and Lord Scriven

Tuesday 3rd June 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

Trade is the consequence of a relationship: working with someone across the table with whom you have a shared ambition to work together. That drives both economic benefit and influence, and I do not believe that one ever comes at the cost of the other.

[Lord Scriven (LD)]

My Lords, over £42 million of UK government spending from 2020 on the Gulf strategy fund has failed to demonstrably improve many of the human rights abuses detailed by the Bahrain Institute for Rights and Democracy and Human Rights Watch across the Gulf states. I note that this free trade agreement lacks robust and enforceable human rights provisions. Will the Minister explain how this combined approach helps uphold the UK’s commitments to human rights in this region?

[Baroness Gustafsson (Lab)]

What I am hearing from the noble Lord is that our work here is not yet done. It is a long way from being done, and it is a constantly evolving situation where all of us are raising our own standards—here in the UK but in other countries as well. Where we are able to work together to share ideas, continuously, in every conversation, and to articulate the benefits that those high standards have to our society, where we have trade agreements, that only increases the number of opportunities to articulate and continue to drive that change. I accept that we still have a long way to go and there is still much we could be doing.